Still down.

Further to my previous post, my leg has swollen up is showing a strange rash, so I have spent most of the day touring Sheffield hospitals with people trying to work out if it's sciatica, DVT, an infection, vaculosis or some kind of arthiritis. I'm back in hospital tonight for monitoring and further tests.

Suffice to say I'm tolerating the discomfort but I am shitting myself about what it could be and what the effects could be :(.

Butters, please update me on your blog list as "Sheffield's Most Broken Climber" again.

Struck down.

Fucking hell.

A week ago, just after rotpunkting at The Tor, and just at the start of a week off, I felt the fittest I had for a couple of years. A few weeks of regular sport climbing and occasional running and a bit of hillwalking, and I felt noticably really good in my body. Lovely.

Today, a week later, I have barely been able to walk for 20 yards without excruciating pain and feeling exhausted, even with a crutch. Stairs have been agony and getting out a chair a major effort.

I have - completely randomly and for the first time in my life - a bout of sciatica, an impingement of the sciatic nerve in my lower back, affecting my leg as well. I have been to see my doctor Simon Connor (no, not THAT Simon Connor!!), and my osteo Kim, and they both say it's not a slipped disc, it's just a general impingement, and it should be fairly short term: A few days of total rest, a few more days of only gentle exercise, and a few weeks until it's totally clear. And it might not crop again for a long time.

Even so, to go from full fitness to being a cripple has been utterly shocking.

In the meantime I've been given 100 Co-codamol, 84 extra strong anti-inflammatories, and 14 Dimazepan - more drugs than a 90s rave!! With this and the doctor's/osteo's advice, the prognosis is fairly good given how grim today has been. And, trying to be positive, it's another useful challenge for me to deal with a bit of a shit time. Hmmmmm!!

Bolting.

Since I have started doing more sport climbing, I have started encountering British bolting on a more regular basis. Except there is nothing regular about it. British bolting is like the British weather that has forced me onto the bolts: Variable, unpredictable, unreliable, is frequently bollox and doesn't do what it promises.

Noticeably often it's not sport climbing in the truest sense, but dodgy-clip-stick-reliant-badly-positioned-mixed-semi-sport-climbing-semi-aid-climbing-relics. Partly due to our trad-orientated heritage but seemingly partly due to the archaic, insular, and sometimes downright cretinous attitudes that perpetuate and promote a heritage that is no longer suitable for that genre of climbing.

It's simple: when I, or indeed most people, choose to go sport climbing, we want to go sport climbing. If we wanted bold climbing with dodgy fall potential, we'd go trad climbing. If we wanted mixed climbing with long run-outs above bolts, we'd go slate climbing (well, the slate climbing that hasn't been retro/grid-bolted to fuck - now there's a more worthy target for the "sport climbing traditionalists"). If we wanted varied and weirdly spaced fixed protection, we'd go on some trad limestone.

But if we want sport, we want sport. That doesn't imply, as some people like to transparently foolishly extrapolate, grid-bolting, over-bolting, adding dozens of bolts to everything, regular bolting on the easiest ground etc etc. There are some modern overbolted routes around and these could do with a few bolts removed just as much as some of the relics from the 80s could do with a few bolts adding. But what it does imply is sensible, proper bolting. Bolts that are well spaced, that don't require clip-sticks unless they're impossible to clip otherwise, that are clipped high from resting jugs, that don't encourage ground-fall potential from clipping nor single bolt failure. As I say, it's simple, sport that feels like sport. Almost invariably, every example of shoddy bolting I've come across, could be fixed by adding merely one or two bolts, and rearranging one or two. It might be impractical at the moment, but it's by no means excessive or unreasonable.

And yes, I understand bolting requires a lot of effort, I am grateful to all those involved - particularly those bolt well. And I will donate to bolt funds when their effects trickle down to my lowly level and I see an effect on the climbs I'm interested in.

In the meantime, my friends with clipsticks and my trad climbing heritage gets me through these inconveniences - but they shouldn't have to.

8/12

Hmmm so there have been some vaguely interesting and vaguely uninteresting developments this last month. Most of which have revolved around sorting out - or trying to sort out - a few non-climbing issues, that might lead to future progress and future plans, and in the background an undercurrent of limestone sport climbing which is pretty much all the climbing I've done in the month. As is often the case the utterly repulsive summer weather is the culprit, and looks to remain guilty for the foreseeable future, but at least clipping bolts has given me something vaguely fun to do. Next month's plans are: More stuff, definitely getting away to Wales/Cornwall if weather allows, and a bit more sport and local-ish trad if (when) it doesn't. My elbow has been a little tender so I'll have to be careful and cunning with that once more...

Das rotpunkt ja?

As part of the general sport-climbing-as-training-for-greater-ranges plan this summer, I've started trying to redpoint the occasional route. Just like Steve Mclure, I've got some places where I'm running out of things to onsight, or there's nothing I can onsight, so I have to resort to redpointing to get some climbing done. I'm a sort of VS Steve Mac, yeah...

So, yeah, I've never done redpointing before, never been bothered. Flashing is infinitely more pleasurable and of course trad infinitely more pleasurable still. But in these times of need, it can fit the bill nicely. The other week was a prime example, in the last week of that grim muggy sweatathon heatwave, before of course all the summer rain came in. Far too hot to try anything remotely inspiring and worthwhile, so as The Eagles and I mused, there is nowhere better to be than dangling on the end of a rope, working something.

Of course, that working something then leads me to see potential, and get a bit into the idea, and wonder if I could actually redpoint something a bit challenging, as well as getting a little bit stronger and a little bit fitter (and a little bit tweakier in the elbow, so I'm going to have to be careful). So I've dabbled a bit more in recent weeks, the weather has encouraged this too by forcing me onto perma-dry and thus steep and hard crags. It's been kinda vaguely fun and something a bit different *shrug*.

Anyway today I did my first proper redpoint, Another Choadside Attraction at Raven Tor. Woo. Hoo.

"Summer"

It is now pretty much the height of Summer, so naturally it is pissing down and forecast to be the dreaded "sunshine and showers" for the foreseeable future or at least the next decade or so. Once again those who take pleasure in dry outdoor activities are labouring under the tyrannical yoke of this country's obnoxiously unpredictable and unreliable weather, and once again those who are most inspired by exploratory trips away to the mountains and coasts in the West have to suffer this yoke the most of all.

Welcome to the grossly unfair battle of Syked Trad Climber vs The Weather.

However this year, knowing that this is an unwinnable battle head on, I have been nimbly outwitting the situation, with advanced preparation. I have been trying to sort "stuff" out in the meantime, contacting lots of climbing partners and getting options for later in the "summer", and also doing sporadic running to keep fit. Hopefully giving me time and readiness if the weather does ever clear up (unfortunately I missed the last good periods due to said "stuff").

Also, more prominently, I have been on the Lime a lot, sport climbing as training for the Greater Ranges. I've dabbled a bit with this in the past, and it was a plan for last "summer" but of course injury stopped play then. Recently my injuries have felt fine and fairly healed (although I had a very slight niggle in my elbow last night, something I will have to heed diligently), and I have discovered that although Pennine inland Lime is generally Turd, it is a valuable training resource. I have been onsighting in the Matlock quarries and in Yorkshire, and working routes on local Peak crags, verily even thee Tor. All of which has got me stronger and fitter, given me some climbing to do when weather and time prevent away trips, and who knows there might have been a bit of enjoyment at some point...

7/12

Halfway through the year fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck fuck fuck fuck.

Esoterica / cancelled trips / exploration / some ticks off the list / UCAS applications / driving and more driving / changing plans / seemingly uninjured / new medication / quarries / redpointing / issues and more issues / inspiration vs reality / oppressive heat / missed opportunities / tempus fugit / fuck fuck fuck.

Incapable of comprehensible blogging.