Picture this: you have a small beach in a cove-like coastal area and on the edges are hugenormous granite rock cliffs...well, they're only a couple hundred feet but, when you're up at the top with all the other tourists who hiked up, you strap on a harness and rappel down to, basically a little rock ledge above the crashing waves it's pretty amazing-tastic! So, you rap down, climb up, rap down, do a different climb and so on and so forth all day...all with the hunger for greasy fish and chips mounting and mounting...it's sooo great! Oh yeah, and I started leading trad!!! That means I climb up first, leave Adam at the bottom and place gear in along the way...super exciting. Adam's been a great teacher :)
We also had another day of climbing that was more dangerous...with sea cliff climbing you have to know the tide schedule and only climb when it's low...you also have to be aware of sneak waves that can crash up and sneak you away into the sea at any time. Pretty intense stuff when you're belaying at the bottom, but we were always safe about it and clipped ourselves into the rock so the only damage a sneak wave would have done would have been to drench us with water...which...wouldn't have really been a bad thing since showers are few and far between ;)
After two great sea cliff climbing days we headed north to Grit Stone Climbing!!!
Grit Stone climbing is amazing; completely unique and we already want to go back. The cliffs are all around the small towns and so accessible. We were lucky enough to stay with Adam's friend Rob, who he had met in his last Yosemite trip and who served as wonderful host and amazing guide to our first two days on the grit. He also loaned us his great guide books all week which made our climbing life sooo easy!
So climbing on grit is kinda like climbing on rock-hard sandstone. You can literally stick to the tiniest edge and by the end of the week our fingertips were so polished I STILL don't think I'm leaving fingerprints on anything almost a week later :) We climbed crack, slab, juggy overhangs and way too many classic climbs to name. We both pushed ourselves on super hard climbs and left the grit: tired, sore, bruised and bloodied....but, we also left with the sweet satisfaction of having climbed some super-tastic rock!!!
Adam and I also met some amazing climbers who loaned us gear...ginormous cams...and who we climbed with a few days. They were all super cool and we all had a blast cheering each other on and talking "climber" for days. Climbing on the grit really wouldn't have been as great had it not been for the company of Rob and our other climbing peeps we met: Hannah, Ben and Chris. I really hope we all meet up again in the States one day!!!
All in all, English climbing ROCKED!!!
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