Two Sides of a Coin

 

Its monday and i’ve been Skiing for a week before now. A nice relaxing week without a rock shoe in sight. Incidentally i used to think these were painful until i put my feet in Ski boots for a week, their design seemingly being inspired by the makers of the thumbscrew and iron maiden. Anyway its Monday and i was too knackered to climb yesterday and i’m beginning to get tetchy that i haven’t climbed for a week (bit of an addict you see) I’m also aware that i’ve been through an Airport yesterday; airports love to fly different diseases about the place and sit them next to each other and defenceless individuals for hours on end with recirculated airflow. I could definitely feel a cold coming on. 

Luckily my body was playing ball, it’d realised it wasn’t facing downhill and squatting. I set about trying my project of the moment. I’d had a productive session on it before going away and got half a sequence worked. Trying this sequence i did the foot move i hadn’t done last time but it felt hard. After about an hour of getting close to the cross move crux i started to try a different sequence, this quickly came together in about 30mins and I realised the problem was no longer a 4-5session goal, it was potentially a 4-5minute goal. I had about 20 minutes of daylight left and a flash flood of motivation and pressure washed in. I had about 2 hours of climbing behind me and it was on the same moves so tiredness wasn’t far away either. I still had an efficient start sequence to decide on as i had 2 methods. 3 goes gone and i had that sussed. Big rest, quick brew and the light really was fading now. This was my chance, i pulled on and felt good, floaty good, i sailed through the beginning of the crux, got my foot up, didn’t have the pinch perfect but i squeezed hard and it understood. Foot didn’t quite go on right. sod it just give it a go it might stick, touch the hold at the end of the crux, hit it nicely but left foot has made its last purchase of the day and is heavily overdrawn, it bolts and i go with it. My next go is technically better but my foot pops and the humidity has come with the darkness. Denied.

 

Its Wednesday and i’ve been pretty ill for the last 12 days i’ve attempted to get back to my project but have felt like a welterweight been shoved into a heavyweights fight to make up the numbers, there is no crush only skin and tendons working. I’m walking upto flasby fell with Katie on a flying visit to meet my folks who are staying near for the week. I’ve been wanting to try Rhythm for years ever since i heard Steve raving about it at Kilnsey when he found it. It’s only had one repeat since by Clifford and the tiny vid of him doing it has been on my pc for 6 years, knowing it might come in handy. (there is also a vid of Dunning doing it but its private) The walk in is Sommelike in muddiness from the snow melt until we get up on the fell. desiccated cracks of crepuscular rays are punching through the clouds and I have a discerning sense that i may not be back here for some time, if life has its way of offering up the usual distractions. Its a long walk too. Arriving at the Rhythm boulder it looks about 3feet high. I begin to question whether i am infact in yorkshire or wales. 10m later my question is answered. 

One of the most stunning pieces of rock architecture reveals itself as the ground drops away, it looks better in the flesh than in photos. The clearing of the trees and view give it a Bouldertopian feel. I pull on the warm ups on the block with a trepidation i haven’t felt since trying to climb on antibiotics in font in 2009 after catching Strep throat from something in a Sheffield night club. Am i in the clear or was all this just a nice walk? new shoes don’t help, i feel light and ungainly in my feet, brilliant i’m going to climb like Keith bradbury, Woods or Traversi for the day. Front wheel drive here we come. Safe to say i’m not ill anymore anyway. I rocket about on young Dave’s nose until the top out comes (great problem) The time comes, i jump on rhythm and fresh skin is a blessing on the holds, having climbed on sandstone all winter it feels strange but i quickly remember what to do, hook skin on holds then pull.

I look at the holds from the top of the boulder which appears to be a climbers Rorscach test, interpret it how you like but there are only really 2 proper holds there and you need about 4. Cliffords way looks like it’ll mince skin if you rip off the crimp. I’ve heard dunning went more out right to a vague dish/pocket/crimp (its barely anything so is bizarrely all of these) This looks nice and getting up from below it feels very usable, i end up using this and a bizarre arrangement for my LH that involves pretty much just pushing my skin into lots of tiny dimples and a pebble. It works and i nail the last move first try. Skin 1 rock 0. Getting into it from the stand it takes a while to suss the body position and i rip off the crap holds a few times until i suss the body position out. The stand comes together quite fast and i’m happy, i haven’t even tried the sit and it looks both easy and hard, big hands no feet. It completes the line like a visual exclamation rather than being only a full stop without that little extra fleck of ink !.

The ramp is easy, about 7a so i know i have a good chance, just as that realisation comes,

the sun comes out for 20minutes and i stop trying it, i pass the time swearing at the sun and do my best Canute impression. It gets the message and my next go ends with me dropping off the last holds with numb fingers. Another Brew and another crunch time. 30 minutes of light left, not much skin left maybe enough for 2 more goes but 1 really if i want to keep it intact for county projects. The coin lands on its other side today. It feels grippy and i float up it hitting the holds perfectly. I’m at the last move, calm, i punch up and get the hold, nothing rips like it so easily could of and i top out like Keith Bradbury, all arms and no legs.

The last 2 weeks have taught me about biding my time more and that you can’t win them all in the closing moments of the game. Of course the joy of it all is that i can go back to my county project too. boulder problems not boulder moments. But every boulder has its moment. Its perfect time to complete it. and like the sweet spot on a bat it feels bloody good when you hit it. Rhythm was one of those for me, and its made up for the week before.

Katie took this picture just after i did it and i think it captures the mood perfectly.

Rhythm is such a beautiful line. Great effort Steve. 

Lately the dreich weather up North has been forcing me to twiddle my thumbs alot. I also needed to clear out some shoes so some old daescents of mine volunteered as donors  after having a horrific bandsaw accident. a new set of anasazi velcros became the grateful recipient to create this awesome shoe. Now any fan of the velcro will know their only weakness is their uppers, as toehooking and scumming used to hurt and it'd wreck the cowdura fast. The trouble is that the shoes are so great for everything else that i end up wearing them all the time, so hopefully these shoes will work well to bust out on the specifics. I've lost my kneebar pad too in the last 2months somewhere so i made another one quick smart, and its actually far better than the last. Another old velcro saved from the bin!

This.

To this in 10 mins and for about 50p, it works as well as any other kneebar pad i've used on boulders.

I nipped project in the bud yesterday which i started trying in May straight after Dandelion. After getting really close on my 4th session. Dropping the upper move after the hideous crux it basically escalated into mental war. I took it on in my happy, don't give a shit period, after doing Dandelion but it rapidly became more and consumed all the joy from that and belittled it. I've never dropped a problem after the crux in such a state before either. I just found myself there and wasn't quite ready for it. many sessions later, after not getting through that move it was really bugging me. And i could see my year disappearing infront of me. May, June went. July i left it and only went twice in perfect conditions. It didn't help. I stopped running and hit the board undercutting it left right and center like a midget boxer. Then after a long week back in Cumbria and some specific training on my systems board I came back armed with a secret weapon. Staintons strongest, Dave Jones. So with fresh muscles and Marra psyche we hit the crag. Both of us got ridiculously close to our projects. Dave was consistently getting to the last hard move of Dandelion, looking really solid. This was a good spur to stop mooching and try and find another gear. That day i got very close to the crux and just got unlucky on a few things. Dave got smote by the nearliness too. We Chilled out and trained/ pottered for the rest of the week. Saturday was a non starter for me as conditions were awful. But in the distance i'd sighted the rarest of things, a freak easterly brought on by the rain covering the south. Easterlies whip right into badger and make it alot more pleasant to be there and try really hard. Tuesday came and a pre match day meal at Zeugmas. I had a clear head and no stress, just the desire to do myself justice and to see this mind-leech off.

 

It's called Bewilderness to carry on the Bill Bailey theme

And it feels like it should be pretty safe at 8B+ unless easier beta is found for the crux. I've also got pics of the holds so if they ever change i'll know. For me personally it has been the hardest thing i've ever done, but much of that has been mental and i didn't have much margin when i did it yesterday, i snatched and rattled my way up it and made far too much noise.

 

I wrote a few things whilst trying it and i've attached an excerpt below. The rest are kind of diary ish so they'll stay with me.

 

My saving grace is that i always have another chance. Climbing is the best sport for this. In all other sports you can be left lamenting past screw ups for the rest of your life, you’ll never have the chance to compete in the same final twice. But the rock waits, it is always up for a fight. Or thats what your brain does to cope, it personifies the objective, it must defeat it. Where as in actual fact it is just a completely pointless bit of rock which makes up about 0.00000000000000001% of the planets land surface. It couldn’t be any less significant. Will heads turn in Dhaka or Shanghai when it is completed? No. And yet i’m happy to sacrifice so much and to pollute to travel to this blip on the planets surface. This blip now means alot to me. It is a physical manifestation of everything which has lead to my current form. If climbed it will represent what i can do on rock. I dont know if i’ll find anything like it again as finding things like this is harder than climbing them, history tells me i will and that this will be digested by my rat and diluted into a grey water of emotions stemming from all the colour in me now. Do i care about the time it takes me? no. Could i have climbed it already? yes i’m sure there’s a happy version of me in one of Hugh Everetts universes, there’s probably a few. Can i see past all that? yes but its hard to break down all these components and find a good solid reason as to why this blip of rock now has so much bearing on my life. I think it is only because i have tasted success on it only to be knocked back that my hackles are up and a vendetta has been born. It fights well too, well enough for me to need a break from it. My left arm is tearing itself up on the crux. I shouldn’t have tried it yesterday but obsession brought me back to it seeking release from its clutches, i just want to have a beer and a curry without feeling guilty...

 

 

Churnet from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

Here's a quick vid of some nice problems near Alton Towers/ The first i can only assume was someone's project judging by the cleaning and chalked holds. Unfortunately i only had the one pad and billy no mates with me or it would've been quite safe. After a warm up on the pride I had a play. Considering both these routes just involve pulling downwards on different sized holds they are suprisingly fun, or maybe its just my high boredom threshold. It was a bit spicy as there was a triple stepped (triple threat) landing. Stupidly i put my pad on the rocks and it was at an angle. Meaning that after one of my initial forays i fairly rolled my bad ankle. Luckily it didn't go completely and after a bit of huffing, puffing and a sit down, then walking in circles then sitting down. I was ready to try it again. With the added incentive not to fall off (rocks exposed, pad now on the flat bit) I stuck the awkward slot and fettled to the top. Ground up. I'll leave the naming to whoevers project it was, unless it wasn't and i'll think of something. Dunno how hard it was but somewhere around 7B+/7C would make sense. After that i popped over to Wrights and had a great time. I managed to not fall off Warchild (7C) but this really needs a top out. Jumping off at that height is fanny central, especially with the Pride, Thumbelina and Cornelius all in the vicinity. I was ropeless for the day and couldn't clean it. But next time i go back it'll be getting brushed. It looks like it'll add a bit too which will make it an uber classic highball. After doing a few other classics I got stuck into Quill (i think Cofe named this but its better than Ryan's problem, as the lazy git didn't name it) Turns out Ryans grading of it was almost as fruitful as his naming. I certainly can't think of any harder 7C+s and it seemed only slightly easier than B.O.P at Millstone. From a sitter this'd certainly be solid at 8A, i did the move to and out of the backhand but i'd lost enough skin on the little crimp (which lost a little side notch whilst i was trying it, making it longer but unnestlable and the old bit is still the best). the move from this to the back hand crimp is brilliant. Infact this is one of the best problems i've done in a long time. It's a shame it gets a bit lost in the width of the wall. Finally i had a quick play on Out There. I only had the roaches guide and it's not in this so i started trying it from under the bottom lip. This'd make a brilliant micro 8A+/8B on good rock and 2 brutal moves to get the RH in the nasty pinch slot, and then you get to do a great 7B after that. All in all it was a lovely day out, even if my ankle is complaining a bit. 

Here's some pics courtesy of Mark Savage of a new line in the Simonside area i nipped up last week as i had some work in the area. Its bloody good fun and has a sitter left to go (Shotgun...see what i did there) the boulder itself is a work of art, only touching down on threee plinths and with a perfect beach bivvy under it if thee are a traveling fugitive. I can't find a name listed for the crag anywhere (have checked OS and nmc online guide, as well as a few walking sites) So I'll propose Rocher Moaty for this bloc for now unless anyone knows different?

The bloc has a jaguar pounce to a 1 arm arete guppy, and it'd be rude of me not to give it 7C+ in true county tradition, what with The Shrubbery being swamped since i did it 3 years ago i don't think this area can stand much more bouldering attention, good job there's nothing left around there but moss, pines and rusty circa 1990 carling cans. I took my MTB up too and got a bit of singletrack action in on the way home at 10pm with Mark. Awooga seemed like a nice onomatopoeic name to sum up the last move.

Earlier in the day i climbed the wall just right of mysticeti via a lupino lane esque running start, you then double drag a 1 pad ripple and push on up the ripples. The jump is fairly ungradeable, easier than lupino in terms of speed and coordination but you latch a much smaller hold. after that its a cracking 7A with the crux at the top. Might call it the Holy Grain. It was pretty fun anyway and certainly got me some funny looks off the odd walker who came by. Interestingly i did both this and Lupino lane in Daescents, i'd like to see parkour types on that top out! Not a bad day for a pair of "trainers" really, MTB in, Holy Grain FA, then single track descent!

A very relaxing short trip to scotland in 2011.

Behind The Iron-Bru Curtain from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

Well it’s been a busy week for me. I have been secretly hammering a project into submission (metaphorically not literally) for the last 2 months..ish. I’ve gone from finding the crag, to noticing a possible line, to holding the positions, to doing the moves, to doing the problem, which is now called Dandelion Mind. Start to finish it’s been the most enjoyable project process of my life and one which i feel privileged to have been allowed to fulfill. I don’t like talking about projects to much especially in public as hyperbole can whisk you along, it creates expectancy and you can get nervous. I had none of that on this. I knew i was shit ; it was hard. Those weren’t going to change fast, but if i worked hard then there might just be an overlap between the two which i could cross and sneak up the problem. So over the past 2 months i’ve been running, eating right and training hard, and most importantly resting alot. I feel like the last 6 sessions have flown by in a blur of learning, squeezing and tiredness. I did the problem yesterday on my 7th session on it this year (i fondled the holds last year to get an idea of whether it was possible but i wasn’t in the mood for this then. This year i wanted to step things up more and take some risks, last year i just punted about in the low 8′s getting about 50 of them done but none took more than 3 sessions, this was mental collateral in a way against future injury, because my finger injury at the end of 09 properly screwed me). In a way yesterday was a big return to mental form for me. The end of playing it safe cotching along and the beginning of taking more risks with difficulty. 7 sessions isn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things, my mind is happy upto 50+ on a problem so long as i am making minute progress.

Regardless, the last 7 sessions have been some of the funnest of my life, the problem drip feeds a happy feeling inside me as i bounce around through its bizzare moves, footless swings, kneebar! and brute power crux. It’s not sharp and it is simply a matter of crushing it. It’ll feel easy to world bouldering beasts as if you are comfy on the crux holds it’ll come together fast. Initially I wasn’t comfy, far from it, the crux holds felt small at first and way too close together. Half pad sidepulls which are barely incut would be mean at rubicon, but this crag is waay meatier and the wall is just over 50 degreees overhanging i think. Sufficed to say they required some manningTFU. As a result there’s now 5% less of me walking round the world since i first tried this (and i’m still far from ripped compared to my contemporaries). 4 weeks on the fingerboard helped a lot too. Suddenly the sidepulls were crushable, and i was bloody loving it.

The Kneebar on this problem also heralds a new era for faggotry (and a BIG thankyou to Busby and Pete Whittaker for sorting me out with a fiveten prototype kneebar pad, which is wicked), As without the kneebar the problem would qualify as UK font 8C, and that is not a grade which should ever be bandied about without acknowledging the mighty G. With it the problem is not only possible but it could even be 8B. As yesterday Ned (Beta Destroyer) Feehally found some slightly easier beta for the last move which was the secret to success (that and perfect conditions and the fact that I felt well light) but this has certainly dropped the problem from mid-high 8B+ (the last attempt in the video shows me getting painfully close this way) to low 8B+ possibly even 8B. All i am waiting for now is the opinion of the Dark Lord of british bouldering, the mighty Adams (we have a history of ruining each others problems with better beta). Between the 3 of us we have done 95% of the peak 8′s and we are differently skilled so if it has any more secrets they won’t hide for long. Unless new beta comes to light, this is a safe bet for the hardest problem in the peak. And more importantly it’s massive, steep, totally independent and not even a sitter.

In other news, me Ned and Luke nipped out to burbage on tuesday the day after my last session on this and my ticks for the day include happily ever after (7A+? flash) Nefertiti (7A flash) Navana (7A? ground up) living in oxford 7B? bouldered ground up above pads. Ned’d trained in the morning and left to go back for some more training in the avo, i stuck about and spotted Luke whilst he walloped Boyager, this gave me the inspiration i needed to wallop Voyager, first try of the day, i’d had 3 very short (3-5goes) sessions on this in predominantly bad conditions (think shirts off and shorts) before going to Italy 2 weeks ago and had ripped a huge flapper. But sufficed to say it felt rather different to Dandelion Mind, it is only hard due to its sharpness, the actual physicality of the moves is nothing special. SkinB more than 8B. which is gritstone’s style i guess, skin, knack and luck. Either way it has been eclipsed by how happy I am to have fulfilled a life goal of finding, working and realizing long held personal pipe dream. To me it embodies what hard bouldering should be about. Pulling like a mule and appropriating failure.

The UK waits years for decent, non eliminate, big, independent 8B+ blocs and two come along at once! (7 of 9)

I celebrated with some positive reinforcement via my stomach, after bouncing around the foundry with the warm smug fuzziness of success inside me.

It's been a good winter of development in the peak (http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=60695), i thought i'd write about one of my favourite moments of the winter.

 

it was the last days of November and my mind was set on the Roaches at the time, i wanted to get back and look at a project i'd checked out earlier in the year which i thought was a total cracker, classic gritstone power, short unrelenting and no footholds. Armed with some sazi velcros that have clocked over 40 font 8 scalps in the last year i was pretty confident i could push into the smears in a shoe i was practically symbiotic with when bouldering. We (Neil Mawson, James McHaffie and I) had already had a great day on a windy skyline, doing things like crystal voyager and Art Nouveau and many other classics along the way so i felt under no great pressure and it was the start of the grit season, so i had nothing but time.

 

 

After 10minutes of feet popping and it generally feeling like i was going nowhere but heel first into frustrationville i had a little rest and pulled on. I'd worked the sequence earlier in the year and i still had the incredibly basic beta in my head, the next few seconds whizzed by in a fantastic blur of hitting holds perfectly, feet staying and triple filtered focus whisking me up the problem in a blur of what was to become one of my fondest bouldering memories.

 

As a result the one of the 2 great Nth cloud projects has become the Nth power, and its somewhere around soft 8A+ at a guess, it could be easier it could be harder, all i know is that you'll bloody love it if you find that perfect go, and it'll drive you mad if you don't.