Day 3; a day of aretes! Off the back of a sweet day at Curbar confidence was booming and the weather was fine! I had aspirations and classics to do at all the big grit crags. After umming and aahhing about where to go, we ended up at Stanage Plantation, laden with 4 pads and a basic rack just in case. A warm-up on Crescent Arete (on its left, right and with one hand) set the tone for the day. I did Archangel and Don sans pads before spotting Steve on a padded White Wand. This route is unique from its classic neighbors, in that it has a sequence of moves and holds rather than a pure clean arete. Steve took a good sized barndoor-fall/dismount while matching the arete (crux), before I did a repeat ascent and he sussed out the way soon after. I had a little recce on Ulysses' Bow, again without pads (I feel like I should go for the full arete-set paddless (and hopefully onsight) now I have come this far) but it feels a bit beyond me right now, especially with the sun beaming down its evil rays; perfect conditions will be required!
After all that boldness (and some mellow sun-bathing) we were in no state of mind to continue with our bold soloing excursion, so we had a look at Brad Pit. First few goes went well but my Anasazi heel felt shit! I changed my left shoe to a Testerossa and boom it went down next try! Classic case of using the right shoe for the job.
Content with the day's ascents but again not wanting to waste daylight and sunshine, we wandered over to do some chilling soloing, Right Unconquerable being particularly enjoyable! So as not to feel like we carried the rack up for no reason, I nipped up Telli, which confirmed that I was done for the day - painfully thin skin on a pebble-pulling slab didn't do anything to motivate me. Plus we were starving hungry (I had forgot my lunch so we'd shared Steves banana, single pitta with brie and handful of raisins), and when I get hungry, I can get cranky. So off we went to gorge on pasta, bacon, screw-balls and hob-nobs, and apply a fair lathering of climb-on!
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