Marginal Gains

Today I finally managed to climb my project at Masson Lees. It's been a bit of a battle but a series of little things has made it possible.

Getting a rest before the lip trip.

• Step one - was having in-situ quickdraws - mostly because trying to strip them out was IMPOSSIBLE! Thanks to Lyon Equipment who supplied us with a huge batch of quickdraws with maillons.
• Step two -  not clipping the first 3 draws under the first roof to reduce some rope drag.
• Step 3 - rope drag still a problem - so decided that a two rope approach might work really well, 1 rope to get to the first lower-off and then a second for the rest of the route - a massive improvement.
• Step 4 - I managed to get more than half way along the lip of the cave and I was still struggling with clipping the last few draws - too short! So I extended them a little bit and hey Presto - I reached the chains!

I've been trying to think of a name for the route for the last week when I knew I was getting really close.
Marginal Gains M11- (or something like that?!)

Thanks to Simon Chevis and Tom Broadbent for belaying duty.

And good effort Si - he did the first ascent of Blind Luck (M8+) today too - big send day!

Heading towards the chains - 2 clips to go.