Chocolate and climbing. My two big passions. Perhaps best kept separate, but I couldn’t resist a chance of combing the two!

 

Actually I always combine the two, with some kind of chocolate always in the bag of essential climbing kit, but when I got asked to come and climb a tower made of chocolate with a chocolate waterfall I wasn’t going to refuse! The latest attraction at Alton Towers was a climbing tower modelled on the famous Rocky Bar, if you know these you’ll know they are pretty nice! The wall has real chocolate in its paint, and a real chocolate waterfall, though, unfortunately, for health and safety reasons it’s not recommended to have it pour directly into your mouth!

 

So I went down to hang around, clamber about, and taste the chocolate experience. Though I didn’t actually fancy a lick of the wall, I did get to leap off the top when health and safety weren’t looking, and as a reward I got 500 rocky bars. So the question is, after these 500 bars.

1/will I be able to climb harder than 6b+?

2/will I still have rocky bars on my list of chocolate favourites?

 

http://www.facebook.com/liverocky

 

 

But don’t get too excited, unless you are five years old and live in S10!

 

I built a traversing wall at Westways Primary School over the Easter holidays. Entreprise gave me a great deal on their holds and I set about creating a few traverse routes on their natural stone outdoor wall. Routes tested by my daughter.

 

Four challenges 1/rainbow. 2/yellow. 3/blue and purple. 4/brick edge only. The brick edge traverse is nails. If any of you kids manage it then I’m well impressed!

 

So to all you parents, or future parents, now you have a reason to move from S7 to S10!

OK, so blog efforts have been poor for a while! But there are reasons for that, which I will go into later. But basically a combination of being too busy and too injured has meant that I have done nothing of interest for an eternity. But what exactly is interesting, and what is the point of writing a blog in the first place?

 

Anyway, faced with some time off the crimpy world a new direction was needed in order to find motivation. Maybe now was the time to crack the lifetimes ambition of the one-armer. Not that bent arm start or flicky cheat method, a proper 3 seconds hang and then gradual pull through all the way. Completely beyond me at first in January, but now steady on each arm. Next step will be two from an edge. Then I’ll be really strong, and have a new status down the wall. People will want to hang out with me, share circuits they have made up and girls will be impressed. I knew there was more to climbing than just going out on that rocky stuff. Thank God I found it before it was too late.

There has been a lot of talk recently about performance footwear, new models coming out from different brands. There are some sticky rubbers around now. However, without doubt I could not have managed this incredible benchmark without my blancos. The fine balance of support and sensitivity was essential when stepping off the floor, and then the precise fit was just enough whilst moving through the air. Undoubtedly the supper sticky Stealth helped massively creating upward lift against the air, and the secure lacing meant that at no point did I feel my feet were about to blow out. One arm pull-ups are just the same as rock climbing, its all in the feet!

 

The summit of Snowdon last week. While most of the country sat in drizzle including Llanberis, the tops were out for a sun tan!

 

Worth a run – up the railway path, then along the Snowdon Ranger Path, awesome descent, bit of a slog up with about 900m height gain but worth it.

As in a winter that is any use to us. Us being climbers. So far its been no use to anyone, last year it was good for kids building snowmen and good business for sledge sellers. At last we have those cold clear crisp days where you remember what the gritsone was invented for. More used to warmer days it feels like cheating! Jerry’s traverse easier than it’s ever felt, even the drop down traverse a path. But the big sloper slappy stuff I still can’t do, that takes a little getting used to, not translating well from indoors and limestone crimps. Hopefully there will be some time. Yesterday (Friday 3^rd Feb) was amazing, but it’s forecast snow today!

 

If you go out know that anything in the sun is perfect, if it’s not, or hasn’t been at all, it’s probably frosted up and unclimable without a brushing.