The New Slate Guide... finally!

Long have I been waiting for the new slate guide to come out. Long enough actually for me to appreciate how good my old '92 slate guide is... and it's additional purple folder! Allow me to explain. I'm only a youngster when it comes to slate. To be honest I've only been climbing for the last 9 years or so of my life (climbing has seemed to dominate those years though) but I've been climbing on the slate for something like the last 3, but I've loved it. I actually recently fell out of love with that series of big purple-hued-grey holes in the ground that surround Llanberis because I'd reached bit of a ceiling. It wasn't that I'd climbed all the routes in there that I could climb, but more like I wasn't inspired to climb them. Soames a few months ago came along and changes all that by getting me the crux of Khubla Khan (I got rained off and I've not been back). But my love of that slatey goodess is back.

When the new guide was announced last week, Soames was the first person to tell me about it.I followed the progress of V12 in getting the order and when a chance came to head to wales climbing for the weekend, I jumped at it. My first impressions of the guide after a brief flick through were that I was impressed. It was clear that a lot of work had gone into this book, and judging by it's thickness (compared to the last guide) there would be a host of new routes and topo's in there. But wait a minute, why has it taken so long for the slate guide to be released. I think that there are a few reasons, well two really. There has been considerable development in the past couple of years throughout the quarries. If you've been following the slate wiki then you'll have seen routes going up all over the place. I guess that they've been trying to grade check all of them. The other reason for the held release date, I think, is the access situation. During the filming of "Clash of the Titans" we can all remember the quarries being closed. Also there was a few incidents with Dali's Hole. This eventually calmed down once the fence went up and the low grade sport routes were taken down (I still think this is a good thing). 


Sadly quarry access is something I've been following with a little interest (primarily because I like climbing there and don't fancy the idea of being banned) but seeing as a lot of investment (both financial and time) has gone into this guidebook, it makes more sense to release it when the access situation is good. Seeing as winter is coming and autumn generally has rather poor weather the quarries will take a beating this time of year. With the release of a new guide, how many people do you think will flock there? I just hope that access is sorted.




Things that hit me straight away are the excellent photographs throughout the book, seemingly the same construction (and therefore quality) as the Gogarth North and North Wales Rock guidebooks. The guidebook construction is something I'll tackle later and good pictures don't make a guide. Having said that I was so please when I opened it and started reading. The best place to start is the beginning and the opening sections about what slate it like as a rock type and what gear to carry I thought were very well put (it did recomment skyhooks as fair gear but mainly useful for bailing in the rain). Then each section is well described (like each area of the quarries). The maps are well drawn and seem pretty simple to use (although this might be a little biased as I know my way round the quarries pretty well). I plan on testing this when I go slate climbing with someone who not been there and make them find the route.


What really impressed me was that the main wall of Twll Mawr, Gideon and the Nant Peris quarries (heaven forbid you'd want to climb there!) had decent topos and frank but excellent descriptions. Twll Mawr really does come across as the very dangerous but equally fascinating place to climb and the Gideon Slab actually looks like I'll be able to climbing on it finally (I've never been able to work out where any of the lines go based on the old descriptions). 


The grading seems to be pretty good throughout the quarries. There haven't been that many grade revisions or changes (from sport/trad etc) but the ones that have I've ran over with Soames (who may as well own the quarries as he's climbed there so much) and he agreed with them. Interestingly there's routes in there graded with British Trad, French spot, Drytooling, Aid climbing (mit peggage) and Clean aid climbing. There's still a good few routes as the magically enticing grade of XS and they've still include the obscure alpine grade of ABO for one route. I don't know why but I like this. I really seems to show the broad diversity of climbing in the slate quarries, which is something I like about them and should stay. I think there's enough rock in there that you don't need to retrobolt every route going. The specific style of traditional slate climbing is so important to maintain and (and I'll make a big claim here) so unique to the British climbing scene. 

Next along the line of things I feel the need to comment on is the historical section. If you read anything I've written about guidebooks before then you'll know my stance with regards to the historical sections. They are important. They stop climbing being reduced down to a number and a grade and keep the flow of stories and history behind each route alive. Since the slate quarries are relatively young (with regards to a lot of the mountain crags in North Wales) they're history is 1, quite well recorded and 2, quite brief and 3, a lot of the people around in the original boom are still alive. The guidebook itself doesn't really have a dedicated history section, instead preferring to spread the history out over the book. These come in the form of "Diary of a Slatehead". These little diary style entries look back at how little sections of the quarries were developed and who put up what routes. Coupled with a sort of "Character Profile" of prolific slateheads throughout the book this gives a great overall history of the quarries and an insight into the driving force behind their development.


Wow! that's a lot of writing about one guidebook but I guess you can imagine that I've been waiting along time for this to come out. Slate climbing is something special and I think on the new guidebook they've done a really good job!

Millstone Edge

Went climbing at Millstone Edge in the Peak District on Sunday. My Saturday was spent wondering around Cannock Chase, disturbing wild deer (which I've still not got a decent picture of) climbing trees for elderberries, picking black berries and finding a surprisingly small amount of mushrooms. I was very disappointed with my poor haul of mushrooms (about 4). Rach found loads of fruit so she's made loads more jam (blackberry, elderberry, wild pear and wild apple) which is good!

Sunday as I said was spent at Millstone Edge. I'd planned for an early start based on the fact that I only had one day and wanted to make it a good one. This plan went a little out the window when I picked up Ronnie, who was still in bed and therefore forced me to make a cup of tea. Once that was drunk and Ronnie awakened, we then went to the next pick up point Nat's house to pick up Tim and Andy, who were well both asleep. More tea was consumed and more people arrived and eventually when it started raining we sent off.

It's started raining, you say? You might be wondering why we jetted across the peak if it was raining. Surely it would be better to make more tea and play xbox whilst enjoying the rain as a spectator. This wasn't to be as everyone in my car was psyched to get out and try and go climbing and the other car didn't have much choice but to follow. We did actually stop outside Buxton to make a final decision (based on the information gathered from a borrowed iphone). It said good weather would be there in the afternoon and seeing as we were still in fog with a visibility of around 50 metres I had faith in the met office, we voted (5 for climbing, 1 against) and then carried on.

It like it when life pulls little stunts like this. If it wasn't for Ronnie being in bed, Tim and Andy being in bed, several cups of tea and waiting around for people then we'd have probably either binned going climbing or arrived at millstone to find it encased in cloud. Instead we arrived find it's golden walls bathed in weak autumnal sunshine and the promise of dry, clean rock!

We ended up splitting down into two teams of three for the climbing and I set off up Embankment Route 2, dressed in garish lycra (the less said about that the better). Needless to say the thermal properties of lycra leave something to be desired and hence my change back to my regular climbing trousers. Embankment Route 1 gets VS 4c and I'm not going to lie but I had a really hard time on it. I couldn't seem to get a decent finger lock in at all and my jams felt all off. It was quite nice to be humbled on such a route. Ronnie and Andy Finn (new guy to climbing) seconded it with few problems, Ronnie mainly laybacking the whole route. As we climbed with Tim climbed P1 of Embankment Route 1 (VS 4c in it's own right) with Andy and Scott. There was a definite crux that stumped him for a little while while he lead it. Once we were all on the edge we opted to abseil off a tree (no directly obviously). Once I'd actually abseiled down I realised the error of our actions and made sure that I didn't abseil at all for the rest of the day. There was just no need to abseil and I'm sure it took us longer to all ab off rather than just walk down.

Ronnie took the lead for the next route and headed up Embankment route 1. Considering Ronnie is normally against trad climbing and prefers bouldering he lead the route really well. I think his talents are wasted on bouldering! He made short work of the crux which was great fun to watch. I seconded and the crux was had. It was like a 4c stopper move which was really unbalancy and awkward. Instead of trying to do it nice and technically making all the moves easy, I just grabbed and pulled (shamelessly) upward. Our next route was a little more awkward. Ronnie had spotted the what he thought was the continuation of our route on the wall above and set off to start leading it. The downside to this plan as that we'd not really looked at the guidebook and knew that there was a VS line and an E2 line somewhere up there. He started up the route, got a couple of pieces of gear in and then decided that it looked very hard and sustained for a short section. In the end he downclimbed and offered the lead up to me, which I took. 

I made reasonably good progress up the route placing a lot of gear as I went. I very soon came to the conclusion that this wasn't the VS line at all. At my high point there was a pretty hard move I had to make, running my feet quickly up the wall on smears with a layaway from my hand. This would (hopefully) enable me to reach up and slap for a big large hold (by passing a tiny intermediate crimp on the way). Sadly I was getting hopelessly pumped so instead of committing to the move, I down climbed as steadily as I could and took a rest at the floor as my forearms screamed. I had a little wonder about the ethics of down climbing a route, but not weighting the gear. I mean it's clearly a very different ascent to a pure onsight, but it doesn't break the rules of the onsight does it?

Eventually I couldn't put it off any longer and I dived back on lead climbing to my high point and smashing straight through the crux moves. Like most things the crux wasn't as hard as I'd originally thought and I probably could have done it on my first attempt (before the downclimb). It didn't stop me being as pumped as hell for the final section though. The top-out also left much to be desired. It was loose, like a lot of the tops of routes at Millstone, but this was seriously loose. Ronnie and Andy flashed the route on second, and were both really careful at the top. I did wonder why neither had a helmet on?

Once back at the floor (walking off this time) we checked the guide book and found we actually climbed the second pitch of embankment route 1 an E1 5b pitch. We figured that we'd need a break and some food. I think we both knew what route we would be up for next (Great Portland Street) but it had just reached that point in the afternoon where we'd would chill out and enjoy ourselves. I had a good think about the last route (whether it was far to claim the onsight) and about the rack. I've used Ronnie's Rack for the route and therefore was without my 6 million pieces of gear. I think I might need to put my rack on a diet again. 

Eventually we actually go round to doing some more climbing, as the sun was standing low in the sky. We did Great Portland Street (HVS 5b) and I incorrectly took an gear larger than a size 2 cam. This was a slight mistake on my part ad it meant that the bridging/mantling crux was done with some less than perfect gear but I managed it anyway and carried on right to the top. I was really beautiful climbing as the sun was setting and all the walls glowed with a golden hue. I think this is why I like climbing in autumn so much.

Left Edge

I don't think there is much to say about this route. Actually having just written that I feel pretty bad, like I'm doing the route a injustice or something because I've little to right about it. What I should actually say is that each pitch is as hard as the one before it. There seems to be almost no change in grade thoughout and even if it is only graded VDiff, who cares. It's not often you get a route of such nice quality that is also so long (something around 183 metres, according to the guidebook). The best bits about this route are probably that one, no-one ever seems to be up there and you can do it in the rain, quite happily! Enjoy the pictures below. 

The death of the climbing guide?

Well it seems like it's happened. A iphone app has been developed for use in the quarries, therefore meaning that all of those with a iphone can now download said app and use it instead of a guidebook. I feel sad as although it might be a little old fashioned I like owning a guidebook to an area.

At uni my friends would be a little surprised when we'd be discussing route idea for the day and they'd say something like "whats that classic VS down the Nant Gwynant Vally?" and I'd pipe up with "you mean Bovine right? or Oxo, or oxine?". I like to read guidebooks. Apart from being stuff full ot routes they usually have a history section or a local geology section (or even local plantlife etc). I found that they are usually really awesome to read. Take something like the Cloggy Guide. It's a small guide which contains all the winter and summer lines on cloggy. Now apart from being a very well set out guidebook and very neat, it has a history section like no other. I'll appreciate that Cloggy lends itself to a good history section (what with so many stories surrounding the cliff like the Indian Face Saga etc) but the point is that they didn't have include this rich history that adds to the cliff.

I think that maybe books appeal to a certain type of climber. I value the time spent in the pub reading up when a route was first put up, who the first ascentionist was and all the little tit-bits that get included with decent guides (like why they named the route as they did, see the old '92 slate guide for examples of this). It's nice to see who did what and at what time the route was put up. For example Bengal Buttress was climbed in 1930, and it's still a hard route today, but at the time it must have been a massive achievement! This kind of stuff is put in guidebooks.

I know quite a few climbers who wouldn't dream of reading thier climbing guide. People who'll use it as a guide to get them to a crag and then up a route (infact I know a few climbers who use them to get them to a crag, but don't fully read the route descriptions!). They'll treat it as a guide rather than the wealth of information and this saddens me.

So is this the way it's going? Am I going to be an old climber, sporting a patchy beard and still climbing with traditional protection (scorning the bolts that adorn my beloved cliffs) and thumbing through a tatterned up well cherised stack of bound paper while young hip cool climbers pause on thier belay ledges to check the route on thier iphones and update thier facebook statuses about who the last pitch was. I hope this doesn't happen...

Trees as fixed gear?

I've already posted this on UKC because I thought it provoke an interesting discussion (or at least an interesting argument) among the posters but I thought I'd get it down here as well.

Basically the new slate guide has come out and thumbing through it with Rach we spotted a picture of Mark Dicken and Ioan Doyle doing Giddy Variations on a Theme (E2 5b) on page 303 (if anyone whats to know). Apart for suddenly catching my imagination almost completely this picture started a little discussion between the two of us.

Rach: So what grade [Giddy variations on a theme] is it then?

Me: E2 5b

Rach: Why though? It's just a slab, isn't it.

Me: Yeah, but it's probably sustained 5b climbing for most of the route and [referring to the original picture] there isn't much gear in it and there is some long run outs.

Rach: So, why isn't it just bolted then?

Me: What? Why would you bolt it?

Rach: Well because it's in a quarry, why else?

Me: but but it's a slate route, it's different, what about designer danger [see end] ? whats about it's history? what... what...

And as you can probably guess my argument trailed off seemingly based around noble ideals like not bolting things just because it's a quarry, giving the rock a sporting chance and "what about the routes history". However Rach couldn't see why a route wasn't bolted in the slate quarries and thus I explained about slate ethics and the original boom period in the 80's, the slate head and the concept of designer danger and then the recent, and I hesitate the use the word, renaissance where many bolted routes of a more sport climbing nature have been developed. Soon enough she muttered something like "well slate is just a bunch of unbolted sport routes" anyway.

So of course bolting had been brought up and thus a discussion probably took a turn for the worst (bolting is always a bad discussion to have with me, I get quite enthusiastic/enraged). This then extended to all kinds of fixed gear. The concept of "designer danger" came up and Rach finally ended with:

Is is ethical to plant a tree in a crack, so that in 20 years when the tree has grown it can be slung as a piece of gear?

Literally I was stumped (excuse the pun) and I've been wondering about it ever since...

University Mountaineering Clubs

Well it's that time of the year again. The time when helpful people post on UKC that your favourite crag is going to be descended on by hoards of freshers being taken out by their university mountaineering club. Seems to me like it's the time to head a little way into the mountains or off the beaten track to avoid these groups of people, but are they really all that bad?

From personal experience yes and no. I've been in a UMC myself, which for my time as an official member and student wasn't that bad. We had our own indoor wall and I got taken out at least once and shown the basics of building belays. This has stuck with me forever, but for my part during my time at uni I wasn't very active in the club or in fact very helpful (I didn't pay my membership for the year I was kit secratary, then I lost a load of kit. It was in the years afterward that I realised what a great opportunity the club represented and it was during this time that I've been most active. I've been taking people out, running days out on freshers trips, trying to push the older more experienced members and basically trying to make up for my second year (when I lost all the kit). 

When I've been out with my old uni club they've been reasonably well behave. There have actually been no accidents, on offical club trips. There have been a couple of accidents along the way with members on non-official trips but these have always be dealt with excellently. When we've gone away to wales or a lakes I've always tried to pick crags that'll keep the club out od peoples way. 

Sadly this isn't exactly the case with all student mountaineering clubs. It just happens that I got to see Manchester Uni MC at Birchen Edge the other day. It seemed that the majority of the older members of the club, and what I can only assume was the chairman (as he was the loudest and most obnoxious) just sat at the top of the crag yelling down to everyone else. They just wouldn't shut up. I don't mind a bit of shouting and yelling at the crag, but this was excessive to say the least. Then the slightly more concerning parts occured. It was actually Rachel who spotted and lad who was leading a route. He wasn't on the route he wanted to be on, but he still got to the top but it was his second who turned up along the base of the crag, tied in wrong and then tried to set off without actually double backing his harness that really annoyed her (and me). She then had the chance to witness someone start climbing before the belay was even built, and the rope taken in. 

This might just be one group in a hundred but it give Uni.MCs a bad name. I see other mountaineering clubs at crags around the country, those not affiliated with a university and they seem to behave well, climb sensibly and look out for each other. I see groups of friends who I climb with, but other who are just brought together by thier want to climb who manage to be sensible, safe and have fun at the crag. 

(my old uni club, messing around at least 5km for anywhere else)

New Routing recognition!

Soames found this on the V12 website the other day. It's quite nice to see the routes we've put up getting a little bit of publicity. I'm hoping that they will get some subsequent ascents and then we'll be able to see if our grades are confirmed. The downside it that we better head back over there and get the rest of the new routes finished!

DMM offsets. Am I missing something?

My rack consists of a hodge-podge of gear, especially my wires. I mean they seem to consist of a wires picked up from here there and everywhere. I think something like a third of them have actually been found rather than actually brought. I think the problem began when I first started buying a rack and I brought something like 1 or 2 nuts each week in a effort to build it up with each paycheck. At the time I didn't really know any better and a nut was a nut as far as I was concerned. Over time my rack grew and I eventually forked out for a set of decent nuts, metolius curve nuts. Not the lightest nut on the market (at the time) but they looked different and I was willing to try them out (plus they came with a free nuts key, back when they were cheap). Having used both DMM wallnuts and WC rocks before it was a welcome change to use the curve nuts.

Over time my rack grew still. I doubled up on a few sizes of curve nuts and replaced things a I dropped, bailed or welded them into place. Eventually my defining feature for what nut I'd buy was the price because well curve nuts had gone expensive and wallnuts/rock were cheap. My rack of wires now sits at around 40 depending on the last count. At least 9 of these nuts have been found over the years and at least 9 are also small wires, either made in brass just really tiny (that are sub about 3kn). 

I actually own a few specifically offset nuts, 3 brass offsets (the smallest sizes) and a yellow alloy offset. Again price was the defining feature in thier purchase (alloy) and because I couldn't find anything smaller (brass). But I've still never found myself wanting an offset nut. What am I missing? Offset nuts seem to have a sort fo cult following in the British climbing world. I know quite alot of people who swear by them. In fact it really annoys me when people start recommending them to new climbers, raving on about how awesome they are. I think part of the problem (my lack of offset nut love) comes from having WC single wires (slightly offset in shape) and the Curve nuts that make for the basic of my rack. 

I'm still not sure whether I'm missing out of something revolutionary, but with 40 wires on my rack (that I can't seem to trim down) I can't really afford to add another 5 heavy offsets. 

Anklular update

I'm back at work. This is a good thing as far as I'm concerned because there is only so much sitting around at home I can do. I'm not saying that I don't like sitting around at home, but I'd much rather be at work, that's all. I feel bad for having time as it'll just make things harder for the rest of the team I work with. 

Having not been off work before in like an official capacity (I've been ill for like a day once or twice) I had to have my "back to work" meeting. This was basically a are you fit for work and is it going to cause you any problem being back. Well I want to be here, but my foot still hurts. Notice I said foot, my ankle is actually alright. It's a little swollen but the ankle is quite good and I've got like 95% movement in it. The only reason I don't have 100% movement is because the small damage section is still swollen. I made the mistake of mentioning it to my line manager, and thus I was sent back to the doctors.

After the chop-shop of City Hospital A&E going to see my doctor was a blessing. Ok, so he did the same poking and prodding and bending my foot and came to the conclusion that 1; it's not broken (yay!) and 2; the ligament hasn't snapped (even bigger yay!). What I have done is damaged my tibofibula (?) ligament, which splays out across the foot from the ankle. There is a possibility that I've torn a few strands of ligament tissue but the whole injury normally take 2 to 6 weeks to heal. I've still got 3 weeks left so I'll be taking it easy. I also found out what the pain is in my foot. It feels like I've dropped a brick on my foot and the pain is like a searing deep pain across the bones of my right foot. 

Apparently I have tendonitis. This is not cool but manageable. I foresee some physio in the near future.

Helium Friends? were they worth making?

Since the patent came up on double axel cams there seems to have been a minor revolution within the cam market. It seemed very much 5 years ago that the British market was dominated by DMM 4cus, Wild Country Tech Friends and then BD camalots. This wasn't a bad thing as each offered a significant difference when compared to the others. 4cu's had extendable slings, useful to those hardcore trad climbers but wanted to save weight. BD camalot had increased range and there for usefulness. Tech Friends it seems just sort of set the bar as to what a decent cam should be.

Then the patent went [on double axel designs] and it's sort of opened the doors for a wide range of new cams. It's not just the patent going world wide either, but little things like CCH Aliens which stopped being shipped to Britain leaving a gap in the market place for the microcam market to develop. Wild Country Zeros and Metolius Master Cams have a new lease of life and seem to be doing well, but it's DMM who really hit the nail on the head.

BD camalots are good. No-one can ignore it. They have a smooth action, they are reasonable stable. They're made with hard wearing components. DMM dragon cams are just even better. They have the same smooth action, but are lighter. The metal and plastic components are hard wearing but the slings are made of dyneema. Is this a big problem? no! because DMM have offered to resling the cams as and when needed. They also have an extendable sling, something that is a real benefit for trad climbers in Britain. At places like gogarth where routes wander all over the place, lessening rope drag is a real bonus. I like dragon cam, I think they are a really well though out product.

I thought I was a die hard wild country tech friend advocate. I've got like 11 of them, all battered and scratched, most with repaired cables (one with a paper clip) and 1 with a tied cord as the sling worn out. I thought that I'd never replace them, until a climbing partner left one in a belay and it was never seen again. I'm not laying it on, but it was my favourite cam. It was my red size 2, the one I'd carry everywhere. I can still see the pattern of scratched on the lobes of the cam. Meh, it's gone but instead on missing n old friend (literally!) I took this opportunity to try something new, and cheaper. 

I brought a red dragon cam. It's awesome, simply awesome. I don't need to say anything else. When I retire my tech friends, or loose them, I'll just replace them with dragon cams. It is really that simple. They are also light enough I'd carry them in winter. 

The thing is, DMM have clearly put alot of thought into the dragon cam. BD clearly though long and hard about the Camalot and the old tech friend just sets the bar for what a good cam should really be like. The new helium cams just look crap. They don't strike me as a great step forward in cam production. For the same weight you can get the equivalent size Dragon. They feel clunky and heavy. They don't have such a smooth action and the thing that is most annoying? It just looks like Wild Country have just on the hot forging band wagon (following DMM) and made forged cam lobes and then stuck them on a BD camalot stem. 

All I'm saying is, was it really worth putting the money into developing them, let alone trying to sell them?

Abseiling...

So it's been a while since I've done any climbing. Well it's been about 2 weeks, which as far as I'm concerned is a more than long enough! My ankle is taking it's sweet time to heal and now there is an odd lump on the ankle bone itself (off to one side) and still painful bruising over my foot bones and my lower leg. I can't believe all this has come about from a simple trip. I've also been off work, which at first was fun and now I just want to get back so I have something to fill my day with.

Talking on filling my day, I went up to Stoke to help out with the SUMC abseil. I actually went up to hang out on a roof all day, drink tea and maybe do a little abseiling or rigging. What actually happened was that I ended up spending 8 hours dangling over the edge of mellor (the building) operating a safety rope with my friend Tim (he was the SPA). This wasn't exactly something I'd planned for but we made the best of it; drinking tea all afternoon and getting clients down safety. The highlight of my day (well there were 2) was that a couple of disabled people turned up. After a brief discussion downstairs well they made it to the roof (without wheelchairs) all kitted up and ready. It did mean that we had to close one of the lines so that one of us could abseil down next to them should anything happen, but nothing did. Everything went really well and one of the girl actually came up and did it again because she enjoyed it so much. All in all it was a pretty awesome day, and it didn't rain.

The night before I'd also been asked to put my sony vegas skills to the test and produce a short "trailer" type piece of promotional material  for the SUMC to play on a laptop at thier stall, hopefully in a effort to generate some enthusiasm. I kind of threw myself into it because it's the first time anyones actually asked me to put something together for them, rather then me just playing around and making climbing films for youtube. Here is a copy of the trailer:

a long interesting weekend...

I guess the best place to start with long and complicated stories is at the beginning, and in the beginning I woke up at 0700 on saturday monring, hurriedly packed my kit (throwing in my bivi bag for the first time in ages), jumped in the car (sans breakfast) and tanked my way up to stoke. I ended up waking Matt Snell and Ronnie up, but at least it meant I got a cup of tea. Eventually Matt, Stuart Ivory and I set off across the Peak to go to Curbar. It seemed like as good a place as any for a days climbing. Hell even the weather looked good.


We headed straight for Avalanche Wall (HVS 5a) for Snell to lead which he did. He'd actually commented on the walk in that he wanted to start on something easy and then work his way up. I don't think he'd led HVS before that day. He lead the route well, placing less protection that I'd have put in but I'm not critising him for that. At the end of the day he got up, so good job. I then went to lead Pea Pod, but someone was already on it. I say already on it when in reality he'd thrown his rope at the base of the route so no-one else could lead it, then decided to get on his gear (slowly) while making others wait. Instead I went and lead Maupassant (HVS 5a). When I compared this to Avalanche wall, I'd say it was much much easier, but what do I know. It's described on UKC as a thrutchy jamming crack but it's all actually on nice jams and good bridging. The final layback is awesome as well because it just doesn't look like it'll go, until you commit to it that it, then... boom! you're at the top!

So 2 routes down and we could see Toaf, Tim, Ronnie and the rest playing on the boulders below the main edges. Infact Tim came up too see how we where getting on and to head off for a short routes past avalanche wall. It was not Stu's lead, and his first on grit for a while. He picked L'Horla (E1 5b) part of three routes all together (the others being Maupassant and Insanity). I actually looked forward to having a crack at insanity afterwards because when stu got up that would have been 2 of the three done. Clearly a gaunlet if I ever saw one. #

But Stu didn't get up it. Infact we didn't do anymore climbing for the rest of that day, or that weekend. Stu was climbing well down on the Limestone and confidently jumped on L'horla with no apprehension what so ever. There was the usual discussing of rackage and laughing and joking below the route. Snell even took up the mantle of camera-man to film Stu's climbing. 

From the get go Stu was shaky. I'll appreciate that the small holds and lack of decent footholds didn't do much for an easy start but it was a while before a rest and his first piece of gear. Needless to say he carried on up, I would have. As he got higher ne managed to get another small wire in but when he move out left, the shorter runner pulled the wire into a different angle. I could hear some of the panic in Stu's voice. I'd heard that before with various partners when I've been climbing. I've also been in the same position myself. I was just waiting the exhausted yelp and then the slump onto the gear. 


But that top nut was crap, not worth waiting and Stu was panicing more now. I started talking him down the route, getting him the place some gear the only piece I could make out was a slot for a small yellow cam he had on his harness. He got that clipped but wouldn't come down instead making it up to the jug by the route. He was doing so well but I could see the effort was starting to take it's toll on him. Hanging from the jug he was scrabbling with his feet to get purchase, his left foot swinging helplessly beneath him. Then he was off.


I locked off the plate but it was no use. The gear didn't really do much when he fell. He just hit the fall, back first. He immediatly rolled over and groaned before trying to get up. I pinned him down and yelled to Snell to get Tim. I knew we needed more people to help with this. Deep down I knew that he'd done something bad to himself. So we covered him up, bivi bag and all. Removed most of his gear and kept him awake and talking. I felt his back, ribs, pelvis and legs  but there wasn't anything I could feel. There was no blood, but he didn't exactly get up and walk around after 10 minutes so we called MRT. By this time a very nice chap up was a surgeon or a urologist had come over and taken charge of his pulse. 


In the end it took about 2 hours from the fall, to get him choppered out. MRT turned up and gave him oxygen and morphine. Then as one massive team, (MRT, Stu's mate and anyone else who came to help) all carried the stretcher out and loaded it onto the waiting chopper. Me, Toaf and Ronnie spent the rest of the day at Northern General in Sheffield. In the end they said he'd fractured a vertebrae in his back. We got to bed at 0130 that night, after Ronnie cooked me pasta, veg and chinese prok chops. 

I guess it wasn't the best day out climbing ever, but it happens I guess. Even with the best will in the world sometimes bad stuff happens. Anyway my weekend of accidents wasn't over as monday night saw me in A&E for 6 hours after tripping up walking off the astroturf pitch after monday night football. I'm now on crutches, with a torn deltoid ligament. 


Paula at redpoint point just said "you're crap on the flat" apparently. 

Esoterica (the first)

Every time it I plan to go climbing in the peak district and it rains, my thoughts slip to bad places. A very certain bad place inparticular... The esoterica section in "On Peak Rock". See I've been meaning to try and tick all of these off since I read about them in the first place (I have a similar ambition with the "Rock Bits" section) but I haven't actually done anything about it. Well today was different as although it threatened rain, Rachel and I set off with a plan to climb Elbow Ridge and Matterhorn Ridge in Winnats Pass.

The day started off well, considering that the weather report said it was going to rain. As we drove past Ramshaw I pulled over and parked up. I can't remember who mentioned Louie's Groove (E1 5b) to me or when but the route has been eating away at the back of my mind for a while. What the hell I thought, I may as well just climb it. We still had loads of time to do the ridges and the chance of a grabbing an E point wasn't bad. We ran in and found the quite obvious groove and I geared up and set off. The first section was alright but once you placed your final pieces suddenly the meat of the route was there in front of you. I actually found it quite hard to work out what I had to do. Soon I was smearing and bridging (probably what the yanks referre to as "stemming"?) up the little groove to slape the top. This was my first E1 for quite a while and I still felt the psychological weight of the silly little "E". I guess I just need to keep climbing more!

Rachel quickly seconded this and we bugged out, running back to the car and heading off up the buxton road. When we arrived at Winnat's Pass we had a good look a the ridges and cliffs (and caves high up) on the sides of the pass. Sadly we had to pay for parking at the base of the valley and this wouldn't have been a problem... expect for the complete lack of change. It's funny how something little can mess you up like that. That was probably the turning point in the day as we either needed free parking, change or an new objective. For those who have read the esoterica section you'll know that there is another such objective, with free parking, not far away...

I pulled the car into the little parking space near the gate that shut off the old Mam Tor road. Mam Tor has to be one of the coolest places in the peak district, mainly because it looks like it's been hit by a hollywood earthquake! Our new objective for the day was now Mam Tor Gully, graded "ungradable" and gived a little skull and cross bones symbol in the guidebook. After reading the National Trust rules and regulations that had been taped to the back of a sign we wandered off path leaving our gear in the car to go for a little recon mission. We got pretty close and Rach fancied just carrying on and trying to get to the top without our gear but I wasn't having any of it. My fear of loose rock extended to my head mostly and there was no way in hell I was setting foot in that gully with out my helmet at least.

After a quick trip back to the car we were off again, this time actually carrying some gear but also worried that it might rain while we were on route. Running (well walking quickly) we got to the base of the gully (around grade 1, in winter!) and put on helmets and harnesses. I also fed the rope into my bag so that it'd be ready for use. Rachel opted to climb first, stating that if I pulled a load of stuff down and fell off I'd probably take her out in the process but if she fell off first, I could probably grab her. It sucks being the heavier one sometimes. 


We plodded up and up and the climbing gradually turned from bumbling up and very loose scree slope to actually having the climb (of a sort). I pulled into the main gully, when Rach called for the rope and I looked around for something to belay off. Ha! I must have been joking. Maybe if I'd thought to pack a warthog and a peg hammer I might have had something resembling a safe belay but as it happened good old hope and will power would have to do. I sent the rope down and she hurriedly clipped in and I started waist belayin. My belay literally consisted of my feet braced on some crumbling shale. Being honest, I was quite scared.


When Rachel arrived at my "belay" I had her stand on a ledge off to one side. This ledge was still crumbling away, like most of the stuff we where on but it was at least crumbling significanlty slower than the rest. Both slightly paniced but trying to retain some composed I assured her it would be alright as I flaked the rope into a neat pile at her feet. I then set off trailing rope from my pack but the final section. I didn't dare head up the gully direct as the fridge sized blocks above us looked like they'd squish Rach if I was dumb enough to disturb them. Instead I skirted around them and up the grass, clinged to great clumps of it as handholds and my footholds crumbled away beneath me. Scrambling desperatly I mae it too the top and shouted I was "safe!". Was I really safe? no. Instead I found the best braced stance I could and yelled for Rach to climb when she was ready.


Rach headed straight up the gully and tackled said loose blocks carefully climbing and trying not to dislodge them in the process. I though I was going to be in alot of trouble for suggesting this as a route but she arrived at the top almost shaking with fear but smiling broadly. She'd loved it. I voted we rest on the tope for a while before packing up the gear and descending back down to the car. 


Not a bad route route for a consolation prize!

Wings of Unreason (finally)

Last year I had a crack at Wings of Unreason at the Roaches Skyline. For those who don't know this semi iconic skyline route it takes the middle of a short slab far up on the skyline. It's called "wings..." in reference to the final moves than need to be done to complete the route, a total psychological crux headgame. It's truely an awesome route.

Last year I jumped on wings with Rach belaying. It was a miserable day and ultimately ended in failure because by the time I'd decided that I wasn't going to do the final move, the weather was turning and Rachel was getting very cold belaying. On re-treating I tried not to weight my gear but that wasn't going to happen so I semi-climbed/fell down the route. 

I think I should mention the final move. There are 3 little holes in the middle of the face, or pods as it were. One takes your gear and you have to mantle into them and then position yourself for the final move. The gear it literally at the level of your feet and you then need to make a dynamic move to slap for a glorious jug. When I reach up I'm only 5/6 inches short, but at that moment that distance seems like a million miles away. Everytime I stared up at it it was like watching the hitchcock zoom.

This time it was different. Summer is over and autumn seems to have taken hold with a rapid efficiency. Every morning I've gone downstairs to go to work the wind has been blustering through the trees, whipping leaves and little along the pavement. There's a distinct chill in the air and Rachel actually put the heating on the other day. I can feel winter coming in the air, as it slowly closes it's grip on the world. I can't wait for the first frost, the first snow. And climbing during this autumnal period it my favourite time of the year. My lightweight summer climbing fleece have been removed from it's hollow at the base of my pack to be prplaced with my winter belay jacket, warm leather gloves and a hat (or two). My flask has been cleaned and my hot food carried made ready. I love climbing at this time of year.

And so it happened, we had a slow start to the day, eventually a bunch of us had mobilised and headed up to skyline, some wanting to have a go at Prelude to Space (solo) and some just wanting to be out. I wanted to try wings. 

We'd set up beneath the slab with Toaf's new massive eldride pad as Ronnie soloed Prelude to Space. I then geared up as best I could and went through all the little rituals of starting a hard climb; tying in my chalk bag (even though it's virtually empty and it's a freezing dry day), pulling on my tight shoes and lacing them, selecting the small amount of rack that I'll need, tying in to the lead line, cleaning my shoes with a little spit till the rubber is sticky and finally chalking up my hands. I couldn't really put it off any longer. 


I actually asked Toaf not to bother belaying me till I'd got some gear in, but mainly because I expected to blow the first set of moves (the technical crux) but this time I didn't. I still thought I was going to even as I grasped the hold I was reaching for with my finger tips and felt my foot stick to the small hold as I rocked over. I gave up trying to fiddle a piece of gear in here, instead relying on not falling off and the massive pad beneath me. On gaining the pockets I plugged in a cam (a red dragon cam if anyones bothered). I tried to fit one in next to it but I didn't have the right size and Toaf lobbed my up another size 2. It was all going so well.


I remembered the move to gain the pocket, and my final decent footholds but it required me to take out one of the cams (eek!). I didn't really have a choice so I removed the one, rocked into the pocket and then replaced it blindly so it stuck out at an odd angle. It didn't really matter as there wasn't any retreating from the move now anyway. Then I hit a wall. Not a physical wall (obviously) but a massive mental wall in my mind. I scanned the wall infront of me, running my fingers over everything, every ripple, every change in slabs angle, every bit of grit with slightly more friction than the one next to it. I was trying to find that good hold that didn't exist or that little crimp that I'd missed before. Christ I was so close. It was literally inches to the final hold but it may as well have been miles. 


I must have gone on like this for ages. I don't know how much time had passed but I know it threatened to rain at least once and I got offered rescue at least once too. I also tried to retreat and reverse the last move, but when I couldn't I knew I'd have to just do it.


In the end I just did it. I don't know how I managed to convince my brain to do it but it just worked. I think I probably closed my eyes when I did it too but within seconds I was pulling up over the top and rolling onto my back to stare at the sky. It was over, all over.

Grooved Arete... (again!)

I went away with Mr Holloway jr.. This is Chris's little brother who's been at Worcester uni doing a a course on outdoor ed and who's been climbing loads over the past couple of years. I've climbed with him before once and he impressed me so we ended up on a weekend away to wales. We had good weather on the saturday so we headed up Tryfan to go Grooved Arete, a route which Simon had wanted to do for ages. Then on the sunday we took advantage of sleeping in the pass to climb Skylon and Wrinkle, before the afternoon weather hit and we got soaked on the walk out. Not a bad weekend as far as I'm concerned.

Quartz Staircase...

A couple of months ago I gave a 2 friends and climbing partners a very quick intro into dealing with loose rock. We climbed a route that had a massive loose flake on it but along as you pulled down it wasn't a problem. It scared them both half to death (the flake was a man-squisher) but it also taught them both a valuable lesson. Loose rock is a part of climbing. Yes I know a lot of people might never encounter loose rock climbing (especially if they spend their time climbing at nice neat little gritstone edges 10 minutes from the road) but if you climb on mountain routes, limestone, sea cliffs or in winter (or on the Lleyn Peninsular) then you'll be bound to encounter something loose once in a while.

My climbing over the last year seems to have had an awful lot of loose rock in it, and there's been many moments when I've been praying not that I won't blow the move, more that the hold won't blow off.

So with all this in mind Me and Rach, on a short trip to wales and in an effort to find some good weather, found in Pete's Eat's new routes book "the best diff ever". It was on a sea-cliff at Rhoscolyn and therefore we couldn't not do it.

 

The weather was awesome when we arrived at Rhoscolyn, sunny, dry and with a strong onshore breeze. What made it even better was that when we looked back towards land the mountains were shrouded in cloud and rain. We walked in quickly and then found out that getting to the base of the route would probably be the crux. The onshore wind was providing a great swell that stopped an clambering in and sea-level traversing to the base of the route. Instead much wandering along the top of the crag led me to find a nice slab that allowed us to abseil in. 

The route itself was quite clear (both from the top and base of the crag) but what my view from the top didn't tell me was quite how steep it was. The angle of the line was awkward to say the least. That didn't stop us and I set of anyway. The route itself was pretty good going. Like most lower grade routes (Diff and VD) there wasn't actually that much gear compared to the nature of the route. It's also a second ascent on a sea-cliff and you'll know what that means... loose rock. This will be an awesome route when it's been done about 10/15 times. It'll go really well with Bagger's and Symphony Crack that are in the same area but at the moment it's a little chossy. Having said that the route was still awesome with a definite crux at the top (pulling up on a loose block). Both me and Rach removed as much loose crap as we could within the realms of "cleaning" rather than just destroying the route.

I don't know about best diff ever, but this one is defiantly going to be hard to beat at the grade!

No update over the summer...

Today was the first day back to work and also possibly the first time I've seen 0700 for a long while. To be honest it was awesome. I had toast and a cup of tea and didn't get caught in the cross city traffic. It also smelled like autumn when I got outside. Today was a good day.

Don't worry, this post isn't going to degenerate what suddenly went badly wrong during my day. Infact my day went pretty well so far. Being back at work (even if I currently have very little to do) has been nice and it's already making me appreciate being at home. This was more of an apology to anyone who does read my blog to the lack of posting in the last 6 weeks. I have been writing honestly, but I've not been posting. I've not been out climbing as much as I normally do, due to lack of partners, bad weather and a finger injury but that hasn't stopped some awesome routes being done. 

The last things that I posted over the summer (to do with climbing) was about my finger, which I managed to royally screw up. I ended up at the docters and poked, prodded and bent the finger around and confirmed my suspicions that I'd damaged my pully tendons. Infact I've managed to damage A2, A3 & A4 but it's not the end of the world. Dave Macloeds blog is pretty good for finger injuries and if you follow what he written then you'll be ok, but the main thing is stay off your finger at least for the first few weeks. It needs time to heal up and for the swelling to go down. 

Then when you get back to climbing, be gentle with it. Instead of jumping on the bouldering wall and trying to crank on those powerful moves drop your grade and run laps on easier routes. It's been 8 weeks since I damaged my finger and I still suffer alot bouldering even if it's taped up well. So instead of bad sessions bouldering I just climb routes at my local wall and train for stamina instead (much better off for a trad climber anyway). I've also changed how I use my hand to grip holds. I might seem silly but a little thing like using an open hand crimp instead of a closed one, takes alot of strain off your fingers and very quickly becomes as strong as a closed crimp. Take your time with it and you'll get there eventually!

Rioting in B'ham

Thankfully I've been on holiday on possibly the most chilled out place in Britian... the Isles oif Scilly. I can't imagine the populace actually rioting there, however on the mainland things seem to be different. I think this will sum up my feeling on it:

True Story