Been wanting to do this route for a very long time, eyed it up every time I've been to Dow. Its a really impressive line which winds its way through some of the spectacular rock structures on the very imposing A Buttress, needless to say its very atmospheric! Its six pitches of VS, and I can now say that every pitch is certainly VS, and all of them deserve their technical grades! Probably the most significant image I have of the climb was of a wet day at Dow, coming of Murray's in the rain and seeing quite a lot of people not looking too happy at certain parts on the route and a whole world of fluorescent nylon tat beginning to appear! Was going to attempt it with Phil on the March weekend earlier in the year but were foxed firstly by the amount we drank the night before and secondly by the fact that it started to snow!

Had already been in the Lakes earlier in the week and experienced the atrocious weather, not really into this getting rained on! Forecast for the weekend brightened up though so spoke to Ash, debated and then decided to go for it on Saturday. Mega early start, up at 5.30am to make sure we were off the route before the rain came in. Got to Walna Scar soon after 8 and sorted rack, then re-sorted after deciding we had too much. Got to the bottom of the route for 9.30ish and were climbing soon after.

Ash did the first pitch which didn't waste anytime starting with a short traverse and then up a steep wall. I followed him up and then led through onto the next pitch which was the longest, a 4b but with some tricky moves with lots of exposure. All the gear and holds were there they just took some looking for! Ash then came up and went through to do a relatively short pitch of 4c which traversed a very delicate line above an overhand with quite a novel threaded nut for gear in the middle. We swapped again and I did the next one, up as the guidebook described it as a 'Crevasse line' simply a very big diagonal crack in the rock, brought back memories of savage slit, this was followed by a rather bold round a rib to the belay. I think as I made the move I made some 'comments' which Ash agreed with once he joined me at the belay, nothing but nearly 100m of air below your ankles kind of stuff. The next pitch was the photogenic one, well photogenic if you didn't mind your belayer leaving go of the rope to take some snaps of you while you perched on some very small holds, with not much gear and a very large drop... sort of like the photo in the guidebook! I then followed Ash up this superb pitch and led through onto the final one, another really good pitch of climbing, quite delicate and with quite a few bits that made you 'think'. Ran the rope up as far as I could to near the top of the buttress until drag got too much an brought Ash up we then moved up to the top and sat down and took in what we'd just done with some very big grins!

Back down to the car within an hour and into to Ambleside to meet Simon and peruse various shops in search of Merino Wool, eventually ended up getting one of Simon's which he bought a few months ago but hasen't really used as he isn't a fan of sleeves... and a bonus at £20! Called in very quickly at GT on the way back to say hi to Mr & Mrs Miller who were up there for the service team weekend and then drive rather quickly, on small minor roads while simultaneously searching for coffee to Waddacar. Spent a few hours there, leaching food from Pete's BBQ and talking to Ricko about the Gathering amongst other things.

Ash's account is on his site - http://www.ashthegreen.co.uk/ashblog/?p=88