Maybe a post about actually climbing for a change??
(Edit, and warning: there now are a lot of words about climbing in this post, I got carried away)
It's still a struggle. I want to push myself. I want to be climbing at over 50% capacity. I want to train. I want to bivvy beneath the 30' board in the new Depot training room. I want to feel the cranking. Sigh.
But there's a little bit of stuff I can do, apart from easy circuits indoors and trying to work out why the fuck my pelvis and left leg are constantly aching and tweaky despite exercise and stretching. Mostly easy grit, slabs, and easy grit slabs. Thankfully all of those things are rather good so there's some pleasure to be had in the usual luck-based scrittle malarkey of sliding off smears, pinging off pebbles, being unable to reach holds, and moaning about skin / conditions. So here's a little tale about most of those...
M20 and I went questing off to Standing Stones. He promised me a Bonjoy 6C slab, and the chance to heckle him on a downsloping lip traverse just above the pads and then a large drop-off so if the climber fell and the precariously bridged spotter fumbled, you'd both end up plunging headfirst into a likely bottomless pit in the boulders below. I promised myself to get a decent walk, fresh air, and not aggravate my elbow, which is sometimes all I aim for these days.
I'd actually been for a recce last autumn (previous golfer's elbow AND tweaked MCL rehab...) and spotted a few things including this slab that featured one of the two defining characteristics of the extensive SS boulderfield: boulders that either don't have a landing, or are so wedged and jumbled that they don't form problems at all. Since this only featured the former, I decided to investigate further whilst M20 was brushing scrittle or looking lustily at grouse or something.
The slab was indeed attractive, the terrain beneath it less so, consisting of an artisanal blend of holey bits and jaggy bits and finely seasoned by a suitcase-sized block jutting right out over it. It turns out that the latter was in a fairly relaxed state about it's current position and decided it's ultimate destiny in life was to roll down into one of the afore-mentioned holes in a position which initially seemed equally jutting and inconvenient but actually provided a useful centerpiece around which other unstable blocks could migrate towards and cuddle up next to. An hour or so later there was, miraculously, a landing. And it seemed that no mosses, lichens, ferns nor rodent nests were disturbed in the transition, indeed scarcely a displaced woodlouse was spotted.
...
After some stones had partaken in downwards motion, it was incumbent for the climber to attempt upwards motion. A lone excellent sidepull provided both the solution and conundrum, and it quickly became apparently that it's more obvious orientation naturally led the climber off onto the left arete rather abruptly, albeit after a very pleasant smear-stepping start (Solexit 6A). A more direct line didn't seem to work and I started to lose interest, and, somewhat prematurely, left Gritstone Jesus to take over. He worked out an extended smearing sequence that used the Hold to gaston back right and up, leaving a final smear and stretch to a particularly enticing pebble, at which point the gritstone decided to take revenge for all the downwards motion earlier on, and the pebble and climber joined the downward motion...
At this point the Gritstone Gentleman, after a half-hearted attempt discovering the remaining hole was a pale shadow of the pebble it once embraced, confessed that he was feeling a bit reluctant to fully go for it, as I'd put all the effort into fixing the landing and really I should be giving it a fair go. Gulp. So I did, and the climbing started to feel pretty damn interesting - a different extended sequence of smears led back to the same position, and a worse, higher pebble showed potential to reach the top. After a few tentative dismounts, I pulled on the pebble, bridged a foot onto a ripple and reached.... ....the bloody left arete, albeit a lot higher.
This was something I hadn't intended nor desired. The problem was already a bit eliminate in that you had to move back right to avoid easier ground, and I wanted it to be a logical eliminate with a simple "avoid the left arete" description. I checked if I could reach the top directly (not really), tried a few more times, skidded off a higher smear, ran out of time and shuffled away.
But it kept nagging at me, and inspiring me, and it's been a while since I've been able to feel inspiration or anything that motivational. I didn't think there was much to improve to do that last move more directly, just having more time to persist with it and hope the luck part of the luck based scrittle appeared out of somewhere. I bade my time, cleaned off an excellent project to tempt M20 back, and thought about smears.
...
Eventually M20, MG and I went back - the closest Standing Stones has got to an actual send train! We downgraded the Bonjoy 6B+, did a new one move wonder undercut arete I found - Careless Pork - and I got back on the slab. And exactly the same thing happened, the best position I got into, the way for me to progress was rolling onto the arete. Again I tested the stretch to the top, this time with more diligence, to discover I'd have to be on tip-toes on the crucial ankle-down smear to reach it. Again I passed the baton on, and M20 stretched the very top of the arete and slab apex to match. With the team's support, the assessment was that where you reach from the final position wasn't the main thrust of the problem, and effectively I'd already done it last time. This was quite weird for me, closure of the inspiration not by success but by changing the goalposts.
Post-match analysis however revealed some logic, in which I was inspired by writings of the ex-Newcastle now Cymru captain Pantontino. It's nice for new things to make clear-cut sense: Follow the line from the bottom to the top. But sometimes they don't. Bits of rock impinge, easier ground impinges, features lead away from the best climbing. Guidance from a well-written guide nudges the climber to make the best use out of the rock, even if it means guidelines on what to do. In this case, matching the Hold and rocking back right locks you into the sequence of smears and pebbles until you're bridged higher and either slap the upper arete or the top. Yes you go back to the arete if you can't reach the top, but only after 6 tricky and delicate moves away from the much easier start-sidepull-arete problem.
So it's a flawed result, but there's now a feasible problem with good climbing. It's about 6C/+-ish maybe.
And the name??
Solace.
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