Climbing at Coudy Rock - Appleby

The sky was one of mixed messages. Every so often we would feel the sun beam down on our face, we would look up and find an amazing blue sky directly above us. Instantly I would find myself envisaging a great day out at the crag. But it wasn't long before I caught sight of a nasty looking cloud gracefully drifting over towards, like a lioness sneaking up on an gazelle. Perhaps this wasn't the best day to go out, on what was after all a sandstone crag. It would be dirty enough as it was, even if it did remain dry. However we were only going to Appleby so it wasn't going to matter too much if it did start chucking it down. I had heard a lot about Coudy rock, a crag just by the river eden with various sports routes bolted up it, and I was quite excited about the thought of finally going to it.

Sports climbing is a relatively modern style of climbing, where bolts are already drilled into the rock, ready for the climber to attach the rope to via quickdraws. It is becoming increasingly popular in the UK and is considered the main style of climbing in many areas of europe. Climbers don't need to worry the same about the safety of the route as they would in trad climbing, where climbers place the protection themselves by jamming gear into the rocks. In sports climbing, climbers can concentrate on the technicality of the climb, without concern for how well protected they are.

We arrived at about 11:30. I uncoiled the rope and lay it out on the ground in front of what appeared to be an easy route. I was going first and I seemed quite calm about the whole thing. The route can't have been more than 7 metres high and looked like it had many nice big jugs to hold onto. I tied in, stuck my ipod on and headed straight up. It would seem I didn't even take into account that it was sandstone and it was covered in dirt and lacked many jugs, in fact most the holds seemed to be slopers and to make things worse small overhangs (although not having to much effect on the difficulty of the climb) obstructed my view of the holds above and it wasn't long before I was heading back down to take my ipod off and start treating the climb more seriously. After about 10 minutes battling with the route, I finally made it to the top. I descended quickly and we soon move on to the next route along, this time Adam climbed. We continued to work our way left along the crag, until we finally got onto the main wall. Here the climbing suddenly got interesting. The main challenge was in the actual route, instead of it being in the dirt layering the rock or grabbing a handhold that wouldn't brake away. These routes had been climbed a few time and chalk marks were all over it from where other climbers had been.

The day continued in this fashion, we lounged around on the grass looking at the river, in between climbs and then would head up the odd route. The rain didn't come and the sun would occasionally come out from the clouds and warm up our backs. Dad came along later with the camera and took some photos. I thought about teaching him how to belay on a top rope, but then remembered that he goes loose at the knees when people are in high up places, and thought it was best to teach him another day. After all I thought he was doing well taking photos without panicking about how strong the rope was or any of the other things that could possibly happen.

Thanks for reading.