Pennine Lines w/c 4 February 2025
|| Dry & Cool || Take It And Run ||
Gathering Storm, Doll Tor || Climber: Tom Briggs
|| Focus On... ||
HeaDing South
As ever, short on time, watching the clock, the road climbs steadily out of the urban over the moors. A landscape which despite appearances is relatively domesticated, if we’re honest, but still feels wild in the right weather. As the road crowns the hill, a quick swish of the wipers smears a few drops of rain across the dusty windscreen, and the Peak is laid out before us, White and Dark, and - as is often the case - with weather to match. Heading south was the right choice. We plough on, slaloming down roads newly potholed by the recent cold snap. Watch out for that nasty one just before The Grouse.
As a bronze open landscape creased by snaking edge lines recedes into the mirror, we descend through the trees and once again it changes; the long-dead bracken making way for the greens of mossed rock nestling in trees, then the dull winter brown and grey of houses, a new set of traffic lights, pubs, petrol. That shop sign really ought to say “pudding’ instead of “tart”. Shops, tourists, traffic, but just as soon as the urban enclave arrives outside the car window it passes again, quickly exchanged for the rolling White Peak. A limestone landscape studded with dark intrusions of rounded gritstone. Some are well-trodden, some are forbidden fruit; huge fragile green eggs hidden away in the trees.
Ancient inscriptions in the moss || Stanton area
The distinctly different environment, different climate and the different rock conspire to make it feel like you’ve travelled further than you actually have. No matter how familiar the places become it’s still like going on holiday, even if just for a few hours. Gone is the familiar break-to-break grit climbing that predominates further north, instead things are often distinctly non-linear. Round bulges and curves, hard to read, they don’t give away their secrets lightly. Less pull, more push. You wouldn’t put money on any given line being easy, hard, easy-once-you-know-how, or totally unclimbable. A gambling man will lose money here - the house always wins.
Ova Arm, Cratcliffe || Climber: Leven Rowan
We tread between stones placed with a purpose, we climb among carved curiosities, gutters, lintel slots, reminder that we’re not the first to be drawn to these places. To find them special in some way, to attach significance to them, a link to the past and the future is felt. And it’s not just us seeking a quiet bit of refuge in the woods; approaching the boulders something dark and muscular is disturbed, and swiftly disappears away, antlers deftly weaving between the trees as we stumble clumsily through the undergrowth with ungainly slabs of foam on our backs.
Back to watching the clock, time pressure condenses the session. Scrape together just enough warm-up, try and remember the nuances, brush off the scrittle. Nothing yields easily, but the conditions are good, old moves recalled, some success, some works-in-progress, and always something to come back for. A day of skin wear condensed into a few hours, a glance at the time, and the holiday is over, steps retraced, back to domesticity. Let the lone stag have his little bit of quiet woodland back.
The next visit is already being daydreamed of on the way back, as that nasty pothole jars us back into the present. Should have spotted it, but at least we make good time.
|| Recently Through The Lens ||
A couple more gems from the south Peak.
|| Fresh Prints ||
We love the natural, but in the Peak even the built environment can charm us - as these two images from Print Shop demonstrate.