A quick trip to hell

Fantastic weather meant I was thinking of a route in the cairngorms that I've been wanting to get on for a very long time.

We arrived in coire an t'schneada about 7:30 after a very early start. Spent some time looking for crag swag, was pretty successful, another couple of trips and a decent rack would be aquired. If you've lost gear on it and want it back, holla at me.

Then we ran up fiaciall ridge, which I'd never been on since our previous epic descent of it last winter, gazing at some hard winter lines which looked very doable when they're not snowed up.

Onto the plateau, checking into a few nice snowholes, over and down to hell's lum, a few people about, loads of people on the shelterstone, all climbing one route in a caterpillar train, possibly the needle, looked class.



Must be very intense in winter indeed.


Wasn't entirely sure where the line I wanted went, eventually figured out where it might be.

6 feet under.



Chopped our way up the neve, a schrund big enough to eat you, had a look, decided falling into the schrund would be bad times, left it for another day.


We then headed down to loch a'an for some bouldering.




Mclellan on boulder.

It was actually really good, we did a pile of stuff, I'm beginning to understand why boulderers go bouldering, as opposed to climbers who go bouldering to get strong for routes.

Particularly fun was a steep roof on excellent holds. Want to do a really excellent arete I saw but the landing was pretty poor, and it was hard enough that I wasn't sure I wouldn't come off. Loch A'an is not the place to hurt yourself. Will go back again with a pad.


Psyched for shovelling.

Grit and rain and chips and drytooling

Went out to the roaches, it hailstoned, did some bouldering.

Went out to stanage, it rained. Spent 3 days climbing Robin Hood's Gully, a 12m Vdiff.
It was awesome. The cave was ace, at first I thought I'd discovered Parisellas of the Peak, however, the rock is a little bit soft. But, you can easily make new holds with your hands so it's not all bad. The next day was sunny and excellent, did various trad things, got bumped up on big air.


Went to almscliffe, it rained, did some bouldering.


Went out to black rocks, it didn't rain. It was awesome, got on some pretty tricky slabs, loved it, will be back for sure. Mclellan as usual was drawn to the worst routes on the crag, "What's that you say? Green gully? Sounds brilliant." but i vetoed the worst of them. Tried to lasso a tree.



On the only non-slab route of the weekend, I fell off a couple of times, Mclellan fell off, it felt tricky.


Went out to some limestone quarry (masson lees), we couldn't find it in the dark, it rained the next day. Were planning to go drytooling on Sub Rosa which looks really wild, instead we just made and ate some chips.

Chalked up

Been making lots of visits to the chalk, 4 times this term, living the dream.


Cool stuff that happened:

1) Discovered saltdean west, previously I'd just been going to the pleasure/thunder dome. Attempted to do a traverse of saltdean west. There's an excellent roof section at the start but the rest is pretty easy.

2) Discovered the way to climb well on chalk and still be weak is to dyno everything.

3) Saw a helicopter when I was on the route, it came in close, thought it must be surveying the cliff for building or something. Then noticed that it was a police helicopter. Bizarre I thought. Eventually the police rolled up on the beach, appartently someone thought we were gonna jump.

4) Strong wind from the south = terror. On one visit, the wind was about 50mph, the waves were breaking onto the steps, about 5 or 6 metres in height. The most impressive thing was the noise of the waves and the pebbles rushing back down the beach and occasionally bits falling off.

Duntelchaig winter

Went out to duntelchaig mega psyched shortly after the cold snap in late december, it was warm but I was hopeful.

I'd hoped the thaw would have stripped back the snow and left a helpful bit of ice in the cracks.

The project was black, seeping and totally unwintery. I was gutted.

The day was salvaged by playing on some icicles nearby. It was about 10C and the ice was keen to detach itself from the rocks, and the topout of 10m of unfrozen vertical heather was unappealing, crampons balled up with mud.


Newmark + ice heading towards the ground.

Climbing without gloves reminded me of cham. It was ace.

The rest of the hols were spent going to various other projects, again conditions weren't helpful and/or I wasn't good enough, yet. Got some useful info and know what I need to do to make it happen, back to training for a couple of months, then crush.

Roll on easter, psyched!

Winter

Was busy for the rest of term, with alot of work to finish off, but got out on the chalk, at saltdean then at telescombe, it was ace. Loads of brilliant new lines waiting to be climbed before they fall down. First time placements and most of them were pretty secure. All the established routes were very juggy, which was interesting and not what I'm used to.

Extreme wild camping in Grindleford.

Got back to Sheffield for some grit, it was pretty banging, did mostly bouldering which was ace. To finish the term, I managed a visit to the climbing hotspot of Swindon.

The Roaches

Were banging.

Johnny on his second trad lead ever, me belaying. Check the z clip out, that boy has skills. Johnny is the one that'd be pulled off by a boot in the face if the guy above him falls off.

I lead some easy corner crack, into which I put all my rack, I figured if I was carrying it I might as well place it.

Then stuck a top rope on Chalkstorm, checked where the holds were and did it first try. It had some wicked moves, I especially liked using a pinky mono to cross the overlap. Could solo it but not sure if I will.

Next day, shunted Obsession Fatale. It lures you in, easy moves to the break, easy moves over the break, a slightly tricky mantle onto a ledge, then you can almost reach the top, stand up on the next smear then I fall. Only onto the shunt, not the 10m to the ground and two broken legs fortunately. Couldn't do the last couple of moves, but I think on a top rope it'd be easier than with a shunt which was pulling me slightly off balance. Tempting to go back and try this again.

Then tried a cool jamming roof crack boulder problem on the upper tier, was really nice.

The London year so far

Been pretty busy thus far, got out every weekend though so it's all good.

Brief summary:

1st week - Stanage - bouldered around on stuff. Eyed Big Air, a cool dyno route, and the aretes (Archangel and White wand). Played on brad pitt to see what v10 felt like. Hard. Be well cool to come up against something like that on a route.

2nd week - Stanage - tried to learn to jam, fell off the start of fern crack, the rest of it was pretty steady. Went to lawrencefield - top roped with the freshers on various stuff, quite liked the style, less rounded than natural grit. Thought about trying a new route to the right of Pool wall, up a cool looking crack, with a tree positioned nicely to bridge on/impale me. Then found out it might have been done before and then wasn't fancying it.

3rd week - Wales - got rained on, went to parisellas cave, was the most fun I've ever had bouldering, all the moves were pretty consistent, no one stopper move. Almost did some traverse. Then went dry tooling on some choss the next day.




4th week - Stanage - Boulderer about, tried tower face direct, did some twin jamming/offwidth crack route, jamming is getting better, Duncan lost one of my cams but gave me one of his in replacement. Got trapped on top of the deliverence boulder after climbing up in the dark and not being able to see the holds to get back down, had to ab off, using Duncan as a convienient anchor on the other side of the boulder.


A bit stanage centric, but life is great.