Sept B plus dans la Forêt

Just back from a quick trip to Font via Kyloe In and Edinburgh. Conditions were pretty hot and sweaty for a lot of the visit. I surprised Chad and Humble by getting up early on two days to find good conditions for crimping hard but unfortunately even with spotting/encouragement from Humble dragged out of bed at 8am for the second session I failed to keep my feet in contact with the rock on what should have been "the go" on Rubis sur l'ongle. It's a stunning line and I will definitely go back for it.

The day before that after a leisurely extended warm-up at Rocher Canon and some scary falls off Rêve de Pierre (thanks for catching me when I totally missed the pads Chad!) we headed to Cuvier. It was the quietest I've ever seen it and conditions felt perfect. I watched someone having a few goes on the sitter to Carnage and when he got it done and left there was no-one under that wall at all (anyone that's been to Cuvier will realise how rare that is). I moved the pads over and some other people also came over for a go. I started like they were - pulling on with the hold to the right (on la Bérézina?) but although I was easily making the distance to the crimp I wasn't hitting it properly. I was surprised by how good a hold it obviously was - well I suppose if you're going to chip a crimp you might as well make it a good one....

I then tried a couple of times with the jump start method and on the first time I held the crimp I moved my feet up and pulled though to the first sloper which was a whole lot better than I expected so pulled my feet up and went for the next hold which also felt huge. My feet cut loose and after a vague attempt at putting them back on I just campused up to the boss, matched it and reached up to the incut finishing holds hardly believing I'd just done one of the most famous 7B+ problems in Font in about 10 goes.

Unfortunately my crack spotting team were busy climbing elsewhere (although Chad did see me top out) so there's only this picture from Chad of one of the earlier attempts to illustrate the moment...



Really pleased with this because although I've climbed a few 7B+s in Yorkshire, I've never done one so quickly (i.e in a session) and to do it in the forest was an unexpected bonus.

all gone a bit quiet

Just realised I've not posted on here for a while. This is because instead of doing much climbing I have been mostly writing/editing a paper.

But it's been submitted now so I guess I should say what else I've been up to. Caley early morning raid (too warm at 9 am is not a good sign). Thought I'd done some random 7B prow at the Chevin but it felt like I hadn't really finished it (I knew it doesn't top out) and it does finish one (tricky) move higher. Lost a lot of skin slapping for sharp holds. Brimham (not so) secret venue trying undoubtably one of the best 7Cs on grit but nails for those without a big wing-span.

That's about it really.

Birthday at Earl Crag

I've been out a couple of times since I last posted. On Friday once the mist had cleared I headed up to Caley. It was damper than I hoped but I got most of the moves done on Ju Ju Club depsite the slopers at the top being greasy and damp. I'd forgotten how much this problem trashes my skin and elbows though. On Saturday I went over to Rochdale to go out for Thai with some of my friends and on Sunday I got a tour of the classic problems at Hobson Moor quarry from Jo and Ben. Some of these were very crimpy and felt pretty hard in the sunshine!

Today it's my birthday so I headed to Earl. After the usual warm-up I wandered over to look at Superfly, but the monos were hurting my finger and the ledge you top out on looked very green. I then spent the rest of the afternoon falling off various combinations of holds on Lager, Lager, Lager/Dave's groove. I need to decide on a sequence as at the moment I can either go with my right up to the sloper and then fall off bringing my left into the groove or cross through to the good bit of the bottom of the groove and then fail to hang the sloper with my right. It's a brilliant problem so I'm keen to get it done before it gets too hot.

Sunny Widdop

I was going to go to Earl today but as I got to Cowling I decided to carry on and head to Widdop. It's always dangerous driving for an hour to go to a crag where there is only one problem you want to do but today was especially so as my car exhaust is blowing and I discovered the boy-racer loud roars were accompanied by exhaust fumes coming into the car. Sunroof and windows open seemed to stop me feeling too light headed though!

I got to Widdop and conditions were perfect, sunny but with a breeze to keep the temperatures down.



Fight on the Black both had chalk on and was still in the shade. After a few easy problems to warm up I pulled on. First go I held the break and put my hand up to match. This wasn't as greasy as last time but still didn't feel great so I dropped my hand back down and moved my foot up. As I rocked onto my right foot I realised the next hold was a bit further away than I thought and so I only just got my finger-tips onto it. Fighting the panic that I was going to blow it I bumped my hand up shedding lots of skin and an exciting top-out later it was dispatched. No self timer glory shots I'm afraid - just this arty pic of the starting hand-hold.



I then wasn't sure what to do but the sunny boulders on the opposite side of the valley looked lovely so I slogged up there with 2 pads. I did a couple of nice roof problems, wandered along to look at Last Boy Scout which looks great but is pretty high with a not-great landing - definitely not a good place to fall off on your own! I staggered further to Boggy's Roof which looked good but hard and then saw Dove Stones in the distance. This was too appealing to ignore as there's an amazing picture of this 7A overhanging prow in the new bouldering guide.

10 minutes of bog trotting later I was regretting not having spare shoes and socks in the car and a bit later I got to the crag. The prow, Pro Diablo, was as amazing as it looked with big moves between large edges. After working out a crafty heelhook I quickly got it done and then all that was left was the long slog through the tussocks and heather back to the car.

Bustin' Blocs

After Friday night's downpour everything was pretty damp on Saturday and Matt wasn't psyched to go out on Sunday so I spent most of the weekend watching the rugby. It was a pretty grumpy weekend in the Jenkins/Meenan household as Wales seemed to rely on the fact that Italy couldn't kick penalties, France forgot how to score tries and despite Ireland handing them penalty after penalty basic defensive errors hurt Scotland badly. On Sunday evening I wandered up to Caley to see how damp it was and to my surprise Blockbuster was pretty much bone dry.

I got up at the same time as Nicky this morning and tried not to notice how damp it looked outside. Walking up to Caley in light drizzle is hardly a good start but the rock was pretty dry and it was clear from the chalk on the holds that it hadn't rained overnight so I carried on up. Blockbuster was in perfect condition and although the air was a bit damp it was colder than it's been for a while. After a quick stretch to warm-up and a few jumps I held the first pinch and got my foot on only to not quite get the crimp. I gave the holds a brush and a couple of attempts later had my fingers on the crimp. I tried the right hand 'guppy' and left hand cross through method for the first time and my fingers were on the bottom of the flake. Feet sorted and right hand up to the flake and it was in the bag, the holds on top were a bit damp but you're not going to fall off there!

Really pleased as I've jumped up and down below that bit of rock many times over the years and so it's good to get it ticked. Also this is the first 7B+ of the winter for me. For the ethically curious I started off a single pad:

Sunny Whitehouses

The crap weather finally changed yesterday and Matt had left a message on my phone the previous evening to say he was keen for climbing and wanted an early start. It transpired that this was before he went out drinking so when I phoned him in the morning he was a little bit the worse for wear. It also wasn't as super-sunny as forecast so we agreed to meet at Whitehouses after a more leisurely start.

It was pretty windy up there at first but the sun was shining and if anything it was a bit hot. I repeated all the things I'd done there before and got a bit closer to doing Peshmurga with some new beta but the crimp was eating my finger-tips and so I sacked it before I went through. Matt cruised up Rageh Omaar once I'd given him some beta that didn't work for me but was more lank friendly..

I headed to Caley on the way back which was predictably soaking. Blockbuster was almost dry though. Randomly I met the bloke who posted short-arse beta on a thread I started on UKB and he showed me his sequence. Unfortunately he climbs 8A and so when I tried the same sequence I didn't crush it with the same ease. I did feel like I could do it in better conditions though. I even got up early today and went up there but it was even wetter than yesterday.

It was good to be out in the sunshine again though - here's a picture (with the old, less successful beta for Peshmurga).

Wednesday at a Wet Widdop

It was super-sunny this morning and instead of taking the sensible option and heading to Almscliff I drove over to Widdop. The amount of green visible on the boulders didn't look promising on the walk-in but I pressed on anyhow. Amazingly the holds on Fight on the Black were dry-ish and so I pulled on. After I remembered the sequence and how exactly to hold the start handholds I hit the break a few times but failed to stick it. I should have perhaps noticed that every time I failed to hold the break all the chalk on my left hand tips was gone. After a bit I climbed up the back and negotiated the green slime on top of the boulder to clamber down to see the break. When I put chalk on the hold it looked OK but as soon as I gave it some brush-on-a-stick action the chalk got wet. Optimistically I dabbed a chalky hand on it a couple of times and went down for another go.

This time I stuck the break but when I moved my other hand up to match it I realised that the only semi-dry bit of the hold was under my left hand. My right was covered in slime and so there was no option but to drop off. Very frustrating as if the break was dry I'd have topped it out and not have to drive all the way over to Widdop to fall of the same holds another time!

You can see the damp patches from my finger-tips in the overly chalky break here: