The turning point

Having recently had a bit of time to spare, I read 9 out of 10 climbers by Dave Macleod cover to cover as well as 'How to climb 3 grades harder' by Mick Ward. One thing was glaringly obvious. I am pathetically unfit in terms of climbing more than 10 moves and have poor recovery.

To improve, I really need to get some fitness and figured the best way to work on a glaring weakness is to attack it head on.

Being a bit jaded and demotivated recently on bouldering days out, it is probably as good a time as any to mix things up, so I purchased a harness last week and today a rope seeing as I haven't owned one for a few years. Stage 1 complete!

I did one day out at Llanymynfach last year and managed to drag my way up a 6b+, 7a and soft 7b fully pumped on every one of them at the chains!

Wednesday I'm off to Kilnsey to start stage 2 and to see if I can find a 7b+ to climb. Getting the top of anything will be a major bonus and I'll no doubt feel uber weak watching John M, Dave P and Smooth Pete crushing all over the place!

Bank Holiday weekend

I managed to get a 3 day vacation from the fully stressful job and went to probably my 2 favourite venues in the uk...

Friday 30th April

Me, O, Smooth P and the Hoob decided on the safe bet of the Cave due to the sketchy weather.

The warmup was going well with parisella's original, Bust Lip and Clever Beaver all done and I decided a brief lap of Lip Service was in order before going for the Broken Heart RP. I got out to the lip and was moving my right hand to the fingerjug when my left hand pinged off and I was sent hurtling downward. A loud slam and much cheek rubbing later and I could thankfully still move about with a bit of a limp (although weighting the right bum cheek was a no no).

I puntered up Broken Heart a couple times (I still find this fully desperate for a soft 7C+ but I think its more of a mental thing as its just a distraction from what i really want to get done and hence doesn't receive the effort it probably requires) and sacked it for In Hell.

First go and I was really struggling to get through the first moves. It was pretty warm, so the liquid chalk was broken out and try number 2 resulted in a power out at the move to the flake off the 2 pockets on R.A. A bit of a breather and I managed another go through to the same move but something was lacking (maybe caused by training the previous week and not resting as much).

In Hell was sacked off due to weakness and I moved on to try get some consolation ticks with the marvellous Dust Kick High going down. Ring of Fire High ended in failure at the crimps and attention moved towards the right lip of the cave. A bit of beta off Bobbins ensured Beaver Cleaver became more like 80% instead of 40% so I tried the sitter and failed after all the hard climbing due to a cut loose draining every last ounce of energy.

Smooth Pete got to the last slot on R.A. from the start going over for the pinch and Owen managed to get Clever Cleaver from the break, narrowly missing out on the full sitter.

Sun 2nd May

Me and O headed East into the tempest but the skies thankfully cleared a little as we reached Anston Stones. Mike arrived shortly after and we did a crag inspection. My 2 goals for the day of Ebola and Alpha were wet so this made things a bit more simple. A brief and inadequate warmup was followed by a desperately pumpy flash of Beta Blocker and a strong failure to do the first move of the sitter due to wetness.

As I worked the moves on Bullet again, trying to remember where to toehook to catch the fingerslot, Mike mauled his way up Dark Art and pretty much everything else including Magnum Eliminate, a massively morpho line to the left of Bullet.

After he had recrushed Bullet, I knew where to put the feet and it went down quickly! O should have sent but got drawn into trying the lefthand line.

After tea and scones we headed off past an absolutely stunning roof that isn't currently topo'd on the limestone cowboys gallery and I scoped out a summer project which takes in a lot of ground through a roof via some wonderful holds and big moves off a lot of foot clamps and body tension (In to the light)

We had a look at the Seaman staines area and most lines looked pretty full on (and maybe undergraded)

Then we arrived at Mecca. The Duke's buttress is definitely my favourite section of rock in the UK up there with the Zoo York/Ben's Groove area/Shelterstone and the Cave!

We worked some moves and the friction was prime due to a cold breeze coming through the tunnel. I managed to get Red Duke fired off fairly fast which left plenty of energy to try Filthy Duke. Owen worked the moves with me and after failing a couple times on the last hard move up to a right hand deadpoint... I finally got it (after barely catching the first move and captured on a phone with an embarassing scream to hold on to the RP crux).

Owen made some good redpoints on a RH link into Filthy from the Dark Lady start and it looks a great one to come back for as well as Duke's Peril which looks amazing if a tad scary.