Tools 'R' Us

After the trip to Masson Lees I have been feeling quite excited by the prospects of getting strong for the winter - I know it's only July but winter seems a whole lot closer than it should so it's good to be prepared I reckon!
I decided that it was time to take a trip up to the Lakes and check out the developments at The Works ( near Hodge Close Quarry). Paddy Cave, Brian Davison and collective have put in a whole load of work creating a dry-tooling venue - a fine venue they have created.
There are about 20 routes spread from M4-M10 and with a good variety of angles too. More information on Paddy's blog at www.mountaincircles.com.
I headed up with Si Chevis and a car stacked with pointy sharp things and we had a brilliant day. After stopping off in Ambleside and a call in at the Epicentre to get some more info from Steve Ashworth, we managed to get hold of the man himself, Paddy who met us at the crag, eager to show us around and encourage our attempts.

We started off with the routes on the Industrial Sector (M4-M6+) and then got involved with the super steep First Blood - now this route has been given M9 in the topo - but what I learned was that i had been climbed with heelspurs - dubious tactics!! So it's a wee bit harder than that really - probably about M10. Really good upside-down climbing with plenty of Fig 4 moves to get yourself in a tangle with. Managed to get pretty high on the go I had but I was also super psyched to have a go on the "project". Another classy route, following a crack for approx 25ft before puling into a groove to climb up to the lower off - another steep one and potentially could be joined with First Blood in the future to make a brilliant long line.
By the time we'd all had a good thrash around on these lines, we were both pretty pumped and Simon needed to get home.
Really keen to get back up there in the next week or so and get the routes done - and the best thing is it doesn't matter if it rains!!


Big thank you to Paddy for the photos.