Another Bank Holiday weekend, hooray!
The summer is cooling down and it feels like we’re heading fast in to Autumn, but today’s forecast was good so I chose Eagle Crag, Grisedale. I’ve never been and it’s been on my tick list for years.
The guidebook says 1.5 hours to walk in, but it’s not quite that long. The guidebook also says a mountain bike cuts off an hour, but there is a steep hill, albeit on the road, and with a heavy climbers pack, I’d suggest biking in isn’t that easy.
Anyway, we walked.
We had the place to ourselves, which seems to be the norm these days for mountain crags.
We ticked off a couple of what were graded as easy routes. My lack of climbing in recent times meant I preferred to at least try and climb rather than be hauled up a harder route.
Hawkeye was much harder than I expected. Very thin it seemed for a 4c!, although the friction was very good.
I enjoyed the location, great views, decent rock, and more to come back to.
Yeah, I see on UKC that most people think the second pitch of Sobrenada is worth HVS 5a. I certainly agree with that, especially with the cold running water we experienced down the corner at the back of the shallow chimney! And as for Hawkeye, well I think my “eye” is tuned in to steeper rock with smaller holds and so I reckon that line we climbed was Raptor at HVS. 😳
Good photos
I struggled to find any worthwhile gear for quite a while on Hawkeye
https://www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.php?id=200472
Yes, there was only a very poor wire at the start. You can see it in the last picture above, only half in, more psychological than anything else as the slightest outward pull and it would pop. Then the next protection was the two wires on the left, also visible in the photo. They were hard to reach and the first would also likely pop. So the first good protection was the green cam on the right. After that we climbed Raptor – which had a series of quite good slings on spikes etc.