The Three Ships at Birchen Edge

Recently Liz had suggested The Three Ships at Birchen Edge as a good area to try some more accessible climbing at a lower level, and so the idea was born to try and get out with my son who is now 9 (hereafter referred to as F).  He climbed the artificial Heeley Boulder last summer, and this week I got him back down to The Mini Works after an absence of several years.  He's been doing Youth Aerials at Greentop Circus for a while now, which has given him great core and grip strength, and when we got to the Mini Works and warmed up it was obvious that this was helping him as he was climbing quite well.  Heel hooks and arête climbs seemed to come naturally to him, and he also appears to have picked up my penchant for a high foot and blatant abuse of reach :)  By the end of the session we were challenging each other, and he got up a green spotty which is rated Font Grade 4-5.

The weather was great last weekend, then turned decidedly sketchy.  With one eye on the forecast at all times we decided Saturday was looking most likely, and decided to go for an early start (by our usual standards) so at 10:00 we picked up Liz and Kelly and headed out towards Baslow, getting confirmation en-route that we would be joined by our usual gang - Ed and Kelly, Andy and Ceri.  One we parked up next to the pub we walked in and although it was dry and not too cold there was a fair wind blowing.  We started off on Victory, following the order of the problems in the 2014 Rockfax Peak Bouldering book, our go to book when out in the peaks (generally we have at least 3 copies of this with us).

It took a while to get heads in to rock space again, with the first problem (Orion) fighting me - didn't help that this was sit start territory with wet ground underfoot but we were well prepared with doormats and towels.  Eventually this went along with Neptune, and then it was The Victory Traverse. Liz had a go and backed down, F had a go and backed down, I had a go and fell off straight in to a muddy puddle - the rock was quite green here! F cracked it on his next attempt, getting up his first outdoor climb and defeating the problem quicker than I did. This ended up being his only climb of the day but he attempted plenty more and found lots of rock to practice technique on even if they weren't listed routes.

We carried on around all three of the boulders, I didn't all the problems but enjoyed Tenerife and Tenerife Right. After this we dropped down below the edge, Ed and Kelly went to attack some nails problems while we played on Copenhagen Wall. Scandiwall fell quickly, Copenhagen Corner felt horribly exposed but I was actually quite solid on it.  Around on the main face Dane's Delight was fun - it gets quite high but it's a slab with positive holds, the crux is the big move to the ledge at the start.  Dane's Disgust is less pleasant than this as you have worse holds to deal with, but it's equally doable.

Everyone was feeling climbed out by now and there was a distinct sudden temperature drop suggesting rain was on the way, so we decamped to The Robin Hood Inn which was conveniently (and not entirely coincidentally) located next to our chosen parking for some fantastic food.  My Pie and Mash hit the spot and didn't even leave me room for the delicious sounding dessert (I'm a sucker for a crumble) but I'm not going to complain about that. By all accounts F had a great day too and wants to go again, we are thinking of heading out to Burbage South Edge for him to get to grips with the rocks in Kindergarten, before heading down to Burbage Boulders for some of the classics (Pock Block was my first outdoor bouldering about 12 years ago with Ed after work one day). All in all a successful day, looking forward to doing it all again now :)