The year in numbers.

Just because. This year I've mostly failed on exploration, trips away, and new venues, but I have done a good variety of Scottish and Northern England stuff, and maintained a fairly pleasing standard. The hardest things I've done in order:

Wheels Of Fire E4 6a *** (Bowderstone Crag)
Exquisite wall-climbing with wild reachy slapping way out from gear. Exhilarating.

Masterspy E4 6a *** (Wilton 1)
Action packed sketching with two hard cruxes. Rewarding.

Thelonius E4/5 6a/b *** (Mungasdale)
A long term ambition over several visits. Wonderful climb with a very hard bouldery start and great jug-hauling above.

First Of Class E4 6a ** (Far Hill Crag)
Really good, bold committing face climbing that I really had to go for it on.

Strangeways E4 6b ** (Reiff)
Great climbing with positive cranking, the crux is placing gear without blocking holds, I outwitted that by placing a wire that fell out as I went passed it!

Boxed E4 6a *** (Mull)
More great positive cranking, really good steep climb that I had to use all my reserves of determination on.

Scorched Earth E4 6a * (Burnt Crag)
Well-named on a hot Easter day. Wild and weird, squirming into a groove then leaping for a jug ledge in front of a some amused Lakes old-timers "did you see that? he fookin jumped for it! move of t'day, that!"

Sunshine Superman E4 6a * (Meikle Ross)
Fiercely thin greywacke slabbing with a very precarious crux. Very cool even if my feet didn't forgive me until the next day.

Inquisition E4 6a *** (Reecastle)
Typically brilliant Reecastle face climbing, two cruxes, one bold and one wild and goey. Maybe ran it out a bit too much, but lovely route.

Instant Muscle E4 6a ** (Diabeg)
Good but surprisingly hard slab climbed on a beautiful November day. Had to really go for it.

Ambalite E4 6a ** (Iron Crag)
Marble Staircase's scarier twin, still delectable but even bolder and more intricate. Good headgames!

Wee One E4 6a * (Glen Nevis)
 (Up from E3). Fierce and continuous bouldering to an on/off final crux. 6m of every move being 6a!

Snorting Quack E4 6a ** (Mull)
So many RPs to fiddle in, so little time. Not the usual Ardtun crack romp, quite intricate indeed.

Wet Pussy E4 6a ** (Craig Stirling)
Atypical Aberdeen schist - easy to protect and not a gruelling pumpfest, instead a technical delight with a very committing and thoughtful crux.

Mingy Metro E4 6a * (The Souter)
(Up from E3). Testing, brutally hard to place crucial RPs and sliders. Very good climbing though.

Marble Staircase E4 6a *** (Iron Crag)
Good value bold and committing wall-climbing. Delectable.

Dry Grasp E4 6a *** (Falcon Crag)
Fantastic wall-climbing in a fantastic position, postive cranking with with a bold start, switch brain off and bravery on.

Stand and Deliver E4 6a ** (Gruinard Crag)
(Down from E5 and steady for E4). Great face climbing high on the crag and quite amenable with a bit of go for it.

The Smouldering E4 6a * (Glen Coe)
A hidden gem with a steady but thin crux and a lonely wall above. Quite similar to many Lakes climbs I did.

Edge Of Insanity E4 5c ** (Glen Croe)
Never has a ladder of jugs felt so committing or exposed! Easy once you've done it, but space-walking.

Fever Pitch E4 6a ** (Dumbarton)
Also fairly easy once you've done it, but it doesn't feel like it looking down at the RPs beneath your feet after the goey crux! A grand line and a great trad feel.

Clementine Variant E4 6a ** (Dome Butress)
Outwitting the filthy and lethal central section with a small detour, but still technical and elegant low down and scary high up. An underrated crag.

Lorelei  E4 5c ** (Loch Tollaidh)
Another beautiful slab. Reasonably steady, reasonably protected, consistently great climbing on great rock.

Velvet Glove E4 6a *** (Limekilns)
Neil said it was easy, I didn't believe him and pretended it was hard, until I just did it the easy way. Less of a crack thrash, more of a fun jug romp.

Thumper E4 5c *** (Eastby)
Quintessential E4 5c head-games. Delicate crux at 10m, good gear at 5m. Classic!

Frustration E4 5c *** (Glen Shian)
(Down from E5 and steady at E4). Beautiful climb up a beautiful slab. As good as bold crimpy slabs get!

Armalite E4 5c ** (Raven Crag)
A weaving romp up a nice wall. Full of surprisingly good holds and unsurprisingly good moves. Really pleasant.

Noble Savage E4 5c ** (Ardmair)
Felt rather scary as an E3 warm-up, worth it's upgrade. Okay but not the usual Ardmair calibre.

~{§}~

And the hardest things I haven't done, in order:

Pockets Of Excellence E5 6a ** (Glen Croe)
A bit damp, a bit unclimbed, a bit fucking hard and blind. Did the first crux to the big and wet pocket, then no idea above.

Run From Home E5 6b * (Glen Nevis)
Nails razor-crimping past one BD 0 offset? Ran out of psyche for that.

??? E5 6a *** (North Yorks)
Fierce crack, good but hard, bad conditions, bad wrist.

Blade Runner Direct E4 6a *** (Auchinstarry)
Did all the hard/bold climbing on the direct (which is easier than the higher crux of the original), did the higher crux and fell of the final tricky bit I'd done before as part of Nijinski. Too warm weather but still ARSE!

The Pugilist Dir E4 6a *** (Floor's Craig)
Climbing was piss easy and very good. Placing the crux cam was horrible and desperate. Waste of good moves.

~{§}~

A few things I can note about this list:

• A lot of the harder routes I've done have been really solid at the grade, maybe half of them in total, and few are regarded as the upper limit.

• I've done a couple of so-called 6bs on lead and they have felt like 6a.

• I've done quite a lot in the Lakes and despite the Lakes reputation for hard grades, the routes have been spread very equally through the list.

• Out of all those hardest routes, almost all of them have been really enjoyable and satisfying, with only a very few being not quite pleasurable enough (Mingy Metro awkward gear), Clementine Variant (dirty), Noble Savage (pokey)).

That's all for now.

Slipping it in.

This winter season I've been inspired to focus on the gritstone, because there's lots of it, there's great new guides, I feel pretty confident after another decent trad year, and it should be a bit more feasible logistically than Scottish winter cragging.

There may be a high correlation between that decision and the weather being relentlessly cunting awful.

I think this is the worst start to the grit season I can ever recall. Sure there have been a few decent days - sandwiched between storms, showers, and continuous rain - and very rarely adjacent enough to warrant a trip down. My browser is getting worn out refreshing the Metoffice forecast for Skipton and Hathersage, although it is forecast to be glorious on Christmas Day. When I will be in London. Fucking arse!

Actually it's got to the stage of putting up with ludicrously inefficient and expensive single day trips down, albeit only as far as the most Northerly crags e.g. Slipstones.

So we headed down on a rare day of amazing conditions with the plan to warm-up gently, do some highballs and soloing and maybe the odd lead if it was warm enough, or some harder frictional bouldering if it was cold enough. It turns out that conditions were a bit too amazing and the wrong way round - the bouldering end was just sheltered enough to be warm, the routes end was just exposed enough to be bloody freezing. And I forgot that the sheer clean grit of Slippys was generally steep and the seemingly positive crimps were generally cruel on the fingertips. It's a beautiful grit there but a strange sort of grit. Still it was good fun and I got inspired for more action there, which might happen in 2018. No complaints about the beauty of the day though:

And that's that. I might be able to sneak something in around Christmas if the weather allows. Otherwise I will be furiously considering a trip abroad as soon as possible.

The wrong side of the pebble.

I think I have improved as a climber since living in Scotland. I have more experience, more mileage on a variety of rock-types, more knowledge of dealing with climbing outside of my comfort zone, more tricks and tactics to use, more confidence due to falling practise, more ability to crank through moves in lead, more awareness of climbing challenges and how to deal with them.

However. I'm not any taller and my skin isn't any less sweaty and I don't have any more ability to hit the ground and bounce rather than break.

So when I go back down to the gritstone and expect to apply all I've learnt and all I've improved at, it's not necessarily going to mean SHIT. Sure last winter I had a pretty good trip at exactly this time, but the luck-based scrittle is as fickle as it is frictional and rounded and success and confidence on one trip / day / route / move is no guarantee of the next. This was well demonstrated on our Stanage day when I spent longer on the single crux move of Count's Wall (HVS/E1) than I did on the entire route of Counterblast (E2/3). Rhyme or reason?? None at all. After a couple of sketchy days I did manage something cool that reminds why grit is worth persisting with, Thumper @ Eastby:

 Still too warm despite being -2'C in the shade at the car.

Run out like a trout.

 Aside from that, this mini-trip was hampered by various things including too much driving, some poor route choices (morpho shite like Dracula) and some slightly poor conditions (thick clart on a first Eastby visit, dank top-outs at Crow Crag). So I've learnt a few things for next time:

• Minimise driving around.

• Be wary of under-climbed routes.

• Have plenty of back-up routes at crag.

• Have some technical warm-ups / problems.

• Plenty of stuff to keep feet clean.

• Long sling for quicker abseiling for gear.

• Start earlier in the morning if possible.

• More stretching.

•  Don't pick morpho routes.

The few glimmers of success and trusting smears have maintained the psyche to go back down as soon as possible too. If the weather allows. Despite being better than the West of Scotland, it doesn't always end up looking like this...(sorry I can't upload that photo here as Googles fucking disgracefully awful intrusive photo enhance shit utterly ruins it even if I pre-tweak the saturation down.)

Success??

A while ago I wrote about people claiming their "First E-whatever!" whilst actually failing on standard mid-grade routes, or rather pre-failing by not even trying to climb the route, instead avoiding it by headpointing / top-roping. I actually seemed to get some hysterical bleating in response, well at least I think I did, I gave up reading when there was the first whiff of the usual "but people can do what they want" waffle. Strange how some people put the effort in to get their knickers in a twist about something so common sensical, but then don't bother making any other comments on the positive stuff I write about Scottish climbs and scenery (at least a couple of people have noticed I post that too)... All very Daily Mail reader, but perhaps not so surprising. What was surprising was a friend who said he appreciated that particular blog as it made him think a bit about his climbing and his current temptation to headpoint a few routes, and that maybe he could resist that temptation for a while and find other ways to progress with his climbing.

Which got me thinking - I'd posted about the failure of headpointing mid-grade trade routes (which both posts apply to, NOT to new routes, cutting edge routes, esoteric early repeats etc), but not about how to avoid that failure, avoid that temptation in the first place - THAT could be something useful. So, some ideas on how not to pre-fail:

Firstly, the main reason for pre-failing:

"I think this route is too hard for me to climb now"

(Therefore I won't try to, I'll avoid climbing it by top-roping etc etc)

I'm sure most other reasons will boil down to that. In particular the kneejerk counter of "But it's just what they want to do" is immediately counter-countered by considering why one would "want" to headpoint etc: Because it's personally preferable to onsighting that route. Why? Because there must be something about the onsight that makes it less preferable, and that's almost certainly *some* difficulty with the onsight, meaning: "I think this route is too hard for me to climb now".

So taking that reason, one can break it down into overlapping constituent issues:

"I think" - perception / information.

"this route is too hard for me" - difficulty / ability.

"right now" - current situation.

And try some suggestions how to overcome those issues:

1. Gather as much information as possible.
No necessarily enough to spoil the experience, although a beta-flash is still a good effort. Sometimes the guidebook info is well researched and you can rely on it to know the route's challenge, but not always. If there is any doubt then check forums, ask for general information, speak to people who have done it. Find out the sort of information that would make an accurate guidebook description.

2. Inspect the route from as many natural angles as you can.
I.e. gather as much of your own information as possible. Look from the sides, look from the top, do adjacent routes. If there are sections that put you off onsighting, see if you can get a better look under your own steam. 

3. Get your partner to abseil down, clean and check it.
If the route really needs checked out or cleaned, then get your mate to do it (assuming they don't want to do the same route!). It's that simple! They can give it a thorough scrub and make sure the information is accurate. In all 3 information gathering options, the route will still have some essential mystery but there could be crucial hints so you KNOW rather than THINK about it's difficulty.

4. Analyse what the main difficulties are on the route and what abilities you would need to improve.
If the route is too hard, or you're simply not good enough to do it, work out why. Too bold? Too pumpy? Too technically hard? Etc. Rather than trying to avoid that real challenge, work out why it is tempting to avoid it, and what you would need to improve to actually tackle it.

5. Train towards the route(s).
Following from the above, actually put the effort to BE good enough to do the route. If you're looking at routes that you're not certain about onsighting, you should be wanting a challenge and you should be willing to improve and try hard to do so. Train physically and mentally to improve to meet that challenge.

6. Stack all the odds in your favour.
Use all the usual tips and tricks with optimal gear, chalk, shoes, clothes, belayer, warming-up, timing, weather, etc. Many small factors can add up to make a big enough difference to make the route feasible, so analyse all aspects of your preparation and logistics to make them optimal.

7. See if it is possible to engage with the route at all.
If it's a general challenge, see how far it is possible to climb up and downclimb. See if there is a ledge or good rest to get to to evaluate how feasible it is to continue. If it's bold or dangerous, see if there are any places with good protection, and how far past it you can go before either having to commit into danger or being able to fall safely. Even if the whole route seems too daunting it might be possible to start it, and maybe then finish it.

8. Be prepared to try and fail.
Failure is always a possibility, it's the risk associated with any challenge. But it's not a certainty unless you've already failed. Given a choice to try and fail, or fail by not even trying, choose the former. Once that's accepted, at least you can give it a go, it's better than giving up in the first place.

9. Heed conditions and choose the right time.
If the route seems to be too hard right now, maybe the timing is wrong. Some of the odds refuse to be stacked when you want them - weather and personal condition especially - so keep that in mind and be prepared to choose the right time. Learn the factors needed to make Plan A work....and have a Plan B too.

10. Take a longer view and save the route for the future.
The route will always be there and for most people the opportunity to try it properly will crop up again. Unless you're an OAP and about to permanently move abroad, there's no need to be impatient and not give yourself and the route a chance. You don't HAVE to headpoint the route now, see what you're capable of in a month or a year or a decade.

And if all else fails....just don't do it. There's always a choice. There's always the option to simply accept the route is too hard and walk away. There is no shame in that honesty and acceptance and respect for the route and respect for good style.

Apologies if any of this isn't as clear or as ethically strict as it should be, I've been trying to write this for ages and got bored of it. As usually, any complaints can be forwarded to The Department Of People Who Give A Shit, Somewhere Far Far Away, thanks.

More trad fannying...

Someone was asking what I'd been up to recently, so here it is:

Dunkeld: Went to do some of the easier Extremes on the right, they were all seeping apart from Tombstone which is jolly good fun but I'd already done it. So Plan B was to climb up to the crux of High Performance, fiddle in loads of flared wires, pull up disconsolantly a few times and then take all the wires out and reverse comfortably to the ground, just like the previous 2 attempts. Something went wrong with this plan, I got hampered by some excellent cool conditions on the sparse dry rock and the after effects of a V5-flashing session at Ratho the previous day and forgot to downclimb and upclimbed instead after only a few tentative pulls. Still one of the harder moves I've done on trad and harder than two apparent 6b cruxes I've been on. Amusingly I have a sporadic climbing partner who claims it's "not hard for 6a". Even though she has been a classic under-performer and did it as her first English 6a lead before spending a spring in Spain and onsighting F7c (or maybe it was F7b+ I forget, anyway far harder than I've managed in 16+ years of pushing myself climbing), and basically wouldn't know an easy 6a move if it came up and bit her skinny strong arse.

Meikle Ross: Some guy on the interwebz had been posting pictures of him "climbing" Sunshine Superman as a headpoint with the gear in place (!) and upgrading it to E5 (!!) and somehow contrary to all that is decent and respectable people were actually praising this failure. I had to go down and correct this.....error, and despite being hampered by sweltering early November heat and being a hard E4 onsight, I did:

Quite rewarding as although it's eliminate to start it's brilliant to finish with some fierce steep slab moves around the overlap. My feet were killing after spending quite a while hanging around working out moves and getting in the right gear, but thankfully my spare comfy shoes were good enough for Corridors Of Power which was a bit primitive compared to the usual greywacke crimping delights:

All in all a very nice day down at the seaside...

Ardmair and Diabeg: Were the also down by the seaside (or close enough!) for the only other trip of note, a surprising post-match bonus up again around Wester Ross. Glorious weather stolen from the rest of the drizzly country, a last minute plan, a night in the Ledgowan Lodge bunkhouse sampling whiskies from the hotel, and conditions that were too warm for my plans at Ardmair and too warm for my plans at Diabeg but I pushed on through yet more foot-pain with the latter and managed Instant Muscle:

Not bad I guess although I am still mopping up my dribble in anticipation of using the two new epic Yorkshire Gritstone guides but someone needs to start mopping up the fucking drizzle first as the weather is pretty dreary across Scotland and even worse down there (surely that ain't right) so although the grit has been called it hasn't justified the drive down yet. I live in hope as it's what excites me most this winter - hurrah for new definitive guides (until I get sandbagged to fuckery and start moaning about them...;))

Whinging trad fanny...

It's now past the year anniversary of the successful resolution of The Great Ratho Retrobolting Farce, in which the fine result of removing most of the retro-bolts and highlighting the quality trad and clearing up the quarry vied for prominence with highlighting the idiocy of some of the myopic sport climbing fanatics. An amusing contrast came from people who claim to like both trad and sport - as if that's justification for retrobolting!? - but doing the bare minimum of trad climbing presumably only when Dunkeld and Dumby are a bit too warm, whilst at the same time equally deluded members of the pro-retro-bolting faction were dismissing pro-balance / pro-consultation climbers as, and I quote, "whinging trad fannies". I'm trying to recall anyone I know on the side of the common sense as being a pure trad climber doing just the bare minimum of sport, and I'm struggling. Big Bob who was just off to Sardinia, warming up for his F8a plans at Costa Blanca in Easter?? Jamie Sparkes who bolted Balgone Heughs and the quarry opposite Ratho (aptly showing the potential without retro-bolting)?? Hmmmm...

As for myself. Well, here's the Scottish sport (and mixed) crags THIS particularly "whinging trad fanny" has climbed at:

The Camel
Brin Rock
Moy Rock
Creag Bheag
Creag An Amalaidh
Creag Nan Cadhag
Creag Nan Luch
Goat Crag
Glutton Crag
Glen Ogle Sunnyside

Glen Ogle Darkside
Ardvorlich
Dunira
Comrie Crag
Strathyre
Bennybeg
Rockdust
Dunkeld
Cambus O May
Red Wall Quarry

Boltsheugh
The Keel
Legaston Quarry
Ley Quarry
Balmashanner
Rob's Reed
Kirrie Hill
Elephant Rock
Arbroath
North Berwick Law

Ratho Quarry
Dunglas
Dumbarton
Balgone Heughs
Dumbuck

So, about that line of argument that our side didn't understand Scottish sport climbing and the need for it's development again................???

Hard Grit, Protectable Grit

Something that may be of use for the talented outsider looking to get an gritstone experience without resorting to truly dangerous routes or even worse the humiliation of headpointing. Most of these should be safe to onsight but they do assume all the usual tricks of the trade i.e. your mate abbing and cleaning it, skill placing a variety of gear, running belayers, coping with long falls etc etc. The list is cribbed from guesswork, 2nd hand information, guidebook descriptions, and some feedback in this thread. It's designed to give a good authentic gritstone experience with plenty of slopers, smears, rounded aretes, blank slabs, brutal cracks etc (so no quarried grit), on routes that should be in good condition (so not much esoteric stuff). Have fun.

Yorkshire:

Giggling Crack E6 6c ***
 - Offwidth nearly climbed by Joe Brown in 1950s
The Bottom Line E7 6c **
 - Steep rounded and thrutchy
Megadoom E5 6b **
 - Wild hanging prow
The Great Flake E6 6b ***
 - Technical steep blunt flake
Desert Island Arete E6 6c ***
 - Big burly arete
Milky Way E6 6b ***
 - Relentless steep crack
Fast Forward E6 6c ***
 - Steep rounded and thrutchy

Staffordshire:

Barriers In Time E6 6b ***
 - Definitive friction arete above good pro
Northern Comfort E6 6c **
 - Hard reachy moves with massive fallout zone
Thing On A Spring E6 7a ***
 - Hard reachy cranky with good falloutzone
Against The Grain E6 7a ***
 - Ditto
Painted Rumour E6 6a ***
 - Huge roof with lying down rest and cunning gear
Counterstroke To Equity E5 6c *
 - Smooth slab above good pro
Nature Trail E5 6b **
 - Ditto
Master Of Reality E6 6c ***
 - Stunning gritstone tufa above good pro
National Acrobat E6 6c ***
 - Very safe gruelling thrutch
Ray's Roof E6 6c ***
 - Offwidth roof crack

Peak District:

Stanage:

The Crypt Trip E6 6b ***
 - Lots of fiddly pro wall climb
Flight Of Ideas E6 7a ***
 - Mega arete above good pro
Pete's Arete L of FOI E6 6c **
 - Ditto but easier
Scapa Flow E6 6c **
 - can't remember
Carpe Diem E6 6c **
 - can't remember
The 9 O'Clock Watershed E6 6c **
 - Technical prow above good pro
Master Of Disguise E6 6c **
 - Burly bulge pulling
Little Women E7 7a **
 - can't remember
Groove Is In The Heart E7 7a **
 - can't remember
Sad Amongst Friends E6 7a ***
 - Steep gruelling mantle
Warmlove E6 7a *
 - Ditto but worse

Burbage-Rivelin-Bamford:

Balance It is E7 6c ***
 - Mega arete with good fallout zone and possible RP
Life Assurance E6 6b *
 - Steep slab needs running belayer
Offspring E5 6b ***
 - Face climbing in space
Lost World E6 6c **
 - Safe reachy pebble undercutting
Pulsar Direct E6 6b **
 - Very steep burly wall
Linkline E6 6c ***
 - Ditto
Moolah E5 6b **
 - Thin face cranking
New Mediterranean E5 6c **
 - Ditto
Trout E6 6b ***
 - Definitive grit slab above great gear
Salmon Direct E6 6c ***
 - Ditto
Salmon E7 6c ***
 - Ditto
Smoked Salmon E7 7a ***
 - Ditto.....down from 7b...

Froggat-Curbar-Gardoms:

The Screaming Dream E7 7a **
 - Short, steep, and very hard
Beau Geste E7 6c ***
 - Hanging arete, safe with cunning
Epiphany E6 6b **
 - Bold to start but safe arete above
Crack And Slab E6 6c *
 - Hard crack, reachy slab, good pro
Mensa E6 6b **
 - Arete with enough pro
Slab And Crack E7 6b ***
 - Highball start, crucial RPs above
Rigid Digit E5 6b **
 - Tricky groove climbing.
Janus E6 6b ***
 - Ditto but more so, great line
Moonshine E5 6b ***
 - Bulging rounded thin crack

Gardoms-Cratcliffe-Black Rocks:

Mickey Finn E6 6b ***
 - Burly roofs, may need a clean.
Spanish Fly E6 6c **
 - Burlier roof, pre-placed good RP at this grade
Perfect Day E5 6b ***
 - Steep rounded wall above great pro
Make it Snappy E6 6b ***
 - Safe enough arete
Reticent Mass Murderer E5 6b **
 - Brutal thin crack
Genocide E6 6c **
 - Sheer reachy wall above good pro
Kaluza Klein E7 6c ***
 - Classic arete needs jumping belayer
Discombobulator E5 6c **
 - Thin cranky wall
Untoward E5 6b **
 - Techy arete
Camel Hot E6 6b **
 - Steep arete with decent gear

There may be more...