Arggghhh!

This year has been a roller coaster so far. Hence the lack of bloggy action.  After a winter of not getting much done on anything other than a piece of plywood I felt like I was due a break this spring-summer.  My trip to France to get back into a bit of route form early last month was meant to mark the start of 2013 route sending season. A few 8a onsights and an cheeky 8b or two were meant to be just the warm up in the process of getting back to full fitness. How wrong that has proved to be.  

 Le Toit de Ares turned out not to be the 8b+ it was given but a cool piece of climbing all the same and nice to do quickly (Photo: Helen Cassidy)

Whilst route settng and testing the problems for the SYBC at TCA Glasgow I began to notice a sharp pain crossing lateraly through the bone at of the base middle finger in my left hand. After trying to work with this for a while I realised that my season, which had only really just got started in May, was to be put on hold again for another 6 weeks! 

Unlike past injuries where I might have sat back and done not a great deal, I have used my time more constructively to get stronger physically. (Think WideBoyz without the crack) While I haven't pulled the shoes back on yet in earnest I feel like I have seen gains . If not? Well, at least the guns will look good on the beach!

Watching the boulder world cups, coaching the TCA Youth Squad, supporting my young competitors on their way to the YCS final and watching as everyone else gets stuff done has been frustratng but more importantly inspiring. Alex Gorham and Dan Varian have been pointing the way with new problems close to Glasgow which have pricked my attention as future boulder projects. The psyche is mounting. It really has been too long since I have strung together a good set of hard moves!

Today the finger is starting to feel better and i can feel Rock climbing season 2013 will be rebooting this weekend. GAME ON!

 On Rasta Vaut Rien 8a+/b Gorges du Tarn when things were looking good (Photo: Helen Cassidy)

It has been another hard winter here in Scotland. The long dark nights, the rain and the work commitments have once again meant that rock activity has been limited. Same old story huh?! 

Since I got back from the USA the time has flown by. October was a month of daydreaming that we had started our trip to the RRG a month later as I witnessed, from afar, just what the cutting edge climbers can do with lots of time and lots of good conditions.  

Back here in Scotland I have been busy and ill in about equal doses.

Though the schedule all involves climbing, it is amazing how little climbing it leaves you time for yourself. The playful fun of coaching the TCA Glasgow Youth Squad is balanced out yin and yang style by the paper work that goes on behind the scenes. There has been the regular route setting and the more enjoyable but more pressured organisation and setting for TCA competitions. There have been 3 of those in 2 months. I have also be lucky enough to find myself on a steering group which is going to provide the sport of bouldering in the UK a great foot up in terms of grassroots youth development. 

Post trip blues left me unmotivated for indoor training not ideal for the British Lead Climbing Championships that are usually a big motivator for me.

I thought I could improve upon the disappointing performance at home by trying the national championships of another country. Tickets booked for Dublin, I fell ill with a chest infection right in the base of my lungs.  Despite a constant cough and no training I did go. Thanks to the relatively low standard I made finals but once I had to actually try hard all energy deserted me and I dropped my podium place to the bottom of the finalists.

The cough resolved and the cold began. The cold resolved and a cough reappeared. Talk about frustration. Ill or not it would be nice to have got out climbing. This is Scotland, I managed about 1h 30. Enough to tick a problem I have never done before. Not enough to satisfy an addict. Why do I live here exactly?

I am probably just frustrated that the last few months of my 20's have been a disappointment. You get reflective at these big number changes and I guess there are a lot of goals that I wish I had achieved in my 20's that I haven't. Of course the goals are still there and 30 is still young enough to achieve them, but it makes you think. Life's obstacles will remain in the way; I just hope I can start managing them more maturely in my 30's so I can achieve the things that really matter to me.

It was a nice confidence boost to win a local boulder comp in the last weekend of my 20's even if the big guns weren't there. A little confidence booster is always nice. The new decade resolutions start on Monday, my birthday, like I mean to carry on, as I walk in to  El Racó de Misa at Montsant. 3 days - 1 goal; kick-start the next decade.    

I'm not long back from my road trip round the North East States. A trip which was both my honeymoon and first taste of America. I wish I was still there to tell you the truth. 

Election time in the USA!

3 weeks, 3 areas and 1600 miles of driving. A wonderful journey but not long enough to truly get to grips with any one area. The 28 degree heat didn't help matters, and to some extent the enormous choice of stunning routes didn't help either.  

Testing myself on Southern Smoke 8c+ I definitely could do it but time and temperature were not on my side this trip (Photo: Ina Neumann)

I have written more extensively about each of the areas we visited on my personal blog. Rumney was my personal favourite, a kind of blown-up, world class version of Dunkeld, my boyhood home crag. The Red River Gorge was everything everyone says it is. The weather there was particularly disappointing as the style suited me well. Had we gone a few weeks later in the year I may well have had more to report in terms of big ticks. The New River Gorge is less well known this side of the Atlantic.  The grades there are HARD and the style takes a bit of getting used to if like me you aren't well versed in the art of vertical sandstone. The saving grace to the ticklist in the New was the stunning Summersville Lake and its amazing Coliseum buttress.  The only major route I didn't do there, an 8c, has me inspired for a return to West Virginia.

Below are some photos that give a flavour for the trip. You can read more about each are via the links above.

All photos except that of B.C (kindly taken by Brad from D.C.) are by Helen Cassidy.

B.C. 8a+, Summersville Lake. A fun crag, steep impeccable sandstone next to a beautiful lake for post climbing swims

The "weird foot photo" on the technical groove of Urban Surfer, 8b, my consolation prize at Rumney. 

I seem to have spent most of 2012 so far bemoaning the weather, the amount of work that I have had on my plate and the time constraints that come with organising the wedding of the year. 

Climbing on rocks is apparently dangerous (Photo: Tim Morozzo: morozzo.co.uk)

For a while there I got pretty lazy with my training, finding it difficult to motivate myself after umpteen hours in the wall, the wrong side of the desk, with no natural light to speak of.  With not a glimour of psyche for Dumbarton either, my standards definitely slumped.  But about 9 weeks ago, (spurred on by the realisation that my 8a scorecard was the least healthy it has been in a long time) I began a dedicated training program with a well defined progression of goals building towards the start of September.  My honeymoon US rodatrip; Rumney to the RRG.  Did someone say "psyched"?

I know, I know, it's not all about the scorecard. 

Work still gets in the way A LOT, but by getting in early morning and doing at the very least a fingerboard or campus session every weekday, I have been seeing things going back in the right direction. Even if my evening sessions are interupted by "life" stuff I feel more comfortable knowing that I have at least done something.  I think I am going to struggle for fitness in the US and my on-rock time this year has been way too low, so I am not expecting any miracle sends.  I do however see this trip as a great springboard back into form and a building block to finishing 2012 a whole lot better than I started it.  

Oh and I must not forget that it will also be a great trip away with my new wife.  It is my honeymoon after all!

I haven't been inclined to blog much of late as I really haven't had a great deal of big ascents in the bag nor projects on the go that seemed worthy of tapping the keyboard about.  As ever the Scottish weather has confused Spring with Summer and Summer with Winter.  All this makes it hard to commit to, and stick with projects.  I seem to have amassed a number of things that I have started but not finished across the length of the country, from Wester Ross to Yorkshire.    

I am working to a training plan which should hopefully see me have a successfull trip Stateside come September and the first phase of this involves upping my bouldering game.  Training all week and grabbing the rock sessions whenever I can (not enough) is the name of the game.  The rock time has been split mostly between bouldering and trad climbing and as a result I am having a huge withdrawal from my true passion - steep sport routes.  

Anyway Here is the run down of the last few months:

Bouldering

A flirtation with Tourniquet 8A+ (7C+?) at Kentmere led to a split tip that has lasted 2 months and another project-in-waiting.  Mega psyched to return for that one.  

A friend's 30th birthday weekend up North saw my first visit to the Ruthven Boulder, which is an ace hulk of stone.  I did almost all the problems including a flash of Dave Macleod's Dude Direct 7B+, and had a near miss with Mike Lee's QED 7C.  The warm day and small crimps just kept spitting me off the last move.  Another "I'll be back!".  
 

Not having the mental determination for a siege on Dumby (yet) my local venue of choice has been The Kennedy Boulder in Arrochar.  It took 3 days to get the weather, midges and skin just right to get up anything worthy of excitement.  The improved conditions on visit 3 and a tactical switch to the Quantum, my new favourite shoe, saw me finally haul myself up some stuff with repeats of Dave Macleod's Hotline 7C+ and Thermostatic 7C.  I have 2 more 7C+'s to go back for before business is closed at that particular location.

One of the things that is truly great about British climbing is the vast variety of climbing styles that are practised on this one island.  The variety of rocks that we have here are absolutely incredible and nowhere is the variety of geology more profound than in North West Scotland.  This is the most beautiful corner of the UK.  Bays of silver sand beaches look out to archipelogos of small islands in one direction.  In the other, heather clad rolling hills turn into dramtic mountains which climb steeply up from sea level to 1000m.

Sitting Atop One of Scotland's Best Boulders - "The Ship Boulder"

In this dramatic milieu can be found Torridonian Sandstone, Lewisian Gneiss, Schists, Conglomerates, Ryolite, Quartzite and rocks I don't know the names of.  Although the area is often shrouded in mist and rain it is no less dramatic in such conditions.  For a climber the rain is off-putting.  But, when the sun is set to shine there for more than seven days in a row, in this paradise, you have to get there.

A classy Font 6 something clampy number at the Dinosaur area

In March, Scotland's typical good spring weather window came early.  This break in the weather coming pre-midge season is a double blessing and I was psyched to get up there and enjoy climbing around the boulders in Torridon for a couple of days.  Nothing harder than 7A+ went down for me, but nor was I really trying.  I tickled some of Dan Varian's additions and swore to come back in cooler conditions.  I did Malc's Arete, which is a bouldering monument to Scotland's greatest boulderer and a friend.

Sweating away on Pallet Knife 7B+

Never one to miss the oportunity to climb some routes though, I did have some hard stuff in mind.  I had been told about a potential 8b or harder project  equipped by Paul Thorburn on the Gneiss crags near Poolewe and was given the green light to try them.  The Gneiss of Wester Ross is my absolute favourite rock in Scotland, only defeated by tufa-ridden euro limestone.  I was psyched.  I bagged the route in 4 tries after a couple of failed tussles with the reachy crux.  Stalks worked out to be 8a+, not as hard as predicted, but 3 stars and well worth seeking out just like all the other fabulous and well equipped routes in the area.  Wester Ross is also a trad haven too, so go there even if you hate bolts!

Checking the line of Stalks 8a+

On the way home I bagged another first ascent by inadvertantly climbing a route I thought had been done already at Moy Rock, a conglomerate crag not far from Inverness.  The Fear is currently a loose 7b+ or 7c but with a bit of sika, will turn out to be as good as any of the excellent routes at this venue and the crags hardest.  Thanks to Andy Willby for that one.  3 rock types, 4 great days, sometimes Scotland is great!

All photos Helen Black.  More photos and another take on this trip can be found on my personal blog.

Well my first experience of competing at the Climbing Works International Festival was quite an experience!  

I have never been an amazing boulderer but I have won a few local boulder comps and dabbled with the BBCs in the past so I thought I would be able to hold my own in the qualifiers at least.  Needless to say that with TCA Glasgow filling my working days I have been thinking about, creating and occasionally climbing a lot of plastic boulder problems of late.  So I was bound to do quite well... maybe I'd make semis!

When it got to 8pm and we hadn't yet left Scotland and our qualifying session was at 9am, such thoughts deserted me.  All I could think about was not embarrassing myself in front of all the wads!

And so it was, my CWIF never really got started.  Arriving in Sheffield at 2am, awaking bleary-eyed 5 and a half hours later and not choosing an easy problem to get started does not work.  I got grumpy as you can see from my blog. 

Lessons learned: travel well in advance, get a good nights sleep and choose your problems on the day wisely.

Travelling to Sheffield wasn't all bad though.  I got to play on the grit - it still bites me harder than I can bite back at it.  I got to watch some amazing displays of bouldering prowess from other 5.10 athletes like Ned, Mina, Alex Puccio and the uber impressive Shauna Coxey.  And most importantly of all, I got really psyched!

 As for the TCA Glasgow team? We finished 7th overall.  That is something to build on I guess!

Big thanks to Jen Randall at www.jenrandall.co.uk for the use of the pictures!