Saturday 6th Nov
I had a great weekend down in Cardiff with Owen visiting his family and watching Wales take on a sprightly Australia side who had a terrible pack but were fantastic to watch on the attack!
My choice for MoM definitely goes to the Mexican assassin who was lightning, full of trickery and nearly scored an amazing solo try from just over halfway.
In action!
We went out for a lovely Japanese meal in the evening and had a good nights sleep ready to destroy Dinas Rock in the morning.
Sunday 7th Nov
The drive through the valleys was beautiful with a cold chill in the air and the sun rising up, slowly bringing some warmth to the day.
The rock at Dinas looked nice and solid with some good lines but sadly, every single problem we had in mind to try was suffering from heavy seepage from the cracks up above, so any effort to dry holds became futile.
Kev and Liam showed us where things went and we had a coffee break to see if the sun would be able to help out. We got back about 45 mins later and it was getting no better due to clouds coming over, so headed to Boulders in Cardiff instead.
There was a mini comp on, so we joined in for the day and really enjoyed the circuit of 30 comp problems. The whites were all easy and very well set as were most of the blacks bar a couple.
I was having major greasy skin problems on a couple of the harder ones 28, 29 and 30, so had a break and pottered about on some off circuit stuff. I managed to get 29 using toe hook, skipping two holds and a massive span compression to the volume. I walked my hands up the edge and held the swing to get both hands on top of the finishing hold in control.
Problem 30 had spat me off earlier on in the session on my 1 attempt. So I wasn't expecting to get much further after 4 hours in there. With the heaters now on full blast above the bouldering area and the strict tops off policy it was truly tropical but I managed to get through the bottom really easily and then snatch the finishing hold by going left hand over the top and holding the flag position before matching, a great problem.
We had to leave soon after so I didn't get back on to 28, which would have been ok save for greasing violently off earlier on. The vertical wall black 24 was nails and i'd love to see how its done.
Monday 8th Nov
Myself, Mark, Sean and Sam headed over to the Depot to have a try of the new comp wall area and the British team training black circuit problems.
I felt pretty battered from yesterday but managed to slowly warm up without having the usual shooting pains in both arms I used to get from 2 days on. The stop off at Asda to eat Southern Fried chicken from the hot counter was a bad shout and I felt a bit ill trying to climb! The thing I like most about the depot is the cold temperature compared to other walls, which means it suffers far less from grease issues.
To sum it up, the new comp wall is a good angle and the blacks were fierce. After getting a bit of a shut down, me and Sean just went around and tried to do the yellows instead which were good fun if you stayed away from the crimpy horrors.
I think by the end of our 5~ hour session I had climbed at least another 40-50 problems after the 40 the day before. Thats more than I did in 3 trips to font this year compressed into two sessions!
Tuesday 9th Nov
On the Monday drive back from Leeds, we had been informed that the new bouldering section at Liverpool was open, so agreed to have an afternoon rock scaling session on Tuesday.
As it turned out, I had a session with Dave and Jay as Sean was too busy playing Black Ops or sleeping. The new barrel roof is very good indeed and the problems up to v6 were nice and reasonable. Then suddenly the Black V7 was about 5 grades harder than any of the 6s. Either that or 3rd day on had taken its toll. I struggled to do more than 4 moves of what is an 8 move problem so moved on to the white and green. I got to the last move on the flash of the white but couldn't figure out how to get the last hold. I imagine it was set to put your foot inside your hand and lock in with your knee above your ear?! I eventually managed this after climbing 3 moves in to it but not from the start. The green was ok in 2 halves but I was way too gone to link it in 1.
I've felt pitifully weak in the Depot and Liverpool over the last 2 days so hopefully it is just the body getting accustomed to multiple sessions back to back, as V7 shouldn't be an issue but seemed to be the living end.
I'll probably fit another session this week, then rest up for Sunday where weather permitting, we will get out on grit and get schooled by Dolph!
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