Pennine Lines w/c 7 October 2024

Anyone ever noticed that when you take a trip away you still end up homing in on the most grit-like problems wherever you go? Crafnant Arete is an obvious example which wouldn’t be out of place at any gritstone crag, and rewards the old staying-composed-up-high grit mindset. The entire Crafnant boulder jumble is one of those venues with quite a few of these really. Topographically the place is a sort of uber-treacherous huge talus field, but once on the rock the coarse texture and rounded shapes take you right back to the grit. It’s very much like a more inconveniently located Welsh cousin to Carrock Fell in that regard, but instead of being roadside Crafnant is right at the end of a very long and narrow single track road to the head of the valley. If anything there’s actually less climbing there than you might expect at first, but what there is is very good, and it has to be said there’s some VERY striking lines hanging above the boulders on the crag above.