Went climing up Swindale last night with Mike Elliot. We had a mission to do a couple of E2's, one on the 'One Step Beyond' Slab called 'One Last Step', you have to climb Dog Leg Crack to get to it, but after doing that and getting pretty pumped, I thought about traversing into it, until a gust of wind buffeted me a little hard & my poor little forearms said, no, don't do it. So I didn't & opted for the easy option of finishing Dog Leg Crack. Its a good route, but short lived. The wind was pretty full on, gusting force 6 or 7. It was pretty amazing watching the grass in the valley floor being buffeted as the wind tore across the fields. We then had aspirations of climbing Blood Hound again, but as Mike started to lead drissle came in from the South West & put a stop to that as well, so he opted to climb Hind Leg Crack instead. Although I had climbed this with David the week before, it was a good option & to add a bit of interest I seconded it barefoot. The dampnes on the rock seamed to add friction to my feet. I think I would like to start climbing barefoot a bit more, certainly classic routes would be fine, but above VS it may start to get a bit harder on our Lakeland rock, although it never seems to effect Bernd Arnold on the German/Cezch Sandstone who always climbs barefoot, up to the top grades.

I used my GoLite Peak again & I think this will become my summer climbing pack as it is the perfect size & has enough features to carry food, dogleads, maps, guidebooks etc. As always my trusty Montane Terra Shirt kept the wind off, but unfortunately Montane don't produce it anymore, it wasn't commercial. Shame that alot of the best designs aren't commercial, because the masses don't see the benifits, its a true uers piece being made from Pertex IBQ, an excellent fabric. Under that for the 2nd route I used a Marmot Mid Crew Base Layer, these are probably the best base layers I have come across for moving moisture & drying fast. They have Cocona woven into the fibres, which is burnt coconut husks producing carbon that is hungry for electrons to stabalise itself, as your body perspires & odors develop & the carbon hungry electrons grab hold of the odor producing molecules, thus locking the odor in with the carbon molecules, until the top is washed. The idea of this is to try to elliminate odor from your polyester base layers. It does work to a certain degree, although it doesn't elliminate it completely, but its so much better than the origonal 'smelly Helly'.

By Charlie