Winter Grit.....My Antisocial Way

So that was the winter past and I did it my way, mostly antisocially. Although not entirely, sometimes I managed to outwit the Gapescrote plan to shiver my blubber off on prolonged belays on drizzle-blasted obscurities and actually get him to do something suitable for a grotty gale-ridden winter season, sometimes I met fellow obscurists and sometimes random people which worked particularly well at Scout Hut (I only walked in after driving through a sodden Widdop valley because I needed a piss and it turned out to be bewilderingly dry and another dude was reccing and his mates turned up with loads of pads, sometimes the luck goes my way).

Anyway even though I often spend the routes seasons begging around for partners, trying to get anyone interested in similar exploration and able to give off the right vibes for my tradding, when it comes to bouldering I seem to be quite happy on my own. Sure the occasional highball warrants and rewards a pad party of send train bellends, but for actually getting stuff done, the simplicity of my own schedule and pacing suits me well. Following inspirations with all focus and no distraction, and then the more sociable days out tend to feel fun in comparison.

So this is how it happened, lots of cool problems that might be quite familiar if you've been living 15 minutes away for the last decade, but I think are pretty explorative for someone who has been living 4 hours away for the last decade and has his first grit season in 10 years living locally. Even though the meteorological theme for this grit season was "wank on a stick", the relentless winds that brought in all the fucking rain also brought in some surprising drying speeds as well as making far eastern and tree-shrouded venues invaluable. So in the end, by a lot of forecast checking and venue divining, I got a decent amount done....







...and now it ends. Has the grit season ended? When did it end? What time is it? What day is it? Who the fuck knows. I still have my winter grit beard on because I don't know what to do with it.... Well it ended before I could really get to grips with many routes, before I could at least *try* to put reasonable grit bouldering momentum to test above runners instead of pads. Sobeit. I probably feel something about that but I'm not even sure what. So instead I can look back at the times above as a bit of a retrospective celebration.