Instawhat?

Okay I lied. I'm as much of a social media slag as the rest of you and the weather and company have been good enough to get out and get gritting on all sorts of places. Including Stanage - but enough of that toss...how about you fuckers ID the first two routes instead:

Oh and the boring Stanage toss I promised....

After this I drive back home which now looks like this:

Not bad.

We're Only Here For The Bang

6pm, I take a step... It's the same step I've taken many times in the last half an hour, but this time it's followed by a few more during the next minute. Careful, tip-toeing steps, smear to smear. And then it's over - I'm at the break, onto easy ground, at the top. An experience that has escalated from looking nervously from either side and tentatively brushing and playing on the easy start, to the eventual commitment and faith in friction of a grit slab. Bloody marvellous. 

4am, 10 hour laters, I take a step... It's the same step I've taken many times in the last minute, and this time it's followed by a few more during the same second. Frantic, rhythmic steps, bounce to bounce. And then it's over - the Horrorist's set has wrapped up and it's onto another DJ. An experience that has escalated from classic electro of One Night In New York and techno of Flesh Is The Fever to full on Industrial Strength 220bpm gabber assault. Bloody marvellous.

I went to Rivelin and I went to Bangface. One of them had frantic motion and constant noise and great intense experiences, and so did Bangface. Swirling trees provided enough shelter from the howling gale at Rivelin, and made for great conditions. A chance encounter with Mike whom I'd climbed with once in Wales...

...on an equally blowy day at Bird Rock, where having done the excellent Diamond Eliminate an attempt at a retrieval abseil turned into a 20 minute clusterfuck of knotted ropes, turned a recceing visit into some fun easy highballing and a nice little solo to finish after he'd disappeared.

And thence it was on to Bangface which needs little explanation, suffice to say it's by far the best dance music experience in the UK and just like Rivelin, being only an hour from Chez Fiend is another great boon to my relocation. Only Friday's bang this time but it went a bit like this:

Dead Man's Chest - nu skool old skool jungle techno
A surprising set from Eveson's alias. I thought he'd be pure jungle but this was an interesting blend of sort of old skool rave jungle techno in a modern style - kick and breakbeats and spacey atmospheres - before evolving into jungle. Pretty cool!

Monster X - industrial analogue techno glitchstep
A new act to me, ex-grindpunk dude turns to electronic music and maintains the same visceral intensity. Mashed up and hard hitting and maintained my interest for sure.

Little Big - rave donk pop hip-hop
Caught the end of their set. Very much the Russian Die Antwoord as they've been coined. Fun for a few mins. Alas the very cute midget from their videos doesn't perform with them any more.

Otto Von Schirach - bollox bassline
A couple of minutes of this tedious poncy bellend before I legged it.

Chopstick Dubplate - ragga jungle
I gotta say I might be liking jungle more than drum'n'bass at the moment. All about the breakbeats! This was kinda predictable jungle style but great fun. Also a nice OTT sped-up finish before...

Limewax - crossbreed hardcore drum'n'bass
On top of my ticklist for the night, and he was pretty cool. Objectively a great Bangface set mixing in all sorts of hard dnb and hardcore and even elegantly finishing with dark techno before The Horrorist. Personally I wanted more of a classic Limewax skullstep onslaught, and some of that style he played was fucking brilliant....I might have broken myself with a full set of that tho, maybe the variety is for the best!

Stazma The Junglechrist - breakcore
Self indulgent mashed up breakbeat noodling - the jungle equivalent of a set full of guitar solos. Too nonsensical for me but the crowd liked it.

Eprom - bass / dubstep
A few mins chilling out... Kinda cool sound, lots of super deep warm bass and minimal beats, wouldn't have got me dancing much but nice to listen to.

The Horrorist - industrial techno / gabber
A bit of an icon in the hardcore / techno scene for his pounding beats and militant MC shouting, definitely had to be seen. The harder last half of his set was the highlight of the night for me :).

Hellfish - gabber
A few mins recovering... classic Hellfish gabber, probably the hardest set in the main rooms. I dunno his style is good but not always my favourite and I needed to recover a bit.

[KRTM] - militant hard techno
Surprising as I thought he was normal gabber, but catching a bit of his set I was impressed, seriously stompy techno with some good atmospheres.

Dr Bastardo - crossbreed breakcore
Same record label and same pace as Stazma The Jungleponce but vastly better with a danceable flow and proper hardcore intensity.

The Outside Agency - gabber / crossbreed
Also high on the ticklist, but although good was a bit disappointing. Firstly having caught TOA for a more varied industrial hardcore set in Glasgow years ago, this wasn't quite as interesting. Secondly, the sound in the main room was a bit low compared to the other rooms (or Hellfish's set) and thus didn't quite have the energy to compensate for my lack thereof. Still a great night overall!

Saturday was a rest day...

At last!

5 years overdue I've made one of the bigger progressions in my climbing life - moving away from the wasteland that is Scotland. It was good for a while but the extreme paucity of local climbing, the unavoidable journey lengths and the minimal and often insular climbing scene all make it unsustainable in the long term - even more inhibitive than the midges and rain. To be fair, the climbing - when you eventually drag one of the 3 Scottish trad climbers who is prepared to go climbing regularly with an Englishman away from childcare duties and brave 4 hours of pootling up the A9 to take advantage of the one good weather window that decade - is truly amazing as is the scenery and solitude. I will miss those distinctly rewarding aspects along with a few good friends I have up there, the Central Belt motorway network (the singularly most first world aspect of Scotland is the willingness to actually IMPROVE road networks rather than ruin them unlike England and their """smart""" twatting jam-causing bullshit non-motorways), and Ratho and Eden Rock of course. Although we're not spoilt for walls down here.

We've moved to Manchester, home of the M60 gridlock, the M67 gridlock and of course the A57 gridlock. Maybe they could employ a Scottish Transport Minister to actually consider sorting this mess out or maybe they'll just plaster the whole fucking area with one way systems and speed cameras. It's also home to 13 guidebook's worth of day-trippable climbing (Stanage, Burbage and Beyond, Froggatt and Curbar, Over The Moors, Staffordshire, Peak Limestone North, Peak Limestone South, Yorkshire Grit 1, Yorkshire Grit 2, Yorkshire Limestone, Lancashire Rock, Cheshire Rock, Clwyd Limestone) compared to a total of one from Glasgow (half Lowland Outcrops, half Highland Outcrops South). Admittedly I did a load on the grit when I lived in Sheffield and the limestone is mostly shit, but there's still enough mileage and training options to maintain sanity. Plus North / Mid Wales in two hours and the South West arriving in the same day you depart, both significant draws. And in winter the dedicated climbers get out on the grit rather than wanking off about decaying blizzard gullies and "Are the Norries in nick yet" and other such incomprehensible BS.

Of course I can't take the slightest advantage of most of this as my elbows are still completely fucked. Tennis elbow in both of them seems to be hovering in between acute and chronic and taking advantage of the worst of both aspects - permanently sore and seemingly unresponsive to any treatment.  Climbing hard or any training are definitely out, a shite way to start the spring season. But at least being near the grit there are options to do easy pootling that is enjoyable, and of course SLABS. Thankfully I do like slabs.... Before I left the wasteland, I managed to squeeze in some very nice ones at Garheugh Port, including this highball gem which I mistakenly thought was an FA, it wasn't but I did a good job of cleaning it and tidying the base and sorting out the "experimental" grades on this slab so if you're visiting Galloway, go to it:

No more videos and photos from me for a while unless it's well esoteric, because every social media cunt and his drone saturates the web with the latest number-bagging bullshit from the grit...

Bye 2018, bye elbows, hello resolutions!

Well hopefully au revoir elbows and they'll come back soon. I've currently got acute tennis elbow in both elbows (during the first year in a decade in which my golfer's elbow actually cleared up - which coincided with a reflexology session in which a "left upper limb" pressure point was particularly prominent, hmmm...). This was due to 2 days bouldering at my near max in the cold, then a day of gym with weighted pull-ups, then a day of bouldering indoors and a few sets of max hangs. I probably should have slipped a rest day in there, because after that then some sporadic cold bouldering over the next week, the elbows gave up and said "no". The physio on the other hand said "yes" - but only to VERY easy climbing, essential to keep moving and keep gently stressing them to encourage healing.

Unfortunately of course the best option for interesting easy climbing, other than easy-but-epic choss sea-cliffs, is the grit (all those slabby bloques....sigh), and no I am still not fucking living back down there despite plans evolving and taking place at a pace that would make a snail feel lazy and embarrassed. And the weather is distinctly "meh". Not biblically terrible but not reliable enough to travel and know that lots of easy choice would be in nick. So back on the resin it is, thankfully the Edens have genuinely good easy circuits that avoid the tedious jugpull trap (as does the vastly improved new TCA Maryhill, but I did all theirs in a session). Even so it's very hard to restrain myself but hopefully I'll get the balance right and be fully dysfunctional before too long.

On a lighter note, this was the last proper thing I did on those two icy days bouldering, a couple of real gems that I haven't seen in the endless videos of Malc's fucking Arete etc:



Incidentally after listening to both Ingested's fantastic "Level Above Human" album, and Aborted's almost equally great "Terrorvision" repeatedly on that trip, I got back, googled them, and found that they were playing along with Cryptopsy in Glasgow the next Friday! So that was ace, alas I missed most of Ingested due to making too spicy a dinner, but their last bit was great as was Aborted's set.

And that's that for now. No retrospective of 2018 as I haven't written that much and it's all kinda obvious: got ill, climbed a bit, got depressed, struggled to climb a bit, got a bit less ill and a fair bit less depressed and climbed a lot more in Autumn #coolstorybro etc.

Oh, I almost forgot, New Year's Resolutions:

1. Put a lot more effort into moving south.

2. Put a lot more effort into climbing travels.

3. Keep looking after my health and healing.

4. Reduced as much clutter as I can.

Simple but to the point.

Gritstone

Luck-based scrittle they say. I think that does gritstone climbing a great disservice. It's luck AND lank AND conditions -based scrittle, in which success is entirely dependent on those factors, irrespective of skill and strength.

I lived in Sheffield for years, partly learnt to climb on grit, did well over a thousand routes and hundreds of boulder problems (including some of my hardest of both), and always struggled. Being distinctly short and sweaty and scared isn't the ideal starting point for sliding off rounded breaks while desperately fiddling in cams and then having to commit to some out of control stretch to some distant slopers etc etc *shudder*. Actually when it works it's great but it is still bloody hard. 

Moving away from it, of course I miss the massive amounts of choice and the winter suitability that is so absent in Scotland. So I head back down, despite the 15 minutes drive from a cosy home turning into 4 hours drive and finding somewhere to sleep. Actually I've already been down 4 weekends in a row which is a new record since my northerly exile. What's made the difference this time?? Two things: Willingness to go bouldering which has alleviated the scrabbling around getting partners for two days, and Airbnb which has alleviated the tedious shite of scrabbling around for accommodation (a frustration which friends and partners on the grit doorstop rarely seem to appreciate). Hence a productive start to the winter so far.

So back to the scrittle. Since moving away I think I have improved my LUCK. Tactics and wisdom and cunning stack the odds more in my favour, and a falling-practise-derived willingness to press on past gear means I can gamble on those odds more. I'm climbing better overall, so sometimes I'm climbing better on gritstone....

However, it's luck AND lank AND conditions and while I'm a better climber, I'm heavier, relatively weaker, certainly no taller, and my skin is scarcely drier. And sometimes I forget all of that is the essence of grit and sometimes grind to a greasy, stumpy halt. Sobeit, I can grudgingly accept that it's like that and some grit simply won't suit me, plus I've got 3 tubes of anti-hydral on the go. In the meantime I have done some really fun stuff, a nice mixture of esoteric micro-routing and general boulderising, like below. I even tried some highballs as highballs instead of solos but the hold was quite slopey and I kept sliding a bit off it and it was a long move to the top etc etc....I could get into this shit tho ;)

Panorama, at Panorama Crag. I'd recced this for soloing the other year, it turns out to have a wonky landing and decent gear so well worth a lead. Very minor but nice, there's a route that traverses diagonally from right to left that's the best value on this face. Typical hidden gems that are nicely documented in the essential YMC Yorkshire Gritstone guides.

Perky at Brimham. My family once had cats called Pinks and Perks. Perks was a proper lady, very dignified and very scratchy and bitey. This problem bites a bit on minging slopers and a huge stretch for the top, very cool though. Lovely bit of Brimham too, unfortunately too grey for a sunset.

Radium Arete at Woodhouse. Replicating the guidebook photo for fun. Full disclaimer: I didn't manage to do this problem. It gets Font 6A. I did Ilkley Bar Kid 6B+ in 3 goes, Perky 6B+ in 6 goes, a 6B above Radium in 2 goes, and couldn't get near to this. HUH.

Green Wall at Woodhouse. This is an HVS 5b solo, which usually on gritstone means crux groundfall onto a rocky landing from 4-5m and clearly objectively much harder than an E2 5b slab falling 8m into space past good gear. Unusually Green Wall has a 5b crux at 2m and a 4b/c ramble to finish, hence bang on. Wonders will never cease.

The Great Santini at Dovestones. You know, the one you drive past on the A59 and never stop at and really should. I've been wanting to do this route ever since opening the section in the book, and had been twice to recce it (both times trying to do Coin For A Beggar as a solo and neither time being able to compress the missing 6 inches between me and the holds into feasibility). It had always intimidated me though - tales of quality rock and good gear stank of rats and sandbags, there must be some catch. Well it turns out there's a small catch on this move, having to use a crappy micro-intermediate and blind slap to get the crux hold, but it was still fine and a really lovely route.

Bonington's Made It at Cat Crags. What a shit and un-feline name for a really cool little route. Very short and very worth leading with decent gear below a pristine but sloping top. We put the cat amongst the doves and visited both crags on a fun day.

Some 6A I can't be bothered to find at Scout Hut. The warm-up problem that took us both half a dozen goes to work out the funky beta. Actually really fun with a proper knack.

Loogabarooga at Scout Hut. Another route I'd recced previously, another micro-route well worth leading with tricky moves and good gear all the way, another hidden gem brought sparkling into view via the YMC guides. Again really fun.

Next on the list: Eavestone, Brimham outliers, Heppy natural crags, and more...

Anniversary horribilus

It's now a year since I fell off a route, bashed my leg, contracted norovirus from A&E, and in the process of my body healing my leg as a priority, suffered chronic damage to my digestive system. One very small, very stupid mistake, not washing my hands properly after going for a piss in the A & E toilet, then munching on a bag of nuts because I was ravenous and thinking too much about my leg and not enough about hand hygiene. It still riles me to this day just how fucking small and fucking stupid that incident was. Deep breath Fiend...

And.... I still have PTSD about having the norovirus itself. Beyond horrendous. I wish the sedative they gave me for the endoscopy could have wiped out memories of that night too, although the trauma is partly due to the lasting effects.

Anyway...

I am not better, I am not fixed nor cured nor well. I am still ill a year on. But I have improved, a bit. I'd estimate I've got 50% better  compared to where I was. Say I was at 33% in the early stages, I'm maybe at 66% now. This is purely digestively, not DVTs nor mental health. Some progress, yes. But it's not that simple. A lot of that improvement is due to currently being on a heavily restricted diet and regular supplements. These were supposed to help me heal, maybe they have a bit, but mostly they have just kept the illness and symptoms at bay. I would say, without those restrictions, I've maybe healed to 45% - less than half normal. That's what I'd be like if I ate a normal diet. I.e., pretty shit still.

An equally, if not more, notable improvement is my mental ability to cope with it. Sporadic nausea bouts still have a direct and dramatic effect on my mood (one a few weeks back had me in tears a day later), the diet still has me frustrated, the semi-regular bloating and queasiness still distracts me. But - thanks mostly to DRUGS but also to some of my own hard work fighting through it - I'm not as depressed about it as before, and I can get on with being myself, most of the time. A bit like the permanent DVTs, as frustrating as they can be, I can usually accept being hampered and work around them (although this illness is far more mentally taxing than the minorly life-threatening DVTs *rolls eyes*).

So my goal for the year was to be able to eat pizza (yes, something I used to do very occasionally, as a treat, as a part of a balanced diet and active lifestyle, so fuck you). I don't really feel like that, partly being used to a shitty diet and partly just wanting to stack the odds for healing. That isn't going to happen. Which makes it an aim for next year.

More importantly for next year I aim to keep healing, climbing the fucking HELL out of the year (that I only managed for a couple of months this year), and be healed within two years. Blimey. That sounds fucking weird. I guess the fact I can write it with a minimum of teeth-grinding fury says something.... Pass the 20mg citalopram nurse.

More details.

My climbing has improved. My blogging clearly hasn't. This one is a bit of a cheat. But might not be too horrible for people who like reading about climbs. So going back to the previous list in great detail...

Rotpunkt:

Silk Teddies F7c ***, Dunkeld
With the new cheating diversion into a hands-off rest next to Squirm Direct. Whatever. Don't care. I don't want a fucking authentic Cave Crag uber-geek "use this hold for one hand but don't you dare match it and rock rightwards off it" tick. I want a good challenge and this was definitely that (at least a grade harder than the only other 7c I've done (Another Choadside Attraction at the Tor, which took me a couple of brief sessions, mostly because it's classic British sport climbing i.e. run out with weird fixed gear, than it actually being hard, also noticably harder than other 7cs I tried in the Peaks, and a solid grade harder than Scottish 7b+s I did in a quick session each). Suffice to say it took me a few solid sessions and was pretty rewarding to go from struggling on all the moves to, well, not struggling quite that much! After the redpoint, I drove back down the track, got distracted by a rattle in the back of my car, slid off the road into a tiny steep ditch and got grounded out and had to get an emergency tow truck to drag me out. What a knobber!!

Vibes Right Hand F7c ***, Dunkeld

Burl with added burl on top! Maybe slightly harder than ST who knows, felt similar to me but probably suits me less, power-to-weight and all that. Not much to say about this one except each session burnt me out so it was all good training, and it was nice when the fearsome Lyons brought part of her pack o' hounds to the crag....

Scales Of Injustice F7b+/c **, Cambusbarron 


Tentatively technical teetering!! Now this was something a bit different. I - in atypical and quite shameful grade chasing mode - pondered on doing a third 7c this summer as a big FUCK YOU to my digestive illness. Omerta was spoilt by the completely unbalanced bloc start (would be a great move at ground level but fuck having to have a rope and belayer to work it out), Sultan was spoilt by being a miserable scrittle-crimp fest (not even regular anti-hydral can combat that), and Marlene was too similar to Silk Teddies - I wanted some variety. I think this might fit the bill, it was certainly an equal challenge, taking as many sessions, despite suiting me better, having better conditions, and not trashing me as much. It's not so much hard as very precarious and fall-offable. It's also quite addictive as it's really pretty cool, although I can imagine it would frustrate some people.

It's also grossly underrated, something I've tried to change. I first tried it 4 years ago and pulled a loose hold off the top onto Stevie's head, and never went back. This time it was more appealing, but I still put some effort into tree and branch clearance, cleaning a bit more wobble off the top, adding a second lower-off krab, building a wee patio, and generally encouraging other people to get on it. Not bad for a "whinging trad fanny" (more on that in a bit). And then I eventually did it and like all of my harder redpoints it was a skin-of-the-teeth slap with the final crux, which means despite working and optimising them, these routes are still fucking hard for me.

Interestingly for a route that's had 6 UKC efforts listed in 20 years, it was a day of actually queuing for the route when I did it. Grumpy Gordon was there, who I vaguely know by name, with Brian who was considerably more affable. Amazingly GG actually did it in the end which is a minor miracle given how shoddy his beta looked and how much of a miserable time he seemed to be having shouting his way off it - I ended up going out to near the 95 and soaking up some warmth and more positive vibes from the sun. BUT! Lo! The plot thickens, it turns out that I am the only person in the Central Belt who didn't know that Grumpy Gordon is actually the phenomenally stupid and grossly mis-guided arch-fuckwit "gurumed" off UKC. Thank fuck I didn't know that at the time as knowing the.....mentality behind the grump and trying to concentrate on a positive climbing experience would have been tortuous. Suffice to say that during the Ratho retro-bolt farce, he managed to incite this response from me, and I don't believe that there is ever a full distinction between online expression and offline personality.

After that I went into the closed quarry and belayed Smally on something which was nice, but not as nice as this stump:

Ledge Shuffling:

Gotterdamerung E4 5c *, Dunkeld
Dunkeld sport scenes turned into Dunkeld trad scenes for me, and yes after you've been working Silk Teddies, 5c yarding on jugs does seem physically very easy. On the other hand, relying on one RP during a huge, and steep run-out before the apparent rest jugs turn into all sorts of weird out-pointing angles does seem mentally very spooky. I really thought I could be in deep shit for several long seconds before fiddling on clusters of shit. I had a vague inkling I'd done something wrong so abseiled down the line and confirmed that a vague cam slot I'd dismissed in my urge to keep jug-pulling was quite reasonable and quite crucial. It felt like I'd "got away with it" and although I was happy with the climb, I was less happy with my climbing!!

Spanked Roof Monkey E4 6a **, Johnsheugh 
This day was a proper indication my mindstate was improving, a day trip to Aberdeen, followed by dropping Purkle off in Glasgow and continuing to visit family in Dumfries - despite feeling pretty sick in the evening. This was the sort of rewarding, exciting, energetic day I couldn't have face doing a few months before. OTOH SRM was the sort of route - if I'd been teleported to it - I could have still climbed a few months before, but then again all the schist redpointing made it feel even more piss, and a good grade easier than: 

Who Dares Wings It E4 5c ***, Johnsheugh

Now this was getting into more my sort of terrain. Positive but spooky face climbing with a lot of up-and-downing to commit to it. It turns out the description in the online guide is a pile of wank (rectangular slot? no, small finger pocket. Gear down and left? No, impossible to place on lead. Etc), so I ended up having to do another heart-in-mouth run out but this time it was necessary after careful consideration, rather than due to incompetence. It turns out there's two different variants: Direct to a faint groove with hard moves but with gear you can actually place (steady E4 6a) or right up the wall then back left to the groove, as per the mis-guide, with gear you can't place (hard E4 5c). Either is good though, and this felt a proper experience to me.

Laughing Gnome E4 5c **, Dunkeld 
Trad silliness! 20 minutes going back and forth from a rest ledge, 20 seconds actually doing a few steady but very committing moves, spacewalking above the pro. After I did it, I remembered I'd looked across from Gnome itself to see useful holds around the LG crux, and then completely forgotten about them by the time I got round to doing it. Good tactics! 

Sidewinder E4 6a **, Glen Lednock 
Now this was getting into more the sort of pleasure I get from climbing. I went with Lamb with the intention of doing Diamond Cutter or this route (I'd tried the phenomenal No Cruise when I had just moved to Scotland, but before I realised how stupidly fucking steep most mid-extreme trad is up here, and got beaten to a pulp by it). It turned out Diamond Cutter needed a tree cutter to make the start and subsequent belaying more feasible, so Sidewinder it was. And it turned out it was great fun. Very steep, squirmy, committing, but I just felt so good on it, I felt....proper, real. Engaging with a challenge, not so much losing myself in it, but BEING myself in it. Even better when Craig can't jam so couldn't use the rests so got a bit pulped seconding :)

Special Brew Direct E3 5c **, Glen Clova 
Indian Summer for a bit! I was keeping up the low stress, high intensity, easy logistics, hard climbing local inspiration, and although I've never been a big fan of Clova, I was a big fan of enjoying climbing again and just getting on with it. SBD follows a slim black groove so was a nice cauldron to boil my brain for a bit but I got through it okay. Even considering further routes required a long rest in the shade, until the cloud came over and I could try:

Whoremistress E4 6a ***, Glen Clova 

There was a wee concept behind this one. ALL autumn I have been foaming at the dome to get down to Gogarth and get to South Stack and do some fucking awesome fucking routes that fucking inspire the SHIT out of me. But time and distance and partners and then weather have all prevented it and I'm trying not to think about it too much as you can tell from the swearing I'm still fucking gagging for it but it's too short days and likely too cold now. 

In the meantime, Purkle bought me Grant Farquhar's The White Cliff Gogarth coffee table tribute book for my birthday which is an ace present although it didn't really calm down my frustration inspiration! In the absence of being down there, I decided to do one of Grant's local classic routes from when he was a Dundoonian (incidentally as a student a bunch of dossed at his house in Wales for a weekend, although I did fuck all climbing somehow). 

Anyway, Whoremistress was bloody great. Big, exciting, varied, interesting all the way, from the surprisingly technical start to the scary death-peg-"protected" groove teeter, to the penultimate jug-pulling, and the final very reasonable crux and steep crack romp digestif. It was so good and I was so thirsty that I celebrated with a pint of shandy (nectar of the fucking GODs now I'm off soft drinks and almost off booze), and then fish and chips in Kirrie and I slept like a zombie on Night Nurse and that was ace.

Prehistoric Monster E5 6a ***, Earnsheugh 

Okay now it gets serious. Not serious climbing, seriously challenging for me personally. Aberdeen was the place to be this autumn to escape the mixed weather in the west - as I fully and accurately predicted, the resurgence of my motivation coincided exactly (to the day, a brisk before-the-storm day in Camby) with the disappearance of the reliably dry summer. I knew full well that would happen, but I'd take feeling mentally better in shit weather than feeling mentally shit in ace weather. But there was enough aceness in the Deen so that's where I did a fair bit of climbing, including routes that have been on my wishlist for years. And now, despite everything, I felt ready for them?? Well, almost. While Adam was leading up the first intro pitch, I did have to sit for a moment and actually meditate. I'd been encouraged to do this as part of CBT to cope with the emotional response to my illness, and for all the limits and one-dimensionalness of CBT, it seemed sensible then and sensible now. So I held the ropes, shut my eyes, breathed in, breathed out, listened to the sea. I should do this more often - trad climbing is hard enough without the amount of mental clutter I can bring to it.

And then I did the route and it was bloody goey through the crux - hard to work out and fighty above, and the thoroughly awkward rest mostly helped me boil alive in my pointless vest. And Adam managed to recreate the "classic" arseshot from North East Outcrops which still makes me smile.

Necromancer E5 6a ***, Earnsheugh 
I'd abseiled down this 6 times while very carefully looking off to the side to avoid spoiling the experience, and it was almost as much of  a pleasure to abseil down a 7th and 8th time to follow up the E2s, and admire the route with relaxation and reminiscence. World class climbing with no holds to spare and a lot of go for it required. Estimating the correct crux cam placement was one of the best climbing decisions I've made! 

Doing both of these routes was hard. I was on good form, I did well, but fuck me....it felt like properly pushing it again. I didn't need to go any further than that....

Bob's Overhang E4 6a ***, Long Slough 
Fourth visit over the years to get this one I think? Visit 1 it was too intimidating, visit 2 it was a bit greasy and I downclimbed from the flake, PJ was more enthusiastic and went for it and missed the pocket. Visit 3 it was slimier than a squid's snatch. Visit 4 was finally good. Even so I had to do the obligatory downclimb just to get fully warmed up. All those years involved trying hard to train my mind to go for it above gear and that seemed to pay off - I was pretty pleased to guess the correct sequence first go out of the sea of white herrings and it was over pretty quick.

Polka Dot E3 5c **, Long Slough

This was over less quick as the smooth, slick, RP protected start crux took yet more up and downing to get accustomed to it. Long Slough Red Rocks is notoriously hard to find in condition so it was worth taking advantage of it and this turned out to be a really cool little route too with a nice steady bulge.

Piltdown Connection E3 5c **, Red Tower 

Pure pleasure, once I'd figured out which actual way to go at the crux instead of trying a slappy 6a direct past shallow RPs. Definitely the best use of this fine sheet of granite, with the positions of Neanderthal Man but less wandering, more technical, cleaner rock, etc. Lovely. I tried Waltzinblack again after this and escaped off again. Too many very slick granite slopers above shallow gear - I wanted some nice crystal crimps.

Desert Rendezvous E3/4 5c **, Spittal 

Wow this was a find. Northumberland's best sea-cliff, Pex-Upon-Tweed, developed by raiding Scots 30 years ago and lying hidden and undocumented until recently. I spotted the topo on the County Psyche farcebook page, shared it on my own page, tagged the McNair as the grade range would suit him, met Smally at Ratho and Niall had invited him and there we were, climbing middling (me) to hard (them) trad on beautiful but intimidatingly sheer wall of quarried pocketed sandstone in the most lovely location set above the sea. It all felt quite dreamlike given how the crag had just come to light, and was an ace day out. Although I didn't manage to try the 3rd and hardest E4 as it got too late as Smally had spent about an hour shaking out on a tiny pocket mid-crux on a sandbag E5 6b, grumbling about sandy holds and long reaches before eventually doing it ;).

Softly Treads The Beetle E4 6a ***, Spittal 

Desert Rendezvous was a new route by Steve Blake, Softly Treads was an old route by the original pioneers. Both were great. DR as a bit bolder with spaced gear but better shakeouts. ST had more regular pro (including obligatory twin tricams) but more continuous climbing.

Fast Reactor E3 6a **, Meackie Point 

It felt very weird going to the Deen so much and not hooking up with my previously regular partner in crime PJ, but he has been somewhat hampered by having an admittedly lovely daughter (who, in the words of his wife, "she has brought her A-game to being parented"). At last time and indeed tide coincided and we got a couple of days out - Cambus O May quarry to get shut down by chipped holds and morpho lanks, and Meackie Point to admire seals and do this committing wee route I'd backed off years ago. And finished with...

Kenyan Cowboy E2 5c **, Tangerine Point 
Which is PJ's own route and worth an upgrade to E2 as well as two solid stars. Although short it's a classic corner weaving through roofs, micro-space-walking at a reasonable grade despite the angle. Really very nice :)


First ascents:


And I finished off the decent autumn weather with something a bit different. A month before, abbing off a singular sapling above Sidewinder, I noticed there were a few gaps between the main lines at Lednock's High Wall. Hmmm. This seemed strange. 1 hour from Central Belt cities, south facing, 5 minute walk-in, and still new routes to be climbed?? Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Fiend. A hurried afternoon inspecting and cleaning (and clearing the Diamond Cutter tree and nearby thorns) and a frantic week drumming up moral support for what was going to be the last good weather day for a while. Connor and Purkle were up for the task and after belaying the former on some of the lower routes, and furthering the cats cradle of abseil sapling back-ups, I managed to get two newies done. Which was, indeed, nice.

Indoor Storm E4/5 6a/b **, Glen Lednock

Named after a proper banger of an album by DJ Pish Posh which I was listening to on my visit to clean and inspect. This route has a cool compression crux at the top above bomber gear in the break. It's really quite neat. As well as abseil inspection I had a quick top-rope play on the crux - unknown, undocumented territory and all that. Fortuitous as it didn't go by my expected sequence but by hidden slopers instead. Hard to grade but compared to a vaguely similar Bob's Overhang (hard pulls above gear), it's maybe similarly difficult but much harder to read, 6a if you're lucky but 6b otherwise. Maybe.

Echo Box E3/4 5c/6a *, Glen Lednock 

Named after pretty funky DJ Brockie track, to continue the theme. A bit more minor but still a decent wee route and far more logical and appealing than the established but wandering "Perishing" that it neatly bisects. Another tricky one to grade as again the holds and gear are blind. 

It was a pretty lush evening too...

So that's me all caught up. Now it's grit I think....