Rewind Selector

Managed to get out last Friday for a quick session at Burbage South and another attempt at the Armoured Car Traverse - conditions were cool and very breezy but thankfully warmer than the flat I had retreated from - go figure!!

Started on what seem to have become the new warm up problems on the Brick boulder - conditions on anything that had been in the wind were pretty damned good but stuff that had been sheltered was not so good. They weren't bad as such - just not as good. Other than that it seemed like business as usual - problems got done and feeling ready for the task ahead it was a quick stomp through the bracken to the Armoured Car.

First go went OK until I cocked up the crux sequence but second go I matched my previous best and got the crimp for the right hand which was great for all of a brief nano-second till I realised that the crimp was a greasy slimefest. Back on the mat! Still it was encouraging as conditions had been nowhere near as good as the last time I had been out - then you could use the top of the boulder pretty much as you pleased - now it turned into a desperate search for those subtle slopers to try and attain success. So following a quick brush of the greasy crimp it was back to it again but it soon became obvious that this was a race against conditions as the odd spot of rain fell and the temperature steadily rose. Managed to get back to the crimp once more but greased off again and then the race was effectively over as the rain started to fall with more persistence. I huddled in the shelter of the traverse and rolled a cigarette while looking at the clouds trying to convince myself that the ones headed in my direction were not as full of rain as they obviously were. That worked for maybe five minutes but even the most sanguine person struggles in the face of a good soaking and with that it was decided to get back to the van before the rain set in properly.

Do I need to add that I was rather damp by the time I got back? Probably not...

The call has gone out.

Monday found me at Cratcliffe and conditions should have been good in theory - it was cold and the temperature was low but the grit was just not playing ball. The reality of the situation was a bit of a horror show for friction, something I initially put it down to having an off day but it was later confirmed by FatBoySlimFast on UKB that it was the same everywhere. Given that I went there to try the arête on the Egg Boulder - friction based climbing at its best - this was not good news and after an encounter with someone who could well have been closely related to the Dawes judging by the randomness of the conversation we had, I sacked it off.

Fast forward two days and the situation changed completely - if pROJECT mAYHEM had such a thing as a grit light it would have been shining like a huge techno-playing lighthouse to warn people that the grit had been called. Even better I could get out there to see this momentous first day in and I was armed with a big tick list on a day that the friction was so good that it felt like I was cheating.

Days such as these need a plan and so, with Adam Beyer testing the speakers, it was off to Burbage to warm up and then onwards to Mother Cap for a session on Conan the Librarian. After a couple of duff starts on the Brick I sent most of the problems there first time and from there it was onto the Briquette to try Huggy - a problem that I have a history with that needs laying to rest. Gave it a quick brush, pulled on and promptly tweaking an ab injury that has been annoying me off and on for a while in the process.

Deciding to leave that well alone instead of aggravating things further I went to try the Armoured Car Traverse and after a couple of attempts managed to get back to my previous best - the drop onto the sidepull for the left hand - and from there managed to get the crimp for the right. A new best was attained but my excitement was quickly tempered by the realisation that I may have two decent holds for the hands but my feet were planted and not going anywhere so I dropped off and thought about the sequence into the handholds some more. After contemplating about it for a while I managed to refine the sequence so that I wasn't so stretched going to the handholds and tried again without much success - I was rushing to get back to the new baseline but the end result was not getting there at all. The moves were also playing havoc with my other niggling injury in my left shoulder but with the conditions being so good I just kept stretching it out and hoping that things didn't get any worse. Another couple of attempts and I was feeling a lot smoother going into the sidepull so it was time for the big push - it was going to go. Armed with the syke of knowing that a long term project is close, I traversed across and dropped into the sidepull, concentrated on the crimp to a whole new level and once happy with it, started to rock across. My shoulder protested some more about this but I ignored it and instead, spurred on by the knowledge that this was now my last attempt off the day, I got the good hold for the right, matched my feet and planted the right foot across ready to go for the huge holds and glory. Well that was the plan - my shoulder had other ideas about things though and its protests were no longer going to be ignored and so, with another quick twinge from my ab for good measure, I was back on the mat. The final whistle had been blown on the day - there was no extra time to be played in this match - it was simply over, finished, gone, done, out...

I just sat there with my head in my hands and railed against the injustice of it all - I had pretty much done the hard moves, it was almost a path from where I came off, conditions were perfect and my useless lump of a body had given up under the effort. Even now, 24 hours later, I'm still not sure whether I am more pissed off about the fact that I dropped the relatively easy finishing moves, that I now have not one but two injuries which need attention or that I let good conditions and syke get the better of my common sense. Gutted!

Preparation be damned

Decided that the weather was far too good and we were far too battered following Saturdays exertions to justify spending money to go climbing indoors so we met up at Burbage for a bimble on the boulders there instead.

Had a really good session - didn't do anything new but it was good to be out on the rock and feeling that I was moving well. Helped that the conditions were pretty damned good - not optimum but close would be my assessment and it certainly helped in my best attempt so far on the The Armoured Car Traverse. Still going to require a bit more work through the crux but it feels the closest it has been yet.

Today was another good day out at Curbar - I was feeling ever more battered but decided that I would go and check out the stuff behind the Gorilla Warfare block that is listed in the new Froggatt guide. Slightly disappointing with what I found to be honest - the problem on the back wall was green so that might be better with some dry conditions and a good brush. The two problems on the other face looked less than enticing though - the arête problem has a block that sticks up at the base providing a landing that looks pretty nasty and the face problem to the right has a pit underneath it. I didn't try either problem so it might be a bit of a false impression but neither one really made me feel that confident given I was out on my own.

Back to the old favourites then - did the problems on the slab below Gorilla Warfare and then walked acoss to The Prow which I got utterly spanked on a few years back and haven't been near since. My loss is all I can say - the Left Hand Arête is pleasant and easy enough, the centre line proved tricky to start and I thought that it would be all over once I had negotiated that part but the crux seems to be moving off two decent crimps for the top. On paper it should be easy but it feels really balancy and tenuous and getting the top from there first time was a good feeling - so good in fact that I eliminated the decent hold for the left hand at the start and utilised a small crimp instead. Made no difference to the overall grade that I could tell but it felt that little bit more satisfying to do it that way. Last but not least was The Prow itself and it is a magnificent problem. Good handholds all the way but you have to work to get the feet right - should really have been a flash but I cocked up pulling on so it went second go with a slight wobble reaching for the top when I realised that the mat was placed in a less than optimum position.

From there it was down to Trackside to be confronted by some of the worst chalk abuse I have seen in a long time.


The picture was taken after 2-3 minutes of brushing chalk off with about four different brushes. You could see the break all the way from The Prow - that is how much chalk the bloody idiots had smeared in the break in an effort, one can only assume, to dry it out. Whoever was responsible really needs beating to death with their chalk bag and while it might take a very long time for them to die it will be worth it after I tried the problem and my left hand blew at the top of the mantle resulting in two very skinned knuckles. Still I suppose at least I got to bleed a lot and swear a lot more - not a total waste of a day.

Following that I repeated Strawberries first time - go me - and then played about a bit on what seems to be Crack 'n' Pockets in the new guide. Have played about on it before but today it felt feasible though no progress was made as the crimp for the left hand had been sitting in the sun for a while and so was not feeling great and my skin was feeling in even worse condition. Gave it up as a bad job but it has been added to the projects list for the winter anyway as something to try along with the Ultimate Gritstone Experience.

Stardate -312682.191780822

According to my one constant reader I can not live on syke alone but must combine it with lots of rad to live a healthy balanced life. Given this sage advice I have been trying to do more rad which is proving easier now that the van is insured again though the levels will drop when the credit card bill falls through my letter box.

But that is an aside - got out to Burbage North with the Flipper last night. Warmed up on the first main wall or to be slightly more honest got scared doing 4a moves above a mat that seemed to be the size of a postage stamp and then down-climbed again. Made lots of excuses that this was antagonistic training etc. and wandered down the crag to the Three Bears.

I have blogged about the Three Bears before - 9 problems which are slightly scrittly but nice enough climbing between breaks. It is one of those crags where the short and\or those not having much confidence in their footwork will suffer but I just about got away with it and sent all of the problems except the easiest which we deemed rubbish yarding between huge holds and therefore beneath us.

From there we went onto the Cube block situated about 50 yards back up the valley. I had tried the left hand problem before given a grade of Doodle Bug 1 (5b) and thought at the time it was way out but put it down to thin skin or some such thing. Revisiting it last night proved that it is almost certainly undergraded - it is tough, balancy, steep and the footholds are almost non-existent above the low break. As Flipper put it - either we are climbing really badly or it isn't 5b. Regardless of that it is a striking problem and one that I am going to keep revisiting as I made a bit of progress on it last night and managed to get to the second break static once. The break isn't good but it could be worse and I was able to hang it and match it but it all went a bit wrong after that as my feet popped and I hung in there in a style not dissimilar to that of Wile E. Coyote - feet thrashing away desperately trying to get something to stick before dropping off. Therein lies the other issue with this problem - the landing slopes away and falling off from higher up is going to result in a slide down the valley (hopefully with the bouldering mat) that Johnny Dawes would be proud of. Knowing this isn't helped by having looked at it from the side - the third break isn't any better than the second and the top is a gritstone horror show of slopeyness. Going to need a lot of rad and syke to get it topped out for sure.

Grit

Had my first session on the grit for a while last night at the Burbage boulders with Flipper. Nothing hard went down - more a matter of doing the old favourites and getting back into the swing of things really but a really pleasant spring evening bimbling about and watching someone trying hard on Goliath and taking some decent falls more than once in the process. Don't think it went down but kudos to whoever it was for getting back on it repeatedly in what sounded like an increasingly frustrating experience.

Did all the stuff on the back of the Cobra block and then did the traverse. Not sure if the traverse is a first for me - I can't recall doing it before but what is sure was that it was a tick of awesome ineptitude - feet skittering and generally looking like a grade A punter on it - welcome back to grit! From there went onto the Pock block, Pick went down easily, Pock went down with a display of excessive crimping and pulling hard as it had been sat in the sun all day and then we got rather scared on Pock Man. Now this is a problem that I have done before (and fell off an equal number of times) and I want to do it in a better style than just stretching like there is no tomorrow and walking my fingers over the top but last night was not going to be the night - after a few attempts we succumbed to the fear and walked on.

After that we did a few problems on the Brick, a few on the Pig and finished off at the Tank boulder. Finally got some decent beta on the traverse of this and now have a method of doing the drop down to the side pull - it's still a bit stretched but it's doable - just got to get the footwork a little better and hopefully one of my many projects can be laid to rest.

Today is a rest day, I was hoping to blank off the EGR on pROJECT mAYHEM but the gasket sealant hasn't arrived in the post as hoped and then the plan looks like Caley tomorrow with Broken Beagle and then possibly a return visit to the Three Bears at Burbage on Monday with Flipper.