|| Warm and wet || Classic British summer ||

Aurora, Great Roova || Climber: Rob Smith

|| Focus On... ||

The other Aurora

It would probably be something of an elephant-in-the-room if I didn’t write about the obvious celestial events of this weekend. You’re probably sick of hearing about it now, but yes we did of course witness a jaw-dropping display of light, the like of which none of us realistically expected to see, to this extent, in Northern England during our lifetimes. It’s the sort of thing you see in photos from other far-flung countries, but not right here in your own back yard. Yes, those two days of golden sunny weather really came as a shock. I hope everyone was able to witness this truly remarkable phenomenon of nature, paid homage in your own way, took some photos, and will be able to pass down your memories of this unprecedented solar display to your grandchildren in years to come.

In other news, there was also an aurora borealis kicking off on Friday evening. I can only imagine it was a profitable night for canny house burglars, as it seems half of Sheffield descended (or rather ascended, given it’s uphill) on Ringinglow Road, leaving the suburbs empty and all the roads around the accessible bits of the Peak looking like a sort of midnight bank holiday on steroids, complete with all the parking carnage you’d expect. I know it was a once-in-a-lifetime event, but I tell you what; never again.

The ice-cream vans and parking wardens could also have made a mint that night but you snooze, you lose. Although to be fair I will admit to being caught off-guard by all this too. About ten or fifteen years ago I got quite interested in the prospect of trying to see some sort of aurora in the Peak, if and when the chance arose, before the reality of the situation set in. After reading news item after news item each year proclaiming the like of “Stunning Northern Lights display visible from the Cheviots” accompanied by some typically underwhelming photos of a vaguely detectable green tinge just above the horizon - like light pollution from a city with the white balance set wrongly - I just gave up on the idea. The Pennines is great, but Iceland it ain’t. And if it did ever happen it was going to be marginal at best. Hence I didn’t really get that excited when everyone started muttering about it again at the end of last week. Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? In this part of the country? After all, if I had wanted to dedicate years of my life to traipsing up the hills, as far away from towns as possible, on the 0.0001% chance of getting lucky, freezing cold and tired, ultimately rewarded only with disappointment, then I’d just go bouldering in Scotland (!!! BANTER !!!).

The short-lived aurora craze does provide a neat segue into a short paragraph about Great Roova up at the northern end of the Yorkshire gritstone area. This is the home of the problem Aurora, as featured in Grit Blocs, a book that I wrote and may have mentioned once or twice before. As I am always keen to point out Grit Blocs makes no claim to list the 100 best problems, rather than 100 of the best problems, a rather woolier definition. This is no accident, because it can be leveraged to showcase a few out-of-the-way crags as much as for the problems themselves. Certain crags, certain venues, are more about this-hold-then-this-hold-then-this-hold-then-top. It’s about going somewhere new, putting the extra effort in, and dare I say it, forgetting about the grades and just letting the rock dictate the experience. You’ll note it’s not called Reasonable Roova, or Above Average Roova. Aurora is a great problem worthy of the long walk-in, but having a memorable warm breezy afternoon up at Great Roova, just moving on rock, exploring a bit and getting away from the same old crags is what it’s about really.

Buy Grit Blocs