honesty, trait of a good climber.

When I climbed Chalkstorm, an mildly infamous route which has destroyed a few ankles of people I know in it's time (3 and my last count, and one was air lifted out), there was a big psychological barrier for me on it. I was climbing really well (for me) and seeing as it is a 5c slab climb it should really be me thing. Earlier that morning I'd also done Appaloosa Sunset, also graded E3 5c. This is a longer grit route found on the third cloud in front of the Roaches. Actually it's probably in front of skyline area but who cares. Appaloosa sunset was an awesome route in every sense for me. It was long (enough), hard and had enough of a risk that I really didn't want to fall off. It's a wall climb, like straight up and the crux is right in the middle of the slab and your gear is a long way off. If you mess it up your going for a swing but you'll be ok, maybe a bit battered and bruised. Basically Appaloosa was awesome.


So high off my success of Appaloosa I set off for Chalkstorm, seeing as I was climbing well. At the base, weary of the many people who I know who've messed up on it I decided that 1, I would NOT top-rope it, or abseil down it. I've never done it before and I don't see why I should start doing it now and 2, I would place side runners because the risk/gain ratio just wasn't worth it for a non side runner lead. I'll happily admit it. Instead I placed some side runners, probably reducing the grade to around E1, maybe even HVS by some peoples standards and lead it. It wasn't too bad but didn't really strike me and a route of merit. I can apprieciate that I didn't do it in what is percieved as the "best style" but who cares. I don't lead things for other people, I rather selfishly climb for well guess who, me! 


So I did the route in the style I felt most appropriate but in the looses sense of the word I'd still done Chalkstorm. I'd climbed up it, however when I comment or tell someone I climbed chalkstorm I always, always make sure I tell them that I did it onsight and placed side runners bringing the abjective grade down. 


This post was originally entitled "lying in climbing" but I decided against that because when someone does a route and doesn't comment of the 6 hours of top-rope practise they had before hand or the spare rope that was hanging by for them then they aren't lying, they still did the route, but they are NOT telling the whole truth. Maybe it is just a pet hate, or maybe it's something a little deeper but if you're honest about how you climbed something it means much more. I know plenty of people who've done this route and done that route and tell everyone that "today I climbed [insert route here]" and there is no mention of the pad that they placed beneath the start to protect the bad landing, or the abseil inspection and cleaning of holds, or the top-roping/redpointing they've been doing for the last 6 months, or the beta they received from a guy (or girl) who'd done the route previously. 


Maybe I'm being pedantic and all this is just silly. Maybe how you do something doesn't matter.

finger injury, baby and summer holidays...

Well my finger injury is progressing well. It's still very swollen and sore, but I've been massaging it all the time to promote constant blood flow to the area. It looks like it'll be a long haul but in the mean time I'll just drop my grade or climb harder slabs and stick to bigger adventure routes in the mountains. It's also the summer holidays for me as well so I've got loads of time off to contemplate being injured and heal up, and to do things like reseal the bathtub, which is going to be a load of fun seeing as theres a bunch of plastic that needs removing. I'm also off to cornwall and isles of Scilly for a couple of weeks, with a few friends coming down to join me. Cornwall should be fun and the pace of life down there seems just so much slower and more enjoyable, plus granite sea cliffs!!!

There's been a recent edition to our household. We've (Rachel and I) been toying with getting a pet for a while now. Throwing ideas around about cats, dogs and house rabbits. We've come to the conclusion that keeping a pet like that would be reasonably cruel and we'd rather not. Then the offer of adopting a bearded dragon turned up who was going to be made homeless. We've adopted her and something as simple and being responsible for a pet has already made a huge difference and impact on out lives. 

bitter and twisted...

It's been an interesting weekend, and seeing as it's sunday and I'm blogging then you'll probably be able to guess that 1, it's raining and 2, I'm not out climbing. This isn't a bad thing as I don't mind taking weekends off climbing (especially for other fun stuff, walking, scrambling, friends birthdays etc) but this weekend I decided that a session at Awesome Walls in Stoke would be appropriate, hell I just needed to kill some time and catch up with alot of people who I've not seen for ages. 

The session was going pretty well. I've had a twinge in my third finger (left hand) that I've been watching of late and I've kept taping it up when I've been bouldering and climbing indoors. I say being careful but clearly I wasn't being careful enough as it snapped. Thats basically the sum of it. I was on a pockety route and cranked really hard on pulling up on 2 fingers (one obviously being my bad finger) and there was a grotesque snapping/breaking sound and I promptly fell off ( I was like a ft off the floor too because it was a sit start). The pain was immediate and strong. It felt like I'd snapped a bone in my finger. I muss have looked in pain as even Toaf stopped bouldering and we went and got some ice. Since then it's been iced and strapped to my other finger because I don't know what to do about it... Well I didn't until I spoke to Soames. So it'll be off to the docters tomorrow morning for me and then hopefully to hospital for an x-ray and they'll tell me that I'm just being a big jessie.

So for the moment I'm feeling very sorry for myself, but on the upside I'm actually quite psyched because having a painful finger will put shot to any obessive hard climbing and grade chasing, something I could probably do with. I had an awesome time the other weekend just climbing was was (for me) easier routes but being out in the mountains and spending time biving and walking. I think just being in the mountains and chilling out might do my finger some good.

Annoyingly I did pick up some 60metre Beal Icelines which are practically new. They've been used for 1 route (Idwal Stream) which I did with Holloway the guy I brought them off. They are a much needed replacement for my current Half ropes, a pair og Mammut Genesis. These ropes are far beyond being decomissioned but they are starting to show some wear and are about 4 years old. They've had a good life, and hard use and I'd recommend anyone wanting a do anything (from grit outcrops, mountain routes to sea cliffs) to invest in a pair. 

So much for a summer of climbing hard, eh?

a day out somewhere fun...?

Pretty much what it sounds like. It's a video of when me and Killian went climbing on Idwal from a few blog posts ago. It is only the first draft as I did want to get some more footage into it but I've not been able to get round to it.

A gneiss weekend climbing...

Actaully there was no gneiss involved but I couldn't help the play on word what with being a rock climbing, likely geology and just having read this post onf UKC (here). Having said all that, it was actually a really nice weekend. I visited Tom's bridge in Bridgenorth, which was ok, visited Young Soames who's given me some beetroot from his garden, but I'm not entirely sure how to cook it. Probably the best thing he gave us was a good weather report for north wales. A plan was hatched.

So I had another weekend in the ogwen valley and this time it was with Rach. We just headed out for a days climbing on a bigger mountain route. Rach isn't really a fan of single pitch climbing, prefering to get some more mileage for the amount of faff (racking up, flaking ropes, recoiling, descending etc) so longer mulitpitch routes are really her bag. Originally we'd planned to head to the forest of dean area in quest of some sandstone and bunter pebble bed bouldering but this plan was superseeded by mountains. 


Our plan was to go up and do Sub-cneifon Rib and then Cneifon Arete, but we only managed to do the first one. We drove over nice and early, resisting the urge to stop at the Rhug estate before pulling up and parking next to the bouldering area in Ogwen. I know I actually moaned about me not paying for parking in the last post, but in this instance it was nice to get away from everyone. We actually kick started the day by trying the little (emphasis on little) squeeze that is formed by a dropped flake. I've tried this a few times before and got stuck, like very stuck each time and have been forced to retreat. This time I managed it and it was so scary! Either it's thin enough or I'm large enough that I need to breathe out and compress my chest to squeeze it though. After a few abortive attempts I managed it but then my ass got stuck! Everytime I was tensed I couldn't get it through to had to pull myself up on my arms, panicing like mad. I really want to go caving again...


Back to the climbing we took a nice easy stroll into the crag, this time going to the little quarry instead of the path all the way round. At the base of the route we settled down for a little rest before climbing when a team of three people turned up. They all looked a little more mountaineery than us and Rachel and I agreed that it would be better if they went ahead. Rach andc I were in no rush and decided that we could do without thew hassle of someone on our tail, it'd be much nicer to just climb unrushed. So they set off and we relaxed in the... well it wasn't quite sunshine, but it wasn't raining. I guess we just relax in the atmosphere, praying it wouldn't rain. It was quite cool to watch the rain falling on Anglesey miles away. The wind was pulling it all along the coast so it didn't really touch the mountains. 


Then it was time to get a move on. Rachel took the first lead but we didn't actually follow the pitches in the guidebook and Rach lead off taking a line as and where she saw fit. She climbed really well in her normal style with is the chimney up everything. This isn't a disservice to her climbing ability but I recon in a former life she was definatly a mighty mountianeer with a great white hoarfrost encrusted beard who ploughed up VDiffs and Severes regardless of conditions. She climbs very traditionally. She climbed up to a small niche and belayed bringing me up. I then took the little groove above and belayed as soon as the difficulties had passed. My idea was that Rach would then lead off and she would have more time on the sharp end however when I brought her up, gave her the rack and she headed off it was about 10ft before she got to a massive ledge and yelled down to me she was safe. 


So I followed her up and took in a a bunch of coils as she scrambled up the next short section passing the sticking out rock thing. I think opted for a "russian belay" (don't know where I've picked that term up from but it is used to describe the pulling in of rope with a climber on the end, hand over hand) and brought me up. By now we'd caught up with the party who'd set off before us so we settled down and had some lunch. As we lunched the guy leading came up to a definate crux in the next pitch and seemed to agonise about the next few moves. This was the kind of move that would be described by a hard climber as "interesting" and a lesser (?) climber as well... bloody hard for VD. When he'd done the move and brought his seconds up, we set off hot on thier tail. Rach lead off first but took one look at the bloody hard/interesting move decided against it. I was sent up on the lead and soon delt with the crux but came up behind the party in front. Instead of standing around on the lead I belayed and brought up Rach in the mean time and she led off to top out.

We had a nice relaxed walk off after deciding to bin the idea of climbing the Cneifon Arete, so headed down before any midges were about. We spent the day climbing as light as we could (although I still carried a massive rack) using a skinny single 60 metre rope and a bandolier. We actually managed to climb with only the 1 sack on, leaving the leader free to climb bagless.

Idwal Link-up... finally.

A link-up on idwal is something I've been trying to complete for a few years but each attempt has been thwarted by bad weather, tiredness or just plain laziness. However this time it was different. I had a reasonable free weekend but was struggling to find a partner for the whole 2 days when Killian said he was free for the saturday afternoon and sunday. A plan was hatched which entailed us driving up late on the saturday, then walking in to bivi out at Idwal so we could get a pretty early start. The early start would then lead us to climb and climb and climb up Idwal, Heather Tree Wall, Continuation Wall and finally Grey Slab to evetually top out and tick off the summit of Glyder Fawr to make it a mountain day. This was the great plan anyway. Added to all the climbing, because the weather was so nice I'd be shooting as much video as I could on the day. 

Like I said I've attempted link-ups on Idwal before, I've also attempted to sleep on Idwal before and had decided against that as an option because of a few reasons. I simply value a good nights sleep (this is coming from a guy who regularly couch-surfs or dosses under a boulder). I'll define a good nights sleep as at least 6 hours, good sound sleep on a comfy thermarest, then the ability to make a cup of tea with minimal movement from from sleeping bag. See my criteria isn't exaclt stringent, but lugging all that kit up 300m of up to VS climbing didn't exactly sound like fun. I knew sack hauling would have been nessessary so instead we opted for a different approach. That was the other reason; climbing light (well relatively speaking). We'd sleep at the bottom, enjoy an early(ish) start and leave our kit behind carrying only our little 25litre "day" sack, rack, ropes and water. In the end we carried a pretty full rack. I know you can climb up most of idwal with just a decent (read: large) set of wires but I'd thrown some extra cams in just in case. I didn't know what grey slab area was going to be like for gear.


Enough of the planning. Lets just suffice to say that it was like all good plans. We made it hastly with rather ambigious arrangements like "Do you have a bivi bag?" "yep" "right then we'll bivi, just pack light ok?" "ok". (Our planning really didn't amount to more than that). Infact we took 2 stoves in when we could have got away with just the one. We parked up by the boulders near the ogwen car park. Seeing as the actual car park doesn't offer any way to pay for a ticket overnight, we found a place to stay without paying. I really resent doing this. I know that the national park needs to generate revenue from somewhere and me dodging parking fees is well, it's a little off. There a few things that they could do to encourage better uses of facilities and generate more income, like overnight parking options, a decnet bus service with an understandable timetable and a car sharing mentatily (ok the last one is there because I needed a third). 


So parked up (for free) we first enjoyed a nice brew in the evening sun. Having arrived much earlier that I thought we would. I had originally planned a late walk in, like when it was dark. Anyone would think that we'd be rearing to go. But we'd both had crappy weeks at work and were just glad to be out of big cities and in the mountains. With this is mind we took a leisurely walk in, taking the path to the right round the lake and along the beach before finding a spot to crash right at the base of Idwal. We'd brewed up, done a little soloing before the bloody midges came out. Then the fun started.


We spent the next 2 hours wandering around the idwal area searching for any breeze that would  drive them off. It go to the point where we decided that leaving all our stuff there and going to hide in a pub, or car would be the best plan. Instead we stuck it out. We actually met loads of nice people who where finishing thier days out walking and borrowed midge repellent (that didn't work) off them. After what seemed like an eternity the temperature dropped and the midges left us only to drink tea and snuggle down in our sleeping bags. 


I woke up to a weak sun at 0440, it couldn't have been a more perfect wake up.


I didn't actually get out of bed until around 0700 because there was no way I was moving from my nice snuggly sleeping bag (didn't need the bivi bag either). Instead I dozed, brewed up, and only got moving when someother eager people arrived at the crag and got moving before we'd actually got out od bed. They didn't actually seem too amazed by our sleeping out.


As for the climbing, well it was just great. The sun slowly climbed ever higher into the sky as we climbed onward. I'll avoid a pitch by pitch description for once. I've climbed Tennis shoe so many times over the years but that doesn't take away from how much I love the route, it's just that I'm sick of writing the same description. However what was different this time was watching my friend Killian on it. He took pitches 2 and 4 and it was great to watch him lead them. See I've not really climb with Killian much, in fact this was our first mulitpitch route together and he seemed a little shakey at first on the lead. Soon enough thought he found his feet and was flying up the 2nd pitch, filling it was gear. So we'd reached the lead of the last pitch and made the little walk across to rebelay beneath it. In my mind the pitch was a decent 4a line with good gear. I guess I must be getting old as my memory is fading a little. Kill jumped on the lead (well more of politly shoved) and set off. Considering the sudden exposure and polished footholds he didn't back down and made good upward progress. I actually felt really bad as he struggled to find more gear than was present but he pushed on. I felt even worse when I actually seconeded the pitch and realise what a shock it must have been to suddenly have that much exposure. I was glad the see a relieved smile on his face as he belayed me up.

Then we scrambled across the top of Idwal and did Javelin Gully (HS 4b). It followed the first pitch of Lazarus, which Killian took much to his amusement. It seemed like a massive clamber which kept swithing backwards and forwards up this wide gully. He even manged a ligitamate heel hook for one of the last few moves. I took to second pitch which was as the guide described runout, but it's only runout in the top second after the difficulities. It is actually a really good route and great value for HS. I had a bit og trouble getting myself up at the few points. I carried straight on to lead groove above (S 4a) after I'd brought Kill up. This route isn't just all about the first move (which is bloody hard) so I'd suggest that everyone should do it. 

Then a rest, a scramble and amble (like scrambling but with red socks on) till we found the little scrap of flat ground below grey slab area. After a brief foray into the guide book I selected to go Grey Rib (VS 4b) and then the second pitch of Grey Slab (VS 4b) which gave us 100metres of decent climbing. Kill was tired so I lead. We scrambled up Grey Rib as high as we dared and belayed. I then linked both pitches together but still only managed to find about 4 pieces of gear. Then we belayed again, did a short pitch to beneath our final pitch (grey slab, p2) rebelayed and I set off, again only finding something like 4 pieces of gear. I tooped out happily thinking that these routes confirmed our grades from the routes I've put up at the Lleyn (here & here). Killian flashed up these and than haistly pulled off his shoes as he was suffering from cramp.


And it was just easy scrambling up Seniors ridge to the top. Once we gained it we had to descend down the back of Idwal to get out cached kit which had been safety just left at the start of tennis shoe, under the premise that no-one touches the bag of climbers at Idwal because they just assume they are climbing a route above them. Then we walked out, a little dehydrated. 


I actually really enjoyed just being able to spend a night out in the mountains. I think we took the right approach with out day kit, but in future I'll be carrying more water.

More new routing...

It's monday and I've got sunburn... but only on my one arm, and it's localised in 1 single area right where my folded up shirt sleeve sits. That'll learn me for not wearing suncream I guess. Infact that was a pretty big oversight this weekend, that and the lack of pegs. 

I've been away new routing on the Lleyn Penisular again. After the last trip I had some decent photo's of the crag to work from so Soames and I had a D-day style planning session, down the pub to work out which lines when where from the original guide and what rock was free of routes for us to try some more lines on. In the end we identified several new route possibilities at the cliff. Added to this we have made a decent topo of the crag with most of the existing lines still on it. It's just time to get back there and finish them off!

We actually had a late start on the Saturday arriving at the crag around 2pm. This late start I'll contribute to life just getting in the way but the main reason is bloody shed pullers clogging up the roads at 30mph. Armed the nano-photon torpedos is all I can say. To add insult to injury they don't even pay road tax, despite the fact they are on the road.

It was wet when we got there, or at least more of the lines we'd planned to do were wet so Soames headed for a little bay at the end, which isn't in any guide book and I'll name quarry 5.1 (as it's just after quarry 5, but not big enough to be a seperate quarry in it's own right). Here we did 2 lines the first being "how is this my fault" going at around E1 5a. It took a thin slanting groove line sporting 3 bolt thread. Now this section of cliff has got a few bolts on it, well threads and no hangers really, but there doesn't seem to be any reason for them to be there. I think they've been left over from someone trying to develop the quarry as a bolted venue or someone practising bolting. 

Soames headed up the line first, but as he'd attained the groove he backed off and relinquished the lead to me. It was still damp and greasy. Trying to keep a good style I pulled the ropes and set off re-clipping Soames's gear until I reached the slung bolt hanger (a nut wriggled over the bolt nub). I removed it, intending to do the route free of bolts because all the other routes are on natural gear there. The final groove proved to be quite hard (5a climbing) and above a nest of little brass offset nuts and other tiny pieces of gear, but it went really well until I grabbed a thank god jug to finish. The top section eased to about 4c.

The second route Soames put up was called "Diamon little supergirl, tra la la la" and went at around VS 4b. It took a rib next to "how is this my fault" up to a small overhang. This took some gear, although the gear was interesting and relied on the stability of a rather large and slighty loose block. Then Soames went on to do some significant gardening to unearth the final little groove which actually had some footholds on it. It's a cracking little line!

Sadly the weather which we'd been watching throughout the day get worse and worse finally threatened some immenient violence. Instead of attempting another line and possibly getting caught out in the rain, we set off back to Eric's for some chips, pickled eggs and some beers. The pickled eggs were not my idea.


A few weeks ago I woke up in Eric's climbing barn, clear headed and smiling. Stuart pointed out that it was so nice to not have a hangover for a days climbing. This sunday morning however, I did not wake up without my hangover. It seemed hell bent on killing me. Eventually I stomached some breakfast and we got on our way again, back to our cliff. The weather had perked up too!


Arriving at the cliff we very quickly realised that the line we were going to attempt was actually not the simple little proposition that it had seemed on paper. In fact it look bloody scary, not to mention quite long. The plan was to try and traverse the cliff from left to right in a complimentary route to Interstella Ella. Eventually after drinking as much water as I could and stupidly no putting on any suncream we set off braving the adder infested grass to reach the base of the cliff. I opted for the first pitch which would see us up to a metal bar. I just hoped that there would be some gear along the way. In the end the route ended up being 5 pitches long and covering somewhere near 180 metres of ground. We spent 4 hours cleaning it on the lead and finding our way and then it took us and hour to recover once we'd got down. If there was ever a route to sit on the summit and smoke a fine cigar after, this was it.

Pitch 1 followed a rising traverse below flat iron (in the opposite direction) before breaking through a gap in the overhang. It then took a blank slab to belay off an iron rod backed up by a nut. All in all this pitch had good climbing and decent protection seeing as it was a traverse. The belay was a little bit crap though. Soames lead pitch 2 which went right from the belay to gain an decent ledge and a neat rockover move. There was some gear,  but most of it wasn't really up to much. Soame then made the sensible decision of belaying in the decent crack he found. I then lead p3 which was the long one. I took the slab under ther overhangs sticking right beneath them. The climbing was slightly harder than on ther slab, but the gear was much better. I actually wondered out over a massive hollow flake at one point and had to scamper back across it! Then the overhang dissappeared but I carried on along the traverse line. Here the gear worsened considerably and I ended up pulling off 5a/b moves protected by a series of microwires along way off. I was go glad to actually get to the decent ground above and belay. 


Soames in seconding this pitch choose to take a slightly easier route up and over the slab I gone straight across. This was a good decision as it kept the grade consistant for the whole line rather than a really hard bit. I'll incorporate this into another route if I can though as the climbing is really good. Soames lead pitch 4 which was almost a reverse of the 2nd pitch of interstella ella. The pitch was actually pretty hard going the other way and Soames avoided the interstella ella belay by staying high at the finish. I then lead p5 which carried on traversing across what would probably be the schmoo pitch. The rock quality was a little crappy to say the least. In the end I had to clean out loads of grass and turf out of the final cracks to carry the line on it's logical end. 


What a route! As I said we'd spent a considerable amount of time on it and finished dehydrated and tired. I even got a localised sunburn on my one arm. In the end we settled on the grade of HVS 4c for the route because there was some pretty serious sections of bad rock but with easier climbing on. A lot of the route traversed too so you'd need to protect your second. In interesting point Soames threw up was that we better get out and climb some classic VS's and HVS's somewhere to make sure our grading on the Lleyn is in keeping with the rest of Britian. 

The Evershifting Schmoo (HVS 4c) in WHITE & Interstella Ella (VS 4b) in RED