Pennine Lines w/c 21 October 2024
|| A mainly dry week || Breezy and mild ||
No Class, Rivelin Quarries || Climber: John Coefield
|| Focus On... ||
Remembering the forgotten
This comes to you midway though a hopefully successful navigation of a computer backup issue. If next week I’ve abandoned photography in favour of being a street mime artist or some other entirely off-line pursuit then you’ll know why. I’m trapped in an invisible box either way.
But for the time being I’ll offer up this week’s email as a reminder to rediscover some of those forgotten crags local to you this autumn. One that I revisited again recently was Rivelin, a crag which has almost been left fallow recently due to the carpark at the reservoir being closed for an extended period. Boasting a balmy climate compared to, say, Stanage and Burbage, it’s always a good bet on marginal days in the cooler months, a fact worth remembering now as we tiptoe towards winter and being rained off the main Peak crags is becoming a prospect again. As my current IT-based predicament is testament to, it never hurts to have a backup plan.
Geisterspiel Start || Rivelin Quarries
The quarries at Rivelin particular are one of those venues where nobody can ever come up with a good reason why the place is never that popular, unjustifiably so, given it’s potentially a reliable winter option when stuff is clean. Hence it tends to get periodically rediscovered by a new generation every few years. Those around in the 2000s will fondly remember a few routes appearing in Dan Honeyman’s films, and it’s been the scene of several brief but frenzied renaissances since then. At some point a critical mass must be reached and it obtains sustained traffic, surely? It can’t be far off. Right now there’s lot of brambles and undergrowth to negotiate but also some outstanding rock architecture. For the bold trad devotees there’s plenty to go at, but even if you’re ‘only’ bouldering there’s a few classics to check out - most obviously the problems around Happy Campus / No Class, the ‘popular end’ of the crag. But it’s worth picking your left leftwards along through the various quarried bays and eyeballing some of the blank slabs and walls.
One such gem to be found is Mark Rankine’s Geisterspiel Start from 2020, a fine arete problem with a good landing, 7a from standing or 7a+ from sitting. I’m no massive fan of quarried grit as a rule but this is a good ‘un. The full route is E7 if that’s your pay grade. Just one of the many little gems that might come to the rescue to brighten one of your inauspicious days out this winter - think on.
|| 2025 Calendar ||
As mentioned last week, I opened up the pre-order window for my 2025 Peak Landscapes calendar last week, all images shot on large format 5x4” film. It’s always a bit daunting putting something like this ‘out there’, but I’ve been blown away by the response, so a huge thanks goes out to everyone who jumped straight in and ordered. If you’re thinking about ordering but are wavering a bit, or can’t really do with thinking about Christmas presents just yet, never fear, I’ve got a few weeks to work on you before the deadline of 16th November. But don’t miss out simply because you’re still in pumpkins-and-bonfire-toffee mode.
|| Recently Through The Lens ||
A scene familiar to the Rivelin community (and it IS a community).
|| Fresh Prints ||
A couple of autumn favourites from the other side of the Rivelin Valley at Wyming Brook in the Print Shop.
