Not Wales.

I had planned to go to North / Mid Wales at the weekend or just after. However a drizzly forecast for Saturday prevented the weekend trip, and subsequently I've decided it would be best to rest my elbow a bit (it felt okay after Scotland but achey on the weekend) and get on with other stuff.

It feels a bit odd at the moment, having this constant reason to not go climbing. I sometimes have quite varying climbing motivation, depending on people, plans, places, and future possibilities. At the moment, if I don't feel like getting out (despite opportunity and good weather, two factors that often make me feel I "should" get out even if I'm not totally psyched), I always have the reason that it's good to rest my elbow some more. It's a bit of an excuse for laziness, BUT it's still a true maxim for me at the moment:

The best climbing I can do is not climbing.

Still I am inspired by Mid Wales in particular. Not too far away, quiet, interesting, lots to explore, plenty of good sounding proper trad routes. The Merionydd guide is a bumper volume of inspiration and confusion - it's taken me a couple of years to make sense of the potential there. Some of it is fairly esoteric and exploratory, but that's good, it means there's fresh stuff to climb. Which means, BIGGER inspiration, SMALLER numbers, and better for my injury.

Next time...