Scottish Injury Season begins!!

Or continues. Or increases.

Okay so my elbow has been fucked all year. Fine for trad, okay for sport, bad for bouldering and indoor training.

No problem - for winter training and bouldering I'll do some gnarly pressy pushy gastony stuff.

Okay so now my right shoulder is tweaked.....do some theraband.....okay that's clearing.....reach under a desk and dislodge my left shoulder....now THAT is tweaked.

No problem - for winter training and bouldering I'll do thin fingery crimpy technical stuff.

Okay so now my left hand ring finger A2 pulley is tweaked....tender to touch....tender to crimp.

No problem - I'll just chill out and ease off any training.

Okay except I'm going to Siurana in 4 weeks and unlike the more exploratory trips to San Bartolo and Ariege/Cavallers, I'd like to be climbing fit enough to push myself a bit.

No problem - I'll do lots of fitness training and general exercise.

Oh....wait.....lol yeah like I can fucking do that :S

Okay so what can I do??

The elbow is manageable by taping, massage, stretching, warmth, eccentrics. The shoulders are manageable by theraband exercises and massage. The finger is manageable by as much rest as I can tolerate, hot/cold treatment, massage, stretching, careful taping. All of them are manageable by taking care and avoiding specific climbing that aggravates them.

The fitness problem is unavoidable except by continuously banging my head against the demoralising brick wall of absolutely physical limitations, and by some nimbly outwitting at the gym (I think swimming is out due to shoulders).

What else??

Weights - I am quite syked for weights at the moment. After all it's got lots of NUMBERS to aim for and just like climbing that's the only point of it, what more motivation do you need huh?? It's a way to push myself physically without damaging the tweaky bits and possibly even benefit them by training antagonistic and surrounding muscles. Obviously it is nowhere near as good climbing training as climbing training, but it can work the core and be a good prep for CV work, and if it's the exercise I'm doing that's a fuck of a lot better than not doing it.

Falling practise - still a huge deal for me, and still something I definitely need to train and am currently doing so a bit - a few falls each session at the wall, and I can definitely ramp that up. Okay so I've got to choose the right non-aggravating route to get to the fall zone, but the more I can do of this the better. If I get physically weaker but mentally stronger that would probably be better than the other way around.

Stretching - god I get so fucking bored by stretching, I'd rather do 2 2 hour gym sessions a week which I bloody hate, than 10 mins stretching each day. MUST TRY HARDER.

And of course the usual gentle climbing stuff - outdoors preferably, indoors stamina only. Keep moving but keep diligent and monitoring my tweaks at all time.

Scottish Winter Season begins!

Well in a moment of madness and perverse determination, I am sticking around Scotland for a while longer, partly in the hope of ekeing out more trad radness in the spring, which means I have to weather another winter. Brrrr my old bones are wondering whether this is a good idea, but then again the weather this weekend shows some promise - it is glorious in the North West. With a minimal response for possible climbing partners, it is time for another Misanthrope Mission to kick off the season's bouldering. So I'm digging out last year's universal failure of a bouldering ticklist and trying to get some of these final mental blocs done. I've done a few, removed a few, added a few:

Pump Up The Jam, various - Skye - yes, romped along it in a heatwave :)

Razorback, Romancing The Stone, various - Reiff -

Various - Reiff In The Woods - yes, done Haven which is enough.

The Ship Boulder - Torridon - yes, done Squelch & Swamp Monster which is enough

Long Winning Streak (+SS?) - Inchbae - yes, done the normal problem, SS looks good but might not go back.

Blankety Blank - Torridon - too hard and skin-trashing

Various - Cammachmore

Big Lebowski, The Dude - Ruthven Boulder

Brin Done Before - Brin Rock

Deep Breath Arete, Hamish, various - Glen Nevis - nope, DBA was uninspiring lip traverse with bad landing, Hamish looked stupidly sandbaggy, did lots on the other side of river.

Pyramid Lip - Glen Ogle

White Matter - St Bride's Wall - yes, surprise ascent on a showery summer's day.

??? - Loch Sloy

Swap Meet, Ace Of Spades, various - Glen Croe - nope, probably too hard with a fucked elbow.

The Bottler - Loch Lomond

Nameless Pimp Toy - Stronlachlar

The Chop (7a eliminate version) - Weem

Various Corrie Boulders - Arran

Suck My Woolie, Snow White - Garheugh

Gale Force, various - Laggan 2

Abracadabra, Craigmaddie

Probably enough to get on with ;)

~{§}~

On to the weekend, and maybe winter isn't all that bad... A car with a view.

Firstly I got to the ever-reliable Torridon, where the rock was mostly crisp and dry, and the ground was mostly sodden and sub-aqueous. I'd forgotten just how fundamental BOG is to Scottish climbing! The Torridon sandstone is brilliant and makes me wish I lived locally in winter as well as summer - this overall area no doubt has many harder lines that would inspire me over many sessions, but on a flying visit it is harder to push my limits. I did try with Blankety Blank but couldn't even remember how to do the start let alone shred my fingers on the crux above. So I stuck to the classic Ship boulder and it's plethora of shallow bog highballing classics. Never has such a soft flat landing felt so intimidating, partly because some lines stray over the few harsh boulders, and partly because some classic lines go so far OUT through the steepness, mat positioning is an obtuse guessing game - especially with my flaccid old Pods. Swamp Monster and Squelch were aptly-named reward enough.



Snowy mountains might be utter bollox for climbing, but they provide a nice backdrop... A boulder with a view.

Secondly I got on with some unfinished business. Since the forecast was glorious the whole weekend, it obviously rained a lot overnight. No need for an Alpine start despite the Alpine backdrop around Assynt. Reiff In The Woods was touch and go, especially in the haven that shelters Haven. Not wanting to waste the epic round trip, I resorted to abseiling to clean holds (there's no issue with "damp sandstone" as there are no flakes crozzles or nubbins, just solid rounded edges and a solid arete). This worked and I blasted past last time's high point. Brilliant problem.

Finally it was onto the underrated Inchbae and it's plethoric scattering of proper blocks, unfortunately only a few of these are big enough for proper blocs, but those few are really very good, fine rock in a fine situation. I'd nearly done A Long Winning Streak last time, but ran out of daylight on the unlisted sitter. This time I made sure I got on with the original problem, which was well worth it, one of the best technical wall problems in Scotland. Crucial multi-use inverted thumb-sprag? Yes please. And that was enough for now.

~{§}~

Since I started writing this in the Forest Way bunkhouse, I'd like to give a shout out to the following fine establishments:

Old Gairloch Inn - good food, good beer, and have been very helpful with late diners.

Mountain Coffee Company - good coffee, hippy vibes, and cakes so large they have their own gravitational field.

Sail Mhor Hostel - good value and nice simple relaxed vibe.

Forest Way Bunkhouse - small but perfectly formed.

The Ceilidh Place - good food, good beer, good breakfasts, and a useful if pricey bunkhouse.

Kinlochewe Hotel - friendly bar that compensates for a cattle-herd bunkhouse.

Torridon Campsite - toilets showers and the best value in Scotland: FREE. Much respect.

Making Wester Ross climbing all the more enjoyable and logistically feasible :).

Training season begins...

Got the Ratho for the first time in a very long time. I actually can't remember the last time I did route training. I'm sure it was before the Pyrenees....before pre-trip TCA training....before the days pottering around the Central Belt and Sheffield....before the punter-flu bollox....before Cornwall radness....before the nice trips to the 'Deen....it was sometime back then, possibly...

Suffice to say it is feeling rather wintery out there (wet today!) and it is definitely time to keep training and keep active. That is my general plan for the winter - keep active at the wall, gym, outside bouldering, routes, trips abroad, short runs, swimming, anything. My elbow is still injured, obviously, it may heal soon or it may not, but it means I just need to do general training rather than pushing myself hard. Indoor routes, the gym, and outdoor climbing fullstop being ideal, rather than the dubious temptations of TCA.

So it was good to get back to Ratho. I thought I would both be out of practise due to the lack of wall training, and feeling on reasonable form due to a week away. And thus it was - I did fine. My fingers struggled a bit with the cold, I got pumped as always, and also my lungs were aching from the general effort. All to be expected although the lung thing is a bit weird....then again my fitness is a bit weird i.e. completely fucked. Despite that I did a few challenging routes and felt like I was treading water okay. So that's fine for now.

Hello from errr sunny Glasgow.

So I'm back, from the Cavallers trip that turned into an Ariege and Cavallers trip, which was actually pretty good given the diversity of areas we got to explore. The last couple of days were a great day on some classic Cavallers routes (a mixture of delicate slabs with funky chickenheads, strong cracks and flakes, and towering 40m pitches) and a draining day driving 360 km in search of dry rock (we found a tiny bit) and general recceing (had a look at the Santa Linya cave....shockingly impressive, a humbling experience).

Overall it was a good trip....the cunning plan of retreating to the Ariege worked well, the days on Cavallers granite were great, and the variety and some fine routes were rewarding. I climbed okay during the trip, I didn't push myself very hard, partly due to moving around a lot, partly due to the often slightly greasy conditions, partly due to initial unsurity about the granite climbing (I'm pleased to report that both Cavallers and Auzat have proper grading rather than Pedriza-style nonsense). But I did some good challenges and felt fairly climbing fit, also my elbow and shoulders felt better throughout the trip with the more mileage I got in.

Now it's back to cold wintery Scotland and coming up with the next cunning plans. I definitely want to get abroad more this winter, and also get more climbing done in the UK overall, seeking out the warmth and suitable crags rather than just restricting myself to Scotland. More on that later. As always I will be looking for syked partners to explore with - often the biggest challenge!!

In the meantime, the grand total of 4 self-explanatory photos from France and Spain:

Hola from Spain, at last.

We are now in Spain and have indeed been in Cavallers, after a gruelling 6 hour drive (3-4 hours on windy mountain roads) due to missing a road junction, nearly getting swept away in a tsunami of sheep, trying to get settled into our booked accommodation with the Catalan owner's dad and a total of one word comprehensible between us - "hola", and finally climbing beneath the bloody massive dam at Cavallers. I am so tired I can't even be arsed to have a second beer, so am blogging to pass the time until 10pm bedtime!

Our stay in Ariege was both pleasant and worthwhile in the end. The climber's gite at in is a real treasure: Comfy rooms, good kitchen, ace shower, breakfast in the morning, even decent coffee if you double the amount of grounds the friendly owners put in ;). Definitely a base I'd come back to. We made the best use out of the weather - hearing about floods in Lourdes and rubbish weather from Siurana to Costa Blanca reassured us we had made the right plan B. Combining late starts, some optimism and a bit of luck, we were able to avoid roof-angle rotpunkting in crusty caves, and after a couple of damp starts managed to climb daily and sample limestone at Sinsat, Rochethingy De Chateau and Carol, gneiss at Appy, and in particular granite at Auzat.

The latter we'd recced on one of those damp starts and estimated it was worth prolonging our Ariege stay for - and damn right it was. Granite slabs....but unlike the low angle large crystal no holds horrors of Pedriza (and probably Cavallers from first impressions), the Auzat granite is fine grained, with positive holds, and the perfect steep slab angle that makes those holds necessary - big rockovers on crimps and nubbins, none of this padding bolleaux. Some of the most fun granite I've been on, and another reason to come back to the area and combine it with some of the more imposing limestone we didn't get to.

We have two days (in theory a possible morning en-route to the airport if I can persuade stinky fox that a 6am start is really a sensible plan). At least one of those will be a full day at Cavallers, maybe the other will be too or maybe we can mix it up with a bit more Cavallers and a bit more limestone. The very typical granite at Cavallers is a good change but not my favourite rock so can work as a good combination with the lime....we shall see...

Hola...err...bon soir from Spain...err...France.

Desperado Red Edition, random French lager, and Kwak 8.4% this evening, so this blog post might be even less coherent than normal...

We are in France. Not Spain. Nor Glasgow. Spain was the plan - inspiring Pyrenean granite up at Cavallers. Slabs and features and all the usual granite goodness (not my favourite rock but I find it intriguing enough especially on sport climbing) all scattered close to a mountain reservoir. A cheap apartment in the local village and plenty of winter sun limestone nearby if it got too cold or rainy up in the mountains. Plan A seemed infallible...

....except for a swirling miasma of hurricane strength low pressure grinding it's way across Spain and spewing it's torrential rain showers over the Pyrenees like a bukakke shoot on a Ferris wheel. Arse bugger wank etc etc.

So Plan B has been to cancel the apartment and retreat to a climber's B&B in Ariege, crossing the border which was characterised by an ancient outpost in a random village and an incredibly fluffy rug dog on the French side, into an area forecast to be sheltered enough to escape the worse of the deluge.

Maybe it has, but there has been enough of a mild deluge today to restrict activity to a recce of rather good looking granite slabs at Auzat, and then some bog-standard Euro-lime at Sinsat. Still we did some climbing, it's quite muggy which while unpleasant for climbing is beneficial for my elbow and shoulder tweaks, and got some inspiration....

Since Cavallers looks to be getting a lot of rain and thus might take some time to dry, we might extend our French border crossing for a couple of days into next week, then head South. Or we might end up rotpunkting polished bollox in chossy ever-dry caves and watching more Starcraft 2 videos WHO KNOWS.

The punteration.

I have recovered from the punterflu but not from the associated residual (or is it chronic?) punterdom it seems. I've managed to keep active and get out climbing a few meagre times, but it's definitely been ticking over at a subterraneanly low level rather than ticking the all important Big Numbers *snort*:

Weem: Slogged up to Aerial Crag. Super grim as I hadn't been active for two days and my legs wouldn't work at the top. Easy mileage in a pretty nice situation. Did the job.

Glen Ogle: Slogged up to Mirror Wall. Super grim as...errr my legs are fucked. Got pretty angry and thinking a lot of FUCK YOU thoughts at the world and society. Lovely situation and a nice bit of rock, but some problems with seepage so had to faff around a bit. Learnt that I don't like leading routes if I've inspected them, even if it's only to dry off seepage. Okay day.

Trowbarrow: No slogging! Warm day at a sun trap. Haven't been there for years. Did a couple of steady routes, tried something a bit steeper, got pumped, got fucking cowardly and slumped onto a peg instead of doing one move to easier ground. Disgraceful. But okay day apart from that.

Houndkirk Tor: First time on grit for years. Cool day but still vest-on conditions and pretty greasy. Didn't expect much and just went for an easy circuit, which worked fine. Ended up with my skin more trashed than my elbow for the first time in ages.

Plus some sessions at TCA trying to redress the fucked skin / fucked elbow balance, and a couple of gym sessions confirming I am fat as well as weak. Moan moan whine etc ;). Still at least I am moving so if I keep at it I'm sure I'll end up getting some fun stuff done soon...