The Tweaky Wrist Tweaklist...

Some ideas for recuperative cragging during the early spring, in rough order of preference:

Mull - Kintyre, Erraid - I've been before but the new guide has shown so much more, loads of little granite crags and sweet looking slabs.

Mid-Wales - Rhinnogs - Off piste for many climbers but a genuinely wonderful place with perfect exploratory cragging on great rock.

Glutton Crag, Ullapool - The latest and currently fashionable bolted Torridonian sandstone crag and looks spot-on for plentiful F5-6c mileage. - done :)

Tynrich Slab, Inverness - Just a neat slab in the tranquil Ruthven valley. A good mid-grade choice and I've heard good reports from an ex-local. - done :)

Glen Shian Slab, Glenfinnan -  Just a slab en-route to Mallaig, with a typically rapidly-downgraded Dave Mac E10 of course. Slightly harder route choice but a lovely bit of rock.

Beinn Ceanabeinne, North Coast - A great sounding slab that has been heartily recommended by a local. Throw in some good options at the Skerrary sea-cliffs and apparently there is a classic Simon Nadin bolted F6c slab up here too. Intrigued?

Callerhues, Northumberland - A bit burly but plenty of choice to go at. 

All Doire Beith, Glen Coe - One of the roadside crags in the Glen, an accessible slabby wall.

Yorkshire gritstone - Rylstone etc - some good slabby trad here.

Yorkshire limestone - Giggleswick etc - some good slabby trad here too.

Canna - Another gem in the new guide, looks perfect for mid-grade cracks and grooves, all in an idyllic location.

Aberdeen sea-cliffs - Rob's Butt, Perdonlie Inlet, Seal's Caves - still some places I haven't been to that I can hopefully sneak in before the birds come back.

Cumbria - various crags - A reasonable choice at varied and accessible locations like Armathwaite, Carrock, Bramcrag, South Lakes Limestone etc.

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that most of these have good mid-grades slabby stuff, and/or are pretty accessible, and/or are sunny and amenable - for good reason. I don't have the fitness, confidence nor moral fortitude to be thrashing around at Creag Dubh nor Earnsheugh nor The Leaning Block nor Super-Crag etc....I need areas with plenty of easier choice and a welcoming "get on with it" feel. I'm interested in similar ideas / crags, I think I'm aware of most of them in Scotland but I might have missed something?? And of course I'm always interested in more people who are keen to explore with me in such places....

A potter here, a potter there.

I've decided that a good rule of thumb while I am doing recovery mileage is to only go to crags that are new to me, or that I haven't been to in a decade. This narrows the choice of crags considerably, but ensure when I find the right crags, it gives a good choice of routes to potter around on. I've put this into action recently:

Drab Crag in Aberdeen, which I'd never been to, although I had been working down the coast south of Newtonhill in that direction: Dykes Cliff, then Boltsheugh, the Johnsheugh, then Brown Crag. I got plenty of mileage there and even got pumped a bit, which was nice.

Then it was down to Cumbria to King's Meaburn, which I'd been to a decade ago, and Coudy Rocks, the trendy new sport crag which hadn't even been climbed a decade ago - although Simmy, who I went to KM with, had spotted it and was telling me about these blank sandstone walls he wanted to develop. Well the bolters got there and with good reason as it's pretty much a sport only venue, of course that means all the numpties flock there to get their convenience McTicks and so King's Meaburn seems a bit neglected despite it being obviously the better craglet - although to be fair, the climbing at Coudy is genuinely fun for short quarried sandstone, less reachy and cranky and more technical than the Angus quarry morpho lankfest horrors. I did a few routes at each crag and actually started cranking a bit harder than usual which was a bit more satisfying, a bit more reassuring, and definitely more fun.

I also got to The Mighty R for an afternoon, and found that despite being so despairingly obese I was struggling to get my harness on (like my fucking legs need any more constrictions to the blood "flow"), I was climbing considerably better this time, and getting within 1-1½ grades of my usual limit. Again both reassuring and fun. My wrist is coping okay, it tends to be generally and consistently tender after climbing and/or in cold damp weather (woohoo!), BUT is definitely less tweaky, less sharp pains, and feels stronger. I haven't yet tested it swirling a wok around though....

Revisitations, and reverting to punterdom...

I had a bit of an escape to the grit recently, well timed with perfectly dry and far too warm weather. I previous week I'd got back into training with 3 indoor wall sessions and 2 gym sessions, most of which had gone okay once I'd learnt my limits with my wrist. This trip I put that into action by being fairly crap on everything but easy slabs, although thankfully there were enough of those for it to be fun overall. This trip was mostly about Yorkshire Grit, which I used to visit regularly when I first moved up to Sheffield, in a contrary bid to avoid the Peaks. Thus I went to a lot of crags a dozen years ago, and mostly explored at a fairly punterly standard. This time....I mostly explored at a fairly punterly standard...

Crookrise...
A few months ago I'd have hopefully taken advantage of good crisp friction and played around on Walkover, before using Hovis as a mere warm-up for it's direct variants of Wholemeal and Mighty White and hopefully even Small Brown.

This time it was boiling hot and I was restricted to strictly mid-grade bumbling:
Walker's Wall - pleasant enough.
Winter Traverse - quite scary with an odd escape finish.
Premium White - soft-touch eliminate.
Family Matters - very good value with two top end cruxes.
Hovis - quite okay in the end but only possible at dusk when it had cooled down.

Hovis was a bit of a perculiar one, as recent discussion has shown that even usually sensible and intelligent friends have the ability to talk complete cobblers about their local crags with a plethora of lines, variations, and eliminates. Hovis you step off a flake around onto a face and into a groove. There's also a direct start off the ground, a direct variation linking that, and a super direct with it's own extra looping variation. One could say the line is not obvious, except using common sense it is obvious: It was done by Joe Brown over half a century ago and you can damn well bet he was climbing the natural line of least resistance around into the groove rather than pissing around with "if I start a metre lower will I get the tick". I will eventually come back to piss around on other versions, but on the day there was only enough time at dusk to do the actual route.

Hovis

Ilkley...
A few months ago I'd have definitely been up for giving Wellington Crack (gruesome pumpfest but I was trad fit last year) a go, after a retro-flash of Tufted Crack (failed on this 12 years ago) of course.

This time such shenanigans were clearly out of the question, so it was a mixed pottering session:
 Bald Pate - top end of the grade, tastily bold and smeary.
Old Spice - bottom end of the grade, tastily bold and smeary.
Short Circuit - good cranking low down but quite dangerous higher up.
Sinister Rib - bottom end of the grade, tastily bold and smeary, this was actually really enjoyable and I romped up it in a couple of minutes.

I also attempted Nordwand - this is a rather cool route but the type of E2 5b that involves a tricky 5c sequence with an irreversible foothop into a hard all out 5c slap for a ledge with the gear distinctly beneath your feet, uh HUH. After a lot of faffing and garment-shedding to combat the warmth even in the shade, I did 95% of that crux, the 5% I didn't do was the one more inch required to get my fingers over the ledge. 6m lower and I'd added some good falling practise into the mix and am still cultivating a massive bruise on my thigh. Strangely I'm not that pissed off as I'd actually done the committing bit (eventually!) and a proper trad fall is perhaps as valuable as actually doing the route.

Running Hill Pits...
A few months ago I'd have been warming up on a retro-correct-line-onsight of Spanner Wall (failed to do the much more serious left hand entry 8 years ago), hopefully then adding Harvest Moon into the mix before moving on to Mangled Digit if dry and hopefully Calamity Crack (again truly horrific pumpfests but a standard angle for Scottish Climbing).

This time I was too weak for even vertical stuff so it was all about slabs, which are thankfully rather good fun there:
Content - fun but entirely morpho, a grade harder for me as I could only just get my tips on.
Weaver's Wall - not a soft touch, even with the plentiful gear in the slot, the upper reachy crux is pretty damn committing.
Windbreaker - does exactly what it promises, very steady and very bold.
Cochybondhu - quite sketchy! but at least with the option of falling rightwards and thus only the length of the route rather than the extra 4m...

Windbreaker I'd actually wanted to do in recent years because I never got around to it when I was there and said hovis-eliminate-pedant-but-otherwise-sound-bloke friend had it as his Shitbook profile picture for ages. It sort of nagged me in a "look, this has crimps and stuff and even though you're a fat weak and fucking injured punter, you could still crawl up it". So I did. It was interesting to compare this to Weaver's Wall, the other classic bold slab around this grade. W is much more serious, it has +4m fall potential before you even start and is a pure solo. WW is often soloed but has good micro-cams in a break and a shorter fall overall. So why is WW graded harder? Errrr....because it is. W is very easy 5b with the trickiest moves off the ledge and everything is in control. WW is very hard 5b with a committing and reachy crux to a distant off-balance hold and I suspect if you have enough rope out to do the move you have enough out to hit the ground. So although it's apples and oranges, it makes a harmonious and tasty fruit salad overall.

Windbreaker

Despite being hampered a bit by my wrist and a huge amount by my weakness and thus lack of any physical confidence, I did okay and my wrist seemed to cope with almost everything apart from tugging nuts too hard and pulling up the rope in a funny way. It stiffened up after I returned but this trip showed promise that I can start pottering around again...

Wanky Weeks 1 - 4.

No updates because nothing to update about. But I thought I'd just post something so that the 3 friends who read this have some idea what is going on...

And what is going on is that my wrist seems to be healing okay....really really fucking slowly.

I rested it completely for one week, then tried some gentle wrist curls as the physio suggested. I used 7 kg instead of my default 12kg which I regularly use for pain-free anti-golfer's-elbow eccentric wrist curls. I did a few sets of those and it bloody hurt.

So I rested it completely for another week. It still a bit hurt to do wok-shaking during stir-frying, brushing cups during washing up, even turning keys in locks.

So I rested it completely for another week, then went for a gentle session at the wall. Well, sort of gentle session. I met a friend there and got encouraged onto some slightly harder problems than I should be on....maybe even V2 or V3, bletch. I managed to drop off most problems that felt at all tweaky, but even some easier ones on side-pull pockets and jugs felt bad....anything that started my wrist moving or rotating on holds. Small holds, tiny crimps, and straight pulling felt okay. To that end, I had a hunch and went on the Beastmaker for a bit....I could hang the 30' slopers and smallest crimps very comfortably - i.e. NO pain at all. I couldn't do the slightest pull-up on the slopers as my wrist started moving, but could do pull-ups including an equal PB of 4 on the smallest crimps. Hmmm. Maybe this was not the best plan? It was a bit tender for a couple of days after and is slightly better now but still feels stiff and prone to random tweaking. I can do the washing up mostly pain-free, woooot fuck my life.

So I've rested it completely for yet another week. I am now really fucking bored of resting it- and really fucking depressed with trying to motivate myself to go running (fucking awful and depressing experience....just reminds me I'm crippled), swimming (boring and wet although I did do a mile for the first time the other week), and going to the gym (which I haven't done as I just feel weak and unconfident with an injured wrist). I've managed to do just about enough exercise to survive but not nearly enough to feel fit or healthy. So I need to kick myself up the arse.....or in an ideal world have friends and companions around to kick me and do it with me (pipe dreams!), and get more focused on general training. Hopefully some more strictly light / non-tweaky wall sessions soon can give me the momentum to do so....

Wankers Wrist.

...or maybe not enough wanking?? I have somehow picked up a tendinopathy on the inside of my wrist on the little finger side. This "appeared" without any obvious cause sometime during the latter stages of the easy-ish green circuit at TCA. I'd warmed up well with a hobbling micro-run, felt fine on the circuit, and somehow during the last few problems my wrist started hurting, especially on any occasions where I was moving it relative to my hand. I stopped after a couple more problems, went home and iced it, but found I couldn't even slide a wok around whilst cooking a stir-fry. The next day it was hurting more so I went to the New Victoria MIU in case it was broken. Swift service there and some prodding, pressing and pulling gave a diagnosis of tendonitis. Wrist injuries are outside my "comfort zone" of A2 pulley tweaks, golfer's elbow and shoulder impingements, so I booked a physio appointment too - well justified as it is still hurting today in quite a few minor movements, rotation especially. The more indepth physio diagnosis was the same, some form of tendonitis / tendinopathy, as was the treatment: Rest, ice, anti-inflammatories (which I'm not supposed to take being on Warfarin, i.e. I'll sure as hell take them and hope it all calms down before my next INR reading), reduced mobility, massaging forearm muscles, then gently stretching the wrist. Once every day stir-frying / general motions are pain-free, ease back into climbing with shorter sessions, and combine this with general wrist exercises. Continue with CV / any exercise that doesn't aggravate it in the meantime.

Bollox.

Funnily enough I am syked for:

1. Gritstone slabs.

2. Training hard and training lots to get my strength up for the spring season.

...and not at all syked for:

1. Resting, icing, stretching, massaging, and not fucking climbing.

On the plus side, the weather is shit, the forecast is shit, so whilst I'm missing out on training at least I'm not missing out on any prime conditions. And I can still do plenty of CV exercise, especially the fucking lower limb shit I loathe and am too crippled to do effectively anyway. However, I did go swimming and that went okay so if I can put up with the soul-destroying tedium of that then maybe it is a good time to get a bit leaner and fitter. I shall see how it goes.

In the meantime, this soundtrack accurately sums up my vibe:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJyq8hgs7hQ

Pedriza photo dump.

Too many from my shitty phone, sorry. No captions. Add your own.

 

 

 

 

Pedriza Post-Padding Analysis.

So a rare return match for me - but to a fascinating (and frustrating!) area that definitely warrants it, and will warrant more in future... My goal had been to climb in better conditions, and hopefully climb some routes around F6c (most likely) or F7a (my usual comfortable onsight limit). I sort of did that, it was a close thing.

The final score of pure slabs: climbed / failed after proper attempt:

F6b: 3 / 2*
F6b+: 2** / -
F6c: 1 / 2
F6c+: 3 / 3***
F7a: - / 2****

* - one failed route actually F7a
** - one success actually F6c+
*** - one fail partly due to heat, one fail partly due to scrittle
**** - one fail due to missing good hold
(the rest cos they were fucking nails and I wasn't good enough....no excuses)

Not a great success rate but not a bad one either. Being foiled by some circumstances - heat on day 1, icy cold on day 5 - and a few avoidable mistakes - gives me a bit of reassurance that I was starting to do okay. More importantly I was finding it even more interesting than before. So yeah, I plan to go back, quick hit style, not least because one's fingertips only last a maximum of 4 days!!. Later or earlier in winter, last minute flights on a good forecast, camping cabin....who is up for it??

Further to my previous flailings, I have learnt a few more tricks of the trade this time:

1. Be prepared for mind-numbing levels of difficulty. Even around the F6c mark where routes start to be one grade undergraded rather than several, the continuously thin desperation is a real shock to the system. What might form 3-4m of crux climbing between breaks in a gritstone E4 is extended to 20m with no respite on a Pedriza F6b+. Be warned!

2. Conditions are crucial, in particular a light breeze is essential. Given La Pedriza is the foot-mountains of a 2000m range rising above the Madrid plateau, this is usefully likely.

3. Marking footholds is useful in a sea of obtusely homogenous granite crystals, but more importantly marking a wide variety of footholds to give a choice of moves once committed.

4. Feeling around for handholds is essential. One never knows when a useful 1/5 pad ripple might be hiding behind those same dastardly crystals.

5. Tight shoes with a bit of an edge seem to be marginally more useful than soft smearing shoes. The former can work better on the pure friction sections than the latter can work on the tiny crystal / gratton sections.

6. Chalking and drying one's thumbs can be very useful, both for tiny thumb crystals (essentially pinching a blank slab!), and thumb press mantles.

7. A slick rope and an alert belay are really useful. Although most slabs are well bolted, the constant insecurity can make pulling up rope to clip scarier than actual trad climbing!

8. Never relax until the chain is clipped. Even the easier sections are only "less hard" rather than easy, and still entirely fluffable.

9. Physical training for high steps / single leg presses, and flexibilty are the most important. Calf / leg press training seemed less useful - generally my calves didn't get tired although my feet did.

10. Slab training should ideally include very small crystals / grattons (as common a difficulty as the smears), and also side-stepping on slabs as well as high-stepping, as many routes weave a bit to find the least awful non-holds.

Hopefully I can get down to the grit soon and put some of this into practise...