Wind Your Neck In Buckle

A weekend of abuse in the direction of our very own Derek.

What a great weekend, I can only speak for myself but Steve Humphries, John Temple, Derek and Jenny Buckle all seemed to enjoy themselves.

The abuse came from Jenny, who under no circumstances seemed willing to bow down to her long suffering father (all together now aaahhh) after much torment by him, her reply was clear and for all to hear, "Wind you neck in Buckle". I must state that we did not laugh at this or make it a key phrase for the entire weekend.

Limestone is not my favourite rock, I prefer Lemon, but we had a guide with local knowledge who took us to Gordale Scar were Derek and Steve seemed to be working though all the routes in the guide book whilst John and I climbed the routes that weren't. We climbed the lower left wing which has several starred routes of which the most enjoyable was The Eliminate 26m VS 4c. There is a route here worth looking at - Rebel 47m E5 6b *** completed in 1962 but first attempted in 1958 by some one in the club. John didn't fancy a repeat today though.

On Sunday after a chorus of "Wind your neck in Buckle" it was off to Crummackdale, a very worthy crag. Eventually John and I started climbing routes which where in the guide. Steve seemed unstoppable, so Jenny liking life joined in with John and I. All the climbing here was good especially in the VS grades.

Monday, all together now - "Wind your neck in Buckle". Pen y Ghent a Yorkshire "mountain" with a gritstone (yes Pete, Gritstone) crag just off it's summit. A good walk in but we had the crag to our selves. A handful of classics all graded low in Johns book but much higher in a later book. All where well protected apart from one that John lead (graded HS in Johns book, probably E silly quite technical now) which was exposed and steep with rounded holds only two gear placements one of which was marginal. The rest of the route where much better which was good as I lead it.

Stuart Worsfold

Living in fear of Derek