Lundy plus The Works update

Fear of Faust an alternative to Satan's Slip

The British summer continues in it's usual way, with a brief hiatus whilst we were away on Lundy. Ok we had a couple of days of poor weather, rain followed by a thick blanket of sea mist. But that was sandwiched in between blazing sunshine and on the final day it being too hot to climb.
Dan and I got a few routes in, Ruth only a couple due to weakness - Ok she was having a bad back week.  I think my favourite route of the week was Redspeed a stunning E2 on the back of the Devil's Slide. Brilliant climbing after a tricky move into the base of a hanging groove. But Carole Ann Butler Corner was great fun too and provided a little haven of shade.

Ruth actually doing some climbing on Albion - it's a miracle!

Although the climbing is really great on Lundy it does require quite  a lot of effort in lots of cases, a fair bit of walking followed by some descending down steep grass, then back up when you've gone to the wrong place etc. etc. Luckily as Dan had visited twice before and I've also been once before we managed to avoid getting it wrong too often, but it's not easy to link lots of routes/buttresses together in a single day. Not helped by the current guidebook, in my opinion which although looks really good, with nice pictures and topos, doesn't have the topos in close proximity to the route descriptions and not in a logical place - at least not to my brain!

Back from Lundy it was time to get back involved at The Works. Having managed to climb both First Blood and Bloodline, I wanted to get involved in helping to develop the crag further so out came the Hilti and I spent a couple of days drilling and bolting. Firstly creating a line which starts up First Blood and then heads out left through the steepness to the lower-off of Bloodline. This became Blood Donor (M9ish).  I've also been working on a couple more projects but they aren't ready to climb just yet so I'll be back up north again soon.......once I've gotten hold of some more bolts! Donations are very welcome.
The routes in the First Blood cave are all fully equipped with in-situ draws too which makes life a whole lot easier - thank you DMM.

There is a little video from The Works on my Facebook page thanks to Tom Broadbent for that.