Final Preparations

Training at Rope Race

As competition season get’s rapidly closer its time to put the finishing touches to my preparation. All summer I’ve been looking for a venue to add the comp style prep I desperately need. We tried Blackpool, which was amazing for the length of routes and angle but the holds kept coming loose. The wall really needed to be ply clad and with t-nuts to make it work. That way we could kick in as well. Lots of sessions at the Works and White Goods followed just trying to get the mileage in. I was still seeking a venue close by though that I could use anytime of the day so once the dark nights started creeping in I could step up the pace. Stand up Alan and Sharon at Rope Race in Marple, Stockport. The wall where I first started climbing 15+ years ago. They had a downstairs bouldering room which wasn’t getting used that much and were happy to hand it over for us to dry tool in. The added bonus for them was it was something else for their customers to use.

A few furious hours of setting and the wall was ready to go. 

As if by magic an old friend of mine Scott Muir got in touch shortly after. He’d just designed a set of wooden holds for his climbing company ‘Dream Climbing Walls’ and wanted someone to test them and give some feedback. I’ve known Scott for getting on ten years I’ve never seen anyone like him for the psyche to train, he developed prototypes for what became these holds when he was training to compete.

The holds came through the post in 3 big boxes a couple of days later. Unwrapping them I was gobsmacked at the amount of time and detail  he’d put into making these holds. They were things of beauty which is hard to believe for something made out of ply. I was scared to use them they look so nice. I must say I was a little reserved at first how well they’d sell, as surely it can’t be that hard to make wooden holds at home yourself? But after 5 weeks of using them there my favourite holds on the wall. They give you so many options with stein pulls, side pulls, slots etc and the beauty is if you really want to get worked these things are what you need. The placements in the holds are so positive the first thing to go is always your arms. Why is that any good? Well if your trying to get really pumped the last thing you want to do is fall of a marginal hold a few minutes into your circuit and loose all the pump you’ve built up.

The holds are now starting to look a bit less shiny and perfect, they’ve shed their  sharp edges - now there bedded in you can really go for those big moves with confidence and get pumped out of your tiny mind. I can’t wait for the World Cups now!

Powerdab

On Powerdab - photo Andy Rutherford

 After climbing my own Guardian of the Underworld last year at The Works  I was keen to try and go one harder. I decided to try and extend Guardian by coming out from the very depths of the cave to join the existing route half way through the roof. This job was postponed when the roof just became too wet to hang under. As much as its amazing to create new routes to climb its bloody hard work hanging upside down for hours on end drilling and bolting the things. At the same time I was drilling the extension Greg and Paddy were creating what was to become Powerdab.
This was right before the winter came good so I gave up on the extension choosing to wait for sunnier days whilst Greg managed to squeeze in a few sessions on Powerdab before he too concentrated on icer things.
Next came the Bolting scandal that saw most of the works stripped, with all except my extension and Guardian being vandalised. Must have been too hard for the perpetrators to get to???? Powerdab got all its draws stolen and unlike the rest of the gear they were never returned. This did not deter Greg who kindly donated more of his draws to the cause.
On the weekend of the meet I'd organised to get folk psyched to compete in World cup events the whole of the Works was a flurry of activity with routes getting sent, left, right and centre. Greg was keen to get back on Powerdab and disappeared with the Scottish contingent. Coming back a couple of hours later with the route in the bag but non commital on the grade.
Having recently joined the Marmot team they were keen for some photos for some posters they were doing for Kendal film festival so I agreed to meet Andy Rutherford down at the works a few days later. Whilst waiting for him to turn up myself and Pete Holder thought we'd have a quick explore of the holds on Powerdab. After a quick bolt to bolt lead I was surprised to climb the route in 2 halves on only my 2nd go. Walking away that day I was keen to get the route done on my 3rd redpoint attempt. Coming back a week later this wasn't to happen, for some reason I was in a really shitty mood and totally wasted 3 goes getting no where. Not happy.
Around came the film festival weekend. I'd arranged to meet up with Pete and Harry Holmes again just to see if I could work the crux before disappearing for duties at the festival that night. Having had a massive week of training and feeling totally wasted I warmed up then managed to fire the crux long reach first go so that only left one thing, I had to keep climbing and finish it. Shortly afterwards saw me shouting a girlie scream at the lower off. Really pleased to get the route in the bag as its now a Marmot poster. Always bad karma I feel to be photographed on a route before you do it.
To get the route so quickly came as a complete surprise, maybe its more my style than long enduro routes?? Time now to get on a euro route and see how the fitness fairs and then the World Cups.

DryICE Tools

My latest blog is actually as a guest on the DryICE website blog. These guys make some brilliant training tools - you know the kind with ice-axe style handles and loops of rubber to hook over holds a the wall.
They are also one of my new sponsors - so I'd like to say a big thank you to them for their support and go check out my blog about the Ice Factor comp and my profile on their page.

http://www.dryicetools.com/news-blog/

Enjoy and I'll be back soon with more tales.

Ice Factor Video

Just a quick post today, I'll writing more about the weekend and the comp soon but thought people might like to see this film that Dean Dalton has put together, more to come from the other Dalton, Ed soon!

This was the first competition of the season, off to a good start I think.






Just a quick reminder too - I am currently trying to raise funds for the competition season for both the ICe World Cup's and the Winter Olympics in Sochi - if anyone has even a small amount of cash they would like to contribute then I'm be really grateful. I've set up an Indiegogo page:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/world-cup-ice-climbing-plus-sochi-olympics/x/4998648

White Goods return.......Stumpman

Dave Garry at the end of the Stumpman traverse - avoiding the tree.

In a search for new routes to have a go at I've been revisiting White Goods in North Wales the last few weeks. I've been there on numerous occasions in the past and climbed everything I thought I could do, without getting into the realms of upside down antics.
With the World cup season rapidly approaching I was keen to try and hone my skills on routes that used natural placements rather than the drilled pockets of Hodge or Masson. So now having spent the last couple of years sport mixed climbing I thought it was time for a visit to put a few more routes to rest.
The crag has seen a lot of action the last few years with lots of new routes going up particularly in the easier grades and all the steeper routes now have in situ quick draws which makes the whole experience a lot more pleasant.  Ready Steady Hook springs to mind as one of those routes and definitely worth more than one star. The route that had been on my radar for a while though was a line Rob Gibson had bolted a number of years ago down at the Power Pact area which was to become Stumpman after the 1st ascent by Tim Emmett (he gave it M11). I'd been in this cave before with the man himself Mr Emmett on my last visit a couple of years earlier and was faintly terrified, not by the steepness of the place but by the looseness. The place is literally waiting to fall down, you're constantly looking above your head checking there's no hanging death waiting to detach itself on your head. I swore never to go back.
Anyway with the desire to do Stumpman I convinced myself it would all be fine. So last weekend myself, Dave Garry and Matt Pritchard headed in there, and surprisingly the place was still standing! With a little persuading Dave agreed to put the clips in and work out the moves, I watched from the safety of the tree canopy. When it was my turn to climb even the entry section of climbing scared me, lots of big blocks perched on ledges and the customary White goods shale on every ledge. Committing to the roof traverse saw me stopped in my tracks after just one clip convinced the whole roof was about to collapse. I asked to be lowered to the ground.

Both Matt and Dave had their goes whilst I was feeling pretty ashamed of my performance. It was time to man up and get on with it. With my skirt firmly tucked into my harness I tied in once more. Quickly coming to terms with the looseness I found myself at the end of the traverse looking up the final finishing groove only to kick myself for asking Dave to strip the route of it's final few draws. Not wanting to risk falling and caning myself in the tree stumps below I annoyingly ask to be lowered off.
Both myself and Dave were keen to get back on the route as soon as, so early wednesday morning we found ourselves back at the crag this time armed with a bow saw to try and cut down the tree that Tim had stood in to give the route its name. We were keen to try and repeat the route without standing on the tree. 3hrs later feeling like what was supposed to be our warm up had now become our nightmare - the tree just wouldn't go down. And before anyone complains the tree is well and truly dead.

Essential crag supplies

Having given up all hope and rapidly running out of time we decided to do the route anyway. Dave's first ago saw him tied in knots with fig 4's and 9's but gave me a reminder of where the holds were.
Feeling well and truly warmed up from all the sawing I managed to cruise out along the traverse to where I'd got to the previous attempt this time clipping a long draw from above and avoiding the tree. A few shaky moves later saw me clipping the chains. Dave took a couple more attempts to bag the route before we both ran away as Dave had to shoot off to work to go and save lives.
As for the grade without the tree??? Keeping in line with all the routes I've been doing at hodge and trying to compare I'd give it M10+, so with the tree a touch easier and M10? A brilliant line once you get your head around the looseness of the place. Nice one Rob for bolting it.

Team training.

Last weekend I organised a get together at The Works in the Lake District. The idea being to get folk that were interested in dry tooling and potentially competition climbing. Although this wasn't publicised widely (we all know what happened last time!) the network of Facebook etc saw an amazing turnout.
Saturday saw around 20 people at the crag, some having a go for the first time and with, the usual suspects who train there a lot and a strong contingent from north of the border too.

Photo Andrew Rutherford
Addressing the team!

It was a great event and gave everyone the chance to catch up, meet keen like minded people and to get some more information on the competition climbing scene. Judging by the reaction it's looking like Team GB Ice Climbing could have a bright future. Great to see some of the youth climbers getting involved with Emma Powell and Tim Miller looking like strong contenders for a trip to the Youth World Championship in Champagny.

Big thank you to everyone for turning up and supporting the event and hope it's got some of you fired up for having a go.

More photos on Andy Rutherfords flickr account here.


Also in attendance was Steve Ashworth from MOViE iT who has put together this film which tells you a bit about the weekend and the competitions generally - thanks Steve and enjoy!





Dry Tooling with Andy Turner. from MOViE iT on Vimeo.

Olympic Dream

Anyone that's been on Facebook may have noticed that I have been selected to go to the Winter Olympics in Sochi in Feb 2014 - which is pretty amazing and super cool.
The slight spanner in the works is that these things cost a whole heap of cash, and anyone that knows me at all also knows that's not something I have! (Yes, alright I could do more work, but that would mean less training, smaller guns and no place at the Olympics.)
So, I'm currently in the process of trying to drum up some sponsorship from any and all available sources. Ramon and Ruth have put together this to help the cause along, so feel free to share as much as you can and recommend me to any of your rich friends! Massive thanks to Lukasz, Andy, Ian, Tony, Sam and Ray for the photos too.

If anyone would like the file sending over then please get in touch here, via Facebook or e-mail me at andyturnerclimbing@gmail.com

Cheers folks :)