
Pennine Lines w/c 24 March 2025
Of course some of you already know what to expect, and still don’t get on with it. The Pavlovian response mechanism in you, conditioned from previous seasons ill-prepared for Peak limestone, lead you to think the holds are grim and uncomfortable, the crags all dusty humid glue-covered grief-holes with slugs taking up residence in every low-lying slot and pocket. The good news here is the conditioning can be broken. This dislike of Peak limestone, like all weaknesses, can be trained to turn it into a strength. This is where the psychology comes in, because you need to understand your aesthetic benchmarks and enjoyability-mean-sea-level are out of whack due to years of, say, ‘enjoying’ expertly set indoor climbing on smooth uniform holds, or simply by swanning off to tufa-drenched Mediterranean sport climbing utopias every winter. It takes time, but you can reconfigure yourself.

Pennine Lines w/c 1 May 2023
Travelling south through the eastern Peak the gritstone gradually fizzles out, the long snaking crag escarpments giving way to more isolated outcrops. And just as it seems all the rock has turned decidedly pale and chossy, one last big finale remains, one last huge island of dark gritstone in a sea of limestone. Black Rocks; its name enough to scare off many, but it remains something of a hub of the climbing scene in this part of the Peak.