Excuses, excuses, excuses.

I didn't sleep well last night - blame it on eating pizza and then suffering some really weird fucked up dreams as a result of cheese overload.

The dog is getting in the way and just annoying me.

I feel heavy and lethargic - even my warm up problems that I have done plenty of times feel about two grades harder than they are in reality.

My bloody knee is giving me grief and my shoulder doesn't feel right.

I just don't feel psyched - there is stuff out there that I know I am capable of doing and I just don't try.

Excuses, excuses, excuses - plenty more where they came from.

All I really know is that conditions were mint out in the Peak today. Didn't make much difference as it proved to be one of the worst climbing days I have endured in a long while and as a result I am really pissed off!

Three Bears

For a while now I had been meaning to check out the Three Bears boulders at the end of Burbage North but had just never got round to it before now. Yesterday I finally got my act together and wandered down there with the Fiend and a few other people and can’t recommend it highly enough.

Combined with the easy solos at the end of Burbage North or just used as a warm up before carrying on down to the boulders in the valley they are well worth a visit. The problems range from english tech 4c to 5b and are slabby, smeary affairs with horizontal breaks or steeper wall climbing again with breaks and while there are not many of them - 8 or 9 problems with the potential for further eliminates - they are all good technical problems. The best by far is the 5b slab problem and it is only improved when done "properly", with the high foot in break and rockover method that the tall will lank past while wondering what the fuss is all about. Speaking from experience the tall lose out here and it is the short get the better deal out of it - I can lank the move in question if I want to stretch a bit but it's rubbish doing it that way - trust me on this!

Need more reasons to go? The landings are all good - the slab of Daddy Bear is the worst but with a couple of mats and some thought it is OK and the top outs are all reasonable edges - no slopey horror shows to contend with here so in theory it should be a sure fire winner for those seeking a easy afternoon out or a gentle introduction to bouldering. The reality is though that these boulders don't see as much traffic as they should given the quality of the problems so there is the odd bit of scrittle here and there but nothing that a few more people climbing on them wouldn't solve.

So what are you waiting for - be brave and walk on past the 20 Foot Crack area for change and go to the far end of the crag - you might just be pleasantly surprised...

Reading of the riot act.

"Our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God Save the King!"

As mentioned a while back, Murky Rib at Brimham was due to be revisited and read the riot act, so Tim's stag do weekend seemed the perfect time to do it. Now given that Tim got married in August we were slightly behind schedule but since the organisation of said stag do trip had been entrusted to Duncan Disorderly (famous for his eternal struggle to get past the 5th bolt on Body Machine) the fact it was only three months late was notable in itself.

Anyway the plan, as far as I was concerned, was to punter about a bit and then get on my nemesis problem but somehow I missed out the punter about part and just found myself stood in front of Murky Rib. Mmmm...

Deciding to ignore this minor flaw in my plan I repeated the right arete as a quick warm up before spending a very amusing 5 minutes watching Sloper top out the problem "in proper style" and then discovering that getting off was not such a formality. At one point it looked like the fire brigade would be required to rescue Sloper from his lofty perch but, faced with the ignominy of said scenario, he finally made it to the ground and so I decided it was time to "read the riot act".

After the initial couple of goes to reaquaint myself with the problem it felt like it would actually go - the part which had given me so many problems before (getting the toe on) felt good and from there it was a slap for the big dish before topping it out. The slapping the dish bit proved to be relatively easy once I had done it a couple of times but the topping out was a whole different matter - six times I got the dish only to stand up and then slap blindly for the finishing hold in a fit of uselessness. Six bloody times I slapped on that upturned bath of a finish and six bloody bastard times I fell off and after the sixth time that I decided the reading of the Riot Act would have to wait a few more days - I was going to try something else and then have a pint.

Hurrah for the Albanian Rat Hound!

This is an Albanian Rat Hound - supposedly bred to hunt and kill rats in truth he has not been especially successful when it comes to curtailing the numbers of the genus rattus. Up till last week his number of rat kills stood at the lofty heights of zero but after 6 years he finally got the idea and killed his first rat!

Hurrah for the Albanian Rat Hound!

Guidebooks

Having been a late comer to the world of climbing a guide book that can get you to the crag and located at the bottom of the climb you intend to do that day has largely been a given. Not for me the experience of having to negotiate Stanage using that now infamous BMC guide which worked from right to left instead of following the more usual convention - I am used to climbing with a guide book containing photo topos and clearly marked lines on where the route goes. In other words I have been spoilt.

Now with any guide book that doesn't follow the conventions set out above there is always a spot of familiarising oneself with the language peculiar to that guide and how buttresses and features are described - it is simply a matter of interpretation and once you get a hang of this then finding the climb in question becomes that bit easier. However when you are dealing with a sport climbing crag it becomes a whole different ball game - these are often just seemingly blank limestone walls with a series of bolts rising upwards with obvious features being at a premium. Having previously only been sport climbing in the Costa Blanca with the Rockfax guide book clutched in my grubby little paws and three years later to Kalymnos (which not only has a fantastic guide book but also the names of each route and the grade written at the bottom of each route) finding which route was which had not been an issue. Sardinia was to change all of that though.

Sardinia was, at times, a route finding nightmare - hand drawn topos are not that great at dealing with a featureless wall of rock so you have to fall back on the tried and tested method of finding a route that you know is the correct one and counting from there across to the route you wish to climb. From there throw in a bit of common sense to ascertain if it is indeed the route that you are looking for (just in case an extra route or two has been added in) and off you go but what do you do when you can not even find a route to work from? Throw a wobbler out of pure frustration was the chosen method of yours truly.

So the object lesson here is before even thinking of going to a crag make sure that the guide book is one that you can actually use to a meaningful degree. While all climbing involves some form of suffering to a degree, be that mental, physical or both, it should be on the route itself not trying to find the thing in the first place.

NB - I should note here that I don't wish to be seen to be criticising the efforts of guide book writers. Having spoken to people who have been involved with this black art it is a thankless task at best and without their efforts serving to inspire me in the first place the thought of going to climb in some fantastic places would not have entered my head.

That was the week that was...

For a few days last week it was time to get really rad and syked - the leaves were falling from the trees, the sun was shining and the temperature dropped into single figures. Finally that magic time of the year has come around again - dig out the duvet jacket, the beanie, a whole host of brushes and the bouldering mat, round up a mate or two to offer beta, encouragement and piss taking in equal amounts and get ready to climb Gods own rock! It's gritstone bouldering season again!

Tuesday was spent at Stanage Plantation on the Pebble and a few new problems got sent including Pebble Arete Left Hand which went down with a fight to say the least. In all honesty I was just glad to get it sent regardless of the style having blown the top move earlier in the day and taking a big plunge onto the mat complete with a girlie scream that had people running from all directions to see what had happened. A big up to POD and his excellent mat design for letting me walk away from that one.

A couple of other new problems (to me) got done - one in good style and one where I got up it and hoped that no one had noticed me on it such was the lack of grace I applied to it - ah well another one to do another day and try to improve on the style.

Lastly an old nemesis in the form of Pebble Arete came that little bit closer to being sent - without doubt it was the best session I have ever had on it but those last tenuous moves are absolutely gripping and were just too much of an ask to commit to on the day. One day soon it will go down and it will be a big day when it does though getting it in the bag means that I will have to start paying serious attention to Crescent Arete instead - eek!

Wednesday was a new crag to me - Brimham Rocks and what an amazing place! Conditions were even more awesome than those experienced at Stanage the day before not that they could prevent much skin being lost on the holds of Murky Rib (not Mercury Rib as previously stated). Even the application of much tape couldn't get me up it but I will be back and next time it will be read the riot act in full! The best thing was that we hardly scratched the surface of what is there so even without the requirement of sending Mercury Rib the motivation to go back is high.

Thursday was a washout but Friday was a welcome return to form on the weather front and so it was off to one of my favourite places to boulder - Curbar. It was one of those sessions where you expected little but got a lot - everything felt tweaky or just plain ached but as soon as I was on the rock then the feelings of being trashed just ebbed away. Problems that usually put up a fight felt easy and I finally got the much needed (and in retrospect obvious) beta on Strawberries. I probably should have tried it there and then but the skin was thin and it will be there for the next time when I am feeling fresher and hopefully a quick dispatch will ensue.

Sardinia

Suppose that I had better say something about Sardinia given it is now two weeks since I got back.

Overall it was pretty good but more of a family holiday with some climbing thrown in but regardless of that it is always nice to go somewhere different and do some climbing with a good bunch of people. Plenty of coffee was drunk and if possible I came back even more of a coffee freak than I was before I went, a horse steak was consumed (very tasty it was too) and I also maintained my onsight level at 6a+ which was pretty pleasing in it's own way.

Sardinia (or more specifically Cala Gonome) has been on the climbing map for a while now - a point that is painfully obvious at the more popular crags which have suffered from the traffic of a thousand punters - the worst examples by far being Fuili and Biddiriscottai (aka the Cave of Polish). If you take the time to explore the less popular areas however then the odd gem emerges such as Margheddie - home of the classic if somewhat scantily bolted 6a+ slab climb "Nomadi" that deserves everyone of its 3 stars. Get that 20 minute walk in sent, do Biberon as a warm up and then get on it - you might not thank me for it at the time but you will afterwards - trust me on this.

As I have written elsewhere one of my aims for this year was to get 6b sent (preferably onsight) by the end of the year. To this effect I jumped on "I wanna hold your hand" at La Poltrona and was sent packing with very little fuss by it! Now maybe this is a particularly hard instance of 6b but it felt like the living end of hard at my level of experience - in other words f***ing desperate. In mitigation I hadn't warmed up properly in any way shape or form but even so it didn't make or break the route getting sent - I would have gotten a couple of moves further had I been warmed up but it would still have sent me packing in the end. In contrast the "escape route" - the route splits at about half way into the aforementioned 6b and a 6a called L'Eremita - was a walk in the park. OK the final section was a bit exposed and it probably would put the living fear into a 6a leader but it was still easy in comparison and that, as much as anything, highlighted just how much of a step up 6b seems to be. Still I seem to remember 6a+ felt pretty desperate at one stage and they don't seem quite as bad now...

Anyway Sardinia is not just about limestone - there is other rock there too in the form of Basalt and Granite. The basalt is located more towards the south west of the island which looks really funky and weird from the pictures I have seen but the north is all granite - huge crags of the stuff but it is predominantly climbed clean or as we know it trad style.

The exception to this is Capo Testa - now this place is like being on the moon or something with the truly bizarre shapes that the granite has formed - it is worth visiting it just to see these but the climbing is rather excellent too for those interested in pursuing such options. One word of advice - don't bother trying to climb it once the sun has hit it as this will inevitably lead to a lot of swearing and the like with next to no upward motion being achieved. I speak from experience here and had the rant that accompanied me being lowered off a very slippery 5c+ been recorded I have no doubt that it would have gone global on YouTube much to my embarassment and everybody elses amusement by now!!

I am Jack's complete lack of fortune...

For the last four years or so Tuesday night has been crib night - head to the Sheaf with the dog and meet up with Mike to have a pint or two and a few games of crib. Now to make the game that little bit more exciting we play for money - at 50p to the winner on the night and a further £2 if you win all 5 games these are not the sort of stakes which will necessitate an offshore bank account anytime soon but they still add that little bit of competition to proceedings. Anyway two weeks ago was the first time in the 4 odd years that we have been playing that I had to hand over the whole £2.50 and it hurt - regardless of what I tried it was just not happening - I was suffering from the dogs luck big time.

Fast forward two weeks and the dogs luck was still haunting me with a vengeance - comprehensively beaten in the first 4 games it was not looking good but you live in hope of getting that one game to avoid paying out that extra £2 and more importantly not suffering the humiliation of back to back drubbings. So it is into the fifth game - the one crucial game required to avoid the whitewash and I actually get a good hand - now there is still a long way to go but this is a marked improvement on what has preceeded it! Possibly, just possibly my luck might be changing for the better.

Now it was at this point I looked down and realised that my luck had not changed for the better - it had just got a whole lot worse. The dog - that finest specimen of an Albanian Rat Hound known to man has just finished puking his guts up on the floor of the pub - two huge piles of vomit that bore more than a passing resemblance to a pair of badly cooked sponges. After that I suppose that it goes without saying really that I didn't win the fifth game.

Kalymnos

Just what was needed following a summer that seemed to be wet when ever I thought about getting out climbing - a trip to the sport climbing mecca that is Kalymnos. To say that I was woefully unfit before I went out there would be an understatement - the last serious climbing that I had done was a long weekend in the Lakes at the beginning of August which did involve a fair degree of climbing but also a fair degree of rain as well. In between that there was a day at a new crag near Turningstone Edge route checking with Fiend, an afternoon on the Burbage boulders in far from ideal conditions on one of the infrequent dry and sunny days that the summer gave up and a couple of sessions at the Climbingworks all pointed to a trip that was going to hard bloody work.

In the end it went fantastically well - I stuck mainly to slabs, threw in a few vertical wall routes and studiously avoided anything that was overhanging and just climbed as well as I think I have ever climbed. Thirty routes in 5 days of climbing at 6 different crags, a new best onsight at 6a+ (consolidated over of the week) and a couple of big whippers too. Add to that getting adopted at the airport by Sarah and Rupert (a great bloke as well as a sick hard climber) and it all added up to one of the best trips I have done in a long time. Get in there!

The one slight disappointment was that I didn't get on a 6b which was what I had hoped to do as my ultimate aim but I am off to Sardinia in less than a week and if I am climbing at about the same level as I did in Kalymnos then it will happen.

Most of the routes were excellent - there were a couple of exceptions but I will gloss over that and concentrate on those that really impressed me.

Damokles 6a (Kasteli) - not a truly classic route but worth mentioning just for the crux - just hang in there and work out the sequence on thin crimps.

Skorpios 6a (Syblegades - East Face) - intricate route finding up the wall made this a real pleasure to get in the bag - another route that is never hard but you have to persevere to unlock it.

Nauticaa Nausica 6a+ (Odessey) - probably my favourite climb of the week as it just took me to a dimension where I rarely put myself - total commitment above a bolt where there was as good a chance of taking a nasty fall as sticking the move. A grim collection of slopers which all point is the wrong direction with the odd chicken head to relieve the pressure occasionally but basically total balls out climbing once half height is reached with a hugely welcome easing off at the top as I hadn't taken enough quickdraws.

Pillar of the Sea 6a+ (Kasteli) - a real classic in every sense. Never hard but has a couple of sections that really test out just how much you trust in your footwork and your body positioning and then it gets a bit stepper and before you know it the chain is in sight.

Also worth mentioning even though I didn't get them cleanly:

Oreads 6a+ (Poets) - sustained and a pity I grabbed a bolt in sheer desperation after getting the sequence going for the clipping hold completely wrong but I could see no way out other than take a whipper that was going to hurt in all likelihood - discretion being the better part of valour and all that. Definitely on the list to go and do properly next time.

Drama 6a+ (Syblegades - West Face) - my first attempt at 6a+ and a bit of a pity as I went for the clip too soon off a really painful hold when I would probably have had it in the bag had I stopped for a few seconds and made the next two moves to the huge jug instead and clipped from there. A learning experience but a slightly painful lesson all the same.

Sun, sun, sun!!

Things are looking up - in two weeks time I will be in Kalymnos for some climbing bolted limestone with the sun on my back followed by just laying about in the sun and finishing off with a beer - get in there!

Now in an ideal world I would get down the wall every other day and work on getting some finger strength built up at the very least but working nights is getting in the way at the minute. Still hopefully I can get another bouldering session or two in and that will have to do - in all honesty it is not the best preparation really but it will have to do and I am just going to have to get on some technical slabs inbetween steeper stuff. Eeek!

Ah well if all else fail it will be a nice training trip for the second trip - Sardinia!

Now this is one of the things I love about climbing - a mate drops you a mail and the next thing you know you have booked flights to go climbing somewhere. I must admit to being just as psyched (if not a little tiny bit more) for Sardinia. The island has limestone (nice) granite (awesome) and basalt to climb on - now the first two I have climbed on before and know what to expect re: movement over the rock and the like but what is basalt like to climb on?

I suspect that it's probably nowhere near as exciting as I currently imagine it to be but one of the plans for this year was to climb as many different rock types as possible and so the opportunity to add another one to the list has to be taken. It is also the chance to buy more guide books which is a good thing - they look impressive all stacked in the bog!

Ennui...

The urge to blog has been somewhat lacking at the minute but then there has been very little to blog about. I think that I have attempted to go climbing twice in the last month partly as a result of working nights (and generally being fucked as a result of it) but more than anything just not being motivated due to the crap weather!

Currently it would seem that I am the beloved of all the rain gods, not just some of them but every last one of the utter bastards, and to prove their love to me they follow me where ever I go in the form of rain be it showers, drizzle or just a good solid downpour that seemingly lasts for days. God it's depressing. 8-(

Anyway, as a result of this seemingly magical property I have to make it rain I am offering my services to those parts of Australia where they have had next to no rain for years. Within a week of my arrival I can confidently predict that it will rain and most likely in truly biblical proportions so any random Aussies reading this and wanting rain please get in contact and I will come over for the price of my flight and a few beers.

Assorted musings...

What does this blog do?

Does anybody read it?

Am I just sitting here and outputting my assorted musings into the ether in some vainglorious attempt at defining something that I don't fully comprehend?

Do I care if all of the answers to the above are nothing, no and yes?

I suppose not actually - my own experiences of the world both climbing related and otherwise seem to generate a whole slew of topics that I want to write about or probably more honestly try to write about and that is what I am planning to do over the next few weeks and maybe, just maybe, some of it will make sense.

Parisellas

Parisellas - permanently dry even in the face of the worst that the Welsh climate can throw at it is, in a nut shell, a bloody steep limestone cave with a floor that is a combination of dust, chalk and goat shit!! Now the floor alone should make it a desperately unattractive place to spend a day in Wales regardless of the weather but it is actually rather good featuring some quality problems and even two or three that I have a remote chance of completing within my lifetime. I will certainly be going back there if only to get Split Traverse in the bag. I flashed the opening 3/4's of the problem and then got to the hard bit - the drop down onto the big square block and move around the arête at which point progress ground to a very sudden and rude halt. Eventually I managed to work the move in isolation but subsequently fell off the final moves when my foot slipped off a polished hold on my penultimate attempt attempt to link it and just didn't have the power in the tank to make it on the last go...

What would Jerry have done in such a situation - probably not go to the pub like me but I needed a pint. I must say that it was a bloody good pint but it would have been a truly rad and syked pint had I linked the problem beforehand!!

Plan B

Well in the end we went for Plan B and had a few days in North Wales. The weather was largely kind to us and on the one day that we got godawful weather we just went and paid homage to Parisellas or as it is better known "The Cave of Justice" - a subject that I will deal with in another post.

What was most enlightening about Wales was that there is some many different sorts of rock to climb on - in the course of 5 days we climbed on Rhyolitic Tuff, Limestone, Slate, Rhyolitic Tuff\Breccia and finally Quartzite and we never got near the Basalt, Rhyolite or Dolorite that are in the Pass somewhere. The downside such as it is of having all these different rock types is that you have to figure out how to climb on them and how they can be protected to the best advantage but it is a wonderful journey of discovery and one that I wll have to go back and explore on more detail over the summer assuming of course that it ever arrives...

Of all the routes that we did the most memorable would have to be Tennis Shoe - the first and last pitches are as polished as the guide makes out but between those you have the most amazing slab that it's impossible to make a hard move on even if you decide to miss out all of the decent holds. Just keep climbing and throw in the odd piece of gear until you get to the end of the rope then build a belay and repeat.

Weather II

So far the quest to go climbing in the Lakes has been thwarted by the weather and it doesn't look too good for the next few days either. In fact getting any climbing done over the next few days is looking like a dubious prospect but it might clear towards the latter part of the weekend.

Plan C has now been thought of anyway - sack it off and go back to work on Friday and rearrange the proposed climbing holiday for later in the year. OK it's not a very good plan but at least it doesn't waste valuable holiday time sitting looking out of the window and wishing the rain would stop.

Anyway the plan for today is to go for a stomp with the dog and have a look at Plexity - a 3 star HVS 5a in the North Bay at Millstone which has been recommended to me. No chance of getting on it but a look at the line will hopefully get me psyched for it later in the year.

Weather

Tomorrow I am due to go to the Lakes for 12 days of climbing but the weather is not looking like it is going to play ball for the first three days at least - the weather is forecast for showers\rain. In an effort to combat such problems I had already thought of plan B which was to go to Wales, Scotland or Northumberland but these are also set to see rain so now it is time to think of a plan C that can accommodate the weather forecast.

What to do...

and so it begins...

Welcome to the Confessions of a Trad Punter blog - inspired by tales of crushing and big numbers this is aimed firmly at the lower end of the scale - a blog for the common man.

Quite what this blog will end up being is debatable but it is likely to turn into a loosely structured ramble from yours truly about things mostly climbing related but there will be brief interludes of insanity where the real world creeps in. When this happens just find a more interesting blog to read.

Anyway that will do as an opening post - something more interesting will follow soon.