Embankment Wall, Millstone Edge – A little bit of love for the Peak District

It’s great to discover new places, but when you visit the same place again and again you get a real appreciation for the changes in the light, weather, and wildlife throughout the year.

One of my favourite places to climb is Millstone Edge in the Peak District, it’s one of my local crags and the one I have probably spent the most time at.

Here is a year in pictures at Embankment Wall, which is just one wall of many at Millstone. As well as having great routes to climb, I think its the best looking and it’s amazing how it can appear so different every time I visit.

If you have never been to the Peak District, I hope it gives you a feel for this little part of it that I love…

This picture was taken during the exceptionally snowy winter of 2012/13. You can see the routes where the cracks are frozen and full of ice on an otherwise almost completely blank face.

The rock has amazing stripes of colour that can look anything from pale pink to dark red, green, or grey.

To prove that I actually do sometimes lead routes, here’s a picture I took at the top of Chiming Crack, a lovely but short perfect hands crack (HS 4b).

At the end of the day the rock glows in evening sunlight and the colours come alive.

You can see me here through the trees, on a day when we were practicing finger cracks by climbing the right hand crack of Embankment 2 (which takes it from VS 4c to E1 5c).

In summer the days are long, the heather is purple and the rock is warm…

…and as a bonus, the walk in looks like this!

My favourite routes at Millstone are – Covent Garden, Plexity, Eros, and Embankment 3 & 4. I have lead some of them, others I still hope to lead.

I wouldn’t have had the chance to enjoy most of the routes at Millstone if it wasn’t for my climbing partners who lead much harder than I do… thank you Jonny, Mark, and Sam x

You can read more about the routes above in the UKC guide to Millstone Edge here… http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crag.php?id=19