Welcome to the First Ascent Blog.

I first went to Gimmer when I was 19. We didn’t have a guidebook, but I’d sketched out the topo from Hard Rock and we planned to do The Crack and then Kipling Groove. It wasn’t ideal conditions, admittedly. There’d been a hard frost and it was only just above freezing when we emerged from the tent. When we reached the base of the route we realised we’d left one topo at the campsite and the other had got wet. Still, we figured The Crack must be pretty obvious and set off. Over the course of the three verglas-covered pitches the sun disappeared, it rained, then it hailed and then it snowed. We topped out in a whiteout with an inch and a half of snow on the ground. We decided not to do Kipling Groove that day, and headed down the Old Dungeon Ghyll for a pint. I made my second visit to Gimmer this weekend with Malcolm from Mountain Hardwear. I’ve been thwarted by the Lakes weather on almost every visit for years. It was a bit of a contrast yesterday though, we were complaining that we should’ve worn shorts on the walk in and the whole crag was bathed in sunshine. We headed up Ash Tree Slabs, a great VDiff, to get to the start of Kipling Groove. Malcolm led across the famous traverse pitch, which was a lot easier than we expected, although a little damp. Unfortunately we’d forgotten that it is still March. The sun ducked behind a cloud and the wind picked up. The belay at the end of the traverse pitch was in the shade and Malcolm had a cold time belaying me up the final, crux pitch. It was a great route, but not quite the super classic I’d been expecting. We descended as quickly as possible as we were absolutely freezing and after thawing out we both led the classic VS North West Arete (there’s an abseil anchor at the top), which was great value. It’s a big pitch with some good exposure and just enough tricky moves to keep you guessing.