Just a quickie...

Just a brief update. Been back to the mighty Tor a couple more times. On Monday it was in grim condition, I tried Powerband and got all the moves but there was no chance of linking it (for me) because my hands were wet after touching a couple of holds. The holds weren't seeping or anything, just very warm and humid, yeuck. Met Ru for the first time. Another very friendly and knowledgable chap, wonderful. I won't say what he was doing in case it is for some reason top secret but suffice it to say I was mighty impressed with his performance given the awful conditions.
This evening back to the Tor. The aim was get Powerband and then get stuck into a route. Got Powerband first attempt, in fact it was my warm up, very unexpected but nice. Then messed around trying numerous other problems in a half-arsed fashion whilst Mike and Sam made progress on Ben's Roof and Powerband, neither were ultimately successful but I'm sure they will be in due course. Then I tried Rattle and Hump on a rope, and ooooooof tough paper round. At the time I was disheartened but after an hour or so's reflection I have realised that I was probably a bit trashed and that I was closer than I thought to doing the moves. So I'll get back on it fresh some time soon and we'll take it from there.

Tour of the Tor

Having previously briefly tried Ben's roof a couple of weeks ago I headed over to the Tor Tuesday evening with the intention of crushage. I met Mike there and got my angry eyes in. Sadly I forgot to engage brain so completely bished my footwork sequence through the crux. Rather than realising I'd got the numbers wrong instead I scratched my head and carried on trying the same thing and expecting a different result. Should have used SCIENCE. Finally the light dawned and I remembered the right thing to do,only I was now to boxed to do it. Went home. Mike was looking like he could get it done with a bit of work, he floats through the start moves with the grace of a short balding middle aged swan, and that's a thing of beauty my friends.

Back Thursday evening with Rick as chaperone, he wasn't even registering a simple enthusiasm rating on the SYKEOMETER. But still gamely put on his shoes and did a bit of sitting on the mat and touching holds, sweet skills. I warmed up with my first attempt but dropped off with painfull fingers (not a classic warm up but hey-ho), second attempt felt cruisey but a foot slip saw me stood on the ground looking foolish. Third attempt and it was in the bag, steady eddy, really should have done it on Tuesday but pleased with the tick nonetheless.

Rick then got into Powerband, I also had a dabble. Hard last move still, ooooof, something to come back to. Also had a go (literally A go) at Pump Up The Power, quite keen to get on this as a route maybe. Get me a sport 8 tick to complete the triumverate, yeeee-haaaaaaaaaa....

Isle of Man Again...

I've been in the Isle of Man. It really is a funny little place full of weird people with strange insular views. It's like little Englanders, but even more little, crazy.
Anyway I find my regular jaunts over there quite dull to be honest. There is climbing but it's not amazing and as I invariably lack my own transportation and have to rely on lifts and favours worked around rain and tides things rapidly get frustating.
Anyway the amazing thing about going to the Isle of Man is the chance to climb with a genuine, proper, belts and braces legend. Dougie Hall. This is the man whose diary was published and called the Chew Valley guide. He is everything I want from a legend, possessed of an enviable climbing heritage, short, friendly and devoid of any dress sense. Brilliant. Anyway we had an evening out climbing at Santon in a little gully along the side of a small bay reached by scrambling down a wall of vertical grass after walking for half a mile along the cliff top path and stopping at a point that looked exactly like every other point on the path. You could spend a lifetime searching for this venue and never find it, but then thats what climbing's like here. The occassional gem in the midst of a lot of pap. Anyway I spent an enjoyable couple of hours in the local climbers company, and very nice it was so cheers chaps.
I also revisited Laxey boulders and reclimbed a few problems that I have previously tried and also finally managed to force my way across a traverse that has become something of an Isle of Man obsession. I have mentioned it previously here, and at the time I suggested a grade of 8A. Well now it's done I'm going to stick with that. It felt very hard to me, easily as hard as problems of that grade that I've done recently. However it is not really in a style that suits me, being very powerfull and fingery. Anyway there we go, if people want to journey to the Isle of Man and repeat this problem and downgrade it then knock yourselves out. I've even done a PDF guide which I'll put on the Vimeo UKB group.
And now I'm back home and the weather has been awful. Ho-hum, of to Ravens Tor on Tuesday evening to (try and) crush Ben's Roof. Then on Thursday I may possibly be back that way (or Rubicon) to either try some more bouldering or get on some sport!!

NOTE:
1) Not everyone from the Isle of Man is mental, lots of them are very nice and the climbers there are an enthusiastic and welcoming bunch. But there's lots of nutters.

Success? Not with my reputation...

[NOTE: The following was written on Saturday the 9th May but this is the first opportunity I've had to get it ONLINE]

Thursday evening I headed over to Sheffield, I'd arranged to buy some Dragons and also meet a couple of friends at the Works. But the weather was looking nice so I decided to head over a little earlier than planned and call in at Ravens Tor. I'd been having vague notions of trying Ben's Roof and Powerband for a while and this seemed like the opportunity to get stuck in. I was heading over from my mums house (in Macclesfield) and the first thing I realised was just how close Ravens Tor is. It is probably only half an hour door to rock if you get a good run and know where you're going, which suggests future visits will be on the cards when visiting the parentals.

Anyway I arrived and realised I really didn't have a clue about this place, I didn't know any problems at all having only been once or twice before back in the day. I knew vaguely where Powerband was but not where it started, and I also knew roughly where Ben's Roof went, but it looked very sequencey so I settled in for a “working it out” session. Luckily a kindly young lady took pity on me and demonstrated a sequence which saved me a lot of work. Duly informed of a workable technique I set to work and in the end I did all the moves and managed to do a couple of decent links. I'm fairly confident I can do this on my next session, however time was moving on and I wanted to try Powerband. Powerband is pretty steady until the last move, which is brutal. I couldn't even do it in isolation. Although to be fair I was probably getting pretty tired by now and I only had a couple of quick goes as it was time to depart.

Off to the Foundry, bloody hell this area has changed. It all looks like a young professionals wet dream nowadays, obviously the inside of the Foundry didn't appear to have changed in the last 10 years. Anyway a quick exchange of readies for footwear and I am now the proud owner of a pair of Dragons. In the past I have mocked the multi-shoe owning climber, but now I stand proud amongst you my comrades. Mind you they felt bloody uncomfortable compared to my lovely baggy Verdes, this multiple shoe phase may be short lived....

Then the Works where I spent a couple of gentle hours on the red circuit with a couple of friends. Very nice it was, I was feeling pretty battered at this stage but still had an enjoyable time. At the end of the session I had a brief attempt at some classic training/posing test-pieces. First off I went for the newcomer, the Beastmaker and managed to hang the 45's for a short time (about 7 seconds) then the campus board where I did 1-4-7 for the first time but failed to 1-5-8 and finally the chin up bar where I amazed myself by doing a one armer with each arm. Obviously these “feats” are nothing more than party tricks but that doesn't mean they're not fun, trouble is on the odd occasion when I do try these things it's invariably at the end of a session which means (a) I'm not performing at my best and probably more importantly (b) I'm tired so not moving in a crisp and co-ordinated fashion, instead my sloppy slapping is more likely to result in injury than improved performance. Hey-ho...

Leap forward to Saturday, I am heading over to the Isle of Man for a few days torture at the in-laws. I'm sailing from Heysham in the afternoon so a plan is hatched to head up that way early doors and pop in to Silverdale for a raid on Hyning and Woodwell to crush Transgenic and Not Bad Dave SDS. I've got Dragons now so surely these will be crushed to dust? The weather was supposed to be awful but in fact was pretty good, there was a wet streak next to the pocket at the end of Transgenic but all the holds were dry so things were looking good. However I'm an arse. When will I learn. I cannot warm up on an 8A. So instead of getting the body prepped for bearing down instead I pull on and get pumped and powered out. Also my skin is feeling very sore for some reason and my back is feeling stiff and sore, but these are just excuses at the end of the day I ruined any chance I had of doing this problem in this session by leaping on it and assuming I could just monster it, I can't. Obviously it didn't go down but I did manage my best link yet so not a complete failure, just stupid stupid stupid. I was rewarded for this idiocy with a sore left elbow and shoulder and shooting pains down my arm, hmmmm.....

Anyway on to Woodwell. Not Bad Dave is surely in the bag, I mean I've got the right boots for the heel hook move bring it on. But yet again I was to be denied. My skin was too sore and my core too tired. I went for a coffee and cake and then tried again, with much the same result. So not only had my stupidity on Transgenic cost me any chance of doing it, it had also cost me any chance of doing this, arse. The truly enormously stupid thing about this is that the evening before in debate with the G-unit the proposed strategy was warm-up crushing Not Bad Dave then go on to Transgenic. I am absolutely sure that if I had done this I would have crushed Not Bad Dave and would certainly have done no worse on Transgenic. Hindsight and all that. Anyway they are both good problems so I'm happy to return to them again at some point, the rock isn't going anywhere.

Living for the weekend...

Saturday morning I dropped the wife and offspring off at Liverpuddle airport as they head over to the in-laws. Once deposited I headed West to try my luck in the cave. The cave is somewhere I've been meaning to visit for a while. I've heard all manner of different things about it. Some good, some not so good. Everybody tends to start describing it in the same way.
There's no real obvious lines
Arbitary starts and finishes
Spanks you on a first visit

And then depending on the individual expressing the opinion will either say it's amazing or it's a bit shit. Different folks, different strokes I suppose. Anyway anything that can be so consistently described and yet give such variety of opinion has to be worth investigating, if only to allow me to form my own view.

Saturday afternoon in Llandudno was B U S Y. Some sort of Victorian funfair thing going on. Anyway once I'd managed to get through and parked up at the cave I went for a nosey. I was meeting Sam there, he's been before so could show me the lines etc. But I was there way before Sam so got stuck in to what some other folks were trying which turned out to be Lou Ferino and Rockattrocity. Then Sam turned up with Baz and was trying Trigger Cut.
I found one move of Lou Ferino desperate but the rest of it pretty steady. Rockattrocity I should have done but dropped it at the end. Sam was looking good on Trigger Cut, he hadn't done it when I left but he was looking very solid on it so I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he did it later on.

So what did I make of the cave? Well I didn't leave feeling like I'd been completely spanked, but then I was expecting to get shut down big time so expectations were low. I did think that it was all a bit no clear lines/random starts and finishes though. Overall.....hmmm... lets say not my favourite venue. I don't feel in any great rush to return, though I probably will to get Rockattrocity done at some point, but then will I return? I dunno. It's a long way to go and to be honest I much prefer the Silverdale limestone which leads us nicely onto....

Sunday. Early start, picked up G-bob and bashed up the motorway to Fairy Steps. The predicted wall to wall sunshine had not materialised so we arrived at Aeons wall to find it dripping wet. Hmmm. Anyway lashings of toweling, chalk and brushing left enough holds sort of dry to try Aeon. Then I drew some thick chalk eyebrows on all the holds to soak up any water running down the face before it got to the holds. A few attempts working the moves then several goes later (and lots of ongoing drying) and it was job done. Just it time to as my skin, which has been in shocking condition since returnign from Font and was getting stupidly sore, finaly split. A split tip, can't remember when I last had one of those. Anyway it's a nice problem and it was satisfying to do it in very much less than ideal conditions, I'm keen to get back for Aeon Original (without the undercut), Aeon Reverse and Aeons. And I suppose Aeon Prow, but this looks nails. Anyway we cleaned off all the chalk from the face and then left for a celebratory cream tea.

After the cream tea we trudged up to Farleton. G wanted to show me New Rose, which looks hard and sharp, my skin was too sore to pull on but I'd go back to try it when (if?) my skin improves. Then we looked at a coupleof other problems, again sharp limestone coupled with sore skin meant little progress was made. Finally we went to Surfer Rosa which is a cool looking traverse line, or it would be scaled up 200%, as it is it's a bit small but still quite compelling. I gave it a few goes but to be honest I was feeling kitten weak and it felt hard. Still a nice line so I'll be back.

Back to work tonight, oh joy...