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.

So close yet so far.......

There's snow on the hills - according to some of them folks north of the border - does that mean it's nearly winter??  I really hope so, because I'm sick to death of this wet, minging, dreary autumn!!! Ok, I admit there have been a couple of sunny days in the last few weeks, but I'm sure I remember someone promising an Indian summer.

The last week of so have been in turn encouraging and a bit frustrating. I've been continuing my training, getting down to Masson Lees and up to the Works at least once a week and the projects are getting so close......

Turning the first roof.....a LOOOOONG way to go.

Friday at Masson Lees saw me get as far as I ever have on the lip traverse route. But managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory - by getting 2 clips from the end and letting go (Channeling my inner Keith Ball!!). I think, to be honest, if it wasn't on my doorstep (relatively speaking) I might have been able to power scream a bit louder and finish it off, but having a little thing in the back of your head that knows you can come back anytime might not be the best motivation for me. I'd headed down not feeling super fresh after some training sessions on the previous couple of days, looking at the day as more of a workout so I was a bit surprised to find myself past all the tough climbing and nearly at the chains - next time........

Two more clips - you chump!!

Training for what?

If you are a regular reader of this blog then you will be aware that the summers rock climbing ambitions have long ago been shelved and I have turned my thoughts towards the winter season.
The development of The Works has been coming along steadily and looks like it's going to be an amazing venue for dry tooling in the world of the upside down. This will potentially be the perfect training ground for some of the sport mixed classics in the Alps. There is more development going on and I just received a box of shiny Petzl hangers from the lovely people at Lyon Equipment to crack on with my big project from the back of the cave. The downside being that it's 2 hours drive away - and hence not exactly convenient for the daily sessions I'm going to need to get myself into top form, but I am hoping to go up regularly combined with some trips to Masson Lees which is a fair bit closer.

Luckily there are alternatives available. Firstly there is my spare room (I sound like Dave Macleod!!) which has some space for rolling around on the floor doing all that core type stuff and a well appointed pull-up bar with added extras i.e. poles hanging off to simulate hanging onto tools. Unfortunately unlike Dave I don't think I have quite the single minded ability to train in isolation, so I have been fortunate enough to develop a really great relationship with the guys at Rock Over Climbing in Manchester. The guys there are all super keen climbers themselves and equally into winter and so they have been super supportive and allowed me to set some circuits on their wall that I can use my tools on before the centre opens, or on the quiet mornings mid-week when no-one else is around. This is going to be a great help for my training over the next few months.

The two I set today on the 50 and 45degree boards are around M8 for the easier one and M9+/M10 for the trickier one. After a quick go on them both today I think they'll be a good start to get me going, and they will link together for some stamina training too. As the problems at Rock Over get changed about every 5 weeks I'll be able to change my circuits regularly and make them harder as the season gets closer.

Lundy plus The Works update

Fear of Faust an alternative to Satan's Slip

The British summer continues in it's usual way, with a brief hiatus whilst we were away on Lundy. Ok we had a couple of days of poor weather, rain followed by a thick blanket of sea mist. But that was sandwiched in between blazing sunshine and on the final day it being too hot to climb.
Dan and I got a few routes in, Ruth only a couple due to weakness - Ok she was having a bad back week.  I think my favourite route of the week was Redspeed a stunning E2 on the back of the Devil's Slide. Brilliant climbing after a tricky move into the base of a hanging groove. But Carole Ann Butler Corner was great fun too and provided a little haven of shade.

Ruth actually doing some climbing on Albion - it's a miracle!

Although the climbing is really great on Lundy it does require quite  a lot of effort in lots of cases, a fair bit of walking followed by some descending down steep grass, then back up when you've gone to the wrong place etc. etc. Luckily as Dan had visited twice before and I've also been once before we managed to avoid getting it wrong too often, but it's not easy to link lots of routes/buttresses together in a single day. Not helped by the current guidebook, in my opinion which although looks really good, with nice pictures and topos, doesn't have the topos in close proximity to the route descriptions and not in a logical place - at least not to my brain!

Back from Lundy it was time to get back involved at The Works. Having managed to climb both First Blood and Bloodline, I wanted to get involved in helping to develop the crag further so out came the Hilti and I spent a couple of days drilling and bolting. Firstly creating a line which starts up First Blood and then heads out left through the steepness to the lower-off of Bloodline. This became Blood Donor (M9ish).  I've also been working on a couple more projects but they aren't ready to climb just yet so I'll be back up north again soon.......once I've gotten hold of some more bolts! Donations are very welcome.
The routes in the First Blood cave are all fully equipped with in-situ draws too which makes life a whole lot easier - thank you DMM.

There is a little video from The Works on my Facebook page thanks to Tom Broadbent for that.

Tools 'R' Us

After the trip to Masson Lees I have been feeling quite excited by the prospects of getting strong for the winter - I know it's only July but winter seems a whole lot closer than it should so it's good to be prepared I reckon!
I decided that it was time to take a trip up to the Lakes and check out the developments at The Works ( near Hodge Close Quarry). Paddy Cave, Brian Davison and collective have put in a whole load of work creating a dry-tooling venue - a fine venue they have created.
There are about 20 routes spread from M4-M10 and with a good variety of angles too. More information on Paddy's blog at www.mountaincircles.com.
I headed up with Si Chevis and a car stacked with pointy sharp things and we had a brilliant day. After stopping off in Ambleside and a call in at the Epicentre to get some more info from Steve Ashworth, we managed to get hold of the man himself, Paddy who met us at the crag, eager to show us around and encourage our attempts.

We started off with the routes on the Industrial Sector (M4-M6+) and then got involved with the super steep First Blood - now this route has been given M9 in the topo - but what I learned was that i had been climbed with heelspurs - dubious tactics!! So it's a wee bit harder than that really - probably about M10. Really good upside-down climbing with plenty of Fig 4 moves to get yourself in a tangle with. Managed to get pretty high on the go I had but I was also super psyched to have a go on the "project". Another classy route, following a crack for approx 25ft before puling into a groove to climb up to the lower off - another steep one and potentially could be joined with First Blood in the future to make a brilliant long line.
By the time we'd all had a good thrash around on these lines, we were both pretty pumped and Simon needed to get home.
Really keen to get back up there in the next week or so and get the routes done - and the best thing is it doesn't matter if it rains!!


Big thank you to Paddy for the photos.

Making Do.

The blog has been pretty quiet these last few weeks - and the reason is that life has been pretty quiet too! As Ruth so nicely mentioned I've been away up in Scotland working for the last couple of weeks and by some small miracle I actually got better weather than down home in the Peak. Typically it was mostly dry on work days and then rained on my days off. So a couple of visits to Ratho, one to Dundee Wall and then a single day out on the rock in Glenfinnan with Kev Shields. Had a bit of a play on one of Dave Macleod's slab routes which whilst not super hard would undoubtedly be super scary. Along with a few rides out on the bike that was my trip up north.
Now that I'm back south the weather has a been well rubbish - as evidenced by Cliffhanger getting cancelled last weekend due to the site being water logged! But in between the deluge I've had a couple of sessions out in the real world. One of those involved the tools and some dry-tooling at Masson Lees. A good venue with some super steep upside down land climbing. I managed to knock off the current crag classic Sub Rosa first redpoint and then managed to fall off the top of a project by having sweaty hands and not being able to grip my axes!! Poor excuse I know, will go back and finish it off sometime soon. I'm starting to get psyched for the winter already - probably because summer isn't much like summer. And I'm thinking that Masson Lees could well be my venue of choice for getting strong.
Mac however is not getting any stronger and needs a lift out over the boulders these days - bless him.

Sleeping Beauty

Just been sent these photos by Mike Hutton - thought I'd share them! Taken somewhere on Lewis when there was some sunshine.............

Ahhh bless, doesn't he look peaceful!!!
Currently Andy is actually working up in Scotland - it's a shock to the system, he'll probably need a month off to recover!