Anticipation off the scale!

It's less than 24 hours until we will be heading down the motorway en route to the magical world of fontaineberry. The anticipation of climbing on cold, crisp and dry wonderful sloping grips is high!

I had a couple of days out this week to tune up, with a trip to the Roaches on Monday and a cave session yesterday.

Monday 14th

I headed over to the Roaches with Pete and Tom from the Hangar. The skies were grey when we arrived but crucially the green looking rock was bone dry. We pottered around the lower tier boulders and I enjoyed repeating the classics with the only downside being scraping my face up the wall getting a bit too close in on the undercuts dyno! It was dispached a couple goes later and I got stretch and mantle first try of the day, what an ace problem.

After doing the Ascent of Man start, we popped up the steps and I got the guys to do the brilliant Joe's Arete. Some geezer was on the block behind doing the cool looking Nadin's traverse, I whored the beta then flashed it. Pete got real close but kept losing it just before the right flake sidepulls.

We wandered up over the hill on a bit of a mision but found our way to Staffs Flyer. I'd wanted to get up here for so long with it being one of the classic peak roof problems. The ground was proper gopping, but we fashioned a rock patio of sorts and I layed down a survival bag upon which, the PoD pad was sacrificed! It looked like it could be spicy for 6b but after pulling on and crossing to the good crimp, I found I could build my feet high and lock static to the hold over the lip, I matched this then cut my feet and campussed up to the top. What a splendid problem!

Tom got it shortly after with a more dynamic sequence and I did the arete on the block to the right, another good problem.

It was getting very grim in the cold mist, so we returned to the Joe's arete area and I did the flakes and nose problems on the big block. I felt too tired to try Higginsons's roof traverse, so opted to go look at Mean Ol' Bastard. I found the pull on weird and then it was really hard to get my foot in the hole after getting the gaston. As soon as I realised I could lock into it and match the opposing gaston the problem went down in 2 goes. I briefly tried Apocalypse now but couldn't reach the top, it felt ridiculous for 7a+ so we bailed to the pub and had a well earned pint!

Being the idiot I am, I joined in a max intensity 'trying problems beyond your limit' session at the Hangar and found a few spicy pink problems to work on over the next couple of sessions. We finished off with 10 mins of core thanks to Laura's request and I went Ma Hoppo's for an amazing curry.

Friday 17th

Me, Laura and J headed over for a late session at the cave and found it to be fairly busy with strong Dan (a recently arrived local who has moved over from Leeds) there trying Louis Armstrong and looking pretty strong on those undercuts as well as Rich, Duncan and Alex (whom i mistook for Bertie from Beris in my fatigued state!).

I felt shattered warming up on right wall traverse but after a few more problems things felt better. My first go on Pilgrim was ok just failing to get my foot across to the spike. I rested up and then watched Laura almost crush the Right wall reverse into bust lip, falling off going into the last sidepull before the finishing jug!

Go 2 on Pilgrim was an improvement, getting to two pockets and throwing for the flake on R.A. I hoped I could get a bit further today than last session as it now felt steady to there but I was lacking a bit of endurance/strength maybe.

After a proper rest, go number 3 felt much better, I cruised through to the pockets without any mishaps and had something left going for the flake. Sadly I caught it terribly with two fingertips but clung on with a scream, I got my right foot through and left across into the first pocket, I matched the flake block and tried bumping my left hand on properly. My fingers were killing being half on-half off so I just threw out to the sidepull anyway and held on, I stepped my left foot through but the pain on the left fingers was too great and I had to let go.

It was a bit gutting to drop it there as I was quite confident of getting to the last move if I caught the flake but I forgot how much it hurts to not get it properly. It was marked progress from my last session on it, so hopefully it will go soon.

We finished the day off with another Hangar session going around the circuit set for the military comp on Wednesday and the recovery meal of Large fries with large lamb&chicken kebab from the Nile was immense! It will no doubt help me put on a layer of fat to survive a chilly font trip.

It would be nice to get a few things ticked off this trip as I feel in decent shape and have few injuries to speak of. The video camera shutter is currently not opening but hopefully this can be remedied with a stick to hold it open and we can get enough footage to make a short film of all our puntering :)

A rare day of success!

Cave in the afternoon

On a whim, I decided to go to the cave Friday day time before the Stoke bouldering competition even though the forecast was for humidity, rain and no wind.

My psyche clearly rubbed off on Laura who decided to come along for moral support after finishing uni early.

We found the cave quite greasy but fairly busy with a small group of die hard locals and visitors playing on various things.

After warming up slowly I had a decent first go on In Life getting to the two slopers and taking my feet off very easily totally killing any swing but locking off too hard and not being able to rotate my feet round! I hung this position for several seconds before letting go bemused.

After a couple of close attempts Laura managed to get into the high sidepull and then to the glorious high finishing jug on Bust Lip for her first non slab/vert 7A+ tick! It was great to see her trying hard and being seemingly unaware of the possibility of a foot lock staying in above head height should she have failed to grasp the sidepull :)

The second redpoint on In Life saw me grasp the pinch on Left wall but then fall trying to go through to the fingerjug with the holds not feeling very dry. I feared the worst so had a longer rest than usual and fanned air on to them as well as chalk.

Laura tried to get Parisella's original done but couldn't quite hold the foot swing from releasing the heel-toe. Her efforts inspired me to pull my finger out and on the 3rd redpoint I managed to fall into the fingerjug screaming and slap out to the sloper. I scrambled across to the low flake almost falling at every move as my fingers unravelled and arms lost all feeling but thankfully the sanctity of the kneebar rest came just in time!

I didn't hang about too long and got the job done not feeling too bad on the end section and letting out a sigh of relief that I wouldn't have to crawl into the dirt any longer! Joy.

The sending spree gathered momentum and shortly after, Ducko breezed across Rockatrocity making the end look piss and not suffering the fate of many others on that horrid last hand move :)

Comp in the evening

We went directly from the cave to Stoke wall to see Youngy and have a play at the winter bouldering league. I always love going to new indoor walls almost as much as new outdoor venues as change is always a good thing and keeps things interesting.

After feeling pretty heavy on the warm ups I gradually got into things and had managed to flash 21/25 by about 8.30. With an hour left to try the last 4 I had to start resting for long periods of time just to summon the energy to pull on and make more than a couple of moves! I clawed my way to a couple of the bonus holds but fell off a couple I am sure would have been flashed had it not been such a long double day session.

The atmosphere at the comp was really nice and the locals friendly. There was a good bit of banter with the fellow comp hustlers from Stockport and even though I had puntered up at the end, I managed to sneak victory by about 10 points from one of the Stockport crew.

Needless to say after a victory beer, I slept like a corpse!

Build up to font

After my physio sessions and a lot of fairly boring but ultimately back rewarding exercise, I have managed to rebuild my creaking carcass into something approaching a climbing adoni... healthy human being.

OUTSIDE

There have been many visits out on the grit and a welcome return to cave sieging which has been a lot less frequent than in the previous 2 years.

A need to try and broaden my skill base and volume of climbing on different rock has been suggested by others, so I have been giving it a crack and thoroughly enjoyed it so far, even if the warm weather and my recovering back has meant staying away from hard climbing.

I have had a great few days out in the Peak and Yorkshire with the best being a trip to the Cliff after finding midgies and grease at Caley. Andi E put together a good little clip with a classic soundtrack and some nice imagery from home:

http://vimeo.com/31219796

Back in the Cave I've gotten back to the same point as I had just before the wobbly block was pulled out of the roof, falling off with both hands on Left Wall on In Life.

Hopefully it will go soon when temps drop ever so slightly and strength endurance improves!

INSIDE

It has been a fun start to the winter bouldering rounds and I've done ok so far in the Hangar and Awesome Walls ones coming provisionally 2nd in one and 1st in the other. Admittedly the strength of the fields is quite low so the real challenge will be doing well in the first round of the NIBL in a couple weeks time.

There is also a coaching session coming up this weekend with Nige Callendar so I'm hoping to pick up some tips and see what can be improved upon the most to help achieve my goals both immediate and in the future.

FONT

My current mantra is not to push too hard before we head off to font on the 18th November for a week of *fingers crossed* cold and dry weather. It should be both inspiring and dismaying watching Web Parsons/Puccio/Coxsey and Garden warming up on personal projects but I'm just looking forward to being there and getting some classics done. Amazingly, I haven't written up a detailed list of problems for a change... and I'll see how going with the flow works out when we get there.