Friday 10 July 2009

This week...

This week I mainly went bouldering, shock horror! On Monday I sat out the rain in V12 drinking coffee and reading mags. Eventually went up the pass, been a while since I embraced the post work Cromlech sessions, so I had forgotten what a social centre these blocks were. Did a little climbing and made up some eliminates on the roadside face. Went down to Jerry's to play a bit on things there. Had a reasonable go at doing it blindfold, I have climbed the roof bit blind before but never the top out. Doing the whole thing from the proper start may become my summer fun challenge.

On Tuesday decided to head over to the Orme to climb in the cave, after playing around on this and that decided I was stronger but with much less fitness. My swinging match on Louie Armstrong still isn't working so obviously need to get stronger still. All the big links were out of the question, as I was tired on Lou Ferrino. In the end went up to Normans Wisdom and did the traverse and stuff, after a while it became clear psyche was low, so we headed to the pub.

Wednesday dawned a grey day, I wanted to go and check out a groove I remembered seeing at the entry to the copper mines in the pass. I remembered this as a steep blankish wall with some pinches, estimated the grade as V10 upwards. On my return it had morphed into a just off vertical V4, strange, it wasn't even much of a groove, still it was very good. I set up a rope and started to clean it. After sorting it out and moving some rocks at the bottom, I decided to give it a blast, slipping off the second move. I ran away to come back with a spot and mat. Jack came up from V12 and it went first go. Its quite high but totally safe with a spot and two mats due to a big flat rock for the spotter to stand on. Although I am sure it will probably never be climbed again for years, I named it Traitors Gate, and told anyone who would stand still long enough it was a modern classic. We then went down to the Cromlech, and had a social session with a couple of ciders, although I did land on my ass show boating on Sleep deprivation. Caff and Baby Dave both did Mr Fantastic as their first 8a+. Its great seeing other people happy when they climb hard stuff and even better when its on your problems.

Thursday, was mincing day, after heading over to see a mate in Bethesda, had a spare hour so decided to stop off and do the traverse in the river by the bridge. Maybe its just me, but I have been convinced this is worth doing for years. Its a bit small and you have to be careful not to land in the river, but it has a lovely sequence of moves on slopes. Well its good if your in the area with half an hour to kill!

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