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?

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!