(*Spoiler alert – more accurately a Matterhorn rather than The Matterhorn)

Just another week in The Peak started off with a visit to one of my regular haunts: New Mills Torrs, but with an unusual objective. NMT is blessed with unrelenting steepness, so is a great all-weather venue, but it is also drive-in accessible, making it the perfect spot to catch up with Michelle and Dave for a bit of jumaring practice on Michelle’s Route to the Sky: https://www.routetothesky.co.uk/about-1

This is Michelle’s challenge to ascend The Old Man of Hoy as an adaptive athlete, having lost the use of her legs in a climbing accident. Original plans have been disrupted (but NOT derailed!) by various factors including covid and the even bigger life-adventure of Michelle’s first child, Adrian, so we were glad of the opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with all the ropework and shenanigans needed for a safe self-propelled ascent up some steep, sandy ground. First job: get a rope to the top, with a lap of my party piece Electric Circus – not sure about Michelle’s “Twinkle Toes” nickname 😉  Here’s Michelle’s account https://www.facebook.com/RoutetotheSky/

“The Rig” uses a good chunk of the Petzl catalogue…

… and Michelle quickly despatched the 20m or so of The Torrs

Repeat that 7 times and we’ll be up TOMoH in a jiffy.

The following day I signed up for some more grit quarry adventures, this time with Jim at Duke’s Quarry to climb Great Crack. This esoteric outlier features in the Rockfax Eastern Grit Top 50 (one of only 4 routes remaining, the others being probably beyond my pay grade). It’s best left for a prolonged dry spell (tick, though with a couple of wet days we might have missed the window…)

Top tip – use the parking coordinates and approach description in Rockfax but ignore the map – despite noting that the gate signposted “Duke’s Quarry” ISN’T the one you want, it goes on to incorrectly label it on the map! This ISN’T the one you want (it’s the next quarry south – the map on UKC is actually correct).

Great Crack is unmistakable (and there isn’t much other rock that bears thinking about in terms of climbing!) Damp but not unclimbable…

Top tip – rack up with a few extra red and gold cams for comfort.

Easy rap descent – one for the crack connoisseur, definitely HVS (+), and probably worth the 3* if that’s your bag…

That left the rest of the afternoon at large in the south Peak, so we headed over to High Tor for a play on the Right Wing. Scimitar Groove, VS, Memories, 6a, End Game, 6c+, and My Pedigree Chum, 6a+ rounded off the day nicely, adding trad and sport limestone to our itinerary.

More unsettled weather over the weekend had Stan and me seeking out another south-Peak hole-in-the-ground, and Halldale fitted the bill. Sheltered from the wind and steep enough that the occasional squally shower didn’t really interrupt proceedings. In amongst a lot of post-Industrial choss, the Spectre Walls is a genuinely high quality lump of limestone – strong lines, imposing steepness and spaced bolts make for a traddy feel to the sport climbs hereabouts (a clip stick takes some of the sting out of the situation).

Unblackened and Back Helicopter Ride are both stiff for 6a warm ups, whilst Burning Spirits, 6b, and the namesake Spectre, 6b+, are both amongst the best routes of their grade in The Peak (although that’s an admittedly low bar!)

Also nice to bump into Dean by chance – here’s a photo of him on A Fossil on Fossils, 6c (no comment on the route name!)

More unsettled weather on Sunday, but another sheltered venue offered some perma-dry climbing (not that I’d have been able to get off the ground). I was helping out at the Climbers Against Cancer stand at the UK Bouldering Championships a.k.a. Cliffhanger on the Green in Sheffield.

Helan and Paul on T-shirt distribution duty!

A bunch of new friends and supporters, and a couple of thousand quid in the CAC coffers going towards Cancer Research projects, marked a worthwhile weekend, luckily for us the stall was at the end of the rainbow…

After that smorgasbord of the variety you can have in a week in The Peak, I headed over to The Netherlands for work. You’d be forgiven for thinking that would bring a halt to the climbing fun, but you’d be wrong. While there might not be much rock in Holland (okay, actually NONE!) there are plenty of climbers, and a national trait of filling in for nature’s deficiencies with feats of human ingenuity. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the Dutch have some of the biggest artificial climbing walls in the world. Matthias kindly picked me up at the airport and transported me to The Matterhorn (or at least the next best thing: Klimcentrum Monte Cervino near Rotterdam. https://www.montecervino.nl/

At 35m tall, it’s a pretty impressive structure, and plenty of imagination has been used to create featured “rock” with cracks, arêtes and a textured climbing surface. We clocked up around 500 ft of climbing before the forecasted rain stopped play (the start of the bigger storm in living memory in the area!), with a 3-pitch 6b+ (done in a oner) being a particularly memorable and testing journey.

There’s even a summit book!

… and distant views over the city of Rotterdam and acres of greenhouses.

I was a bit pooped, but rain didn’t stop play – the inside of the Matterhorn is hollow and contains an inverted pyramidal wall. Not surprisingly, this features quite a lot of steep terrain. Another three routes and my lack of wall fitness was really showing – I was wrecked! As well as outdoor and indoor climbing, the centre also features a bar with a good selection of beers and even serves food; all wrapped up with a nice, friendly vibe. What a great facility!