Sport climbing at winspit...Peppercorn Rate.

Today is the 11th January 2014 and Tommy Harris and myself had arranged to take advantage of the good weather forecast and mild temperatures and go hit some sport climbing, we both have routes at winspit to get done so there was to be our destination.
The one and a half hours drive from Portsmouth to Dorset really made apparent the flooding that has occurred lately with so many field's full of water its really bad at the moment down south compared to what normal lets hope it dryes out soon.
I met Tommy in the winspit car park as usual at 9am and we walked in it was a cool day with a light breeze clear sky and the sun was shining, lovely i thought, now gotta hope the crag is dry after the days of rain we have had..
25 Min's we arrived down at the crag much of the Quarrymans wall was wet and dripping but the far Right of the crag and some parts of the south face was dry so we had a start. We started out on a route called "Pump my Daisy" which is a F5+ route and a nice gentle warm up..



Blue skys...

We then climbed a route called "Tend my Daisy" (F6a) which was also a nice warm up Tommy suggested we headed round onto the south face to another warm up route and to see what routes was dry.. We end then climbed a route called "plaice a bolt"  (F5) which was a fun route with a really cool initial move over a cave.
by now it seemed like a spring day it was very warm and a really pleasant day so far, we had now decided we were warmed up enough to try something in the 7th Grade.. and with the left hand end of the Quarrymans wall now mostly dry we decided to look at some routes there, Tommy wanted to try a Tough looking steep line called "solstice" (F7a+) and i really wanted to try  line called "Peppercorn Rate" (F7a) both of which were dried out well mostly..  Tommy had 1st go and put the clips in as he went working the route bolt to bolt he nailed the initial moves but then had to work a sequence for a harder section which he did and in style with a dynamic move, he worked each section until tired then i had a go on my route i worked the moves as i went and found the initial moves not too bad and the crux also seemed ok but stamina let me down when i arrived at the crack on the head wall, a really awkward blind crack and bitch to climb i spent a lot of energy try to work a sequence and got very pumped i set the top on the route and would have another go on top rope to try and suss the moves on the crack and make sure the 1st section flows ok..
Tommy had another go and lead the route right up to the crux where he had to rest a few times he did manage to do the moves and move up and do the rest of the moves tired he decided to leave it for next time, but having seen him do all the moves I'm sure he is very close to getting it. i also had another go on top rope and this time made it right to the bottom of the crack again which then again gave me problems, my stamina defiantly needs working on but this route foe me is do-able and I'm pretty confident that now have a sequence for the crack, and a little longer at the rest the route will fall, its a very good route and cant wait to get back on it, this year is my year for grade 7's so lets hope this is the start to my sport season..
AWESOME!!!