South lakes- fact finding mission

With the weekend off work myself, gav and nick (cox) headed to the south lakes (in the new wheels!) with the intention of checking out trowbarrow and woodwell. Saturday was utterly disgusting so we resigned to spending a lot of time checking out the ales.

After a night of boozing, too much brioche and a bivvy at morecambe bay i wasn't feeling my fittest in the morning.... after the use of a local campsites facilities and a strong coffee we were feeling a lightly more sprightly, the weather was also perfect so we shot straight to trowbarrow.

We went to red wall first to warm up and get stuck in, i did a few cool problems there, gav and nick had a good bash at shallow grave and nick polished off "nicks problem" quickly which was very fitting! I got utterly spanked by "ying yang" which seems very stiff for its 7b grade!













Nick on Nicks Problem 6a

The shelter stone was up next... this boulder is wicked! Nick and I did funk phenomena, gav getting very close. I then got stuck into the classic problems... the pit problem went pretty quickly once the beta was sussed, really cool. I then did the 7c that blasts straight to the lip from the low crack (the buccaneer?), this is also very cool and pretty tension-y. Vitruvian man was up next... my 2nd go saw me to the final jug only to lose tension and kick nick in the face! This went down a few goes later, class problem. Finished off with on-sighting the groove and the slopes traverse, very un-stylishly!













The Buccaneer 7c

Very psyched to get back here as well as woodwell as i've heard its very good..... the pit problem sitter, wheelebarrow, jazz phenomena and maybe iron man will be given a blast next time.

South lakes, two thumbs up.

A good week

Saturday night pretty much the whole of the stoke awesome walls/v12 contingent hit up ravens tor for a bit of a camp out :) We climbed from 8ish 'till about half 10/11ish which is a pretty good effort considering most of us forgot lamps and head torches!

I managed to bash out the weedkiller traverse, out of my tree and the "undercut crimp jug" problem which was cool. I had tried the traverse before after a rubicon session and got fully powered out... went 2nd go this time. Out of my tree is a funky, albeit rather painful 7b that took about 4 goes, pretty psyched to get on the route extension. The undercut crimp jug problem is very cool, pretty chuffed.... keen to try the sloper variation next time which goes at a slightly stiffer 7c. I also managed all the bens roof moves which was cool as it was my first time on it, seems like a goer. Psyched.

A big up to eddie for doing the weedkiller having snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on one of his first attempts!


Sunday night just i was cashing up and preparing for a plastic session dave popped up on facebook suggesting ramshaw. winner. We just shot down for an hour or so, did a few easy things, tried daves project (which is sick) and did tierdrop (which is amazing and very high).

Monday i bought my first car :)












Hello freedom and greater poverty!

Font

All in all a pretty successful trip, the predicted weather looked awful but luckily it turned out to be very pleasant indeed! Managed to get to a few new areas which was cool and just got in a lot of quality climbing and quality problems.

Highlights included doing berezina (pretty quickly as well) and then the berizina into carnage link. I held the last hold on this first session but dropped it for some reason, first try the next day and it was done, very cool to get a (probably soft) v10 done out there!

La Berezina 7c

Rubis sur longle and magic bus (at buthiers piscine) were both great fun, and both went down surprisingly quickly. La baleine and big jim at petis boi were both awesome problems, la baleine being ultimate classic and big jim (6c) being pretty scary with a crux slap right at the top! Gargantoit at gorges du houx proved worth the walk, its an absolute cracker and probably one of the scariest problems I've ever done.


Magic Bus 7b+ La Baleine 7a+

Back Keele way now with no uni work, (and now no girlfriend... pretty gutting and a big dampner on the trip :( ) a bit of "real work" and a lot of psych for a good summer of crushing, chilling and partying. A car will be purchased this week or next which will finally mean ultimate freedom!!

Off on our Jollys!

Haven't been out that much in the past few weeks, 3rd year finals and lots of work at the shop being the main reason. Had an evening at rubicon in which i didn't to tsunami (ish) again, and had a few fun sessions at the churnet.

Sunday was a good day, good weather and lots of climbing :)
Phil dispatched Warchild pretty quickly... still feels nails to me. Here's a video of some guy doing it, phil used pretty much the same sequence but used a full body smear to get into the undercuts, noice!

I got annoyingly close to the extended simple simon start, (another video, a la this guy) falling off on the move to the good flat edge on numerous occasions!

We then shot over to gentlemens rock to try a load of the new stuff. We did them all bar the hugeeeeeee dyno, the horrible left variant to high speed imp act and the 50p problem which wasn't very pleasent to pull on! I flashed humpty dumpty which was cool.



Off to font today, weeeeeeee. Very psyched just hope the weather is ok. Pretty keen for just lots of quality climbing, getting Emily up some boulders and generally having a chilled holiday!