Sunday 11 May 2008

Limestone season

With the recent heatwaves, me and Tom have been getting out on the hallowed lime as much as possible and enjoying the near crushing that each session seems to be bringing. I can't wait till it all starts clicking and things get sent, but in the meantime much strength is being gained from repeated redpoint attempts on Rock Atrocity and Bus Stop for myself and the former for Tom.



The Bank holiday weekend began well with a trip to the Cave. I had a best ever session on Attrocity getting to the final pinch 5 times and dropping the finishing slot 2 times! The problem is starting to feel easy until that elusive final move. We finished off the day with a chilled session at Pigeons Cave boulders.

Monday was good with a trip to The Wavelength where I managed a few new problems; Gav's Sitter, Boysen's Groove sitter and a desperate sandbag V4 called Paul's Bulge on the back of the Grooves boulder! The weather was scorching and we all got nicely burnt/tanned.

During the week it was back to indoors to earn some money for Italy in a couple weeks time. I sneaked in a 2nd routes session of the month and despite my pathetic endurance managed to onsight a 7a, onsight another 7a till the last move and did a 7b with 2 falls. Thats 3 routes sessions in roughly 2 years and I think this time I'll have to try keep it up for a month or so to see if I can reap the benefits of extra gas in the tank when back in the Cave.

In the last 3 days I've enjoyed a trip out to Angel Bay with Si, Ben and Andy where I intended to just rest and take photos but got psyched and swiftly dispatched Mussel Bound and after a lot of drying, chalking and cursing... Spectrum via wet holds and a big campus, it was a productive active rest day.

Yesterday was a late start in the pass with Dave and Tom to warm up and crush under Jerry's roof. We met the Cattells there for a warmup and a play on the Sleep Deprivation roof eliminates. The heat and humidity were crazy so not much got done, including watching Danny nearly pass out trying to pull on to Arachnophobia... surely the hardest V8 in the world?



We walked down the road and Dave had a play on Jerry's roof whilst I got my sequence wired for Bus Stop, bar the first move, topping it out twice from the 2nd move. About 20 people suddenly arrived and started jumping all over the problems so we sacked it down to pete's Eats and had a chill.
We drove back up about 8.30 and it was nicely empty. The lanterns got fired up and crushing commenced, warming up on some footless moves before Dave got real close on Jerry's falling off the last hard move. He will get it soon for sure when he can see where his feet are going! I managed to finally work out where to put my feet on Bus Stop and crushed the first move a few times before linking it to the lip and losing my tension through tiredness but I have now done it comfortably in 2 halves and fatigued. I can't wait to return and finally climb something hard that I know I am capable of.

1 comment:

lore said...

rich,
you two guys are making me crazy!!! i'm really envious about the climbing you're getting, and to be honest about everything else. maybe because i'm a little bit concerned about the new job etc, but all i can say is: CRUSH AND HAVE FUN.