Something Terrible

Obviously if you harm others, that is something terrible. I don't consciously harm others by my actions - despite plenty of desire and temptation (overtaking lane morons, I'm looking at you).

But I sometimes do terrible things. If you take away harming others, what else is there?? Harming yourself: through self-neglect, through self-inhibition, through wasting time and a finite life, through not being true to oneself, through not doing the right things to benefit oneself.

Not harm by direct action, but harm by a lack of action. A lack of positive, rewarding, satisfying, healthy, beneficial, true-to-self action.

I do this and thus I do something terrible. This is....part of my personality. A flaw in me, in an otherwise fairly smart, capable, and inspired being. It has always been this way and for many years I have been working on overcoming it - maybe in many years time I will overcome it!

Obviously this applies to climbing very much, as an inspired passion that involves action and training and input and effort. I'm posting this because it was brought home recently, after a couple of weeks of doing fuck all and feeling pretty unhappy with myself, I went to the wall and was fat and weak but at least I was doing something. Listening to that tasty track above on the drive home highlighted that at I wasn't doing something terrible that evening...

Learnings.

Doing a hard redpoint was an interesting experience. Doing an interesting redpoint to a deadline was a hard experience - often hard to keep going, and sometimes only the pleasure of the moves kept me going. In this context I like to see what I've learnt from it...

1. I'm not climbing to a deadline ever again.
Too much stress, too much focus on the goal rather than the process. I'll happily do more redpointing though, over a more relaxed period.

2. Hard redpointing is not "true to self" for me.
Easy Trad™ IS, exploring IS. Redpointing is good fun and a good compliment but it's not a core aspect for me. I enjoy it most as "dicking around on a rope", rather than being obssessed with it.

3. The issues I find hardest on a redpoint are similar to those I find hardest on Easy Trad™.
I.e. confidence, fear of falling, stamina, fitness. I can work out moves and memorise them well, and am not too weak. But the mental and fitness sides, as with trad, are still hard for me.

4. Quality is everything.
As with any aspect of climbing, the quality of the climb has to be inspiring enough to be worth the effort. I couldn't have done it unless it was a cool climb as well as a challenge.

5. External factors are crucial as usual.
I got lucky....no I made a sensible decision. Choosing something that was cool, shadey, semi-perma-dry, at a popular crag that it's easy to find people to climb with and mix and match plans. Weather and people....often elusive, always crucial.

Nothing really new there, I guess more of a confirmation of my path in climbing and what I need to follow and deal with along it.

Swansong.

http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=2648

I've been on and off the UKC forums for years. On with a lot of ranting and belligerence and generally being, for better or worse, a bit of a UKC personality, and off getting banned twice, avoiding them during non-climbing periods, and generally getting exasperated and staying clear until needs (Lifts and Partners) must. I think I've got to a stable state of play now where I stick to finding people to climb with in Scotland and the odd bit of Scottish information, and stay out of the rest.

The article above is my swansong, partly an acknowledgement of the climbing community, partly something I've been meaning to write for ages in response to my own experiences, but also seeing many experiences from many friends and just the climbing public in general. Hopefully it will be a useful reference guide for people, and a fitting conclusion to my previously major involvement with the forums.

Kinda nice day in Knapdale.

Kilmichael of Inverlussa is 52 miles from Glasgow as the crow flies, but 97 miles as the car drives, and that drive dwindles from motorway, to dual carriageway A-road, to fast trunk A-road, slow trunk A-road, normal A-road, B-road, single track B-road, minor road, and finally 4WD track as one gets further out in the sticks. This is the sort of place that people who live in the arse end of nowhere go on holiday to get away from it all.

The location makes for an extremely long journey for a single day out, but exploratory lust sometimes demands such escapades. The lust was directed to Creag Nam Fitheach, Knapdale's justifiably premier crag, and the single day was generally very nice - scenery, company, climbing and quite splendid tan-topping weather. The "kinda" comes from the detractions of the drive and also the crag base, a chaotic and overgrown boulder jumble which rivals North Third as The Worst Crag Base of 2010 and is highly incongruous with the convenience of the climbing and tranquility of the setting - there is little option to lounge and relax, unless you are a small-footed midget who likes relaxing whilst standing on one leg on the tiny patio of stable ground formed by the lone flat boulder.

Other than that it's all very reminiscent of a mini-Tremadog in rock feel and features, minus the queues of Classic Rock ticking drones. Strong geometries, rough angular rock, and good climbing. In the end I mostly puntered and avoided a couple of inspiring but sterner challenges. Nevertheless, being Easy Trad(tm) it was Good Fun(tm).

I also had an interesting learning experience on something slightly trickier, a slim, thin, and awkward looking groove. I wasn't really sure about it but thought I'd just "give it a look" and see what gear I could get in the start. One of my few natural talents with climbing (aside from downclimbing and spending ages in awkward and cunning rests) is fiddling in good gear, and Lo! shortly I was surprisingly well protected. So then I thought I'd just "give the moves a look", and promptly took advantage of that good gear by poinging off. Disappointing as I was actually giving it a go, but I had the useful realisation that I had been quite non-committal initially, and although I committed when I'd sorted good gear, I'd still been pretty casual about the climbing. Part of me had realised "hey I'm safe I can give this a go", but I hadn't turned that into full determination and concentration. If I'd made a conscious switch from "give it a look" to "climb it" then I probably would have climbed it!! Something to note for the future.

The end of a nice day:

Backlog Blog!!

Previous weekends as follows:
Sorry for all the number bollox but it's been a good run and I can't be arsed to write anything more interesting.

Desires come true at Duntelchaig
Before I considered moving to Scotland, I had 3 routes I'd seen photos of that had really inspired me. I did Edgehog a few weeks ago, and then managed to get to Dracula, which really is a good steep E3 5c crack and not an HVS jamming traverse lke it looks in the photos... One more to go....soon ;). Now I have a thousand more inspirations from my being up here, though.
Dracula E3 5c ***
The All Seeing Eye Font6c ** (flash)

Awesome at Ardmair
I liked Ardmair a lot before, and I like it even more now. Apparently the home of gritty rounded rock and steep jamming sandbags....more like the home of good holds, good gear, and generous grades!
Shakedown E3 5c **
Western Skyline E4 6a **
Space Monkey E2 5c ***
Unleash The Beast E4 6a ***

Lovely day at Lochan Dubh
Originally the plan had been to go to Inverthingy Rock Gym, but since Richie had ticked the crag, we needed another option. A brisk Northerly wind precluded many of the more interesting Gairloch crags, but the sunny and scenic Lochan Dubh seemed a sensible choice. Nice to get on the gneiss, and satisfying to do some big pitches.
The Missing Link E2 5b *
Call Of The Wild E4 6a ***

Minimal respite at Moy Rock
Finally to route off a diverse weekend of schisty stuff, sandstone and gneiss, we added conglomerate into the mix, well indeed it is a mix in itself. It's always fascinated me and Inverness seems the home of UK conglomerate sport climbing. Bizarre and intriguing, who could ask for more. Well, apart from a bit more fitness and freshness after a long weekend...
Little Teaser F6b+ ***
The Dark Side F6c/+ **

Power at Portlethen
As with pretty much everywhere on the Aberdeen coast, Portlethen has shut my ass down. Time for revenge, well only a little bit - small numbers! Under the watchful eye of Mr Big Numbers - indeed the power was his this session, with a massive run of macho problems - I managed to do a couple of previous nemesii fairly steadily. So that was nice. I don't suck that much after all.
Slap And Tickle Font6b+ ** (worked)
The Prow Font6c *** (worked)

Balls conditions at Balmashanner
The lovely Lyons decided a nice sunny evening was best spent clipping bolts in a dank festering hole in the ground, and who was I to argue?? Climbing is a broad church, right?? Apart from bloody mountaineering, that's an entirely different church with it's fair share of wizened old weirdos and kiddy fiddlers. Anyway and alas, Balmashanner really was dank and festering so I warmed up on one lead and warmed down on one errr aid pitch, and that was that. Ace dinner though.
Start The Fire F6b+ **

Climbing really okay at Clashrodney
Next up for my Crushing Aberdeen weekend was a bit of a granite taster. Clashrodney is a nice place with nice climbing, most of which I avoided by sticking to steep and pokey stuff, but that was cool, it turned out to be good fun and give me some confidence. Notably the hardest route felt easy and the easier routes felt hard. Hmmm.
Yellow Peril E1 5b *
Birthday Treat E1 5b ***
Blind Faith E3 5c **

Finishing nicely at Findon Ness
Already evening but with a showery morning forecast the next day, I was determined to get a bit more out of the day, and get a bit more action on the steep and worrying metamorphic schist that spanked my arse sideways a few weeks prior. This time there was distinct progress - my plan of "lots of chalk, slam in the cams, move quick and trust to good holds" seemed to work. There was a bit of a blip going off route on the ambiguous Siva-Guru connection and sitting on the gear before realising I'd ignored a piss easy finish. I can live with that, I got way more pumped attempting the off route version and resting for 10 seconds than if I'd gone direct (a clearer description would help!) initially. Spirit of the law rather than merely the letter of the law!
Siva-guru E3 5c **
Armed Conflict E1 5b **

Mini-beasting at Munich Buttress
A recent inspiration has been the well photographed Monkey Puzzle at Longhaven Quarries. Well photographed and justifiably so as it is an ace tower of rock - strong and dramatic lines up a striking pillar. Both routes I did were brilliant, the mini-beasting came from approx 3m of crux climbing in Jammy Dodger - nope I didn't dodge the jams and yep it was the hardest bit of crack climbing I did on lead. Raaaargh.
Monkey Puzzle E3 5c **
American Route / Jammy Dodger E3 6a **

Final words from the lean and mean Aberdeen legend, regular Font 7a+ ticker, and attempted Jammy Dodger seconder Amanda Lyons:

I'LL FOOKIN' KILL YOU LITTLE MAN!!!!

:D

Fucking crap at Floors Craig.

If these 10m mid-grade routes are just a wee bit steep, then why are the ab ropes so bloody far out from the cliff??


Because they're a bit more than "a wee bit" steep. More like ridiculously bloody steep. I've not really been on anything like it, nor seen much like it apart from Sanctuary Wall. Yeah this is like a mini mid-grade Sanctuary Wall. Sport climbing without bolts, and all close enough to the hard rock platforms that every bit of gear is crucial, you've got to get it right and get it right ASAP, oh and it's schist so all the holds are blind and obscure despite being generally good. Throw in a lack of chalk and a whiff of haar and it all adds up to a climbing experience which is utterly hostile to my climbing style.

I want to like this climbing, I really do. I like the coast, I like the rock, I like the look of it....I like the theory of it. I'm just crap at it. Fucking crap in fact. I think I've got my arse at least slightly kicked every time I've visited Aberdeen, and I don't mean a night out baiting the onshore offshore workers. This time swap "slightly" for "utterly" and you get the gist. 3 fairly steady warm-up routes failed on, and the bigger challenges that inspired me might as well be left for my next lifetime, preferably one where I'm reincarnated as a sea-gull. So that all sucked.

What it all boiled down to is some obvious weaknesses that are exposed - and brutally buttfucked - by this sort of terrain:

1. Fear of falling.
2. Fear of committment to a position where I might fall.
3. Lack of faith in what might lie above.
4. Lack of faith in my ability.
5. Slowness and faff placing gear.

So as always I need to learn positively from this to gain more climbing pleasure. I need to tackle this sort of terrain more, I need to do more falling practice, focus consciously on placing gear smoothly, and train my weaknesses. I also probably need to spend more time on the coast and get to grips with the rock and hopefully progress (up to square one, hah!) on it and truly enjoy it. I expect the usual "wet in the west" weather will give me some opportunity to do so.

Dodging drips and dead deer at Dunkeld.

I managed to get a brief day out at Upper Cave Crag at Dunkeld recently. Only did one route due to time and a surprising amount of seepage (I guess the ground above is slowly defrosting), and that route wasn't amazing - a bit awkward, fiddly pro and okay moves. But it was a good day out for various reasons:

- I still felt okay on trad despite two months off, a bit rusty due to excessive sport climbing, a bit nervous due to run-outs and dripping bits, but got straight on something non-trivial and did it okay.

- I learnt some useful stuff about what will help with my trad, especially on mica-schist. I tend to struggle with this rather obtuse but alarmingly prevalent rock type, where you never really know what you're going to get with imminent holds and gear slots - a big change from the obviousness of join-the-dots Tenerife sport climbing. I'm just going to do more of the damnable schist and get used to the fiddly-ness of it all, which will be good training, and after which something more obvious like gneiss will feel rather, errr, nice.

- It was another confirmation about how trad is perfectly feasible during Scottish winter. Despite it being -2'c in the morning, forecast to rise 4'c, and it soon clouding over at the crag, it was still fine climbing in a t-shirt and the vibe of the crag, drips aside, was quite pleasant. If the sun had stayed out I could have worked on my tan!

- It was good and interesting to check out Cave Crag. At my standard it's one of the most important day-trip crags so I can see it getting heavy usage. And indeed it was quite inspiring, some good towering lines above a very pleasant flat crag base. Plus some really decent looking sport climbing to get rotpunkting on - a useful training arena all round!

And the deer?? 3 of them between Cave Crag and Polney, all distinctly dead but mostly intact apart from their eyes having been pecked out. Hmmm. Not sure how nice that will be when they defrost!

2010.

Shit, is that the year already?? Time flies whether you're having fun or not. The trick is to fly along with it and ride the temporal waves....maybe this year I'll learn it??

2009 brought some interest: emotional ups and downs, a return to climbing strength, a return to trying to sort my mind out, a brush with serious illness, a move to Glasgow, and a whole lot of upheaval....and a whole lot of potential that may as yet be realised.

2010 will bring....Christ, last year has made me even warier of predictions or expectations!! But I do have some aims (or are they resolutions?? well I resolve to try hard to do them...), of which the most interesting are:

1. Life live with passion and inspiration.
2. Follow the path of action (which isn't just "doing stuff").
3. Continue trying to sort my mind out.
4. Continue my post-DVT recovery fitness with determination.
5. Explore as much Scottish rock-climbing as possible.
6. Meet more Scottish rock-climbers to do that with.
7. Improve my social life in general.
8. Climb as many interesting places abroad as possible.
9. TICK BIG NUMBERS.
10. (The last one might not be entirely serious).

N.B. These aren't S.M.A.R.T. goals, in fact they are mostly habits to get into rather than specific goals, ways of life rather than ends to aim for.

Anyway, I'm off to do participate in one of those now. Back in a week!

You can't have fun when you're weak...

...and bloody hell I didn't know it was possible to get THIS weak!! I should have paid more attention to The Path Of Weakness when I was hanging around with Duncan Disorderly... I've been out climbing a couple of times in Scotland and it feels any progress I'd previously made has been swamped by the logistical mess I'm trying to sort out moving to Glasgow, and the subsequent distressing lack of climbing and training.

The mind is willing, the desire is strong, but the flesh is oh so weak - or more like, oh so unfit. I'm getting unfeasibly pumped on routes I would have considered beneath my dignity as gentle warm-ups a few months ago, and have ended up slumped on a rope or collapsed at the top of a route, hyperventilating with exhaustion on a few occasions. When I'm nauseous with the pump and my vision goes funny on a slabby F6a+ (do grades really go that low??), there is definitely something wrong. And this wrongness is definitely down to my legs and the aftermath of the DVT clots (steep walk-ins are still a multipitch affair), and it is becoming clear that I am hanging on to what little fitness I've regained by a thin thread. I obviously need to keep up with exercise and realise what a long and uphill journey (although I'll stick to flatter walk-ins) lies ahead.

However, there is some hope. This situation is fairly reminiscent of when I broke my foot in summer 2005 and was hobbling back to fitness in the autumn - about the same time as now I was struggling just as hard on routes just as easy... And over winter, I trained, got my strength back, climbed well in early spring and then started my best climbing years ever in that next spring. This time, regaining CV fitness might be a lot harder, but my summer climbing experiences have been a bit more consistent, I've got several years more climbing "wisdom" (yes, really!) and I'm in an area with a better choice of mileage routes (in 2005 I ended up going to Clwyd limestone for a long weekend's mileage....Glen Nevis or Gairloch are somewhat more appealing choices!).

And of course, there's a follow on motto to this blog title:

You can't have fun when you're weak...

...But the great thing about being weak is you can get STRONG!

Questions, questions...

This is one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen and tried:


Yes it's a rubbish photo, but even if it wasn't, most people would rightly be appalled at my claims of inspiration. It's an obscure mossy, lichenous slab that's so far off most peoples' climbing radar it could be on a separate planet - as in "What fXXXing planet are you on Fiend??"

It's in the Forest Of Dean (why??) at Huntsham Crag (where??) and it's called Shadowlands (okay, great name for a start). And it's amazing. Slicing diagonally through the moss is a line of large but spaced pebbles stretching the full height of this 9m slab. There's hardly any other holds, very little respite, no escape and no gear. It is bizarre and brilliant, and even the moss adds to the surreal seduction.

I heard of it several years ago, looked at it a couple of years ago, and tried it a few days ago. Despite being a fair esotericist, even I find the Forest Of Dean too specialist for my tastes - too soloey, too dodgey rock. However I cannot resist Shadowlands, and the promise of a whole new experience. And by "whole new experience" I mean "whole new realm of fear". Because, despite the short height and good "Don't worry you'll only break your lower limbs" landing, the level of commitment required is unduly high: Commitment to inescapability, commitment to increasing height and increasing danger, and most of all, commitment to those bloody jutting pebbles, the pebbles that make it so awesome and so appalling.

Needless to say after several tentative attempts and a lot of slightly less tentative musing, I walked away. Walked away because I didn't want to take the risk of NOT walking away... And walked away with questions in my head:

Why would I want to do this??
Is it worth it??
Am I prepared to take the risk??
What is my motivation??
Is it ego??
Or desire??
What experience do I want??
Do I trust myself??
Do I trust those sodding pebbles??

And the answers....I don't them yet. But I will....when the time is right, I will go back, and try again, and hopefully climb this route, and understand it, and myself as a climber, a bit more more...

Learning Days 2 & 3 : Subtlety

Aside from the mighty gritstone, the UK has perhaps two favoured Laboratories Of Movement. Both in relatively grim urban locations, both focused on pure movement, both dear to the hearts of locals and bemusing to offcomers, both strict teachers in their own respective way. One is Pex Hill, and the other is Dumbarton. Having visited Dumby a few times now, I'm starting to understand it's occasional nickname "The Black Font". The setting - graffiti drenched estuary-side urban wasteland vs. soothing and welcoming dappled sandy forest - could scarcely be more different. And the climbing initially seems equally different: ugly, brutal, chaotic, raw. BUT once one starts pushing and progressing, there is a core similarity: that of the subtleties needed for success. Subtleties of hold usage, finger placement, body position, core tension. This was what I learnt recently...



Day 2, Lesson 2:
A little while ago I tried Slap Happy with a fair hope I could do it okay. Good conditions and a vaguely strong feeling. I got shut down totally, before I could even think about tickling the crux edge. Hmmm. Recently I came back to it and learnt... Learnt a lot for a two move problem that's pulling on obvious holds!! Learnt to crimp my left hand to get my right hand on the slimper in better control, learnt the exact placement for the right hand (forefinger nestling against a perhaps 1/4 mm seam for extra purchase....did I mention "subtle"??), learnt to dig my left toe in precisely, and most importantly, learnt to suck my body right into the wall and drag my right toe as part of the movement. Thus less of a slap and more of a glide, thus success.




Day 3, Lesson 3:
On the same day I got shut down by Slap Happy, I got similarly shut down by Mugsy, another classic testpiece. Again a deceptively simple problem: Jump for a sloper, heel on, grab an undercling, turn heel to toe, launch for jug. But if it's so simple, what does it feel so hard?? Apart from the usual Dumby brutality, of course ;). Well, the crucial position is before the launch, and I discovered it was full of contradictions and competing motions:

Right hand hold is on an angled sloper, either open-handed low down on the larger bit, half-crimped in the middle, or crimped on the smallest bit. Left hand hold is a good undercling that faces left and is keeping you on and keeping your weight left. So you need your left to pull you in and make the right hand work, but the left also pulls you downwards and then you need to release it to move. At the same time, your left foot is on a good ledge, and is good to try to squat onto to get your weight upwards but this pushes you off the right hand hold. And your right leg is under the roof, this keeps your weight in on the right hand sloper but also inhibits your upwards movement. Each limb has a role in the position but then a different role in the movement, and changing the role of one limb changes the roles of the others (usually from the role of "holding you on" to the role of "pinging off and dumping you on the mat" ;)).

I can't recall quite such a contrary problem, but again, a good learning experience: Learning the ideal position for the left foot to get squatted, learning again to suck my body into the rock, learning that that turned it from less of a full body lunge into a quick snake-like strike with my left hand, learning that with this method I needed my right hand crimped for locking security rather than open-handed for freedom of movement, learning about precision and speed rather than just power. Learning how to do it and then doing it...

Educate and execute...