At the end of January/start of February each year it is mine and my friends birthday, so each year we go out to Millstone to climb Master's Edge as a bit of a birthday outing. It was originally done by Big Ron back in the day and can be seen on the film Hard Grit. Nothing is taken that seriously so plenty of pads are always used to highball out the start to the shot holes, from there on you just take big fun whippers. The good thing about climbing this route, is that it can be made safe but still has good spice factor on the last move and the climbing just never gets boring.

This year we decided to take a formal approach and climb the route in suits and top hats, which was well funny. Unfortunately, typical of Britain the weather was rubbish. It had rained continuously for 2 days before hand and the rock did have a bit of damp factor to it, with everybody slipping off at least once. However it wasn't really the dampness that was so much the problem it was the wind. The wind was absolutely ferocious. Staying in balance on aretes is usually the main problem anyway, but with this wind it made it desperate, (it was the sort of wind where by standing on the top of the crag you could lean into it. Not quite that windy at the bottom of the crag, but you get the idea!) You had to make moves in between the big gusts.

Anyway climbing it in the dampness, wind and suits all added to the experience and after a number of falls I managed to catch that sinker flatty at the top. I don't think we can get any worse conditions to climb it in, so bring on the next round, next year, can't wait.