Font training

After growing back the skin on my palm and overcoming a nagging left arm injury over the last 2 weeks, I was fully fearing a lack of time on rock pre font may lead to climbing like a Mills on ice.

Luckily for me, the strongest man in Merseyside was keen to hit the grit and with his generous van space, we could load in pads until we got bored!

Tuesday 9th March

After a brief word with the Honeymonster, we headed to Stanage and warmed up on the excellent hourglass block where I schooled him on a slab to take round 1 ;)

Over to Brad and luckily there was a bit of a breeze coming through on the right which kept things cool enough to not feel like we were squeezing blocks of butter. We both had a few goes limbering up the left leg a bit until the heel placement was easy. Dave made fast progress in catching the left hand over but struggled to get the heel to stay in place when trying to crank over it and balance.

I made no headway whatsoever trying to go left hand over and felt really bunched/off balance with this method.

40 mins later and Dave was consistently pissing the first 2 moves but getting no further with a bit of an ache in his right shoulder before the fatigue set in. I decided to change approach and managed to go right hand up really easily and hold this position a couple of times but struggled to match as I didn't leave much space for my left hand and my skin was getting a bit too thin...

Honeymonster showed up and pissed the first 2 moves just failing to match the ramp! Then it was downhill progress, so we went round the corner to try The Storm.

It felt like the living end to me as I kept wetting up the holds, so wrote off the day and let them get on with it. Steve got really close a couple of times but Dave suffered the butter skin too.

We moved once more uphill to find Help The Aged guarded by a snow trench, rigged up some interesting pad arrangement and then proceeded to punter until I realised it was easier to hang it and just campus as opposed to using a left toe on anything. Before I could get it in the bag my skin went even worse and I gave up after sledging downhill on the pad for a few metres taking out a few bags and downjackets en route!

It was time for Merseyside's strongest to put me back in my place and he monstered it. Honeymonster then caught the hold but decided to step on to the cornice behind and invalidate it, grasping defeat from the jaws of victory.

Wednesday 10th March

The weather was looking a bit iffy as we drove out of the grimy town of Huddersfield but as we turned towards Otley there were blue skies and sunshine was breaking through the clouds!

The warmup was good fun messing about on the slabs downhill from the Great Flake and I was chuffed to show Merseyside's strongest how to slab climb by doing the full traverse L->R (All this cave training and I still seem to be better on slabs than anything overhanging!).

We did the fantastic chickenhead problems and the scary wall to the left above the shit landing. I didn't fancy standing on tiny pebbles in my Mocc's so dynoed up to the fingerjam with Dave looking on in horror. He then repeated in fine style by actually using his feet!

Up the hill and into the shade, the rock felt so much better than my last trip up here with Matty D. We fully patiod the area with about 8 mats and Ben's Groove became a safe prospect.

A couple of warmup goes on the first move and I managed to hold the crossover, get the pocket out right, left foot up and then rocked into the high sidepull but my foot was too low and I slid down the vertical sidepull to the deck. Next go and I brought my left hand over to match near the pocket, got the left foot higher and this time had the height to utilise the sidepull. I fearfully sketched my way up to the top. What an amazing problem.

I mocked Dave's lucky Dragon charm off Steve... 'Rich 1, lucky dragon nil', then he fully crushed it next go to retain his crown. Steve kept pissing the first moves but didn't seem to fancy the top bit so we moved right to Secret Seventh.

The holds felt sharp on my super thin skin and we were not making much progress till suddenly I found the right body position, went static with the right hand to the pinch and then dragged my right toe across the wall to slow everything down, floated up the left toe on to the obvious nubbin and started rocking up. I was about to release the left hand off the grim slopey crimp when it decided to remove itself and I hit the mats hard with a numb left hand and lots of blood! I had torn the whole left little pinkie pad off and it was flowing.

It took a while to stem the flow then tape it up tightly. We were all suffering a bit from bad skin so moved over to Ju Ju Club. Dave and Steve managed to remember the top out and I got this ok on the 2nd attempt from matched on the good holds. It took a few minutes of us swinging out on to the pads before I found the sweet spot for the right foot to clamp under the roof and I could get out matched with ease. One casual attempt saw me lose all body tension and fail on the move up to the first sloper. I retaped the finger properly and then got it done with a bit of a scream on the final slap to make sure! Another class problem.

We decided to bail with aching arms and poor skin all round and had a brief chat to Dobbin as he warmed up near Fork Lightning Crack. He said he was on his way up to try link Zoo York, we wished him luck and then Crawled back to Merseyside in a long queue of traffic!

It was quite good to get out two days in a row on the grit and to climb 2 great problems. It almost felt like I was getting used to climbing on this devil's rock and could do with another session next week to get the skin roughed up and ready for font on the 20th!

A brief return to Yorkshire

Thoroughly psyched from Saturday's lovely day out, we headed East once again to sample the delights of ice cold grit.

Caley
It looked well dark from the road but on my insistence, we headed up the hill to find Blockbuster pretty primo save for the topout slab foothold which was easily towelled.

A variety of interesting eliminates on the roof just below the block were contrived and we decided to finish the warmup on Blockbuster itself.

Things started badly with a lot of failure to grasp holds and then finding it desperate to move with the left foot up. We slowly got into it and before long both had a preferred sequence, me jumping off the grim pocket fingerlock to the crimp and Dave utilising the pinches (both to jump off for left hand and catch with right hand.

I thought I may get away with carrying an injury on my left arm (had to stop after a 20 min session warming up indoors on Monday yet again with massive pains down my arm), but after 1 decent go of catching the crimp, foot on, left hand into sidepull crimp and the mother of all power screams... I dropped the high flakeline and with the failure came a lot of pain in the left arm compounded by blood letting through the back of the fingers!

Emery had turned up in the meantime and found my failures hilarious. Fortunately he didn't nip in for a quick lap to make it a truly awful experience ;) Dave P, merseyside's current strongest man of the moment basically made it look like a path several minutes later. It was indeed a great effort.

Almscliff
We stopped off for some pies at the farmshop and headed up t'Cliff to meet Steve again as he warmed up on the Keel. I went over to Patta's arete dosed up on Ibuprofen for something more crimpy and less army. My total butter skin made it impossible to make any progress, as I continually greased on the holds in minus 2 winds?! Attention switched to the dyno thing to the right which went down once I got rid of my flat shoes and smeared with the Teams which worked right away, strange.

Back over to the Keel area and I noticed the fairly good looking line that took the Cherry Falls crimp with the left and bust out to the sidepull before going for the top break. Go 1 ended in going for the wrong part of the sidepull too low down. Go 2 was a stretched out slap at the top break and thankfully go 3 was a casual lap to the top just in time before my left index tore in half!

I Stopped while ahead as the arm started to feel a bit achey again and watched Steve try the Real Keel. Got a couple snaps and then went up top to spot Dave on Stu's left only to come into some fierce ice winds of death. Bail was the first thought that sprung to mind... but undetered I sprinted over and gave Dave the beast the tiny bit of encouragement he needed. He sketched his way to the top looking slightly less steady than on Blockbuster (no photos as the spot was preferred!) Great to see another 7b+ crushfest during the week.

Another pint in the Hunters was most welcome, with the open fire bringing us back to life and able to feel various limbs again.

Going to have to take 4-5 days off and really let this left arm recover as I don't fancy turning it into a long term niggle where I'd be holding back in font or having to do slabs for 8 days till my toes bled.

Glorified uphill walking

Is how I have often thought of gritstone climbing. My opinion has changed a bit this weekend as I spent a thoroughly enjoyable day out in Yorkshire with Dave P and Steve Honeyman.

Ilkley

We met up at the back of the calf and had a good warmup on the woody style warmup problems. I got spanked on most of these so decided to head round the corner for my goal of the day, Ringpiece.

It was steep, had big holds and looked both reachy and burly, perfect! Thoughts of an easy flash were going through my mind so I made sure every hold was chalked and the ring was dry! A chalk up and a stretch then into action as I got the fat pinch, wedged a toe in and came into the undercut, feet planted and lunge to glory... only to fail and hit the mat. Should have tried a bit harder!

A couple more tries and it went down without a hitch getting stood up above on to a snow covered block. I decided retreat was the best option and reversed to the lip.

Dave crushed it in a similar fashion soon after and Steve got close before making the decision to get on the main goal.

We popped over to Curious Yellow wall and it looked pretty luminous on top. I decided to warm up for Curious by crushing the simple looking arete to the left only to receive the hard shutdown for the next hour or more! It felt a bit glassy on the holds but was probably just our general punterdom at play.

I had a handful of goes on Curious getting stood up on the thin RH undercut and trying to find the correct place to wrap the left toe in order to come over to the small LH intermediate crimp (before you lunge to the pocket/edge). Got close on 1 try on this move but no cigar. Steve got to a similar position a few times which was quite impressive as I reckon it is way harder to get standing up without the long reach and having a bent arm to pull in on. One to go back to for sure.

T' Cliff

With the light starting to fade we sped over to the cliff and climbed the fantastic Matterhorn arete that i had shamefully never done! I then almost had an epic on the 5C problem to the left of this which felt fully hard.

Dave suggested a quick look at Matt's roof and with our literal sea of pads (about 8 between 3 of us) We just about made it appealing. It looked pretty amazing and something I could do. So we booted up and I watched Dave have a go like the beta whore I am.

First go was a near miss of catching the hold. 2nd go was going past it and 3rd go, it was in the bag. A truly lovely basic board problem.

A final dash as the stars came out over to the Demon Wall Roof area.... Dave crushed Stu's Roof LH all the way to being stood up above the lip and then fell off due to a total lack of light making it a case of braille climbing!

An athletes diet of a pint in the Hunter's bar was followed by a kebab and some more pints in the metropolitan town of Huddersfield.

Sunday morning

We opened the curtains at Steve's and it had totally fucked it down with snow! Donnelly rang to say he had bailed the cave with the Mills. We had a lazy morning of coffee and watched some psyche which made me long for dry stable weather that seems widespread in a lot of the US!

We attempted to leave around 2ish and Dave's van required a jumpstart to let us limp back to Merseyside, tired but keen for the return leg on Tuesday (weather permitting).

Stepping it up

In the slow build up to another font trip, I have been keen to get out to new venues to try and diversify my climbing from doing redpoints on In Hell.

Sunday 14th

Went over to the Wirral and met Andy and Becki at Green Lane (aka Hell), and we shot off towards what looked the best option in a sunny Llanberis pass. The sky was bright blue and the sun was wonderful. As we neared the A55 exit, it had already clouded over and the rain was getting steadier.

We got to Llanberis and it was grimness. A quick brew in Petes and we headed into the pass to check things out. There was a team huddled under Jerrys Roof and nobody else at Roadside. The rain was only light, so we got a bit of a warmup on the roadside face with only myself enjoying the wet topout practice that required a cool head.

Rather than ring Doyle and beg for entry to the Mill, we decided to go check out Elephantitus Cave. It was a bit brighter over the other side of Pen Y pass and by the time we had walked in to the cave it had stopped raining and brightened up a little.

A bit of brushing and hold fondling and I was pretty psyched. The first moves on Elephantitus were a joy rolling into big pinches and then the slightly unnerving throw to the sloper off the matching crimps. Luckily my hand stuck and the heel-toe stayed in, matching was ok and I just about caught the break above to get the flash in the bag.

Andy had a good go at the flash but didn't enjoy the crimps too much as he had ben out at Wimberry with Fatneck on Saturday and had no tips! Becki did most of the moves but struggled on the reach out left as well as the slap to the sloper. It was good to see her actually climbing and looking vaguely psyched for a change!

Next up was Going down on an Elephant which looked nice and basic. I thought I could get the flash in the bag, so didn't really worry too much about the sequence. I pulled on and crossed over to the flatty edge, got the lock on and matched the right foot into the starting hold whilst flagging past with the left. Looking up and left I realised I was miles away from the pinch/sidepull on Elephantitus and was stuck under my right arm! I held the lock for what seemed an eternity and finally tried to jump sideways only to land flat on my side! Fail.

Slightly bemused, it was time to look properly. Becki pointed out the obvious ticked intermediate 2 finger crimp and this proved to be the key. Next go and I was across up into the slap to the sloper only to change my Elephantitus beta and use the low pinch to go for the sloper instead of the crimps I had used 5 minutes ago. This ended in a horizontal deck out banging my right heel hard on a rock and getting a bruised arse! I fueled up on some banana and got it done next go without any problems.

I started to look at Tusk and then the heavens opened causing all of the lip to rapidly turn into a small waterfall as the rain came down the slab above. We bailed to V12 for a coffee and then on to a nice pub on Ollies recommendation (just at the turnoff towards the Beacon). Going against my performance related alcohol plan for 2010 I treated myself to a pint (the usual requirement being a new 7C). I thought I could earn it on Tuesday instead!

Tuesday 16th

After resetting and testing the step wall at work, I was a bit knackered 3rd day on. The weather dictated the cave as the only option and I wasn't my usual psyched self. As we got nearer to the Orme, the Sky was blue and the sun shone down. It was glorious!

The warm up felt ok as it was nowhere near as bitter as it had been over Christmas and January. We met Dave Pinnington and Andy Farnell in there and everyone seemed keen to crush something. I couldn't face redpointing In Hell in a fatigued state so chose to try something new which would allow more excuse for failure and keep it fun. Dave was workiing Broken Heart, so I joined him and Pete Chadwick on this. It took a couple of tries of the heel-toe to make it work and when it finally did I managed to fluke my way through to the rail and across into Clever Beaver only to fall off coming into the undercut after catching the sloper. Total power out but quite pleased at getting that far.

A bit of a rest and another go. I got to the break and for some reason decided to go for the shorter link into Beaver Cleaver forgetting that it is pretty desperate and failed to even catch the initial throw for the lip!

Pretty knackered by now, I thought it would be good to try and punish the body, so got the mats under In Hell and started to warm up again as it had gone freezing and the fingers and toes were suffering. A couple of false starts remembering body positions and I got across part 1 into RA flake, across the pockets and stepped off feeling boxed, with numb fingers.

Rather than be dismayed at failing, I decided to try repeat Trigger Cut. The first moves were still ok thankfully but I failed to feel good on the slap to the shothole once again! It's a bit of a puzzle really as it felt ok last year when I got it done but have never been able to hold since. It must be a subtle body position that I have not yet remembered and needs addressing if I am to try and get Halfway House done. Speaking of which...

I decided to try and link in having only done it once in the past by fluke. Rather than just press the left toe in and bring the right foot around straight into the heel, I managed to climb off the Lou F ramp into the TC start holds, keep the left foot on the Lou F ramp and bring the right foot out and toe hook the Greenheart undercut. Releasing the left foot and pulling in felt ok and I got the left foot up onto the start foothold of TC. The right heel went up and the left foot flagged. The Trigger in my hand... then nothing left in the tank!

It was a great way to end the session climbing as far as I had before into TC from both hands on the Louey ramp in a state of knackeredness. I don't think it will be an issue to get into the slap for the shothole move from the start after a good rest day but that move is going to need sorting out soon (without resorting to kneebars!) before I can consider it as being a realistic goal.

I think I am addicted to the cave and can only hope it translates a bit to font for things like Eclipse, Biceps Mou, Aerodynamite..etc

Back once again

To the Barrow of Trow with Strong Smiley Dave, he of the silver mane.

As we headed up the M6 in glorious sunshine and clear skies... our concerns briefly grew when we started to get a bit of light rain outside Lancaster. Luckily there was no need to worry as temps were good and more importantly the Shelterstone was bone!

A quick warmup showing Dave all the classics on Red Wall went smoothly but for some reason he wasn't that inspired and wanted to make haste to some large boulder we passed on the way in.

I recognised it almost instantly and threw the regulation laps of Funk phenomena, Vitruvian (getting a massive random palm flapper in the process on my LH!?) and Pit Problem. Dave crushed; getting the funk, burling the pit problem and then finally grasping defeat from the jaws of victory by dropping the TOP of Vitruvian man (the big jug!). I was impressed by his ability to get things done fast (something the Crouch is unfamiliar with... as I prefer to piss the moves in overlapping halves then fail to link things for months).

I had one go of Iron Man and got into the stand holds from the shitter, only to find I was buttering that pinch all over in spite of it being Zero degrees C! I decided to sack and focus, went round back and after 2 near misses, brawled my way up Texas Hold Em for a very satisfying nemesis problem tick! (The list has now shortened to T Crack, Handy Andys and Wavelength!)

Flush with success I tackled the 6C/V5 groove which has always felt the living end. I recalled a vision me and the Donnelly had at the end of last session and with fresher arms it went down after a couple of false slaps at the top. This left a nice link to tidy things up and it went down without a hitch from the Iron Man sitter.

The warm down involved doing the wheelbarrow moves into the groove but my bad skin shut down the redpoint, greasing off the pit problem setup into the slap up.

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!