Bridestones Revisited

I've never really got on with Bridestones. I can see the appeal and understand when people say "it's one of the top bouldering crags in Yorkshire" and such like but.... well we just don't quite see eye to eye. Which is a shame as I only live five minutes from it. Anyway over the years I have spent some time there and ticked my way through several of the problems but never really had a huge burning desire to go there on a quest for crush, it always seemed a bit low-key, picnics and family days, throwing balls for the dog and lounging with occasional forays onto the rock. But today I was keen to climb but pressed for time. All of my BIG THINGS TO DO are at least an hour away so they were off the menu, what to do?
But then inspiration struck, there is a problem at Bridies called The Worm and it's always been a bit of a weird 'un. The thing is it's a traverse which then finishes up and up problem, but there has been a bit of a lack of clarity over which up problem it finished up. There is an arete problem it could finish up, and then another problem a bit further round which it could also finish up.
Now I always thought that it finished up the bit further round problem and would marvel at the slopey scallops that you'd have to pull on to do this, it looked lovely but hard. Then I saw a video on Yorkshiregirt.com here and this finished up the arete, which made the given grade seem, well, generous. Various debates were had with various people with varying levels of knowledge and the upshot was? Well it was all a bit unresolved...
Anyway Yorkshiregrit.com changed the grade of the problem to 7b (from 7c) and the world kept turning. However I noticed this morning that some had posted a comment stating that the finish I originally thought was right had been done and the feeling was 7c+ would be appropriate.
Well given a short window of opportunity and a new piece of information about a local curiousity what else was I to do? Me and Bammers loaded up the van and chugged up the hill, a quick tromp across the moor and we assumed the position at the tilted pinnacle.
It took me a while to work a sequence for the end, I wasn't wrong those scallops were slopey and you need to go a long way the the last hold (well the last hold before the awkward, fluffable but relatively easy finish). But after a hours contemplation/attempts a sequence was in place. It all felt pretty steady apart from the last move which is (I may have mentioned this already) HUGE. Then I started to work the first bit of the traverse, this was worked out more quickly but was trickier than I was anticipating, hmmmmm. I also noticed that there was a footblock on the arete that was pretty loose so I decided that in the interest of Bridies conservation (the place is already trashed, no reason to make it worse) then the footblock would have to be eliminated. A quick sequence re-work and that was fine (and not really any harder). Now for the link. I was a bit concerned about this because the start was a bit more climby than I'd anticipated and the last move crux could spit me off all day long if it chose to do so. Oh well, on we go. First attempt I got round the arete but didn't get the next hold at the right angle, was set up all wrong for the next move so stepped off. Second go got to the last move and greased off a sloper with my right hand, then sun had come out from the cloud cover and was burning into the sloper, eeeK! Third go and it all went smooth, solid 7c+ this way I think.
I then did it the other way finishing up the arete, which was a complete scrittle-fest but much easier, 7b seems fair.
Anyway apologies for all this grade talk, I know some people don't like it but it is kind of essential to the story in this case.
So in summary:
The Worm - 7C+
Traverse the face of the tilted pinnacle starting at the crack, stay low round the arete and finish up Ear'oule via a long move. Excellent

The Shortened Worm - 7B
Traverse the face of the tilted Pinnacle starting at the crack, finish up the arete. OK if you like that sort of thing, where that sort of thing is a scrittly escape from the main difficulties of the problem.

Over and out.