Tuesday 2 October 2012

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.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

nice one Andy, heading into winter strong..whats on the cards?

Andy Turner said...

God knows!! Will have to see how it goes. Catching up with you boys after last year.

Peter Holder said...

Hi Andy, I was at the Works again today and noticed that the line to the left of 'Steves Corner' has bolts in it now.
Thought you might know if they are ready to use now?
How are you getting on on the Project?

Cheers
Peter Holder