Good Temps and Progress on one Front!

Sunday 1st Feb

Well it has been freezing cold the last 2 weeks. Me, O and Mike decided to make the most of good temps and a -10 windchill to get out in the pass and Ogwen recently, for a day of circuiting and cleaning up some old bugbears/nemesi'.

The day started off with a short hike down the road and a river crossing that saw Owen up to his ankles in freezing cold river water within 3 minutes of leaving the car... harsh but funny!

We warmed up on the dash block and made quick flashes of the supposed v6 dash traverse (maybe 4 at a push!), I was testing out some new 5.10 5X's and was most impressed with how comfortable they felt after only breaking them in at the wall a couple days beforehand. We warmed up further on Fear of a Slopey Planet and before sending it for the first time, O managed to jump off the block straight through some frozen turf and down into the mud to coat his Dragons in a nice layer of brown insulation! The man has consistency ;)

Over to an embarassing long term project of mine (on a par with Foam Party before it was recently vanquished), and Mike managed an impressive onsight of Boysen's Roof SS utilising his massive wingspan to reach a good RH hold from sitting. I had tried this sticking hands in crack only for about 3 sessions and had no success, as soon as I tried this other method I nearly got the retro flash but failed high up on easy ground with a foot pop. I put the Solutions on and got it next go.

We went over the road to Jerry's Wall and I finally managed the standup (got shut down when I came up here last year on a solo mission). I think the confidence of having a spotter and not being able to feel the sharpness of what I was crimping were big factors! The sitter was in the bag shortly after, before we became hypothermic (we had to keep rotating the person who stood on the pad to prevent it blowing away down the pass, with one person cowering behind the boulder to thaw out again!)

After a short trip into Beris for Owen to buy dry socks and some hot food, we made a short drive to Ogwen and up to Gallt Yr Ogof. I was keen for smackhead and quickly became dismayed at its difficulty at v8. Mike pointed out a quality dyno to the right (which is the standup to Smackhead RH). It took a while to work out what hand to go with and I eventually held on going lefthand to top of the block in a full cut loose... what an amazing move.

As me and Owen cowered out of the wind next to Smackhead, we heard an almighty scream as Mike celebrated topping out Sway On with no witnesses! ;) Owen was getting close to the dyno but soon had to leave as Hoobie had been vomiting from the sheer cold and had begun to dig himself a grave to crawl into and die in! I managed to do Smackhead in 2 halves twice but kept struggling to link the right foot step through into last move. I can't wait to go back and finish it off as it is a great set of moves.

Saturday 7th Feb

Back to my favourite venue on Earth and I was once again reaquainted with the current bane of my climbing existence in Lou Ferrino. Thankfully it was a better session than last time. First go and I was matched on the ramp pressing out to the first drilled pocket when my I stabbed high with my hand above and missed it! The next 2 attempts reached the same stage but were a bit sloppy with a couple cut loose moments and having to readjust on several holds. I was just happy to be feeling strong and locked into the problem again at last, as I could repeatedly link it in 2 overlaps. The cave soon got too busy for my liking and I hated the feeling of being watched by 20+ people waiting for me to fail and get out of their way!

Me and O escaped to the box and were soon joined by Ted who is a thoroughly nice guy and helped point out some problems to go at including Jack Daniels Connection which took me a fair few goes to work out how to hold the RH as you throw/lock to the shield hold. It did succumb to persistence and I was chuffed to have finally done a new problem at the pillbox... they only get harder from here on in! D:

Ted looked in great form crushing the sitter to Last Rites with complete ease and not long after he linked Jack Daniels into Aint no Party... a mighty fine spell of crimping!

Sunday 8th Feb

To cap off a prouctive weekend, I met up with Dave, Holger and Pete Chadwick at the Venue we are building in Liverpool. I posted a few photos a while back of the current board which was very small and obviously limited training wise.

Well... we finally got things moving again after Pete and Holger sorted out a load of wood to build some framework and the 4 of us got a whole new board put up by the afternoon. It is another thing of beauty, not quite as wide as the Dispensary board but the same in height and without a kickboard to utilise its full length and make the climbing start as soon as you pull on! :) I think it is roughly 12ft wide by 13ft high and somewhere between 45 and 50 degrees. All we need now is a ton of holds and bolts.

I'm off down there today to start crafting some wooden ones to save on the expenditure!

A great weekend away but more injury woes

Having just got over a ligament strain in my hand caused by cutting loose on a warm up problem on the 18th, I had rested all week for Si's weekend trip to the Lleyn.

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!).

Shutdown

Went to the cave yesterday in spite of me wanting to focus on training week part 2, session 1 as I couldn't resist the chance to get back on Lou Ferrino regardlesss of the cave or my own physical condition.

I felt heavy, just about linked the first section once and struggled like hell to catch any hold properly all day long! A lesson needs to be learned, but I am not sure whether it is avoiding vino the night before, resting properly during the week... or not neglecting going to the cave for so long again!

Hopefully it will still be dryable on Tuesday night for session 2 of '09. Will be staying off the booze and get plenty of sleep between now and then!

A Good start to the Year and training

I hope everyone else had a good time over Christmas and the New Year. I have managed a couple of trips out in Jan already, mainly to The Peak again but also to an old favourite of mine Trowbarrow!

The first day out in 09 was a resounding success with me, Dave and Matty D descending on the Shelter Stone to pay homage to the G.

Dave made some good ground and opened up some new beta for himself on Texas Hold em whilst Matt had a play on Vitruvian. I couldn't resist trying to pull on to the Pit Problem after failing to leave the ground well over a year ago. This time it was in the bag in about 10 minutes and I simpy had to try the sit moves.

I had tried it well over a year ago with Dave on a rainy day, dynoing from low down to the high RH edge in a wild fashion with an extremely low percentage catch (Big O McShane had somehow linked this move on his successful ascent a long time ago which was basically climbing 7C the 7C+/8A way). After giving this a couple of goes I tried to actually 'climb' it and after discovering a micro LF bump under the roof, I could hit the edge and make the heel-toe stay in.

It took a few failed slaps to the edge and a short coffee & banana break to unleash on the stone and it went down next try. Moved on to Vitruvian but kept greasing violently off the LH pinch when holding the RH sidepull catch. I think the rest looks steady, and have made a mockup of the moves on the new board in order to try and recruit the movement style (the plan is obviously to go back and dispatch when conditions are deemed grippy).

We moved on to Woodwell and a reaquaintance with old friends in the shape of Screaming Slave RH and LH. The Righthand went down ok with all the rules obeyed and it was good. Left hand wasn't happening with a dismaying amount of dampness/grease on it. Owen managed to link Art of in 2 halves and Mike was making pretty impressive progress on Kaizen considering the fairly poor to mediocre conditions!

With the weather going from cold and amazing to warmer and wetter I have kick started the indoor programme again (inspired by watching Lore's beastly feats and to payback the guru's great planning in the form of some achieving). Week 1 has almost finished and I will probably resist the call of the cave this weekend in order to stick to the programme letter by letter. Staying focused now, will hopefully lead to greater things in March and beyond.

A Westie Day and the end of 08

The last week of '08 has been a good one, with multiple trips outside in great weather with a variety of characters from Merseyside and further afield from exotic places such as Derby, Rotherham and The Valleys of South Wales!

Friday 26th

Trip 1 was a strange Boxing Day morning out to Craig Y Longridge with The Mills and Donnelly, quite a strong crimping team to let loose on such a venue. As we approached the village we noticed the speed cameras had been wrapped up in christmas paper with a fancy bow on top, most quaint! We did a few laps of some random country roads until Matt had some sort of clarity of mind and remembered where to go!

On arrival, it was cold as anything, I decided to drink coffee whilst Matt and Tom started doing shuttle runs along the crag in a synchronised effort. This spurred me into action and I managed a lap there and back before being out of breath... strong start (I really will have to address this cardio issue next year)

The warmup was frantic and powerful, doing big moves between lots of juggy crimps and then moving on to the real action. It took about 6 goes to do the first hard warmup problem of the Gauntlet, a reet sandbag at V5. Big Marine got a quick crush using 2 different methods and then Fertile Delta got the flash treatment, nice. We contrived a sequence for the sitter and myself or Matt really should have finished it off when going for the 2nd to last move into the gaston but the sun was making everything a little greasy.

We finished shortly after failing to reach the first hold on some jump problem (we tried stacking 4 pads and still failed to make this Olympian reach!). Maybe some form of NBA 40inch standing jumps would have been of use?!

On the way back we were accosted by Longridge's finest local ladies dressed as Disney characters, with a charity bucket in 1 hand and a pint in the other, classy! We quickly slung a fake £1 coin into said bucket (that we had aquired from the Mersey Tunnel toll) and sped down the road just catching the sound of shocked cries behind us, of having been tricked by a car of strong scouse crushers.
Around the corner, there were many more of these charity collectors diving into the road trying to halt our escape to Merseyside and Matt pulled off some fine manouevers to aid us in getting the hell out of this strange place.

Sunday 28th

On Sunday, I returned to my nemesis venue of the plantation with Hitman and Mark the Builder. The goal was to achieve something of note and it didn't take long! There was another rapid warmup on the pebble ticking off some fine eliminates and then having a full on whitey on the far left arete next to the rampline, that gets 6b/+ but feels like certain death if you were to barn door off! We moved up to Green Traverse as I wanted practice in the dark arts of topping out. The Green slap got dispatched in 2 goes and then the direct mantle round the corner (where the Full Green starts from) took a much greater effort... 6b!?! My shoulders were pretty gammy after that one but I felt ready to tackle Twister once again.

First attempt it got cruised to the topout ledge and once again much failure to get that belly over! I slid down on to the pads to the disbelief of the Hitman and laughter from little Hoppo. I threw the toys out the proverbial pram, got psyched and then crushed it to pieces next try. A wave of relief was the result and we could move on to greater things.

Brass Monkeys was in great nick and first attempt saw me past the crux swing, heel on and hand hovering over the jug on the lip when everything popped and I felt way too tired to try again. Try I did... but no success with much bloodshed and 2 split tips!
We ran up the hill to check out Help The Young and the psyche was instantly back. it took a couple goes to make the first move to the edge but after that it was steady to the end, with ascents from myself, Hitman and Si. What a stunning line. It climbs as good as it looks and went straight into my top 5 favourite grit problems.

With light fading, we headed to Satin and Pressure Drop with about 12 pads. I said it looked piss, so had the honour of going first to show what not to do! Luckily I had found Si's right foot Gallileo (that he had lost on Tuesday) on the anvil as you leave the car park, which happened to make a perfect pair with my only current flat shoe. I did some weird sequence going left foot over the lip instead of right and boning so hard on those crimps that a minor slip would have resulted in much pain and skin loss. Thankfully everything stuck and I found myself grasping the break and shuffling off to the side almost feeling like a grit technician but knowing deep down that no delicate footwork was really involved!

Tuesday 30th

A large crowd of us headed to Cratcliffe yesterday morn to meet up with Mike from Rotherham and Kev from The Valleys (Not Pembroke! ;)). High on the agenda was either Jerrys Traverse or T crack - two problems that had evaded many attempts on my last few visits. After the warmup on the top boulders the arms felt ready for action, so I made the decision to get on that traverse and lay it to rest. First go, my hand was on the jug at the end and then a heavy foot dab brought things to a halt. There was blood everywhere on the rock, holds, my pants, chalk...etc but the psyche was on. After a quick heckle over at the egg, I returned and swiftly dispatched opting for the far left hand exit which felt fantastic... finally.

Down in the woods we had a quick team ascent of Brain Dead arete, a very aesthetic line with good holds and steady moves all the way.

The team moved on to Rowtor expecting a quiet scene and it was rammed with many fellow punters and what seemed to be some sort of dog owners collective. After a brief walk around, I got sucked into just trying Quine as it seemed perfectly suited with a large shoulder press and a drop knee, with a bit of a pop at the end to a good hold (provided you caught it perfectly). The first couple of goes were promising, almost managing to do it totally static to the lip but just falling short by an inch or 2. There were about 5 different ticks on the lip to make it a bit more confusing than it already was and after thinking I had it sussed I began trying about 3 or 4 different methods resulting in equal failure. It eventually got too dark to continue and the left shoulder had long since given up the press, so we headed back home to Merseyside, Rotherham and South Wales tired but hopefully grateful of another fine day of weather!

2008 Was a good year for myself in terms of getting outside and having a wonderful trip to Italy with such nice hospitable people like Lore, Val, Roberto, Geovanni and Sabrina looking after us! I think the turning point (in terms of my climbing) has to be returning from Italy destitute and getting a training program off the guru which helped to see me through a good month and a half of indoor climbing and work. The gains made were clear to see when I returned outdoors in October and ticked off many old nemesis problems amongst new ones and broke through more grade boundaries than in the previous 2 years.

I can't wait for 2009 and getting stuck into my hitlist of 10 problems before recommencing the Guru's fine programme when the weather inevitably craps out around January/February. I hope everyone out there is as eager as me to get off to a good start in the new year and make the most of current conditions!

Stanage..or Burbage...Burbage or Stanage

Well in the end we went for Stanage seeing as the hills were entirely blanketed in a fine mist of minging proportions. It was looking like the Works might become a likelihood as opposed to a fallback option as we approached the Plantation.

On arriving we hung around hoping for someone else to go up first and return with news of conditions, to avoid a fruitless walk-in but alas the only other people in the car park sacked it to Cratcliff, so we padded up and commited to the epic.

The rock was surprisingly dryish with just a few places feeling a little slippery but on the whole decent. Being a regular gritstone technician I had come well equipped with 3 pairs of toe down boots, perfect for the cave but maybe not my current predicament... So after a brief warm up I failed to repeat Deliverance and decided to get on everything that overhung in someway and didn't involve luck based padding up slabs!

First up was Captain Hook that felt ok until I smashed my shin in the roof trying to do a wide leg clamp and I sacked it over to Twister on the back of the Pebble. Mike came over and helped me work out the moves as he hadn't done it in a while. After working the sequence and latching the top to the left of the boss I proceeded to thrash about like a dying seal and with the heckles of a 15 strong crowd willing me downwards I slid off on to the mats below.
It took another 3 attempts to redpoint the top out and after resting I couldn't link it again, feeling a bit battered and more keen to get over to Brass Monkeys.

Me, O and Mike went over and had it padded out enough, to not feel like broken limbs were a likely outcome if you were to fly off backwards. It took a short while to work out how to hold the swing and get over the lip. The bottom section was ok but it took a while to stop trying a variety of poor ideas and just clamp hard on the right heel instead of draping it, in order to free the hand and top out scarily. I must have spent at least a minute stood on the arete working out which bit of green moss and lichen to sketch up on! Having done it in 2 halves it just remained to link it but I was just feeling a full on body shutdown and decided to wait for a stronger day.

We ended the day up near Silk willing ben up but he was sketching about on the smeary left foot rockover crux. Me, O and Dave had a go on the 'cortomaltese' of Stanage with Help the Aged, what a terrible line! It really capped off a day of trying and failing on mostly obscure a-technical problems.

It was a bit of a weird day really, nice to be out with some mates, but left feeling underwhelmed by the plantation yet again. I think the best policy is go warmup, crush your project and get out of there to save skin and sanity.

A New Era of Injury

Is about to commence on Merseyside!

Early days and lots of potential (space).