Pumped at Freezing Trowbarrow

Laetitia taking a swing on Red Wall – yes it is pretty steep!

Laetitia, Paul and Pete were greeted by BMC signs informing us that peregrines were nesting at today’s venue – Warton Quarry. Not that we needed the signs to know that the warning in the guide book about possible nesting bird restrictions was likely to be in force, there were dozens of people twitching away with massive telescopes and cameras with two foot long lenses!

Not the type to give up, we headed down the road to Trowbarrow…
Although that wasn’t great either – a wind was blowing through the place that made it feel like the Southern Ocean (not that I’ve been to the Southern Ocean).

Still we soldiered on and ended up top roping a number of extremely steep and strenuous routes on the “Red Wall”. We figured that as the guidebook said top roping was the norm hereabouts, we’d get stuck in and make the best of a cold (but dry) day.

Several routes later, with forearms pumped to the size of beach-balls and as hard as concrete blocks with lactic acid where there should be blood, we retreated to the café at Leighton Moss. After a nice slice of cake and a warming cup of tea we bumped into some of the twitchers from Warton Quarry (who had let us look at the peregrines through their impressive telescope) again!

Another great day! Ah well, another bank holiday weekend comes to an end…