Rad and Syked

Well it was a good last week, with a trip to the Lakes taking in an interesting lecture by the king of skye Dave Graham anda couple of days outdoors to the Langdale and Kentmere boulders. Nothing hard got crushed but I really enjoyed the relaxed circuiting. The rain put paid to any Bowderstone action and a bit of indoor crushing as well as slacklining made up the rest of the trip.

A day after coming back, I went the cave with Dave not expecting too much and after a brief warmup (about 5 minutes) I pulled on to my current nemesis (the low start into Rock Atrocity from the wobbly block) and crushed it into the ground first try of the day. It felt good.

Feeling pretty psyched at breaking through this mental barrier, I got back on Lou Ferrino (which was pretty wet) and after doing the 4th move a few times in a row (a move I used to really struggle on), I linked it all the way to the finish from said move. I wasn't really expecting this, so psyched out my mind, I rested whilst towelling and brushing a a ton of chalk into the 2nd LH sidepull at the start. Pulling on to it as fast as possible I flowed through but dropped the 4th move as said hold had already covered my hand in water and my left hand blew off! :( I know it won't be long till we meet again!

Today was a bit of an interesting one. Me and Dave went ov er to the Peak with the aim of getting on Brad Pitt but we arrived to blustery wet conditions with bouts of sunshine being rudely interrupted by minor rainstorms and high winds. Perfect conditions :S. We briefly warmed up on the Deliverance block and Dave swiftly despatched Deliverance infront of some American wads being given the tour by mr Pickles. I tried to re-repeat it as well but using the short mans High right foot method but it wasn't to be, so determined to do a new problem and not fail on old ones I went over and tried to flash the Green Traverse. It was going ok till I puntered the middle section trying to smear instead of campussing all the way and had to go back to the start to get it 2nd go :(

We went over to Brad and it was miraculously dry. We got the full shutdown but got to witness Pint Sized American beast Matt Segal flash it with ease! The rain came in again to end our play and we sacked it to Hathersage for a coffee. With the weather breaking yet again...we headed to Burbage, got shutdown on the Terrace, I showed Dave the Remergence block and he agreed with me that it was a highly overrated and uninspiring piece of rock!

To end the day we went back to Stanage so Dave could meet up with Ry and Katy. We watched Ry and Dave Graham trying the Ace in pretty crap conditions (covering the holds with taped bits of paper to keep the rain off), and then headed over to the storm which was wet. British weather sucks and I still loathe gritstone climbing.

Knowing that next week holds a full week of work, I really hope I can get back to the cave sometime this weekend and get back on LF... it would be great to surpass this years goals again!