Thursday, March 31, 2011

Team Slovenia - Day 7

The weather around Sheffield was looking a bit patchy and so I took a gamble on Robin Hoods Stride\Cratcliffe being in nick and following an unplanned detour after missing a junction we arrived at a dry but rather breezy crag. With large amounts of skin having been lost to Bentley's the day before and only one day till the CWIF qualifications Jernej took a day off from climbing and the grit sighed a huge relief. Therefore the duty of continuing Team Slovenia's assault on the grit fell to Jakob instead though Bentley's hadn't left him in much better condition in the skin front to be honest but it was his last day and skin would grow again. Game on!

Warmed up at RHS on Angle Arête but watching me on this one would have thought that I had never been climbing before, let alone done the problem more than once but after four or five rubbish attempts I got it sent. Things improved with The Spine (the opposing arête) getting done first go but the harder variation - Spine Left Hand - seemed absolutely desperate and while I could get established on the start from there it wasn't happening. The various twinges from my left shoulder meant that it wasn't too happy about things either so I decided to go for the tactical retreat and try something else.

Walking a bit further round RHS I decided to have a go at another of my projects, Sweet Arête which proved to be anything but really. I am going to have to rethink the tactics on this one and see if I can get a sneaky heel in for the left foot as the move off the ground to the higher "hold" on the arête is proving way too low percentage at the minute. As it is most times I slap up with the left hand and while I can hold it there occasionally there also seems to be a microscopic pebble that while stood on the ground is as good as invisible. When trying the problem though the pebble magically grows and I hit it with the tip of my middle finger nine times out of ten which bloody hurts when you are trying to stick the move - yet another reason to rethink the sequence I think. Team Slovenia then had a go at Sweet Thing and got completely shut down on it until a quick perusal of the guide book gave up the information that it had not been climbed since a hold was lost in way of explanation of why it was so hard.

With that we decided to stomp over the hill to Cratcliffe instead as I wanted to have a look at yet another project that I have been trying on and off for what is probably years - Egg Arête. I probably should have given up on arêtes by this stage as I had taken a bit of a battering on them during the afternoon but regardless I threw myself at the latest contender in a great show of effort and a distinct lack of skill. This approach ultimately ended up with yet another ignominious defeat to my name but as a reward of sorts I was left with a severely bruised left palm to go with the hole in my finger, something I was so happy that I threw a climbing shoe at the boulder in a fit of pique. Not my greatest moment maybe but I felt better. 

Lastly it was the short walk over to T-Crack for Jakob - he really should have done it first go but he had every one of his tips taped up by this stage and when he got to the sloper over the roof he couldn't get enugh purchase to hold the move and so dropped off. While sat at the bottom of the problem removing the finger tape he looked at me and said "This is for Cratcliffe" and once he had removed it all he blitzd the problem with what seemed to be very little effort and a great deal of style before repeating it again for the camera. 

T Crack

Beast!

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