Bouldering...?

Well depending on how you look at it I either had a weekend of bodily damage (namely my hands and my liver) and got wet in the rain, or I had a couple of good nights out with friends, pushing it too far on the bouldering wall and went aid climbing because it was raining?

I think I prefere the second viewpoint of the weekend. It was Kendal this weekend. Why did I go? well I went last year but I saw it as a couple of days climbing in the Lakes, not a trip to a film festival. Its not that I dislike it, but it doesn't exactly hold with my idea of climbing and mountaineering. Anyway I said I'd also help Tim with his dissertation. I heard that Kendal was great fun and that I would have really enjoyed the lectures if I went to them. Maybe I'll go next year, then again maybe I'll just go climbing.

So liver damage first up. Student nights out are going to continue being fun when while there is 2 for 1 on drinks, free entry and good mates to go out with. Unfortunatly we were politly asked to leave on account of one the the good mates taken too much adventage of the 2 for 1 offer. Didn't put a downer on the evening just meant that me, Andy and Matt ran for car to car carrying imaginery weapons like soliders acting out a scene from Black Hawk Down. Obviousley we were drunk.

Drunkenness lead to a envitable hangover in the morning but it did encourage a massive fry-up in an attempt to cue it. After what seemed like an ocean of tea, some "call of duty" and ice cream we headed off in an attempt to go climbing in the Peak District. I didn't really expect us to get out doors and pretty much headed straight for the works anyway and had a massive session in there. I think we all went at it a little too hard and fast because even though we tried to take a break about half way through the damage had already been done. We all ended up burning ourselves out and I torn another massive flapper. I've also exacerbated the pulled tendon in my middle finger. I'm seriously thinking of taking time out from climbing till its better.

Another lazy night out at the pub after chinese lead to more soldiering on the journey home. In fact Andy house mate ended up coming downstairs as I carried Andy in the house in a firemans lift. He'd been shot in the femoral artery and sadly bleed out. What a way to end a night!

Sunday had promised us good weather. Apparently you shouldn't make any such promises with sunday because it breaks them. It rained. Tim had to get his dissertation done anyway so we headed out to Aldery Cliff, a small partially quarried crag in the Peak. Its a nice little crag, but a really bad walk off. There is alot of loose rock all over the place and a large area down the one end of seiously unstable rock. I'm pretty sure that bats also live there but I need to check this out as it would probably affect access. Its all well sign posted and we call donned out helmets, bar Toaf of course. His helmet is still "uncool" enough not to wear.

Tim and Toaf set about going to set up abseils for Tim to do his research. Sounds like quite an interesting dissertation he doing looking at the effect climber have on thier environment. While he did that, me and Andy moved the car to the base of the crag so he could sit in the boot and belay and I grabbed my aiders, daisys, pretty much all my gear and headed off a likely looking crack line.

Initially the start was horrible. I'd forgotten anything I'd learned last time I went aiding. It all felt so scary, so odd, so alien. Standing in aiders on gear that I know should hold me prefectly seemed so unnatural. This was a nice slabby crackline that would probably get A1, or C1 seeing as I didn't use any pitons. I started my route with a multidirectional anchor as Andy was belaying from the car, not wanting to stand in the rain. I'm been reading about top stepping (treading on the top step or your aiders so standing higher than your gear). I decided that I would try it so I walked up in my aiders holing my grab loop and eventually got my foot in the top step. My god I felt scared. My only gear was the directional anchor so if that blew I'm deck out. I was sure it was bomber but self doubt always seems creep in. I reached for some small wires on my rack and placed a piece at the tip of my reach. Quickly I clipped in my second daisy/aider and gave it a sharp tug. I stood my foot in the aider and bounced it as much as I dared then visually checked it. It looked good. I stood up on it.

Bugger me! I breathed a sigh of relief and leant down to to unclip my lower gear and attached it to a rope with a quickdraw. It was over. I guess the first move is the hardest sometimes. From here I ran up my aider, top stepped with a little more ease and realised I needed to be that little bit higher. It was still raining, but it didn't matter I was completely focused on this next piece of gear. I needed a little bit more so I clipped my daisy in short, and forced my foot into my grab loop. It gave me that precious 4 inches and I sank in another bomber wire.

I went through the same nervousness as the last time bounce testing my piece of gear. I yarded hard on it and then shifted my weight over. It was getting easier each time. I reached down and unclipped my other aider and clipped the piece into the rope. I was back into the swing of it. Run up my aider, reach up place a piece of gear, clipped it, test and the shift onto it then do all the same again. Even when it came to placing the skyhook I wasn't worried. I made an effort to keep my weight on it so it wouldn't fall off.

Eventually I topped out and rigged my abseil to strip out the route. It seemed like about of effort to go to just to then removed all the gear, but I'd had a great time and got the practise another skill. Hell I thought it was a good use of a wet day.

Eventually Tim finished and we threw all the now wet gear into the boot. On our drive home we stopped off at the highest village shop in england and had a late but well deserved breakfast. Its now been named our cafe of the peak and where we'll always stop on our way through.

So much for a damp weekend in the peak district. In the end I had a good time and I think everyone else did, I hope so anyway!

Lakes 14th - 15th

Bit of a wash out this weekend. Although at least we got out on the hill. The plan was for an easy route on Scarfell Buttress. As for actually climbing it would have been hell as it was wet and dark so we called it a day. Thankfully it started raining just after justifiying our decision. High light of the weekend was probably the cumberland sausage and 4 pints we enjoyed in the Wasdale Head Inn. I also manage to forget my roll mat this weekend. After telling Susie what a n00b she was for not even bringing out it seems fitting that I should forget mine. Improvisation was the name of the game and I slept on my uncoiled ropes. I got a surprisily good night sleep, but I think it had more to do with the 4 pints than the "comfy" bed.

Millstone and the works

Headed out to Millstone edge in the peak on Saturday. Was a little bit damp to say the least but we're stubborn! Matt Turner was up and wanted to climb so after a discussion about hand jamming and that fact that Matt couldn't we headed to Millstone Edge. I figured that if we got him on bond street he would either sink or swim.

As it turned out we should have probably stayed in and watched "Return2Sender" instead. If you have not watched this then you should as its got a crack intro to the fundamentals of crack climbing. All in all the film is a little messed up. By this I mean it doesn't really follow a story or a theme (like for example "First Ascent"). You also need to get over Timmy O'Neil pretty quickly as my god he's annoying! Having said that I've watched it enough times that he doesn't bother me. Its got some pretty amazing climbing on it at Indian Creek and some awesome slacklining in the first half of the film.

So what did we get up to at Millstone? Well we did in fact get on bond street. I taped my hands with a wrap around so it covered my palms. Usually I tape just the back of my hands. I'll never be taping up with the wrap around technique again. Its amazing how much friction your naked plams have, and then amazing how insercure you feel without it. As someone who thinks themselves pretty good at jamming I felt like I was going to come off pretty much all the way up. Added to this I taped up too tight and ended up cramping up completely. Mistakes made and lessons learned!

So Turner tied on for a crack-fest and a half. Both me and Prescott started yelling various instructions down (and up) to Matt about how to do it. I don't think we could really get our point across and he fell off quite a few times. This wasn't a worry as he was learning. He topped out and annouced that Jamming was horrible and I think he'll try and avoid it like the plauge. I'll wait till we get some good weather and take him up Hearfords crack in Wales as its a much better route. The problem is that our hands are such a different size that what is a solid jam for me, is a insercure almost off-width jam for him. Between us we probably cover a massive range of cracks at least.

Frenchie was up next. Infact I should use his proper name, its Sid. Now like pretty much all the french people I've met he's awesome. I bloody love the french and france for that matter. Primarily for the fact that life seems so much more chilled out over there. I've tried to explain this to Claire-Line but I can't make my point too well. All I seem to do in france is eat cheese, bread and saucisson (said in Dan's terrible, yet dirty french accent). Sid stepped up to the mark. Now this guy isn't a hardcore frenchie bolt clipping...errr...person. He'd only been climbing in England so I'm trying to instigate some trad climbing into him. I realised that he didn't have any rock shoe and was about to start up a HVS crack climb in bendy trainers. I quickly took mine off and hurled them down to him and off he set...

Well he put in such a good effort. He got two thirds of the way up with little instruction other than brute force and determination. He came off a few times, but said he loved it even though he was pumped out of his mind by the time he gave up. Vive la france is all I can say!

Prescott them tied on and came up, sans tape. He climbed it well and got cold hands in the process. By this time I'd got freezing feet, they'd actually gone blue ans it had started raining. I lowered Prescott off and then rappelled down off Andy's anchors. I got hot aches in my feet which caused me to hobble round screaming and cursing till they settled down.

It seemed like the weather was turning from bad to worse with some constant rain and wind. Andy offered to do a route with me and he choose "The Mall" VS 4c. It was still my lead. I'm glad Andy had chosen it as it turned out to be one of the best routes I've ever done. If I'd have just nipped up this on some sunny day as maybe my last route of the day, a final tick before going home I probably wouldn't have stayed in my memory so much. Instead it turned out to be a crazy thrutch upwards, placing as much gear as I could whilst trying to remain on the polished grit holds. I've not doubt this is only VS but it felt so much harder when done in the rain and wind. I loved every minute of it, every time I moved above my gear and though my feet where going to slip off, every wet hand hold and every loose block. I toppedd out and built my belay using up so much rope ended up pulling it half way up the route. I had to go back and re-arrange it. Andy seconded it and I think he enjoyed it, but found it a struggle at the same time.

Well by this time the rain had got to all of us and it was getting dark so heading back seemed the only option. In the end I'd had an awesome day out at millstone, making the most of the bad weather!

no camera!

Well I've lost it! I can't find it in between the tidal weekend move of my kit from my room floor to my car. I'm hoping it'll turn up tonight when I tidything up and start repairing all the kit that need its (Bag strap and cam triggers!).

Hopefully I'll find some photos to actually put up or I'll have to sort out getting a new camera! My ice screw budget will not be happy with that!

SPA Assessment

Well I finaslly got round to doing my SPA. I'll point out right now that I passed the course but defered on my paper work which is probably typical of me. I was absolutley dreading going on the course. I knew my ropework and rigging would be fine (I'm not being big headed but I'm out everyweek climbing so). I was worried about the softer elements of the course, like group work and dealing with problems. These where clearly my weaker elements but at the end of the day I could only do what was sensible and logical.

I arrived late on the wednesday and intended to go down the bar and meet some of the guys on my course. As it happened Ross who I was sharing a room with came up before I'd sort out my kit, but we stayed up going over the homepaper and sharing climbing stories till late.

Obviously breakfast at the Brenin was great (part of the reason I did the course there, the food is excellent). We all met for orientation and meeting out course directors at 9. Because the weather looked good on the thursday we'd do personal climbing then and leave the rigging and problem solving to the friday. We had Andy Teasdale and Kieth Ball as our course directors, both MICs. I figured we'd head to Craig Pant Ifan's upper tier or Lion Rock. We headed to Craig Pant Ifan.

I think over all the day went well. All my anchors where good and I set everything up neatly, quickly and safely. I missed 1 screwgate all day. They where really big on beefing up your anchors. Things like using more places (some of my anchors where like 7 bomber pieces) and using the strongest gear possible. I kept plying them with questions as well trying to learn as much as I can from them. The outdoor session on the second day I tried to put into practise all the things I'd learnt from the first day. Probably seems odd that I was putting into practise what I'd learnt on my first day of assessment, but in all honesty I was a massive leanring experience. I beefed up my anchors and continually ran out of screwgates (I was only carrying 9).

The indoor session was what I was worried about. We where each given a 10 minute slot to deal with 1 aspect of indoor climbing. I got teahcing someone how to belay. This session went well, with us climbing and bouldering and I eventually fumbled through teaching someone to belay. I was pretty nervous, but my technique was sound. This is also probably the session I learnt the most from as I picked up load of idea from everyone else in the room, especially bouldering games.

When it came to results I knew I was going to defere. I hadn't done a first aid course or got my personal profile filled out. There where simply because I completly forgot on my personal profile and because I just havn't need a first aid qualification so I'd let it slip. He said I'd passed the course and done it well. He told me I was safe and my rigging was great. He did say that if I want to go for my MIA I really need to make sure my logbook is in complete order, with everything filled out and in the correct place. This is my next task.

That and doing a first aid course!

Bad weather is wales? surely not...

After a little bit of planning and a bad weather report for mainland North Wales me and Andy headed out anyway. I specify "mainland" because if you know me you can clearly see whats coming...

Gogarth

Pissing in the wind...
Like most trips away with Andy it started with a phone call early in the morning either waking me up and enquiring where I am. Now I'm usually on time, it just seems that when I'm not it always Andy who I'm late with, always. So I dived out of bed, ran to the car to move it before the parking nazi's in Stoke ticketed me and got moving. So much for the early start in the end. We reasoned that the weather report looked slightly better for the afternoon so we drank tea, pack the car leisurely and headed off.

The drive was like most drives to wales: long, sleepy and annoying. We kept driving through patches of decent weather, only to drive back into progressivly worse weather as we got closer. Eventually we pulled up in Llanberis in the driving rain. I'd had a few the night before so breakfast at Pete's was our first port of call. Eventually we decided to risk it and head to Gogarth as it looked like the only place that would be dry.

Now Andy has never been sea-cliff climbing before, but he's a pretty good climber leading HVS so we went to Castell Helen pretty much because I know where I'm going on the cliff. We walked down and sussed out if it would be ok to climb first. We took a good look at the ocean, the onshore winds and the incoming weather. I sea was low, but the swell high so I reasoned we'd skip the first pitch of the routes or just belay higher up. The wind was strong (40 mph), but dry and blowing inland. It would make communication a problem, but it would also be good practise so, and finally the coming weather? There was alot of cloud, and a few little rainfalls out at sea, but we figured we'd be alright.

So back to the car, quick slash in which we seperatly soaked ourselves and then kitted up and headed down. Our first obstical was getting the abseil rope down. With so much rope we did try a throwing some coils. The wind pretty much carried them horizontal through the air. Next was a rope bomb. This little trick is pretty use full in medium to high wind I've found, but today it was found wanting. I still got the rope down, but it was in a 45 degree line across the cliff. No worries, I would sort it out on the way down.

As the heavier guy (and the one who knew where he was going) I set off first intending to do Rap (VS 4c). Abseiling over the edge in such high wind made me feel incredibly lonely. I knew Andy was just out of few but he could have been miles away. The wind was strong enough to make verbal communication worthless. I abseiled past the belay for the second pitch, watching the waves and tugging the abseil rope from around the cliff. I could see the niche where the route starts was getting washed by the ocean continually. Choosing a hanging but dry stance over an soaking wet one I tried to find out at the base of the groove. I'll admit I was pretty scared at this point dangling above a raging ocean and being blown around by the wind. I couldn't find anything I wanted to commmit myself to belay off and as I struggled to find anchors it started to rain.

Well I just paniced. I'll happily admit it, hanging at the bottom of the cliff in the driving rain I paniced. I tried hauling myself back up the rope but there was too much weight on it and it was too stretchy. I calmed myself down and sorted myself out, attaching another prussice above my device and then getting my weight off it. Eventually I started my slow process of inching my way back up the rope, thank god I'v pracisted prussicing before! At the half way ledge I noticed it had stopped raining and the powerful wind had dried the rocks already. Rather then bail completly I took a stance and gave the rope the good old 3 tugs. Andy swiftly joined me.

Andy took the final pitch Rap (4b) as out first route. It was his first sea cliff lead and quite an intersting route trying to make sure you get in enough gear and extend it well. On the top we decided that all in all it wasn't so bad and I suggested that we do Lighthouse arete (VS 4c). As the sea was bad I opted to avoid the first belay and head to the second ledge. This entailed a crazy slanting abseil across the cliff and I built a hanging belay above the ledge. This proved to be a mistake the ledge was actually dry and out of reach of the sea. As I unclipped from the abseil rope I stupidly let go and it got carried off by the wind, stranding me hanging at the base of the cliff and without having let Andy know I was off the rope so he could come down.

So I dangled away yelling into the wind but Andy didn't come down. In the end I got my phone out and sent him a message, I realised I'd only been there 30 minutes but it felt like hours. Andy didn't actually get my message but just got bored of waited and came down the rope anyway to see where I'd got to. I sent him straight to the ledge and he built his belay and I stripped out my unnessessary hanging one, I joined him and we flaked out the ropes and I set off... as anothe rain storm hit! I climbing as fast as I could while remaining save (I ploughed in alot of gear as I was afraid of slipping off on the wet rock) and got a niche about half way up the pitch. Here out of the wind and rain I belayed and brought up a soaking Andy. He was soaked but still smiling!

Again the weather cleared up and the strong wind dried the rock allowing me to finish my pitch. We swapped leads and Andy took to final to the belay. By now the hero factor was running low so we decided to head back to Llanberis for a victory meal at Pete's. This was then followed by a Lecture by Katherine Shirrmacher at Plas-y-Brenin. Eventually we decided that we should probably find somewhere to sleep. Eric's camping barn seemed a good plan meaning breakfast at erics and climbing on Tremadog, plus the weather was looking a little dodgy so a dry night sleep would have been nice. We arrived at Eric's nice and late to find the cmaping barn booked out, so up went the tents and down to the Golden Fleece for a cheeky pint.

Sunday morning and it was dry! God bless Tremadog. Andy hadn't climbed here either so I spoilt him and headed for Merlin Direct (HVS 5a) as our first route. I let him take the first pitch and the cheeky fellow belayed below the crux! Clearly the hero factor was so high today! He brought me up and I lead a 10ft pitch to the actual belay. Joining me, I salivated over the crack climb that starts off the pitch. I've been wanting to do this route for quite a while (ever since I did Merlin original with Rob). It was an awesome climb starting off with a crack (which I jammed not laybacked) then this petered out to some face holds before a shift left to gain the thin cracks to finish. I dropped 1 wire fumbling around on the final section but shot up it with no problem. Tremadog definatly takes nut protection over cams!. Andy agreed what a good route it was and we headed for something else.

As our hero factor was feeling pretty low we picked "One Step in the Clouds" (VS 4c). I really was spoiling Andy with his first trip but I gave him the 1st and last pitches saving the middle pitch for me. Again a pitch I've been wanting to lead myself for while. Andy took the first pitch and was slightly stumped by the hand jam crack finish. I seem to rememeber having much smaller hand last time I did this route as my hands didn't fit this time. I took the second pitch which was a delight (I also realised carry up my gogarth rack was not requires as a rack of wire would have sufficed!). Seriously this route ios one of the gems of Tremadog and needs to be done. I hung around in my belay snuggled up in my belay jacket and sent andy off up the final pitch. We abseiled off grim wall in the end, with the ropes just reaching on stretch!

All in all a good weekend, I'll apologise for the photos but like I've said my camera is a little broken so I don't quite know what I'm shooting!

Sitting on your bag is not cool...

Well that nice rucksack posistioned on the wet floor, just perfect to sit on. Well it also acts as a camera breaking device apparently. So the screen has busted on my camera at the moment, but it still takes pictures, this is just an apology for them as they will either be out of focus, pointing at the wrong thing or just plain crud.