First Visit to The Roaches

First Visit to The Roaches


(… so.. without further ado, I’ll start up as if there isn’t a year of missing posts…)

I went to The Roaches for the first time on Saturday. It’s been on my list of places I want to see for a while. It’s got three sections in my copy of Western Grit and just looked amazing. I wasn’t let down either; the place is beautiful with impressive and exciting looking rock along with a healthy load of bouldering and some trees for shade.

We started out on the lower tier, spotting Yong which looked like a perfect warm up climb. While Rich got to work on leading it with Jen belaying him, I eyed up the smooth looking slab next to it. E2 5b you say? Ever since a trip out to Rivelin Edge which saw me finding the balls to lead Better Late Than Never, I’ve been keeping my eye out for sexy looking slabs… Once it was my turn on Yong (which was pretty nice actually) I’d decided that since I couldn’t see a single bit of protection on Something Better Change, it was probably a bad idea!

So… we… uh.. top roped it. I hope no one saw 😉

It was great actually, and definitely within the ability of both Rich and I, but still not within our bravery limit I fear!

Afterwards to trekked up to the upper tier attempting to find one of the two other groups of people we knew here. Eventually we found them on Roaches Skyline and joined them. After a lot of faffing, and some lunch we completed a couple of other climbs (Time to be Had, Cracked Arete) and I bottled a solo (Did 3/4 and decided that the last quarter looked a little to dodgy!).

We finished up the day on Thrug, which was every bit as fierce as it’s name suggested. I lead it on gear left by Rich after he wore himself out on the last move or two. I really don’t think I could have lead it and placed the gear myself! I fear the HVS’s!

I had a long look at Condor Slab, which looked brilliant but completely scary and Bad Sneakers which is probably way out of my league, but feeding my slab fixation!

Great day out!

(image from Shwe’s Photostream)

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