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 :)