Grinding away at Garheugh.

The weather is still stopping away trips, so I'm alternating between indulging other hobbies and the occasional training session. This weekend was visiting my mum and mostly a very chilled out time drinking strong coffee and painting toy soldiers, but I also diverted back to Glasgow via Garheugh. It's a nice wee greywacke crag opposite to the Stranraer peninsula, short on routes but long on bouldering, which is actually, surprisingly, consistently good. I've been a couple of times for both styles but not really tackled the bouldering when I'm fully fit.

Bouldering versus routes. It's all a matter of scale.
This time I had three goals: 1. Go somewhere nice and scenic to climb. 2. Train myself hard in preparation for trad trips. 3. Do some of the classic problems. Well, two out of three ain't bad. The only thing I really got up was repeating my own problem, Brunch. I wasn't sure how good it was, but looking at it on this visit, it's clearly a good if minor line, certainly better than some of the described problems (like the chossy wall to the left). I wasn't sure if it was worth the grade, but reclimbing it on this visit, it's clearly a taxing enough move, certainly worth the effort. Naturally it's missed out of the Scottish Bouldering guide to make way for some wank eliminates and overhyped non-classics elsewhere.



I should have also had a video of the crag classic Bowfinger (which is a great bit of rock and not overhyped!). Instead I had dozens of videos of me falling off it. This is a cool, committing, and very Font-esque problem, graded V4/5 (Font 6c wtf that means). I regularly go to Font and do V4-V6 problems in a few goes, often after driving 12 hours and 1 hour's sleep on the ferry. Naturally this so-called """V4/5""" took me a few hours and I still couldn't do it. There might be some issue with the top being highly morpho (reaching a seam with feet under a bulge in another seam, or not reaching as the case may be), but I suspect the main issue is the grading being typically Scottish i.e. fucking shite. Still it is cool and now I have some vague idea of the Numbers (it's desperate to work as you can't pull on, only climb it), I will be back. Nice venue.

Returning to Glasgow past the watchful gaze of Ailsa Craig.