Fatneck's Birthday Bash 2010

Sat 30th Jan

We had a good laugh this weekend with around 20 people cramming into some vehicles and hitting the Ysgo hard. Sadly we went from blue skies and sunshine into a tempest of freak weather.

It was snowing at Sea level covering the boulders and then melting instantly to make it a bit tricky to climb anything. This happened on and off for a few hours while we chilled and finally got some climbing in with about 2 hours of daylight left.

Dolph was working the Fred Nicole project which looked ok from a distance but clearly brick hard when you actually feel the holds and positions that are required to link said holds!

Me and the Maskell beast were a bit gutted about Tide of Dreams being soaking wet and off the menu as we didn't have much else to get on with.

There were some good ascents of problems with Smooth Pete crushing Perrins Blind crack from a sitter and Ben show ponying his way up Incredible shaking man with immaculate technique ;)

It was nice to repeat these sitters and also Truth sds. It was great to see Jamie and Gruff there and especially to see Jamie utterly piss Truth (the first time I have ever seen him complete a boulder problem, clearly the Mill training is paying off!)

An old nemesis was also retro flashed, the spectacular Really Cool Toys from a shitter. What a line.

Sat Evening

We went the Chippy in Abersoch and had what can only be described as whales in batter on a sea of chips. it was nice and greasy and helpd absorb the pints from next door.

Back to the bunkhouse and it mostly involved eating chocolate, drinking vino and playing with Lego as well as crushing Fatneck's crossword (despite having to correct some atrocious spelling errors from previous attemptees).

Sun 31st Jan

We got up very hungover on the whole and watched it rain and hail for a good couple of hours. Most of them decided to risk the ysgo whilst team psyche went to check Elephantitus. As we drove through thick blizzards it was clearly not going to be an option (at the risk of benightment), so we continued to Llandudno.

We got some smacky food at the Asda as well as strong £8 lumberjack coats and went for some scran at a local cafe that had horrible 70's faded pink wallpaper with flowers on. It was all very league of gentlemen inside and it was a relief to make it out to the cave and back to sanity.

I kept going white but decided to punish the body more and climb it out the system. The warmup went well and before I knew it, I was eyeing up the finishing hold on In Hell only for my left hand to slide off wet after picking up a loadon the wet undercut pinch. Gutted but also amazed I fell to my knees and dry heaved a bit before calming down.

I'm psyched out my mind that In Hell is already a possible next sessioner (avoiding being 2nd day on with shit skin and a hangover and it could go well!)

At Last!

This week has been the highlight of 2010 so far with Monday's cave session ending in success on Pit of Hell after so many failures to get both hands matched on that uneven slot.

Sunday 24th Jan

The weather was dire and looked ripe for condensation on the coast, so myself, Mark and the Gibbon headed to Tom Sugden's City Block in Leeds. First impressions are that it is a bit underwhelming when compared to walking into the Depot but after an hour of circuiting we found the problems were excellent. The setting is equal to that of anywhere I have been and will definitely be going back.

Next visit I will avoid trying to do all of the greys, yellows, greens..etc before attempting the Salmon World Cup problems as I found them utterly desperate after doing ~50 problems beforehand!

Monday 25th

Ken rang me up on Sunday evening and was psyched to get out. I had intended to rest feeling a bit tired from The City Block day but thought I may as well go the cave with him and potter about.

To my surprise I managed Pit of Hell relatively quickly and had plenty of energy in the tank at the end which is no doubt a result of doing many, many failed laps.

I had said at the start of the year I would only treat myself to my wine rack for each 8a tick, but rather than getting stuck in when home, I decided to put it on ice until Tuesday eve.

Tuesday 26th

I went back to the cave the next day with Dave Pinnington (aka Smiley Dave) and we had a decent workout, as the cave was in even better nick than Monday.

Dave got to the end of Pit of Hell but didn't quite manage the match due to him losing his finishing sequence a few times (something I sorted out only on the last go of my previous session!).

I thought it would probably be wise to look for a distraction from anything heading into rockatrocity...

I had a couple of brief attempts on Cave Life but found that my skin was too thin when matched and getting my feet across. My hands just kept making the holds go black and I kept sliding off in frustration. Third day on Crouch skin is probably up there with the worst in terms of butter production!

Seeing as everything else was pretty much out, it was back to sitting in the dirt at the In Hell/Life start. I have managed to get through to the RA start a couple of times before but never found it particularly easy. Being tired after no rest for 2 days previous, I didn't expect much and was quite relieved to find it ok, doing 3 laps into RA one after the other with short rest times. I was worried about getting a bit weak lately by just doing laps on a long problem and no real strength training.

If I can get it in the bag this year it would amazing and hopefully it won't suffer the downgrade anytime soon. It would be great to go up another grade on last year but also finish this line of resitance out from the back of the cave and improve as a climber so I can get on things in Magic Wood this summer and not feel unworthy of trying them.

Next weekend

This weekend coming should be a good laugh as there is a 20 strong crowd of Merseysiders and friends heading to the Ysgo for Si's annual birthday bash. I went a couple of weeks ago with Ben and Ken, so ticked off what I wanted to get done already, meaning this should be quite relaxed unless the temps are good and I get psyched to try Tide of Dreams. Hopefully Dolph can provide the beta first hand and my skin will withstand more than a couple of goes!

Cold Snap

I'm sure everyone else has been enjoying getting out a lot over the winter period... apart from the fact it has to be cave based or at the Churnet to find rock with dry finishing holds!


Jumping about at the Churnizzle!

It may be a new year but the goals remain pretty much the same... get strong as hell and try and finish of things below my limit that are taking an age to box off.

Pit of Hell has been dragging on to the point that it is boring to climb it and drop the last move 15+ times in a week, so a break may be needed to try some other things and then go back to it once the temperature gauge changes back in to positive numbers!


A bit of failure is good for the soul??

http://www.vimeo.com/8413501 is an amusing little number of one of the closer attempts going dismayingly wrong .

I've updated my goals/aims for the year and they largely reside in a certain polished limestone roof which is fortunate with our less than stable climate.

Things I am psyched for this year are:

- Sorting a car
- Going to Fatneck's Birthday Bash at the end of Jan
- Visiting Tan Y Grisiau
- Going to Font in March
- Going to Switzerland/Italy in Summer
- Fluking an 8A+ anywhere would be nice (more likely in Switzerland!)
- Ticking half the Hit List!

Hope anyone reading this diatribe had a good Christmas period and saw in the new Year without as viscious a hangover as I took to the cave on Friday. Whiteying in the car under a pile of duvet jackets whilst others crush on cold, dry lime is not my idea of fun.

p.s. Went to the Depot again today, what a fucking amazing place. I can't fault it other than the fact it took 2 hours to get blood circulating in my feet today! Keen to go back and crush a certain orange problem that was crypt-like perfection on every move.

Nothing much going down!

It has been a fairly uneventful last few weeks since the excellent trip to Bude in October.

I've left my part time job in Cotswolds for what will hopefully prove a more enjoyable one working for the new V12 shop in the Liverpool climbing Wall. It should be good to finally have a decent outlet for crushing apparel and equipment without having to make a mission over to Beris!

I've finally got my driving theory test out the way too after having turned up fully psyched only to have forgotten the paper counterpart and told I'd lost £30 and had to rebook it and pay a further £20 if I couldn't find the bit of paper! Luckily it was found and the test was fairly easy when I got in there.

It will be a grim few weeks of having to actually work a lot to afford finishing off the lessons required and getting the practical done, which will no doubt prove tougher than the multiple choice touchscreen.

I've had a few nice trips out on the grit getting some good problems like the Keel, Underhand and Brass Monkeys all ticked off in a session each (having played on them in the past). I don't think I have developed any grit feel as such, just an aptitude for overpowering steep things! I was probably most psyched to tick off an old nemesis from last year in Syrett's Roof which used to feel desperate, then was suddenly piss when I tried it in non greasy conditions :)

This leaves 1 true grit nemesis problem left in the shape of T Crack! I feel I am ok in arm strength/campus wise and generally climb 90% of the time in roofs so really can't understand the problem with this. It's been well over a year since I went on it, so hopefully the next visit will bear fruit and I can get over the road to Robin Hood's for Ben's Wall which looks good and definitely doable.


The cave has been a bit hit and miss over the last month, Cave Life went down really easily from the flake and the wobbly jug but I kept puntering it up with my feet and hands on left wall, so switched attentions back to Pit of Hell. First go back on this and I was yet again dropping the finishing slot.... then gradually going backwards again by not getting the flake right off the pockets and greasing off the wet 3rd pocket and undercut which seems to have developed a permanent river down it.

Today myself and 6 other keen Merseysiders went down on John's advice via Doylo's beta and it was a fairly bad call as after the first hour of climbing around the wet bits it all started to condense out as we were consumed inside a maelstrom of shit!

Thankfully... out of these dark moments comes a beam of radiant light, where I managed to climb from the In Life start all the way across the arch only to miss the toe catch on left wall and fall off! I'd never made it to matched on the wobbly jug before from the In Hell/Life start, so this was kind of a major breakthrough (all the sweeter for having to do it on slippery holds!).

The weather is looking really bad for the next week, so I'm going to put the time in indoors, working some power endurance in the crypt roof, so I'm ready to crush Cave Life/Pit of Hell and then In Life/In Hell will be on.

Coastal shenanigans

I've just returned from a short trip away to the Culm Coast with my hero and mentor Dolph Lundgren and his long time spotter and stick fetcher supreme, Vixen.

We initially intended a trip north of the border to Torridon but with the horrendous looking blue sheet of epic rain, we had the luxury to change course to Bude, due to the wonders of a camper van which negates the need to worry about accomodation :)

Day 1
We headed down to Northcott which was a 5 minute walk from where we were staying and made a beeline for Red Quinnie. Mike had done this before but struggled to remember quite what he did for a short time. I pulled on and tried my hardest to flash it and made decent progress until the cut loose at the lip. He sprung into action and dispatched shortly after and I realised the error of my ways, changing to a solution and making the heel stay in to get it in a couple more goes.

We headed back towards the van and climbed the wonderful pinch problem which took me more attempts than Red Quinnie much to Mike's amusement!

The next stop was Hartland Quay which had a bit more of an interesting approach scramble. We went to the Carnage wall and had a chill for a few mins. Conditions were perfect and after we both did Carnage quickly, we had a play on Supercede, Tom's new problem to the right of Carnage. After working out the moves, Dolph destroyed it in 2 goes, although he looked like he was about to come off the last couple of moves to my utter terror! I struggled to get the crossover with the left hand and feeling lethargic, decided to go and check out Ache Ball.

We sped across and saw that the tide was coming in fast. I got psyched and had a few goes managing to do the moves in bits. Mike bailed with Vixen over the rocks as the sea closed in. I gave myself a short rest and knew I would only have 1 go today or face having to swim. It was smooth until the jump at the end and my heel came off a bit early and i missed. I pulled back on and climbed it from 1 move down and knew it would be done next time.

Day 2
Day 2 was a day of great vengeance. We headed straight to Hartland again, warming up on some fantastic problems in the Trench area. I went over to Ache Ball and we were shocked to see other people climbing! I managed to punter the start a couple of times before crushing it into the ground. It felt pretty easy but really suited my style of steep, decent holds, some heel work and a bit of dynamics.

The next stop was across the Quay and down a sketchy slab of rock using a fisherman's line. We had a good look around and came to the conclusion that Hartland roof really was this underwhelming looking roof above a bulge! I got some fuel while Mike tried the moves. I put my shoes on and flashed both the roof and what we think is Brutal Spoon next to it. The moves are quite nice through the steepness and very similar to the climbing at Breck Road on the majestic Orme. We don't have a clue how they were ever graded 7c+ and 7b+ respectively but assume either holds have improved or Si Young was a midget!

We went back to finish in the Carnage area and Mike got Corridors of power first go. I struggled on the start and after tiring myself out working it out, proceeded to drop it 2 moves from the end. I felt destroyed and my arms hurt so we got out of there as the sea gave us little time for error yet again.

Day 3

With the good forecast proving to be a big fat LIE, we stayed local and went back to Northcott Mouth. On a tip off from Tom, we found a well hidden line called J Lo which climbs amazingly. Needless to say Mike crushed and I had another epic on it. Luckily the tide was out and the rain heavy so I had time to rest and eventually got to the top!

The weather cleared up and we headed over to check out the project left of Red Quinnie. I lay on the mat feeling near to death with bicep tendonitus style pain in both arms. Dolph battled the wet and seeping rock to force a line through this section of roof and made a nice power scream on the cut loose on my recommencation all captured in glorious 1 megapixel cameraphone quality! I obviously got psyched and made rapid progress on the problem only to grease off the very temperamental hold twice in a row.

Mike pottered about climbing lots of good looking lines in a corridor whilst I continued my mental breakdown and furious drying antics under this low roof. As the tide came creeping up at us once more, I was facing a 3rd end of day shutdown in a row on a problem I should have climbed a couple of hours earlier! I pulled on feeling tired and clearly not rested but had the moves fairly dialled in by now and got to the crux which I cruised through it only for a foot to pop... I lost count of the screams but somehow held on whilst my feet failed to get back in contact until I eventually controlled it and shook my way to the top almost dropping the last 4-5 moves. Epic.

Once again it was an emergency scramble as the sea engulfed the Red Quinnie roof and another steep plod to destroy the legs.

It was a great way to end the trip, climbing the hardest problem in the worst conditions, aching all over and almost delirious with fatigue! I was inspired yet again by Mike's ability to work something out and dispatch it within a go or 2 (something I clearly need to get the knack of).

If anyone reads this, I highly recommend a visit down to the Culm area as the rock is amazing, with a disproportionately high number of classics for such a small climbing area.

I have zero photos and the 1 short video on my camera but am unsure how to get them off without a cable.

Swiss recollections and Cave Season

Swiss Recollections

Having waited an eternity to get the photos of the Switzerland trip that myself, Andi and Mark went on, I had lost the desire to post about it but the photos are now finally up on facebook for all to enjoy.

To summarise the trip it was a good laugh with fantastic weather until the penultimate day and a lot of problems were ticked. I wanted to spend the time climbing as a group, willing each other on, so not much time was given to projecting during the 10 days.

Highlights included warming up on day 1 with a few flashes of 7's before doing Hohenrausch in a couple of goes (having had a bit of a whitey on the flash attempt staring at the top)! What a great sequence of moves with a bit of commitment needed at the end.

I was made up to get Supernova finished off in a couple of short sessions having tried it With lore a couple of years ago. I got Jack the Chipper done on the same day after taking some performance enhancing pro plus and Coolpresso!

Other notable problems were Man of Cow, Foo Fighter and Goldfisch that all went down in 2-3 tries and the amazing Blown Away! It has to be the best 7B I have ever climbed and worth the trip alone.

I would have been content to just tick 7's with a few 7C's but on the 2nd to last day, rain forced us down to the Bruno block and I couldn't get on Cote de Seshuan due to rivers of water running down it. In the grim rain I headed around the corner and saw a group of people trying Never Ending Story part 2. I had tried the first move the day before for 5 minutes in the dark and almost held it...

3 campus attempts were all it took to hold and lock down that high edge and with a wave of energy I crushed the fuck out of it all the way to the finish screaming more out of suprise than any feelings of difficulty or fatigue.

It was a great way to end the trip for me as the last day was a washout where I played on Astronautfieber, Nothing Changes and NES pt1 doing all the moves on the latter 2 in a matter of minutes. Fatigue and general wetness prevented linking them and I kind of regretted not having tried harder problems earlier in the trip (as I had decided not to gamble and just get a lot of classic 7's done incase the weather turned).

Mark did well in the Woods considering he hasn't really bouldered much back home in the UK and he almost punched way above his highest grades doing the hard part of Fliegen Erlabut only to fall off on the technical ledge pulling ;)

Andi had a bit of a slow start but began to tick over towards the tail end of the trip getting Red Roses done after puntering it up hard for a couple of earlier sessions. He ticked through a fair few 7's and I'm sure he'll be getting into the harder 7's when the next opportunity arises.

Back from the trip I now know that I could have climbed at least a few more problems in the 8's and I regrettably didn't even pull on to Octopussy fearing failure. Next time will be different and weather permitting... I will get to work on these great problems and send them into space :)

Cave Season

Conditions at the moment are starting to get better as temps drop and the skies stay dry over the Orme. Unfortunately I have been unable to get to the cave since getting back from holiday due to a heavy workload on Tuesdays. This will change next month and hopefully the month of Power endurance training will start to take effect on Pit of Hell and Halfway House. These problems are high up on the wishlist along with Mr Fantastic and are all very doable in 2 halves. I am hoping doing 20-25 move circuits in the crypt roof will help and that I haven't lost too much strength in the meantime by neglecting the 45 board.

Slack...

On the blogging. Indeed.

I've lately been suffering from a lack of motivation to post anything on my blog as I feel there is no point if nothing is being achieved and prefer to pour my time into other things such as training and reading (as well as finally getting around to sorting out learning to drive!)

It is only 14 days from now that myself, Mark and Andi will be heading over to Magic Wood for a 2 week jaunt of endless crushing and big numbers... maybe with Tom but I won't hold my breath ;)

After the trip to the Lakes in June, it has been a quiet time, just training for 2 weeks indoors and then getting down to the Cave quite regularly twice or more a week working on things I feel I should be able to do but never seem to finish off.

I've managed to punter up the finish on Pit of Hell and Broken Heart recently (conditions have been far from ideal with wet holds and muggy weather but I feel I should be capable of these problems where there are no real hard moves involved.

I decided I am lacking in the endurance department so have been climbing a lot of the endurance 7B and above problems at the end of sessions once I have battered myself to deep fatigue and hopefully these laps of long 20+ move problems will have some crossover benefit to the long hard problems I have been working on.

I'll quickly sum up what's been going on over the last month and a bit;

Early July

Managed to get the cave a lot, dropping Pit of Hell finish a couple of times, started working on Crucial Times. Crucial Times hurt a lot as well as the pull off the ground being nails. I at least highlighted a clear weakness in being unable to pull off undercuts and thin sidepulls above my head! Managed a good new problem (the ss to Clever Cleaver) and had a look at We've a Beaver but it was wet and greasy. I suppose the good thing is that I can still lap Rockatrocity with ease thankfully!

Mid July

Kev and Liam made an epic drive up to the cave for the day to meet up with myself, O and Pete and we had a good session. I was massively impressed by Liam's beastly levels of strength and the ease in which he could lock holds down, he got me to try the footless finish of Lou Ferrino that is given 8A+ in the guide but seems a bit soft at the grade? i managed all the moves bar the drop down match before you pull into the finish slot (the big iron cross span across from pocket to pocket felt ok every time). We got psyched for Broken Heart and Liam was managing to crush the backhand method in a super bunched position. There is no way I'll do it this way so I tried for ages to get the heel-toe method to work to no avail.

Kev was getting good links on RA once I showed him a switch in foot position for the move to the flake and will probably have it in the bag next time he comes up.

A few days later and I had my first trip to Rubicon with Mark and Andi where we met up with psyched Sam who never stops talking ^^. I had just managed to do Kudos before he arrived which felt nails. With some beta I got a couple other things and tried the Press but kept greasing off after locking to the edge. We hit the Tor after and I got a couple of old nemesis' from my last trip about 2 years ago in Rattle and Hump start and undercut to crimp. Sam gave beta on Right of Ben's Roof and I fell off the last move on the flash much to my dismay!

Tues 21st July
Me and a gang of yoofs from Liverpool had a short roadtrip to Wales where we spent Tuesday in the cave all day for an epic 8 hour session where there was quite a bit of wetness so tried Clyde and got straight through to the cross under move with feet high up in the roof. I never managed to make the move but was getting closer to it every go slowing down the move and feel it will go with less grease. Shauna amazed me by being able to span the move to the greasy pinch having a massive reach disadvantage and got a good flash of Lip Service.

Sean repeated Clever Beaver and Mark put some time in on Pillar start as he tried to get accustomed to the less steep side of the cave. (I find most things on left wall desperate compared with pulling through a roof)

I finally managed 1 new problem at the end of the session getting an ascent of Beaver Cleaver Direct after finally working out the feet positions to catch the lip and stay on :)

We had an entertaining night of bivi'ing in Shit infinity where after about 5 cans of strongbow I claimed a headtorch ascent of Organ Grinder without being able to see my feet or where I was dynoing to!

Wednesday 22nd July
We had a massive breakfast in Llandudno's Weatherspoons and were dismayed by the locals already on their 4th pints at 10am in this grim seaside theatre!

Back to the cave and I was in a great amount of pain, so dosed up on painkillers and worked on Clyde again and Halfway briefly with Ben Pritch. I felt terrible so decided to try and wake my body up and did a lap of RA followed by a lap of Lou F from 2 moves in. This sprung me into life and Jim showed me the foot lock on Broken Heart. After a few goes it finally stuck and flowed until a couple moves from the end of Bust Lip only for me to power out and fail! Gutting.

Thursday 23rd July
The team was feeling a bit wrecked so after a brief play on Bellpig (A career nemesis), we drove to Beris where I purchased some Boreal Blades much to the mirth of the young sponsored heros I was with. We got a shower in Pete's, then attempted to put Mark's 6 man £30 Fisher Price tent up in the pass in ridiculously strong winds which shut us down! We bailed to Pizza and a Pint night which was, as always, amazing. The weather looked dodge, so we sacked it home to Liverpool then set out to Raven Tor on Thursday. Mike and Sean got shut down on what we thought was a 7a warmup route that had at least a v8/9 boulder start?! So then they did Little extra which looked ok. I warmed up on the direct start a few times then went over to Ben's Roof and crushed the problem right of Ben's 2nd go after dropping the finish hold on the first attempt of the day (Cheers to Sam for the heavy beta last week!). The skies opened and we went to Stockport wall where I continued to break myself by climbing every problem bar 3 in the session.

Sunday 26th July
2 days of pain coming down off the heavy ibuprofen doses and we went to check out the Depot. I have to say it is the best indoor climbing facility I have ever been to and the problem setting was very good. We warmed up crushing almost the entire yellow circuit and the Blades were working nicely! After a long lunch break we felt like we could move again and after warming up on a couple purples... went to work on the black circuit (You get a months pass if you crush them all in a session I believe?). I scoped out a crimpy board style one and managed to flash it much to my suprise. The one opposite up an arete with compression and heels looked most suited and this too went down first go. On a roll I moved right and saw another involving a slappy start followed by pinches and heels. After the first 2 moves I knew it was in the bag and got the top without much effort! After this it was downhill as the far end prow towards the new area shut me down hard along with the black through the barrel roof. I managed the one opposite the entrance after many goes where you cross over your head with a heel on the starting block (dropping the last move twice before finally dispatching).

We were shown the new giant roof as well as Ned and Dan's woody and they looked absolutely amazing for training. We stopped off on the way home to have a look at City Bloc which didn't really inspire me in the same way but the setting looked good. Sugden wasn't in which was a shame as it would have been good to see how he is getting on.

The next 2 weeks
I think it's a bit too late to do any beneficial training for the Magic Wood trip, so I'll focus on eating well and drinking less in the build up as well as getting in plenty of mileage and resting properly. I have ordered the all important stove top espresso maker today and a giant tub of protein powder to aid multiple days on :)

If I can get any photos off Mark from our recent days out, I'll get them up on here, to make this less of a ball ache to read!