Trips Up North

Over the last few weeks I've been fortunate enough to get weekends free of work and made the most of it with 2 trips up North.

Shelterstone & Bowderstone

I went to the Bowderstone a few months earlier to try and climb XXXX on the back of this amazing supersized pebble but came away empty handed not quite managing to hold the final dynamic leap to the lip. With batteries recharged, a dry forecast and plenty of motivation to start getting things done on the ever evolving goals for 2012 list, we sped up North stopping off at Trowbarrow to break up the journey and for Laura to try Shallow Grave.

Needless to say, this slightly leaning wall of crimps proved to be within her skillset with a brief warmup, a few false starts, moans and then an impressively static lock to the high finishing jug!

Upon reaching the Shelterstone we met Tom 'the nicest man in climbing' Sugden and keen to do something new, he pointed me at Vitruvian Man RH. Instead of my desperate face-on, no toe hook method, I gave the toehook a shot and the move went down first go! Surprised... I kind of forgot what I was doing and fell off. Attempt 2 saw it go down for a nice bonus tick.

I had watched a couple of videos of Iron Man and realised my old beta was whack. I got into the starting holds of Vitruvian first attempt but managed to punter the footswap to get the toe hook in and fell here twice before calling a stop to it to save some gas.

This early halt to action seemed to help the next day as I warmed up repeating a few things on the ladder face feeling very fresh, whilst Laura ran between Picnic, Statstick and the Crack Superdirect not being sure which she was closest to doing.

I warmed up on the moves on XXXX and then dropped the lip twice on redpoint due to messing about with my feet and hence losing the flow I needed to set up and hit the jump with more power and efficiency.

I had a good rest and then pulled on as a group of tourists brandishing cameras and no doubt armed with 'witty' 1 liners closed in from the side about to walk right under me, Laura gave them a death glance of which I was totally unawares as I was already completely absorbed in the amazing reachy sequence. This time everything just seemed to stick and needed little readjustment. I caught the lip a bit lower than I had been hoping for but a trademark yelp seemed to both help stay in contact and squeeze the core into action. I went into autopilot again, rotating to get the toe hooks on and bounce the hand on to what is a massive hold and effectively the problem in the bag! I took my time topping out making sure not to be a total punter and had finally done something worth writing about this year!

Northumberland

I went up a couple of weekends ago with Mark and Helen and despite mixed weather we had a great few days ticking through lots of volume and exploring some new venues.

The trip highlight was definitely climbing A Northern Soul at Hepburn. It really is a king line by UK standards and would not be out of place in Cuvier Rempart. The rock is immaculate, the line both aesthetic and obvious, with the crux at the top and a nice flat landing far below!

I didn't manage or attempt anything hard all trip but it was nice to be out getting a lot of mileage in and a few fun problems at the same time such as Thundering Apoplexy at Back Bowden and The Flying Scotsman at Kyloe In.

Sorry for a lack of photos, there are a couple on Youngy's blog I think. I can however, promise a bit of footage covering both trips as well as some South Lakes action which will all be bunged on to an early summer puntering video in the near future.