Harborough Rocks

The other day a Skyline member asked me why I was climbing with people from a Facebook 'find a climbing partner' page instead of with people from the club... which I suppose does sound a bit dodgy.  However I've only climbed with two people from the pages, one a woman who is known by a well-respected member of the Pinnacle Club, and the other a man who I asked for a link to his UKC (U.K.Climbing) profile and logbook, so I think I've done a reasonable initial check on them.  Then I check what they're like at the crag.

Anyway, the forecast was good for today and I wanted to go climbing, so rather than go to the Facebook pages I posted on the Skyline WhatsApp group asking if anyone was free... but no-one was :-(  So I took myself off to Harborough to get my hands on some rock.

There were only a couple of other people there and one of them said that I could climb with him if I liked.  But I didn't like.  He was about my age, had been climbing for a year, didn't want to belong to a club and was learning things from YouTube.  He'd set up a top-rope and was self-belaying and then abseiling down, although there was absolutely no need to ab down at all as the routes are short and you can easily walk down at the side.  He seemed to be putting a bit of gear in and then pulling on it to haul himself up a bit....  I left him to it and climbed a good half dozen easy routes, most of which I'd already lead this summer.

Soloing isn't necessarily a sensible thing to do and I have one climbing partner who really doesn't agree with it.  But I enjoy it, I'm more focussed when I look at the route from the ground and it seems to make me extra careful about my movements when climbing it.  I know it's risky and I wear my helmet, but of course I could still end up with life-changing injuries if I fell, even from a 6m route.  But let's not dwell on that, and do have a click on the throughthefence tag :-)