Saturday
Our party was 13 strong and the weather didn't disappoint with clear blue skies, bright sun and decent conditions at Talfarach. The walk in was nowhere near as bad as I had been expecting but the often shocking landings lived up to reputation.
The problems at Talfarach were spread around a fair bit, so we just took our time picking off the classics such as Cream Seam, Billy Boy Arete, Roger the Cabin Boy, Solace Arete, Bardsey Blues and some slab I didn't bother with but found most amusing when Andy fish head flashed it and "slab beast" Hatton took 3 attempts! :)
The highlight was unexpectedly doing Solace arete after wanting to try it for ages (having viewed it on the excellent Aquamarine) and flashing Bardsey Blues was an unexpected bonus.
Sunday
After a great stew & dumplings made by Stu on Saturday night and plenty of Vino, Sunday was destined to be another relaxed affair. Due to me opting for the 3 attempts or sack approach on Saturday, I had plenty of skin to spare for the expected beasting at Ysgo. I have returned back to Liverpool often wondering about my abject failure to climb anything of note (indeed, 6C+ was my uttermost limit save for the soft touch that is Howling Hound!).
After a very short warmup and getting spanked on Higginson Scar Righthand, I was expecting another day of disappointment, when Rich told me to go flash the sitter to Perrin's Blind crack at 7A/+. I doubted his judgement on my ability in scaling gabbro but gave it a quick look all the same and to my great surprise it went down with ease. It felt a bit soft but proved the catalyst as I ran back over to the direct sitter to Jones' eliminate that me, Ben and Holger were working on, taped up the right hand and got it crushed in a couple more tries for a bottom end 7B.
Next up was a look at the sitter to Truth, I remember watching Hatton and Andy J having a right battle with it a year ago and I wasn't expecting to do much better myself. These thoughts were confirmed when I failed to get matched on the slopers on my first 5 attempts. Rich was finding it similarly hard going and lacking in psyche, until I caught the match and then couldn't move to slap up to the ledges of the standup. He rebooted and gave it another go, then we saw dark clouds coming from the sea and a cold breeze picked up. I was in the process of putting my trainers on but couldn't resist one last go as it had dropped a couple of degrees.
I nearly slipped off the first move but just about held the right sloper, the left heel came up high and close and I opened my hip obscenely wide and cranked like hell on it. Feeling a perfect moment of balance, my left hand slapped and stuck in the perfect place and I managed to pull in on both hands with relative ease, locking in my left and slapping right hand into the huge jug in the ledge. I was suprised and elated, having thought the problem beyond my current capabilities, what a nice end to the day..or was it?
I ran over to see what everyone else was doing. It turned out they were on a crap popcorn party look-a-like! Ben saw me coming and laughed as he ran with a pad to my most long term nemesis problem in the UK (I had been spanked for 3 sessions on Foam Party, an apparently soft 7A!?). As he predictably pissed it, I gained crucial toe hook beta for the Right foot during the pull on. I thought what the hell, booted up and dispatched it like I had it wired all along. What a bad punter I am. This proved to be the icing on a pretty great weekend of climbing some fine problems with good friends.
Fast forward to Tuesday and I had just returned to Awful Walls from a mingingly wet Orme for a board session with Pete and O. After having done one of Pete's problems, I was trying a weird eliminate when I went for a big slap and my righthand middle and ring fingers cammed in a pocket and made it flex off the board, it hurt like HELL! There were no audible cracks or snaps but I knew something was awry.
The next day, I was having a light session indoors when I noticed my ring finger felt really tight and swollen, I brought an early end to the session and after another hour there was a large tender lump on the outside of my middle joint on the ring finger. Damn.
So today, I have been leaving my hand in a bucket of ice water and taking a lot of ibuprofen to see if I can help speed recovery from whatever the hell I have done. It hurts to try and straighten the finger too much and also feels swelled when closing. Climbing is off the agenda for Friday and possibly all weekend until I can get rid of this lump and swelling. Not sure what to do rehab wise other than rest for now :(
I think there is a lot of truth in what Owen and Holger told me about resting when you feel you are nearing a "climbing peak or strong phase" so that your body can repair and then you will return in even better shape (although the temptation to keep trying to push forward is hard to resist when you have a free weekend!).
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