Spanner In The Works

When is a trad climb not a trad climb?

....when it was protected by a thin, drooping, tied off spanner, and is now protected by an inch-thick, drilled and vertically cemented spanner in the same place. Thus turning an iffy situation into designer danger. I'd backed off Spanner Wall 13 years ago, a combination of approaching from the left (which made the crux a groundfall if the then-dubious spanner spung) and a warmish day. This time I approached from the now described right hand crack, placed the side-runners as high as I could without moving an inch off the line, and then wombled out to discover you could bivvy off the spanner. I enjoyed it anyway, particularly calming down and cooling down before the crux reachover. Has something been lost by this incarnation of the fixed spanner, though??

A nice bit of gay-legging on an underrated gem at the Pits.

I also enjoyed this other route - quite good value for ledge-shuffling! This day started grimly as early queasiness had me curled into a ball waiting for the prochlorperazine to kick in, but when it did I felt okay for an entirely afternoon, and although I was in ultimate bumbling mode, it was pleasant mileage.


When is a sport climb not a sport climb?

Delicious and nutritious, and a daintily smaller portion for the sportclimbing anorexophile. Best seasoned with a portion of battery acid or preferably arsenic for such climbers who then slag off a specific person's weight / appearance as part of a serious debate, and think they can get away with apologising because "they didn't know the person had medical issues" and being "sorry for being childish", instead of apologising for being cruel, overly-personal, and utterly fucking obnoxious. NB the target was not me in this case.

....when it was protected by this, until good old Seb took a spanner to it to tidy up the crag a bit. No doubt back in the day this was lined up along with rusty pegs, frayed tat, and coathanger hangers for that quintessential Great British Sport Climbing experience. The ceaseless tide of consumerist climbing has had a frothy silver lining in that this is now protected by nice shiny screw-in ring-bolts. This was down at Moat, the hip new place to be dangling off a bolt and queuing for routes. To be fair it is lovely down there, the friendly cat loitering around Cressbrook, the lurking fishes, the mum duck and 3 ducklings paddling by, a swan coming into land like a Hercules transporter crashing in the river, flocks of sheep moseying on down to the far bank. At some point I'll actually be able to start my own redpointing there.


When is a climber not a climber?

On the outside, I look like Fiend. Sometimes, on the inside, I feel like this.

....when he's got more fucking spanners in the works than a ramraid on Halfords tool department. Since last update's debacle, the status quo of "bad head, improving elbows" crystallised into a nice clear plan: More falling practise to fix the former, more brutal limestone to take advantage of the latter, both of which to gain fitness and confidence to get out there and tackle The greater Range and suchlike.

Instead it's panned out like this: Digestive relapse cancelling some days and making others unreliable, regular partners not interested in the lime, Purkle not able to belay me on falling practise, joining in the exclusive and elitist Peak Sport Climbing FB page to find 90% of people only want to go to the Tor, getting to the lovely Moat Buttress twice with some of the other 10% but only in teams of 3 so getting almost nothing done, getting out on a mileage day with Purkle to find the easier mileage was shit and the harder inspiration was unbelayable, getting back to that harder inspiration that I've wanted to for 13 fucking years and feeling too emotionally drained to commit to the moves before watching (well, half-watching) my climbing partner "just go up to feel what those holds were like, just out of interest" and piss all over it like it was a trivial warm-up, finally getting out on a mutually acceptable day with Purkle, ending up at Harpur with a million mileage options and perfect weather and walking away due to migraine. Etc.

The digestive relapse, after steady improvement over the winter and a notably "clear" March has been demoralising. Being mildly but chronically ill with something that very directly affects my moods, preys on my personal squeamishness, is unpredictable and has no obvious cause for reappearing....is grim. On the rare days where I haven't had some issue and felt digestively normal, the clarity and freedom of my mindstate has been utterly obvious, and highlights how much this affects me. To try to deal with this, I've contacted a local nutritionist AND naturopathic doctor for consultations.

In the meantime, I'm trying to do what worked for me last summer: high intensity, relatively high effectiveness (compared to Easy Trad that makes me weak, if very happy), low stress, low logistical committment sport-or-similar stuff. Looking through the haze onto the positive side of things, at least I am in an infinitely better location to make the most of that this year...

Unsuitable Genetic Material.

Sometimes I wonder why the hell I chose climbing. Short, sweaty, fatomorph with a head full of bullshit from day one - bullshit that manifests itself not in a dancing-with-death willingness to run it out miles above filed down RPs in a loose flake, but in inhibitions, handbrakes, self-sabotage. Why would such a person choose an activity that instead suits the polar opposite: lithe, lean, leathery people with a light spirit (bastards). I should stick to deadlifting and making Quake levels.

Then I remember I didn't choose climbing, it chose me. It came up, out of nowhere, while I was innocently painting Orks and mentally warming myself up for getting into computer gaming (here's a pro-tip for you guys: lead figure painting, regardless of it's other merits, is a clearly terrible basis / background to start rock-climbing from, compared to say swimming, running, cycling, gymnastics, martial arts, yoga or indeed any other activity whatsoever). It came up, when I was still even terrified of 8m abseils (the first time I tried at school, I was so scared I burst into tears), insidiously whispered "Why don't you try going up instead of down", and in a state of confused late pubescent vulnerability I listened and took the drug it was peddling and I was hooked.

Fast-forward a couple of decades and I'm still hooked which explains why I'm hanging off an awkward break sandwiched between a rounded scoop and a rounded arete wondering how I'm so sweaty and so stressed and how the hell can I deal with this. It doesn't explain how some time later I'm hanging off the rope and bomber protection right next to one obvious, if slopey, move to easier ground, having got partway through that move before simply giving in to the mental and physical discomfort and doubt.

No....the bullshit in the first paragraph explains that. The genetic make-up of my psychology - it's been there since birth (along with the sweat glands and ticking timebomb of an aplaisic IVC), nature not nurture, my parents didn't know what the hell to do with me, sometimes neither do I. I certainly didn't at that moment.  The frustration of making the same mistakes after those decades, the same inhibition, the same handbrake, the same self-sabotage that left me disgusted rather than exhilerated - why would any mind choose that course of action?? Because it's weak and flawed and gives in and takes the "easiest" course of action to "escape" the discomfort in that second, rather than striving to overcome the discomfort.

Later on, it's all a bit clearer if still equally unpalatable, hence writing this, hence trying to remind myself to keep learning the lessons I've been trying to for decades. Some of these lessons are general, some a bit more specific. In the problem - question - opportunity methodology of The Rock Warrior's Way which I've dug out to revisit:

Problem - I was scared of falling or committing to a situation where I might fall.
Question - Why is that this case when I've tackled that before?? Because I haven't been training overall and thus haven't been doing falling practise (maybe 10% of normal this winter).
Opportunity - Remember that falling practise, like any training, must be maintained to be effective (I'm physically weak due to lack of training, so clearly I can be mentally weak due to lack of training). Get back to regular falling practise indoors, and maybe outdoors.

P - I was additionally scared of getting to the next break as the guidebook had mentioned "protection does not inspire confidence" about the section. This was completely and utterly false as the protection next to me and at the break was clearly good.
Q - What can I do to deal with off-putting information or mis-information??
O - Firstly refer to falling practise!! A fall or even necessary jump from the next break would have been fine - as long as I wasn't overwhelmed by phantom fear. Falling practise would have lead to a clearer assessment of "I can commit, because I can safely fall / jump if it's an unsuitable situation" (this has worked in the past).
Secondly, always factor in my own judgement. I could both inspect the route from the side and assess the possible situation, and also know I have good gear placing skills, thus the off-putting falsehood might not be applicable.
Thirdly, take advantage of additional clarification - Dan had abbed down and cleaned this route (as had I for his route). While I wouldn't want any extra information to spoil the experience, confirmation of the guidebook accuracy would seems sensible: "Is the description and line about right??" ... "Pretty much except you probably gain the scoop from the right and the gear situation seems fine" .

P - I was sweating a lot and didn't think I could hold the crux sloper, and gave in to the doubt instead of giving it a try.
Q - Why did I do that psychologically? And could I have changed anything physically / logistically?
O - Psychologically it was once again a fear of falling - both falling per se, and falling unexpectedly off a move. Again, falling practise. But also, falling practise while attempting harder moves - and this can be even more useful outdoors, on redpointing, where I can re-learn to trust myself on harder moves while risking the fall coming off them.
Logistically, I need to remember to take advantage of any opportunity to alleviate the situation. I could have slapped my hand on my trousers or chalked either hand (I was sweaty and stressed more than pumped) or even reserved to a decent rest. I didn't - so I need to practise getting things logistically optimal.

P - I was not focused enough on success / progress as, despite contriving a decent rest, I had not recovered enough from prior stress starting the route (and thinking I had no chance of doing it)
Q - Why did I not recover my focus when I was recovering physically? Mostly because I wasn't trying to.
O - Take the time to acknowledge the changing situation while I'm recovering. Feel my body recovering  and use the consciousness of that to fuel a mental change: "I had no chance of doing it before when I was too pumped and stressed. Now I'm resting, how has that chance changed??"

In summation, I need to use indoors and outdoor sport for falling practise and trust-training, and any stressful lead as an opportunity to practise better logistics and a more aware and productive response to the stress.

To anyone who has read this far, I'm sorry, refund applications will be accepted to the usual address. Conversely, I've wrote this far so maybe something useful will come out of it...

Befontled.

A last minute trip joining a bunch of middle-aged ladies including Phil Murray, who were already out there with a spacious gite and hired pads. The weather was amazing, my climbing less so. I tried hard but a winter off any form of training proved to be fairly debilitating for power-to-weight ratio. My tactics were also a bit mixed, not resting my skin for 3 full days before going, and sometimes throwing myself at easy problems in the baking middle of the day instead of fully waiting for the contrastingly cool and lovely evenings. 

In the end I managed to have fun because Font is brilliant and easy Font is just as brilliant....

....but overall the highlights of the trip were:

1. Watching a very fluffy dog roll repeatedly and giddily through leaf piles until it was a very happy leaf pile itself.

2. Introducing Williams to a variety of exciting music genres including 250bpm gabber driving to the crag.... "Utterly appalling and beyond comprehension."

3. Moutarde avec vanille du Madagascar, who would have thought it, this is delicious.

Hmmm.

So.

The whole thing got me pondering that given a reasonable track record in Font previously (often in less crisp weather)...

Calins Du Kim 2nd go

Bizarre Bizarre 2nd go

L'Egoiste 3rd go after driving overnight

Duroxamine 2nd go

L'Oblique in 30 mins

El Poussif in an hour with a golfer's elbow

...I'm wondering why it's been so much of a struggle since those halycon days. Well those days were a decade ago and it turns out that technique is no substitute for being having functioning digestion, functioning legs, and thus being light (and uninjured). 

Further, aside from my slightly shoddy tactics, previous trips have been strategically enhanced by joining groups of experienced mates / send train bellends who have been revising 6+7 or whatever it is for their essential number-bagging ticks and thus actually know which 7As are approximately 7A and thus vastly easier than all the 5C blue slabs I was wasting time and skin on (incidentally I do remember failing to work a red 6B at Rocher Canon for a full hour before very narrowly failing to flash Calins Du Kim 7A). Knowledge is no substitute for power either but it does help a bit...

Still, this hasn't put me off. I'm already thinking about a proper winter trip back after hopefully rectifying most of the above issues (the ones I can rectify without surgical intervention, that is). 

Gritxit.

It came and it went, the natural grit season is over apart from maybe a few lucky days and a few north-facing crags. Given I moved down during the previous heatwave, getting a good few weeks of good conditions before the Easter meltdown was quite a bonus. Even more so, I'd only intended to do easy mileage due to my elbows and near total lack of strength and fitness, but as previously mentioned the only skills needed for grit are dry skin, luck, and a massive reach. So while I'll never have the latter, I managed to outwit the former mostly by sunbathing through afternoons out and climbing at dusk. And the luck, I guess I made a bit for myself by climbing routes that really inspired me.

A few samples:

Something at Hen Cloud in the baking heat. Mostly done for the photo which worked well. No gear and scrittly slopers. Alas too hot for any HC classics.

Foord's Folly at Ramshaw. This mess was all from the easy top crack, which I did in the "only bold E1 to solo" style, which was quite terrifying compared to the phenomenally easy lead option of spending 5 seconds slamming in the bloody obvious red camalot from the post crux jug and romping to the top. Instead I ground my hands into the crack to avoid the ground impacting with my body, and was hyperventilating so much my chest was aching for over an hour. This may have been something to do with finally getting through the crux start after dozens of attempts, this """6a""" being by far the hardest sequence I've ever done on anything with a route grade. Solid V5 6b. Good experience though. Unfortunately I left my bouldering brush beneath Old Fogey while recceing and scrubbing the neglected start....

The Egg at Bamford, one of my main inspirations this season in typical "Fiend gets unduly excited about a one star route lurking on the fringes of normality" vein. I went once with Ogs to recce the crag and we both got very psyched by this beautiful scoop, but neither of us was roped climbing. I went back with The Discoverer Of Planets and got spooked backing off a bad E3 warm-up and then got inspired again by the Egg just as the sun was going down which curtailed my plan of spending ages fiddling in the promised RPs in the seam, and finally back with Cragrat Rich when once again I had to wait for dusk but left enough time to discover that contrary to the guide there is only one hidden RP and the rest is sliders, flared cams, and hidden good cams out right, and the moves and overall experience are bloody great.

The end of the grit season. Mint connies at Ramshaw in a raking Easterly, but guaranteed bollox almost everywhere else. Old Fogey had only vaguely been in my sights, but I had to go back and retrieve my brush, so kinda had to do the route at the same time. Ogs advice: "You should leave your brush beneath more routes then". OF definitely deserves it's classic status, a finely sculpted buttress and a fine route with excellent "resting indefinitely while getting continually more scared" potential on the foothold just below me, and [spoiler] pushing a cam into the break before grappling with it's unnerving slopiness is highly recommended [/spoiler].

So that's that. I scrabbled around over Easter, maximising traffic jams, minimising good conditions, and mostly avoiding any good climbing, and I'm ready for some actual training before the main away game trad season.

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...