Portland trip and a return to the Orme

I've had a great last couple of weeks that began the weekend before last with me sitting at home with my hand in a bucket of ice on Thursday speaking to O about being unsure as to whether to go with him and Mike to Portland! After a brief chat I decided to go along for the craic and to maybe take some photos.

Friday 20th
The weather in Portland was fantastic when we drove down to the isle and after dropping the gear at the plush bunkhouse (a former masonic lodge that had power showers en suite in every room!) we headed the New Cuttings and Mike obviously dispatched Guy Fawkes in horrendous conditions. I was getting the full shutdown with the tweaky wrist injury trying to warm up on hard v5/6's but seemed to get on ok with Stomping with Bez direct start, apart from greasing all over the crimps when spanning out right to the rib. Mike was doing ok but fighting conditions on the woeful line of LH crimps on My Chemical Romance and decided to leave it till the next day. We realised after we packed up and crawled up the small hill/terrace that we couldn't see more than 30ft as we had been climbing in a heavy mist..nice

Saturday 21st
The next day dawned sunny and hot, tops off weather on the boulderfield was the action and what a pleasant surprise. I didn't even know there was a boulderfield when I agreed to go down (assuming it was just vertical wall climbing) and was relieved to get on some compression and non tweaky slopers! The problems are of the highest quality with many hidden gems dotted around. We were impressed by Lightning Strike and Liquid Sunshine in particular. There was so much to get on, everyone managed to tick over 20 problems and felt destroyed by the end. Mike obviously still had some gas left in the tank as he went up to the Crag and got MCR crushed in a few attempts! Machine.

Sunday 22nd
Sunday was a more slow paced day with a return to the boulderfield and an aching team finding the warmup hard going. I was chuffed to get the flash on Hope Slide, what a fantastic couple of moves and definitely worth the near bushwack to the Jungle boulder. After that we hit the Cavity Search Roof and after some vision on the shared start I quickly got the 3 main lines and we went over to tick the tank block. After that it was straight to find a hidden gem in Collo Della Terra, i offereed to go first instead of sharking the beta and did a dynamic right hand finish on the flash which was ok but maybe not the problem! After realising I had just dfone the V6 RH line, I got back on it and got the flash on the main event snatching out left to a series of rough but positive crimps and a lovely bit of Right heel action allows access to the big slopey jug up and right on the arete. What a problem to finish on :)
We finished the weekend with an amazing Cream Tea and a long drive back up North. I'll definitely be going back to get on the meatier problems when not hampered with injury.

Return to the Awful
On returning I felt pretty broken so had 3 days off and then a short session on Thursday to see how the hand was (pretty bad still!). By Friday night I was about to sack the Orme with Matt but decided to go and maybe try left wall traverse as I could probably handle that and have never got round to really trying it.

Saturday 28th
When we got there, the amazingly sticky feeling of the cave told me it would be too good an opportunity to waste and we ran up to Clutch and back, then up the hill above the cave and back down. A thorough theraband routine and warmup ensued for at least 20 minutes and I felt amazing.

Decided to have a warmup go on Lou Ferrino in the warmup shoes and without brushing anything and I suddenly found myself with my Left hand in the last pocket and right hand going over to the finish slot only to shake off sapped of energy and with a bit of a flash pump! Shit, should I have tried harder? Had I wasted the chance of the day! A couple more goes didn't go down so well as we tried to get a little video..etc but I can't seem to climb anything when I know it's being filmed so asked for nothing to be videod. Sam Hamer arrived and had a really good go using some west sequence that looked so unefficient and powerful that it got me psyched to try a bit harder and I flowed through the next try feeling about 125% stronger! The press out to the pocket just happened, my feet cut loose but got put straight back on and I sketched my way to the match and let out a little shout of sheer relief and joy.

It's been great to get Lou done without resorting to any real training other than getting out climbing a lot and resting loads! It shows that I can get up things when things conspire to go right like avoiding getting injured and the weather being ok. I can't wait to get back and start playing on Trigger Cut and get the main 3 things I wanted to do done in there :)

Roll on March!