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Blimey that's an old boot.
I know,. And it was doing fine up till yesterday. Must've objected to the warmth of the day 😀
The rock is really rough and friction is great. It doesn't get the traffic of Idwal, Tremadog or The Pass, despite the easy access and southfacing aspect. Its a lovely place to climb
A nice day out yesterday on Clogwyn yr Oen on the Moelwyns. - we went to do Kirkus' Climb, 4 pitch VDiff.
Nice area that. Not been to that particular crag but been to a couple nearby and really enjoyed them.
Anyone free Saturday and/or Sunday this week?
I will be in the Keswick area but could also do north Yorkshire or somewhere like Crag Lough. Leading about E2 just now but happy to climb any grade as long as it's quality. Strong preference for trad over sport. 🙂
Trad climbers are a different breed, it scares the shit out of me.
Anyone else been out and about in this good weather?
Not the summer I was hoping for (poorly MIL) but we've managed to get to the Lakes and I've had some decent days out.
Had a day soloing at Grey Crag and particularly enjoyed Oxford and Cambridge Climb Direct. Rounded up a partner for a day at Castle Rock of Triermain which was nice but bloody hot. Got the bus from Keswick to Gatesgarth, walked over to Pillar, soloed New West Climb then trotted out to get the bus back from Seatoller. A properly amazing mountain day. Found a partner again for two days around Buttermere, The Philistine on High Crag probably being the highlight. Off to Langdale tomorrow. Weather due to break a bit for the weekend but really can't complain!
Shout if you're in the lakes from 31 July to 3 August...spin
Or if you fancy a detour to the peak this weekend. I might be able to get a day free
Just realised I didn't report back after Italy.... Had a great week with my son. It was way too hot and we should have stuck with the Dolomites plan, but we went to Garda...
Climbed every day bar 1 and got loads done. Nothing even remotely hard, but loads of great multi pitch routes and mileage. A few stretchy bits and loads of experience for him without getting too spicy.
No decent photos as the cliffs are hugely treeey and so totally not photogenic
Drank insane quantities of water and crunched endless hydro tabs. Harness, clothes, chalk bag belt and shoes were constantly wet with sweat.
Now trying to work out autumn plans....
And buying more ice screws!
Anyone else been out and about in this good weather?
Ticked off a dream of white horses a couple weekends ago, stuck behind a very slow group of 3 so just scraped through before sunset. What a wild route!
Trad climbers are a different breed, it scares the shit out of me.
I don't like it. I took a x2 leader fall, you probably heard me. Never again, I'm a top-rope bitch. Auto-belays give me the willies even, I want someone behind me who can lock off.
I've finally cracked and started route climbing after years of pretty much exclusive bouldering outdoors and in. Basically my 60 year old body is struggling with the limit, often powerful, moves that bouldering can demand.
I've been leading sport indoors for a while and will be moving that outdoors soon.
I also did intermediate and learn to lead trad courses in the Peak over the last couple of weekends.
Interesting stuff. 2 big take aways. Placing gear is a subtle art. Placing gear is blooming tiring especially when you are faffing loads because you don't know what you're doing!
Suddenly a climb that is 3 or 4 grades below the one you just easily top- roped is a sweaty pump fest as you fumble about trying to get some gear in place
Psyched to do more though!
It's quite possible though to be a decent trad climber and a shite sport climber. Much less common than the other way round of course! You can get a long way as a trad climber with good technique, the ability to switch off the "this is dangerous" claxon and being really fired up for the route. On a trad route you move up to a hold, shuffle around until you're comfortable on it then try and work out where the next gear is. The sport climbing will just keep moving from one poor hold to the next until a shake out is reached. This is a skill I never learned so never got better at sport climbing. Also couldn't get my head around the going for the move even though I was definately going to fall.
To be honest after the events in kaly earlier in the year, I feel safer on my own gear. At least it's a known entity
Interesting stuff. 2 big take aways. Placing gear is a subtle art. Placing gear is blooming tiring especially when you are faffing loads because you don't know what you're doing!
I pretty much only trad climb these days. I find it takes me to more interesting places and I love the addition challenge of protecting routes and the lower certainty of success.
It's quite possible though to be a decent trad climber and a shite sport climber. Much less common than the other way round of
it's also possible to be a really shite trad climber and a really shite sport climber. Anecdotally, obv...
Taking that to it's logical extreme...
I'm equally shite at:
Skiing
Snowboarding
Trad climbing
Ice climbing
Whitewater kayaking
Sport climbing
Bouldering.
Hence the username. When I plateaued at one sport I generally tried something else
The only odd ones out are football and surfing which I'm really really shit at.
I'm equally shite at:
Nowt wrong with being shite.
Although I did (and have stopped as a result of for some time now) find a problem with being wilfully shite when the climbing partner wants to improve and keeps "encouraging" you to improve.
I ended up stating "how about you shut the **** up and just me let me climb what I want" at which point I thought. That's a bit much, probably not suited as climbing partners. That outburst took quite a while to build with quite a lot of me saying "yeh, I'm not bothered about improving".
I'm only really interested in super easy trad bimbling, even if I start again can't I'd bother with trying to be any good. Which doesn't work when the person you're climbing with want to climb at harder grades than me, which is nearly everyone 😂
Done some great climbing with my son this year but the useless ne'er-do-well has only gone and got himself a bloody job, so autumn is looking a bit lean.
If anyone fancies getting out in the Peak, Wales r Lakes then let me know.
And even more so if anyone fancies a trip clipping bolts in Sicily or Greece then shout. Or if you already have a group but with uneven numbers.
Cheers
I used to climb with someone who knew he could climb technical 6a on sight, anywhere. So he’d gleefully have a go at super bold E5’s and E6’s so long as it was a 6a and he always got up them without drama. Terrifying and exiting in equal measure to witness. But he was hopeless at sport climbing as had no interest on going on routes which required any work or pushing on technical difficulty. It made for an interesting partnership!It's quite possible though to be a decent trad climber and a shite sport climber. Much less common than the other way round of course! You can get a long way as a trad climber with good technique, the ability to switch off the "this is dangerous" claxon and being really fired up for the route. On a trad route you move up to a hold, shuffle around until you're comfortable on it then try and work out where the next gear is. The sport climbing will just keep moving from one poor hold to the next until a shake out is reached. This is a skill I never learned so never got better at sport climbing. Also couldn't get my head around the going for the move even though I was definately going to fall.
I've just joined my local climbing and mountaineering club. it's like a weird dating game setting up climbing meet-ups...
Wrinkle V Diff on Carreg Wastad today, bloody great fun. I first did this in Sept 1986 (so says my well-thumbed Geoff Milburn guide to Llanberis Pass) and again at some unrecorded date around the turn of the millennium. So to go back and revisit it today, and find it a stroll, was really quite gratifying. Proper enjoyed myself, and so did my second.
Arriving at the top of pitch 1
Just topping out on pitch 3
Not hard at all, just a good day on good rock in a great location. Pretty much 10 out of 10
I've just joined my local climbing and mountaineering club. it's like a weird dating game setting up climbing meet-ups...
Meeting strangers in carparks at odd hours?
More like dogging than dating when you put it like that…
still, had a good time, dusted off the trad cobwebs and remembered how to build an anchor etc. even led a severe..
Wrinkle V Diff on Carreg Wastad today,
It's hard to beat a multi-pitch route in the mountains. I think the best day out I've had this year was New West Climb on Pillar.
New West Climb on Pillar.
A mate & I went to do that 15 years ago (overnighted at Black Sail YHA) as a fitting prelude to him completing the Nuttalls. As it turned out, the route was fair dripping wet all day and neither of us made much of a mark on the 1st pitch, so we skulked up Slab & Notch to the top instead. We'd carried a rope, harnesses & some rack all the way from Wasdale Head, over Black Sail to the hostel, all up to Pillar and all the way back down again. We used them on the Slab/Notch 'just because' in the end. Hey Ho.
It was bone dry when I did it a few weeks back. Some amazing positions for the grade.
