Steve's Wall

My fingertips were still pretty sore today but it was such beautiful weather that I couldn't not go climbing. Headed to Almscliff which was pretty busy for a weekday afternoon. After the usual piss-off-someone-working-it-by-retroflashing-Demon-Wall-Roof warm-up, I headed down to Steve's Wall. This is a gap on my Almscliff tick-list that I've pulled on a couple of times before but got absolutely nowhere on. It's very morpho (for those not au fait with climbing jargon, morpho (i.e. morphological) is a posh way of saying "hard for the short" - taller climbers will say it's also used to describe problems that are easier for the short (hideously bunched rock-overs etc) but I'm unconvinced that being inflexible represents the same handicap as being unable to reach the starting holds on a problem). I tried all the moves after the reachy sit-start on friday and to my surprise they were pretty straight-forward so I tried the sit-start but once again got nowhere.

At home I had a quick look at Jon's excellent yorkshiregrit.com and saw that in the 2 videos of this problem both times the climbers were starting from a crouch not a proper sit-start. The second time I tried the crouching start today I hit the next hold and the third go I held it and then promptly fell off the next move!

I then did the problem from the move after the sit-start which reminded me that a) it's pretty easy and b) my skin is trashed. Realising I wouldn't have many goes before bleeding would end play I put some fresh tape on and sent it next try. Another tick on the Almscliff 7+8s list.

I tried to get some self-timer glory shots but 10s isn't very long to run over from my camera precariously balanced on a rock and pull on so this is the best of a bad bunch:

After that I had to go home unable to enjoy the perfect conditions due to this:

pissing blood on all the holds. Better let my fingers heal before the next grit session I guess...