More Nav and back to Trad climbing

Well, its been a fairly quiet last 10 days - hardly surprising given the weather, and I'm sat here looking out at heavy rain for the second day in a row. The road to Mold was a bit of a white knuckle ride yesterday, due to flooding and rivers of water and mud coming off the fields !

I did manage yet another day of nav practice in drizzly conditions, just managing to avoid the huge downpour which hit a DofE Silver group my better half was monitoring.

I also did my first bit of DofE work with the Queen's School Bronze group on Saturday, getting them in a fit state to set off with much repacking and re-arranging of 70 litre rucksacks.  Most of their packs were heavier than I'd take on a 3 day winter expedition, and their Mums had sent them off with enough food to last them a week !

We also managed to make the best of the 1.5 days of good weather over the week-end by getting out and doing some long overdue trad climbing.  I've been desperate to get out and hopefully capitalise on the gains I feel I've made on the sport front, but the weather has had other ideas.  We went to Pinfold on Saturday and Pot Hole Quarry on Sunday, both Clwyd limestone venues and I definitely feel progress has been made, though having to place gear came as a culture shock and I was definitely rusty in this area, being both slow and inaccurate in gear selection, which up the adrenaline somewhat !  I warmed up on a horrible VS 4b before attempting a Pinfold classic, Toccata (VS 5a) a climb I backed off on  a little under 3 years ago when my shoulder problems were at their peak and finally clinched the decision to go for a shoulder operation, which I had a little over 2 years ago and so far has been a success, allowing me to climb with confidence and focus instead of wondering when my shoulder would pop out !  Anyway, back to the climb, the crux is supposed to be a block at 3 metres but I found the first 2 metres harder !  Once established, I managed the block pretty well and sailed up the remainder on an emotional high, the biggest indicator yet that I am ready to make forward progress from where I was pre injury.  Julie followed me up in some style, especially given her reduced reach, which she reminds of only half a dozen times every outing.  I followed this up with a romp up Devil's Alternative (HVS 5a) which after working out the crux sequence was despatched comfortably.  Not sure why the HVS compared to VS for Toccata as the gear overall was just as good - maybe a little less so at the crux where I used a DMM brass offset and it needed double ropes - but I always find grades a bit of a puzzle anyway !  

Now high on success I went for a final flourish on  Maranda, an E1 5a ... and got spanked ! Not only that, I took my first ground fall, even if it was from only 2.5 metres.  I faffed loads putting the one piece of gear in which then popped, couldn't work out the pull onto the ledge with fading strength and finally peeled off with totally pumped out arms, pulling the gear in the process and hitting the deck with nothing hurt beyond my pride - gutted ! I was sure I was going to nail this E1 on-sight. I had another half hearted attempt, but my arms were blown so we called it a day.

With a worsening forecast for Sunday, we stayed local and went to an old fave, Pot Hole. I warmed up with a TR on the Dog (HVS 5b) the classic of the crag (and E1 in the older book) and then lead it, my second successful lead of this climb, my gear placement efficiency still being found somewhat wanting, but it is a lovely route, steep technical limestone crack climbing at its best. I then move on to an other classic, Ceba (E1 5b), which I'd done on a solo top rope a few weeks earlier and now wanted to lead. As such, It couldn't be an 'on-sight' but a clean E1 lead was the goal here.  It is another technical crack climb with a few tricky sequences to be worked and a final strenuous section round an overlap. I found I didn't really remember much from the previous top rope, but made steady progress to the overlap, finding the 'thank God' jug above it and placing two welcome cams in the break, including a new totem cam in a pocket (early indicators are that these cams are superb on limestone) before executing the shuffle sideways and reach for the top to complete a successful E1 just as the rain started .. and it hasn't stopped since !

Moelwyns & Cnicht Nav Day

Moelwyns & Cnicht Nav Day, a set on Flickr.

Had a great day in the Moelwyns doing some more micro nav work and bagging the summit of Cnicht, which I have never done before, via the aesthetic south west ridge. The Moelwyns are a beautiful place, lots of small hills, rocky outcrops and lakes of various sizes. Weather was superb but a little weird, blue sky & sun but with blankets of low cloud moving around, sometimes swirling round the peaks like water and the day was topped off with some superb cloud inversions which I have tried to capture here.

Early September ramblings

Tuesday Sept 4th: Top rope solo try out

Given that I have free time when my limited supply of climbing partners are hard at it keeping the country afloat, I decided to to a local crag (Three Springs) and have a go at top rope soloing as an option to get a few more days in and tried out various options to see what worked best.

So, what is it ? Basically it is climbing on a top rope, but solo ;-)  Seriously, instead of a belayer, one uses devices such as ascenders which will move up a rope more or less freely but grab it as soon as any downward pressure is felt.  There are various devices that will do the job,   though none designed specifically for this so they all come with major health warnings from the manufacturers and TO BE CLEAR, this is NOT A RECOMMENDED TECHNIQUE particularly for people without a lot of experience of setting up rope systems.  For that reason, I won’t be describing the techniques I tried out in any detail.  Notwithstanding the health warning above, I am a fairly cautious climber so all my options included full redundancy and backup, including using two ropes.  On my third attempt I arrived at the optimum approach and successfully climbed an E1, as well as giving myself a refresher on rigging techniques, so all in all a good day

Thursday 6th Sept: Sport Climbing – Castle Inn quarry

We were due to set off for Wasdale in the lakes in the morning, but a dodgy forecast convinced us that there was likely to be little climbing to be had, so we went via Castle Inn - only a ninety minute detour ! – for a quick hit.  The weather was chilly and overcast but the rain held off to allow us a great couple of hours.  I nipped up ‘Route 2’ (F5) and Mogadishu  (F4+)to give Julie a couple of nice routes to climb, Route 2 in particular is 20 metres of pure climbing pleasure.  She then returned the favour, leaving the rope in situ after we climbed Finale (F5) to allow me a go at working out ‘The Outsider’ (F6c) which is well above my pay grade. Despite this I made a decent fist of it, though I’m not sure the handhold on the crack I used at one stage is ‘in’ for the full 6c.  if it is, I think it is generously graded at 6c, I’d say more like 6b or 6b+ tops.  We finished off with a lead attempt on Indian Summer, at 6a+ still above my usual outdoor lead ceiling and after a fall on the first attempt due to poor route choice, I made it ok on the second go ..the continental climbing is paying dividends ! Flushed with success we then hot footed it to Nether Wasdale to meet up with friends in the Screes pub and compare summer exploits over dinner and beer.

Friday 7th Sept: trad multi pitch – Buckbarrow, Wasdale

Despite waking to a fine day, we knew the forecast for Scafell was poor and so my target route ‘Botterills Slab’ was probably a no go.  A quick look at the guide showed some likely routes on Buckbarrow, a lower crag with a 20-30 min walk in, so we headed round and worked our way up the inevitable scree slope to Witch buttress to climbed the signature route, ‘Witch’ a two pitch VS 4c.  On close inspection I was not impressed !  A corner (though the book describes at as a chimney) over hanging at the top, quite vegetated lower down ,water running down the crack and the wall to the right looking decidedly green. Still with the weather closing in, it was this or nothing, so off I went, the first few metres living down to my expectations, and with my lack of recent trad climbing I found gear placements quite tricky.  However, the higher I got, the better it got and the more I relaxed into it.  I made the crux quite comfortably, particularly pleasing because I thought my way through it, finding and choosing the best holds.  Post crux, P1 was a lovely romp up the wall on good holds to a stance on top of the pillar, where I found an old thread with a maillon.  The thread looked quite weather worn, so although I used it I also place three other equalised pieces and brought Julie up just as the rain set in properly, leaving me an awkward and poorly protected slab to climb in the wet – gulp !  fortunately P2 was quite a bit shorter and protected form the rain fairly well, so after some dithering with small nut placements and thanking the fates that I had my brass offsets, I made it reasonably easily and brought Julie up as fast as possible before we tackled the new crux – a small track down steep wet grass in rock shoes back to our packs & boots !  We then headed gingerly down the wet scree and adjourned to the Strands for coffee and cake.

Sunday 9th Sept: Coniston Old Man and Champagne !

The primary reason for the lakes trip was for the wedding of Chris my step brother and his fiancée Joanne, being held at Brantwood, Ruskin’s House on Coniston, and though I had an idea we might get on Dow crag and do Eliminate ‘A’, Saturdays weather said ‘no’, but we did enjoy a lovely occasion complete with food on the steam Gondola as it sailed up the lake and back.  Chris is also a  keen outdoors enthusiast so the plan for Sunday was for all who were physically able to climb Coniston Old Man and enjoy wedding cake and champagne on the top.  A cool idea, but with dodgy weather on Saturday there were mutterings amongst the troops in the bar on Saturday evening.  Sunday confounded the pessimists, a bright, sunny day and we had lovely chilled stroll up to Goatswater, where the climbers amongst us looked wistfully at a dry and sunny Dow, and on up to the summit to toast the new couple.