Dave and George at Fairhead |
| Date: 28th July 2007 Submitted by: George Carleton Dave Miller and I paid a visit to Fairhead on Saturday 28th July, both of us driving through heavy showers on the way to the crag not being sure if it would be worth the trip, but Fairhead was dry and in good condition for climbing. We decided on December HVS ** as a good starting point, I did the first pitch and Dave did the second which was the harder of the two, it's a great route worthy of its star rating. We went for a wander towards the Grey man's path to see if there was any thing else in the area we wanted to do but most of the routes were too hard, too dirty, or too dangerous. We settled on Burn up HVS*** a real Fairhead classic offering interesting and sustained climbing but not before undertaking one of the most unpleasant walks imaginable. When we got to the bottom of Burn up there were a couple of other climbers on the route so we thought we might as well see what else we could do in the area. Dave had heard of a good HVS line called Scarecrow near the Bird hide block part of the crag not too far from where we were. So off we went in our rock shoes through a jungle of vegetation, massive boulders and man eating holes, Dave and I both being swallowed up a few times. When we eventually got to Scarecrow it was too dirty to climb so we had to walk all the way back to the start of Burn Up by which time we were knackered, but at least the other climbers had finished. Scarecrow did look like a good HVS line and with a bit of cleaning could be a great route. The moral of this story is take a very long ab rope or alternatively wear a large inflatable rubber ring around your waist when doing routes on this side of the crag to avoid falling down a hole never to be seen again. |
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