So today I went climbing with our scout county climbing team at Harborough Rocks near Ashbourne in the Peak District. It's a limestone crag and one of only two in the country made out of the same rock as the Dolomites. My job was mainly to help rig routes for the scouts to climb, but I also jumped on some of the bottom ropes to get a few sneaky climbs in.
Having mainly climbed on grit my first thought is "this is steep" closely followed by my realisation that most of the climbing made use of quite a lot of pockets, some better than others. The weather was initially quite dismal and the rock quite slippy but it dried out and I managed to top rope up to VS 5a despite climbing in trail shoes. Harborough is a nice venue with some good climbs and a good view over Carsington Water, even though the remote atmosphere of the peak district is ruined somewhat by the works 300m from the crag.
