Ashes to Ashes.

I went to Simon Davidson's funeral yesterday. It's very strange when people ask "how was it?", as if there is any sensible or appropriate answer to that question. "Yes, it was great, top funeral, would heartily recommend". Hmmm. I guess it was good insofar as saying goodbye and mourning the dead can be good. A lot of people came and several of them offered very appropriate and heartfelt tributes to his life - the introduction about his climbing skills in face of the inherent risk in the mountains was particularly well put. It was poignant for me personally seeing his coffin arrive in his latest dodgy van (a transporter, last seen when he and I were sitting together in the VW dealer in Llandudno Junction, discussing the imminent £800 repair bill), and his rope brought along (I was quite familiar being tied into that rope).

Simon wasn't a close friend, and it was more shocking then upsetting to hear he'd died, but we did do quite a lot of climbing together including several memorable trips, and looking over these has made me grateful and appreciative of what we did together...

An early visit to Weem where I started to master the walk-in and got to grips with the excellent slabs...


A great visit to Skye on his birthday doing some superb sea-cliff routes...

A long day out seeking some dry Northumberlad rock in an otherwise dismal summer...

A lovely long weekend on Mull with lots of varied climbing and superb scenery...

An excellent Jubilee weekend which was rescued from an earlier van disaster and turned into a great trip...

The usual semi-local dicking around at Balgone Heughs , North Aberdeen and Weem again...

A memorable big walk-in big crack attack day out at Binnean Shuas (last paragraph)...

A superb day doing my best routes at the mighty Creag Dubh (and a quick hit to Gairloch after)...

And finally the last summer in Wales, we had a few great days spread out at Gogarth (he came to North Stack, lead some easier routes, belayed me on the route of my life The Long Run, and we celebrated with a curry in Bangor afterwards), The Moelwyns with Coel, and an action packed evening visit to Pen Trwyn after the van debacle. And finally the obligatory Pizza And Pint in Llanberis before I left.

 RIP Simon, cheers for all the days out.

New Year 2016

New Year's Goals / Resolutions:

1. Go climbing as much as possible outside of Scotland and outside of the UK.

That's it.

Nothing else to blog about as the weather has been permanently wet for over 2 months now. I've been doing a lot of training indoors, at the gym, and micro-runs when it's been merely damp. Despite this I'd put on 4kg weight before Xmas (after losing 2kg in Wales), and am now the heaviest I've ever been despite training 5+ days a week, the tightness of my harness yesterday indicates this is more fat than muscle. I'm not sure about my actual indoor climbing benchmarking though, I think it is maybe 1 grade below previous for bouldering and 2 grades below for routes (the latter might be being out of practice though).

Near hits.

I'm all too familiar with the concept with near misses. While I may not have them a lot - preferring to fail by wimping out due to dismaying cowardice, rather than pushing to nearer my limit - occasionally I try really hard, get really close, and only THEN fuck it up spectacularly. And the nearness of the miss provides even more angst than the other failures and thus lingers longer in the memory. Lying awake at night, still not quite believing that you didn't do something you so nearly did... "If I'd just caught the right bit of the hold"...."If I'd just got my foot a fraction higher"...."If I'd just held the barndoor a second longer". It's quite surreal, you can almost believe you DID do it, because you so almost did. And then you wake up from the daydream and FFS no you failed even though it was that close.

The other day I had a near hit, and that was *very* confusing. This was back in Pfalz, when there was dry weather and where there was dry rock, on a route called Man Spricht Teutsch at (wait for it) Schindharder Kuckucksfelsen. Yes really, that crag. This was graded 8-/8 and as such is the hardest route I've done in the Pfalz, the challenge highlight of the trip, and a very good multi-crux epic up an impressive wall. It wasn't, however, my favourite climb of the trip, not even the top 3, despite it's quality. Why not, when I usually relish tackling such challenges and succeeding on them??

Well in this case, it was very, very nearly not succeeding. I got through a tricky bit, then cranked and slapped through the apparent crux, rested my way up an easier headwall, wary of the final bulge that of course turned out to be the real hard bit. Sweating and cranking through sloping pockets, high foot rockover with the rope in the way, slap into a dish, start falling off, micro-thought about grabbing the draw, slap past it regardless, somehow fall on and stay on and get to the obligatory single ring bolt lower off. So close yet....so near?? I did it, yes, woohoo, etc. Except the nearness had me not quite believing I did. I stumbled around for a bit before being able to belay, almost believing I didn't do it, because I so almost didn't. And whilst I relish the challenge and the fight, it was too close for comfort to fully enjoy. Not that I want comfort, but maybe a bit less luck involved... Still I guess it makes up for some near misses.

Correlation is not Causation.

So they say. I am rather suspicious of the correlation between me enthusiastically exhorting to my climbing friends "This autumn and winter I want to climb lots of gritstone", and the weather getting incomprehensibly and relentlessly fucking atrocious. It happens most recent years, but this year has been by far the worst. We have now hit DAY 14 of rain in Glasgow, easily beating the 11 days of rain record when I moved up in 2009 (this is likely to reach 17 according to the forecast), and from all reports the grit and even the county sandstone have been little better. Apparently, scientifically, this is correlation and coincidence, not causation. My ARSE. Posting specific climbing desires angers the Weather Gods and they crush such dreams under their merciless storm fists.

So calling of the grit is wisely still up in the air, getting wet along with anything else out there. Calling of the plastic it is for the moment, andI've been training surprisingly enjoyably. Day 14 of rain may be a significantly repugnant record, Day 7 of training at TCA (spread over a few weeks) without getting pissed off, demoralised, weaker, injured, or having no skin left, is a more consolidatory record. I've tended to accept that coming out of a summer where I ended up climbing pretty damn well, I will be rubbish and weak indoors. Embracing this, I've been pottering around on weak problems for weak people, not worrying about pushing too hard, and generally felt okay. My main goals have been simple: Do fun problems so I enjoy training, and don't push too long so I trash my skin and soft tissue. Lower expectations, higher exceedence, and I've ended up feeling a bit of progression after a few sessions.

Now then, Calling Of The Spanish Limestone, anyone????

Zwei Grosse Weissbiers Bitte!

Lightning visit to the wonderful Pfalzer Felsenlands to meet PJ who was collecting a caravan from Cologne. Once again a great place to explore, but although being 25°C cooler  than my previous visit, there was almost no breeze so I didn't get to crank as hard as I hoped - feeling semi-strong is of little use when I'm simply sliding off slopers. I need to do some average windspeed research for next time. In the meantime...

Walking in through a forest. Like every single approach there. I don't know why I'm using the guidebook for directions as it's entirely in German and I understand about 10 words, 4 of which are the title of this blog post.

What it's all about. Autumn in the Pfalz could be very good for 'shrooming, maybe.

Triffels. One of the typically impressive bows of rock sailing out into the forest. Atypically this one starts with a rare proper slab with some rare proper slab climbing, with a much harder prow towering above. All of this is commanded from the bridge of the Burg Triffels castle further back along the ridge. Scenic...?

 

...yes indeed. This is further around to the left of the previous photo, at the join of the slab and the headwall. Unfortunately I failed on a semi-impressive route on the headwall when I reached a slopey break and could scarcely hang on let along do a massive reach to the next holds. Hmph.

Practising Pfalz hanging belays. Soon after this we decided to give up on using the giant archaic ringbolts and just use the protection above. Actually pebbles were pleasingly common on this trip, along with....

...beetles. A fuckload of beetles, every day. Most of them seemed to aim unerringly for the approach tracks and bag-dumping basecamps, so I spend as much time rescuing the cute wee buggers as I did climbing. Although there was some good climbing...

One of many excellent grade 7s, which as usual features multiple and varied cruxes with good rests in between. This was at Burghaldefels, before sliding off a heinous slab on pebbles that I was far too sweaty to hold onto and left black with damp, but also before doing another excellent 7 that finished surfing along the crest of a concave wave overhanging 5m at the top of the crag. Once we walked out of the forest we realised it had been drizzling steadily most of the afternoon so no wonder the conditions were a bit flange.

More pebbles, more excellent 7s, more cool crags. This is the crux of Geierwally on the Ostwand of Geierkopf und Geierschnabel, and involved an off balance slap off a pebble and hidden smear to a sloper. Sweaty as usual but holdable. And in case you're wondering what sort of rock feature this took place on....

...yup, that one. Can you see why I like this place??

Walking around again. Forest, lots of forest. Very vibey place. If you like forest.

Zwei grosse Weissbier bitte! How every day finished: Walk out in the dusk avoiding wolves and trolls, go back to the Buttelwoog campsite, crank the caravan's heater to max, go to the campsite bar, order Wiessbier und Schnitzel or similar, eat with gusto, head back to the now-sweltering caravan, chill out and crash out. A nice routine although not one for watching the waistline, not least because of the universally gentle crag approaches. I'm not sure how much of the good fitness work from Wales I've undone with these decadent dinners, but I'll need to hit the training harder again...

The Calling

From Welsh Grit to Yorkshire Grit, but when will The Calling take place?? I went down this weekend for a pre-season friendly, well I use "friendly" in a loose sense as none of the 100+ climbers I have on two Facebook profiles (most of whom live very near either the grit or myself) nor anyone on UKC/B/A/Z seemed keen to join me for some routes despite it being such a bustly area. So a friendless recce mission it was, although as it turned out Rylstone was heaving with climbers and I probably could have tagged on to an odd numbered group. I didn't, instead I sulked a bit, walked a lot, lost some skin and didn't climb that much. Still it was useful recceing: Rylstone has plenty to go at in fairly decent conditions, Widdop is festering on the North faces but has a few appealing routes on the West faces, Simon's Seat solos are still too hard for me at this stage but should stay in nick for a while.

As for the calling....I'm glad it is in the hands of the frictional guru rather than the slippery paws of the egg-dropping lime thugs. This trip highlighted how difficult and sensitive the call is: The air was hazy but not humid, the wind was fresh but fickle, the rock was cool but not crisp. Lord's Seat was perfect in a perky breeze, Simon's Seat was unclimbable in the shelter and later sun. I reckon you could change 1 technical grade per 45° of relocation around the blocks. So we shall see what happens. I've got a surprising amount of grit psyche so am planning to start on the bleaker moorland crags before the weather gets too grim, then lower the altitude and swing sunwards as the winter draws in...

Here's some pottering and pondering:

Wales again.

I went back, the weather was glorious this time, I didn't climb on any mountainy crags and I didn't do any really challenging trad. I did however, do a lot of walking in the Rhinnogs and got my final photo tick...

And finally got involved with some definitive Lleyn guide climbing at the charming Wylfa area (after meeting and chatting with The Crook)...

And did my hardest sport route (and hardest moves) on slate...

And took my best ever photo of a bee...