You Should Have Seen The Looseness Of The One That Got Away...

Recently I've had some setbacks with my amateur chossaneering. I seem to have come up with an abrupt wall where the gentle terrain of "Big G grading routes quite softly in his later climbing years" suddenly rears up into daunting scenarios of "Big G grading routes in direct comparison to his multiple Gogarth E7 6b roof crack heyday", and unlike the rock in reality, this particular wall doesn't seem soft or wobbly enough to pull a few bits off and sneak around it. Thus I'm running out of routes I can pretend my way up by climbing very slowly and gently and ignoring the dubious structural integrity, and starting to be faced with things that are actually hard. And then there are other issues with off-piste routes that don't get nearly the repeats they deserve:

The latest shambles looked a bit like this:

Dichotomous, The Range - superb bit of rock in a superb situation. The first two superfluous pegs I pulled out by hand. The essential gear protecting the crux along an expanding undercling finger flake with lichenous smearing consisted of the one remaining bendy peg with rust flaking off it and a missing RURP. The long fall from here would leave on having to be lowered into the sea. I bailed.

The Blue Horse, Porth Dafrach - Warming up on Caff's minor sandbag DAME was fun. Feeling the greasy flakiness at the start of The Blue Horse and trying to envisage the brutal laybacking required for upwards/outwards progress along with protecting the whole sheningan was less fun. I bailed.

Angel Of The West, The Range - On paper this is a mere half a grade harder than Surreal Estate that had been a perfectly charming womble the previous day. In reality it must be a good 3 grades harder. I have looked at AOTW from many angles on 4 visits, and have been doing specific training for it on The Depot roof and The Boardroom DWS roof, and it still looks utterly and incomprehensibly outrageous. I bailed (but I'm still thinking about the fucking thing).

Three Day Event, Porthllechog - more like Three Metre Event as that's about how high I got up it. Somewhat more conventional in angle and situation than the other routes but, well, my guts had been bad that morning (for absolutely no fucking reason), the refreshing breeze all day had dropped in time for my attempt, there seemed to be plant life covering crucial holds, I'm a wimp, etc etc. I bailed.

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Anyway, all of this got me thinking, thinking about some proper choss, proper potentially wonderful routes, and the Top Three That Got Away, which goes a bit like this....

Gold, North Pembroke

Wow. Okay. This one. Honestly, if I'd got up this (a one star route at a grade I've done dozens of), it could have been the route of my life. Rainbow Zawn looks quite impressive from the side....but from below, it's unbelievable. It was genuinely hard to take in how impressive and intimidating it looked - constantly overhanging end-on strata of culm sandstone and shale. I battled for an hour up the first pitch to find that a section through an overhang (shared with an E3 5b!!) was missing and I couldn't work out how to climb it. I left a wire and krab in-situ and this update for UKHitlering (which never made it on afaik)

"An epic climb that is one of the easiest (!) lines up a shocking cliff. Originally graded E4, the first pitch has lost holds including at least one crucial ledge, and it is a very different experience to South Stack / Lleyn / Craig Llong E4s. The end-on shale strata are ungenerous with holds so expect an awesome adventure with hard, strenuous climbing as well as the obligatory loose rock, rope-cutting edges, rusty pegs and sandy cracks."

I still regret not doing it.

Back To The Old Ways, Atlantic Coast

Immortalised on film with me backing off it, tail firmly between stockings. A very cinemogenic King Line chosen for Cheque's Seaside, as a light digestif to accompanying Duncan on Eroica (and the bugger calmly encouraging me onto Black Magic despite my qualms). Alas it wasn't meant to be, the choss quotient was perfectly fine (in it's own shaley way) but the much-harder-than-graded climbing with much-smaller-than-required gear was a bit too much. A pity as it really did look ace.

Kelly's Eye, Lleyn

A recent inspiration and retreat. A great bit of rock in a lovely wee zawn, but this time whilst both the climbing and gear on the first pitch seemed manageable, the choss was in full effect with almost everything feeling crunchy, or wobbly, or indeed both. Yes, I backed off the first 5a pitch, but abbing down (with the lone belay stake reassuringly backed up by the dog stake), the two 5b pitches looked just as hard and terrifying as they did from the slope opposite. I suppose when someone (Littlejohn) who has been E6 new-routing for decades, including the Lleyn, warns that "some of the rock requires a light touch", I should probably be extra wary despite the lowly grade. So the right decision, but still disappointing. 

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Back to the present day. It feels a bit weird to run out of inspiration at The Range. I do love it there. So gentle and peaceful and beautiful and weird and sketchy on the routes. But there's odds and sods to pop in for, and other coastal gems to explore and the bird bans are off South Stack this weekend... I just need to get some fucking confidence back as it's taken a bit of a beating with these retreats, my digestion being up and down, my sport fitness going to pot (too much amateur chossaneering, sigh), etc etc. Fingers crossed.

The Wedge Keeps Thickening...

...thickening like a fat greasy chode, which pretty much sums up the state of the climbing scene.

Yes. Ken was right after all. Bellowing like Canute at the ceaseless tide of crap new bolts surging towards his sandcastle, but he had a point. All the wedge-deniers - you're wrong. It is happening, it is here, the bolts are here. The wedge has thickened from additional sport climbs to re-equipping of sport climbs to sporadic retro-bolting of mostly fixed gear routes to straight out full on retro-bolting of good reasonably protected trad routes. 

I do fucking loads of sport climbing throughout the UK both as training for trad and for an inherently strong pleasure in it's own right. I thoroughly appreciate proper sport crags, proper re-equipping of shoddy old sport routes that are mostly run-outs on caving bolts and bits of coathanger, and sometimes obvious and justifiable retro-bolting of neglected trad routes that were full of fixed gear, never really offered a satisfactory trad experience (and indeed were closer to sport experiences when first put up before the fixed gear rotted).

I am profoundly less convinced when this bolting fervour sweeps onto good and protectable trad routes. And the more I explore around the lime, the more I see this happening all over... E.g.

Attermire

Almost completely retrobolted away from the main crag, including classic HVS/E1s that if not fully retroed have been compromised by bolts. 

High Stony Bank

Some good new sport additions, but stuff like Oedipus, which was on my list after seeing a photo, has been lost to bolts despite following an attractive flake crack system.

Lower Pen Trwyn

I took my rack down to do Jacuzzi Jive and Twisting By The Pool that I've always wanted to do (I've got them earmarked in North Wales Rock from a decade ago).... And they've been retroed too. As it happened I pretty much did Twisting By The Pool on trad, but caved in and clipped one bolt to back up the wire on the headwall crux, I'm dropping one E-grade off for that. Aside from that one move it is perfectly well protected with wires and a perfect waste having it as another F6b+ on a crag that really doesn't need that many of them.

Marine Drive

Whilst Beaverbrook might arguably be a sensible retrobolting proposition compared to it's previous mono-peg incarnation (somewhat out of character with the generally reasonably protected routes around there), Pure Mania further around is definitely NOT. I lead this a couple of years ago, and in character for the crag it was a great wee trad experience, a bit run-out, a bit thoughtful, a bit technical. Just a proper good trad route. Now it's a line of fucking bolts. 

The latter examples particularly baffling / infuriating. Pen Trwyn has, in my experience, always been a bastion of balance, a showcase of trad and sport sitting side by side, with neither impinging on the other, where you can have great experiences of both genres right next to each other, (and where the quality of the rock and climbing transcends Pete's miserly understarring ;)). It should have stayed as that great example, rather than another example of insidious wedge-thickening. 

What next?? Melkor has a thread in and most nearby routes are partly bolted - should that be another F6b-ish thing?? No. Fuck that, it's a lovely trad climb, I did it last week as a warm-down in the evening sun and wouldn't have wanted a single bolt other than the lower-off. It won't happen, huh?? It already IS fucking happening...

I always suggest the first and most important course of action should be:

1. Thoroughly clean the route up including removing vegetation and loose rock, scrubbing and chalking the holds (yes, some effort, but less, and much cheaper, than retro-bolting).

2. Replace essential fixed gear with like-for-like if possible. Install lower-offs if the finishing terrain is too appalling (as it sometimes gets).

3. Publicise the route(s) all over. Get some nice photos of people leading them in a pristine state. Shout it from the social media roof-tops. Write an article for UKWebanpeopleunjustifiably.com, update the logbooks.

4. In short, give the trad routes, and trad climbers, a fighting chance BEFORE reaching for the drill.

In the meantime I'm either going to have to get on any limestone trad routes pretty damn quickly. Or buy a re-chargeable angle grinder. Suggestions on a postcard...

P.S. Vaguely on topic, here's a disgruntled miserable old sport-hating trad dinosaur in action:

The Bloods  - I've wanted to do this for a while since the rather evocative photo of Redhead on it in ...And One For The Crow (my 3rd tick in the book after Poetry Pink and Young And Easy... , I probably won't get many more!!). In the accompanying essay / demented rambling, he says it was first done with two bolts, then ended up with 7 bolts and a lower off. It's actually only 5 bolts and a lower off and is still a bit run out for a sport route at the start, middle, and finish. Should this have been left as a sparsely bolted semi-trad route?? I don't know - would it have provided a good, intricate, nut-slotting, committing trad experience?? It didn't look like it, but if someone had chosen to take a strong stand for it, that would be fair enough.

Julio Juventus - partly done because a friend was on the first half (a very logical pitch in it's own right) and partly done to avoid failing to flash Axle Attack or Mayfair! I somehow scraped through this one despite botching the my feet on the first crux and simply not having enough feet on the second crux, thus having to skip an unfeasible clip, and I got away with it and was pretty chuffed with my commitment. No idea about a previous trad / semi-trad status of this one. 

Creative Urges

Here's something I did recently (although I've been wanting to do it for years...a decade?)

https://soundcloud.com/fiend-ophobia/96darkness

A semi-mix / segued selection of 30 classic dark drum'n'bass / techstep tracks from the mid-late 1990s, the era between Origin Unknown's Valley Of The Shadows creating the darkside, and until Bad Company's The Nine took it to the next rave level. Especially 96-98-ish when early Ed Rush, Nico, Optical, Doc Scott, Ray Keith, Trace etc were creating a maelstorm of stomping 2-step beats, furious amen breaks, deep reese bass and haunting sci-fi atmospheres. 

This is something I had planned a very long time ago - I had a rough tracklist written down with reasons for each position, limited to 70-ish minutes to be hypothetically written to CD! It was partly inspired by this being my favourite era of drum and bass, despite still loving stuff right up to the present day (and future!), and partly by a few tracks and mixes, specifically: Shadow Boxing / Secrets in particular, John B's recent and fantastic Wormhole old skool techstep mix that has alas disappeared off Youtube, The Prototype Years album, and the Torque album (still a classic to this day even if I only included one track)

I'm bloody chuffed with this to be honest. Sure it's simple, but I've put lots of thought and inspiration into the tracklist and ordering, and if I found this online, it would be one of my favourite "mixes" ever, just for the track selection. Even after so many partial listens during hours of chopping away in Audacity, I still enjoy it - and feel like it is a creative venture overall, and one that I'm most proud of, along with my North Wales Outliers bouldering video from 2 years ago, which I view in a similar way. I guess I do other creative stuff like toy soldiers and sporadic game map design, bit there's something about the aforementioned edits that are special to me.

I say "semi-mix" because I'm not a DJ and can't really mix, but there are some aspects I think are close enough to mixing and work pretty well, here's a few thoughts from the process:

Segues / tracks of note:

Terrorist > Pulp Fiction

This was the first bit I ever tried, just having two Youtube videos playing side by side and quickly pausing one and playing the other to see if the drop worked, and it did! I couldn't get the original version of Terrorist but the updated revamp works fine I think.

Shadow Boxing remix > Your Sound remix 

The second bit I planned, I remember John Peel playing SB remix and commenting on the notorious "record fuck up" section, and I knew I had to do something with that, and it happens that YS remix also has a vaguely similar section, so it's almost like a rewind, -ish ;)

Sonar > Lost In New York

The worst / crudest segue of the lot I think. LINY had to go in and this seemed the best spot but the structure of the two tracks is so different there's little I could work out. I think LINY into Still works pretty well though.

DJ SS - Lost In New York - I never heard this in any mixes except one on a magazine cover CD, and I think it's brilliant, heavy and well crafted and highly atmospheric, it had to go in.

Edtrafienical > Secrets

I thought this would "mix" well given that both tracks have distinct and clear 2-step beats, but somehow the edits in Secrets made it really tricky to get the right bit. In the end I'm really pleased that it worked.

The Raven > Mute

Another bit I'm really pleased with, a simple "mix" but the 2 step beats from Mute just fit surprisingly well with the bassline of Raven

To Shape The Future > TSTF remix > TSTF amen mix

Surely one of the greatest things in the history of DnB?? 3 bloody brilliant and surprisingly diverse track versions. I bloody love the drop into the amen mix :D

Equinox - Some Kind Of Illusion - a bit more laid back for the era, early stripped back breakage, from the birth of Renegade Hardware.

Rob & Goldie - The Shadow (Process mix) - this was on a Moving Shadow special 100th release EP, and the full track is a 9 minute epic with a massive intro build-up. Amazingly it's a remix by Rick Smith from Underworld (I'm not a fan myself) and is proper classy.

Embee - Fractured Soul - another one I never heard in a mix but I really love the combination of playful, almost delicate beats and noises, with those occasional waves of absolutely apocalyptic amens.

Cybin - Roller - this featured on John B's Wormhole mix, but I've loved it for many years from an Emcee records Knowledge mix CD. Huge energy and ridiculous bass that I had to keep toning down after testing in the car.

Dom & Roland - Imagination - a bit cheeky as this is just outside the specified era but it captures and refines all the dark techstep facets of that era perfectly into one of my favourite tracks. So much so that instead of the very natural ending at the main breakdown, I had to let the whole the play out to earworm everyone to fuck :D.

Enjoy :)

Mini-Adventures #1 and #2

 

A concept I coined when referring to the undeniable delights of The Range, and although it was partly dismissed by Wil in an interview in Cheque's authentic down-to-earth magnum opus THE SEASIDE , I stand by both the existence and inherent quality of the concept. 

It's basically sea-cliffs (usually, although not always) with lovely settings, gentle approaches, amenable access, mostly single pitch, and nothing epic surrounding the routes - but routes that whilst shorter, have a good feeling of adventure and commitment once on them, with intriguing lines up strong architecture, interesting rock, exciting terrain, and a feeling of being away from the conventional big ticks. The essence of hidden gems in fact.

And of course I bloody love it. Who wouldn't?? Even when my trad confidence hasn't been great in recent years, I've still managed to potter on with this sort of exploration, and it has nourished my soul when my mind is injured and my body is weak (or is it the other way around??). 2018 it was stuff like Lovely Day Mr Thomas at The Range and Dr Livingstone I Exhume at Trearddur Bay, 2019 it was more Range in the form of The Blue Buoy and Surfant, and also Jacuzzi Dive on the Lleyn, 2020 it was essential knee and elbow therapy on the bonkers Emmenthal Wall at the Range. 

2021 I'm starting a bit early - partly to get some cool stuff "out of the way" (an incongruous phrase for something that is so inherently pleasurable in the moment) before the South Stack and Lleyn bird-bans are off in August and grander adventures are opened up (the magnificent Rapture Of The Deep and Mantrap being highlights of previous years). And partly because I'm psyched for such pure fun. So far it's been....

#1 - Trwyn Maen Melyn:

Yes, that crag. A firm favourite to the extent I'm likely to tick the crag apart from the E7. Still the most bewilderingly semi-solid rock around too. 

I kicked things off with an amnesia-point retro-flash of The Incredible Surplus Head, which I'd kicked things off 14 years ago i.e. kicked a small block off and then panicked and slumped onto gear and failed (also worth noting it finishes slightly left of the line in my updated topo). It's well past my 10 year moratorium, so I went back with the lone bit of vague recollection that a red camalot was useful somewhere. Thus I saved my red camalot right until the final alarmingly steep section where it rattled around in a perfect yellow camalot slot like your pencil-dick rattles around in a whore's gapehole, but somehow I still hauled myself over the lip.

Then it was on to the main event....

Queer Bar! The first time I've visited one to be honest, and it lived up to my "greasy dark hole" desires... I'd tried this in 2016 with good dry conditions but without a crucial giant cam, and again in 2019 with a good giant cam but without crucial dry conditions. This time I had both and it was brilliant. Proper improvised squirming towards the light and rebirth - when I reached the lip I was cackling to myself as it was just such ridiculous fun. 

#2 - Porthllechog & Trwyn Wylfa:

Some even more quintessential mini-adventures here...

Faller At The First - there was very nearly a faller (me) at the first route which was done as a warm-up as it was in the sun on a fresh blustery day, and turned out to pack quite a punch for a 12m route. Steep, sustained, and really very good.

Cerys / Porpoise Delight - a disputed first ascent claim, but I'll take the slightly higher grade and star rating of the latter, as this has quite a sketchy start, sustained interest, and a perfectly photogenic position that belies it's "small crag" impressions - anything that traverses a sea-cave always makes the list. By pure chance we went down to this wall slightly frustrated about the lack of mobile signal to check the updates on the Dump , and there was an older team at the crag that turned out to be one of the recent developers of the crag and knew it all off by heart (well, apart from the previous claim on this line, maybe). A stroke of luck.

The next day involved backing off a Pat Littlejohn MXS 5b at Trwyn Wylfa (which was described as needing a "gentle touch"). I couldn't even commit to the first 5a pitch and upon abbing for gear I'm glad I didn't as the ""5b"" pitches looked too much.....it's good to know when to back off. So this was the consolation prize...

Stranger On The Shore, a real gem on mostly properly weathered solid black rock. This had delightful climbing with a daunting central groove that seemed slopey and holdless until gentle udging revealed all it's amenable joys (jugs). 

Hopefully I will be updating with parts #3, #4, #5 etc etc sooner rather than later!!

Glimmers Of Hope

God knows it's been a very long time. The last time I felt I had a decent level of trad climbing confidence was in Autumn 2018, after a spring of digestive illness and depression and a summer crawling out of that via logistically-manageable but strength-maintaining sport climbing. I did pretty well back then and was very happy doing so. Since then....the diminishing but constant effects of my digestion, covid blanket-lockdowns-irrespective-of-risk, and injury ups and downs have held me back too much for comfort.

(Incidentally I estimate that my digestive issues have reduced my overall trad ability by a full grade - due to the increased depression/vulnerability and reduced energy that comes from those issues - but not affected my sport nor bouldering ability as short sharp bursts of non-emotionally-stressful activity are fine. Conversely, I expect my DVTs dropped my bouldering / sport ability by a grade due to the 10+kg weight gain due to difficulty with CV exercise, but did not affect my trad ability (walk-ins aside) as the power-to-weight reduction is less of an issue for easier trad moves (and there's little emotional component to the DVTs apart from occasional rage/grumps))

Anyway I've been doing exactly the same plan as I did last summer to get me right up to peak fitness (just before fucking my MCL and elbow and having a mediocre Autumn 2020) - doing plenty of sport climbing to regain fitness, strength, and roped confidence. Redpointing is training for sport onsighting is training for trad limestone is training for sea-cliff limestone... And it seems to be working a bit.

I had a trip down to Devon and despite trying to find trad partners being akin to trying to find a very small needle in a giant Shire-sized haystack, I managed to have one good trad day out and did my first challenging / satisfying trad lead for ages, Clotted Cream at Meadfoot Quarry:

This was with Madeline who had a lovely old boi dog, so have a picture of him too:

So CC intimidated me quite a bit despite being it being quite appealing and myself being quite well warmed-up. Thus I chose a mantra "7a....7a....7a" on the basis that it was well-protected, sport-ish style climbing, and having flashed multiple 7as in the previous month, surely that should be okay. Obviously as any pedant kno, it's nowhere near F7a, more like F6c, but the former was the level of effort I expected to put in. And it worked - cranking through the pump on the headwall above bomber cams felt scarcely different to doing so above bolts. A real morale boost, even if I left Devon with far more wishlist routes than ticklist routes.

(Incidentally the large block on the arete / niche, which features Pete Saunders merrily and needlessly swinging around on it in the guidebook, has parted company with the crag, despite how solid it felt when I was relaxing on it. It will leave less gear and holds but also a large niche that will also be in the VS slabby arete - I'm glad I got on it when I did!)

...

Then a bit later and by a bit of random chance, it was Holocaust at Dow Crag - a totally standard trade route. But for me, whilst it's not the most challenging route I've done since DVTs (not even top 30), nor the most challenging walk-in (Neckband just pips it) it IS the most challenging route I've done after a challenging walk-in (1.5 hours for a 1 hour walk-in, including 3 rests on the normal track and 4 rests on the death-scree - a long time to get intimidated and tired and not want to have to come back). Also possibly the most challenging routes since I moved to Manchester.

With the intimidation of the approach, this was a great reminder to myself that the potential is still there, that I can do okay even on one of my more logistically taxing inspirations, that I can and should take some positivity from this. And that if I ever drag myself up there again some other fucker can carry the rope.

As for the route itself - which I've wanted to do for 14 years, ever since doing it's adjacent and entirely contrasting sibling Tumble (are there any other routes of the same grade, on the same wall, so close to each other, with such different styles??) - it's a bit of a strange one. I did it, and I did it well tbh, but it still felt like a fair bit of luck getting the crux, which is slightly dissatisfying?? But I guess that's the entire nature of the route, and something so dynamically cruxy, and something at my limit. There have been enough times where the luck hasn't gone my way on such moves and this time it did. Also, pro-tip: the entire route can be well-protected with a half dozen small blue camalots (and a couple of wires for the belay). True story and it would save a lot of weight on the walk!

So that's a couple of happy scenarios I can hopefully build on...