Setting off my head immediately started trying to talk me out of it. The first few moves to actually gain the crack were probably the hardest throughout the whole route. I think what made them hard was that they were just not obvious and the whole thing felt like a boulder problem stolen from the churnet valley. On actually gaining the crack it became a beautiful section of laying away with your feet smearing on the edges. I didn't climb it as quickly as my writing makes out, but the flow was still there and although I climbed up and down and re-arranged my gear everything still felt right.
By the time I'd placed my final pieces in the top of the crack and shuffled off to the left to balance precariously on the small ledge the little voices in the back of my head, which he been so quiet after their initial ranting decided to speak up. I was now looking at a possibly nasty fall, on a couple of cams. what I should have done at this point is just turned the volume down on the voices telling me I should back off, telling me the gear wouldn't hold, telling me I'd catch an ankle on the ledge during the inevitable fall... what I did instead was listen to them for just a minute.
I felt like I was on that ledge for hours having a silent arguement with myself inside my own head. In this time Tim kindly threw me a couple more cams (he owns a slightly smaller size) and now the "final pieces" had become a bomber series of placements. They calmed my thoughts enough to step off the ledge and try and make the most of the tiny crimps I was to rely on. I don't know how fast I climbed but everything felt slower, ordered and considered. I could feel every single grain of grit smeared and holding onto the rubber stretched over my toes. My finger tips screamed silent protests as the sharp crystals cut into them (too much climbing and not enough rest) but I pulled on them anyway. The small holds ran out and I slapped for what I hoped would be a good sloper... it wasn't the best but it didn't matter. My other hand joined the first on the sloper and I tucked my fingers into the shallow depression which was hidden from view. Gently I picked a point for my left toe on the small rail I was heading for. This was it, the big move, the 6a mantle... and it was fine. It honestly felt fine and for that single small moment as I rocked over nothing else in the world mattered.
Considering I was climbing in a pair of borrowed shoes as I'd forgotten my own it wasn't bad .
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| half way up the crack (photo courtesy of Sammy Dye) |
