Sampson Stones At Last

Since moving back up north from Sheff I’ve been meaning to drop in to the Sampson stones to check out the boulders. The general feedback from most folk seems to be there an excellent spot shame about the walk.
After the initial slog up the hill the walk was quite pleasant. The sun was shinning and the path threads between small cliffs and hills crossing a series of grassy sheep grazed plateaus. All very nice! Then after about an hour the boulders come into few perched on a grassy knoll below a big cliff and surrounded by some of the highest peaks in England.
I did land up at the Cosmos boulder a bit sweaty but fortunately the clouds had rolled in and the wind picked up enough to cool me down. After a bit of bush tucker, a wander round I got warmed up on the easy Cosmos problems. I didn’t feel too bad considering I had climbed yesterday so I decided to have a go at something a bit harder.
First up was Event Horizon. This problem featured in climbers best 100 boulder problems back in the day and involves slappy moves up a prow. I managed to get it quickly and wasn’t disappointed by it.
Next up was Axions. I’d seen a video of Greg doing this so armed with some beta I thought it could also go quickly. I pulled on threw my right heel up, pulled with this and fell on to my pad in agony as my right calf cramped up. Great this wasn’t going to be easy and over an hours battle took place. I found two moves hard on this problem. moving my right from the staring hold to get a crimp below my left hand in the crack like thing and also the slap to the rough sloper on the arête edge. After a lot of goes at the start, three falls from the sloper and a nearly session stopping shower I managed to send it.
All good but by now my skin was thin and seeping and I ached. Time to go home happy but sore. The Sampson stones are a great venue with loads of good stuff to go at more than I could do in my feeble sessions. I will be back!