Shepherd's Party

 Wednesday August 25th

Last week's outing cancelled due to a bad bout of norovirus.  Recovered sufficiently to consider a low stress day in Borrowdale.  Plenty of mist driving over but as forecast all glorious past Penrith.  Even at 9.45, Borrowdale had a Mediterranean feel with paddleboards galore out on the water, just enough space for us at the NT car park with much frantic inflation of various leisure craft in progress.  So a short walk from there led to the alternate playground of;

Shepherd's Crag

Blencathra behatted.

AT gets P2 on Brown Slabs Arete

CB lead on Brown Slabs Face

A most amenable start, some very sociable company on the crag.

Plenty people arriving, time to move on.

Views from Brown Slabs belay quite glorious today

Borrowdale on Sea buzzing with sounds of families having fun on the lakeside

Perfect for the holiday-making hordes!

Moved on to Ardus.  A pair just left on Evil Knievel retreated after a leader fall, AT made some excursions on Ardus P1 to retrieve their gear.  In the process used too many qds to run P1 and P2 as plan, so CB combined P2 and P3 from AT's P1 belay.

Climber is on Finale taken from Ardus belay.

A slick abseil down left plenty of time for late lunch and a chat with the Finale party.

Time for another classic, Fishers Folly, CB leads as one pitch in great style.

AT followed without folly.

Another climber - another day, disguised as CB with artistic blog license.

© Roger Chaldecott with thanks

All routes three stars, a bit more stress than planned, hey ho that's Binksworld!.

Next stop

The Sportsman!