Birthday weekend Limestone bashing
This weekend I stumbled one more year towards 30. Time to set some loose goals. This got me thinking about where I am climbing wise and where I want to be. I have started to consolidate the 6s recently, and been feeling relatively strong of late. I have markedly improved on last years efforts to such a point that I can mostly tick off a 6a or 6a+ with relatively little effort, i.e. within a few goes. This has been brought about mostly due to pure volume of climbing. I've made a concerted effort to get out this year and it seems to be paying dividends so far. In view of this therefore I've set myself the goal of climbing 7a before December. If not before December, then before I turn 30 which gives me a timeframe of a year.
Lofty goal for me, a mere trifle for many people...
The weekend just gone was very enjoyable. As the weather was due to be scorching I decided against the grit. The limestone was calling and i'm enthusiastic for it after recent trips.
As my sister and brother-in-law were up and fancied getting out also, I decided on Hutton Roof. A typically lazy morning meant that we didn't get to the crag until after 1pm, but there was no urgency to the day. I soloed a couple of routes, then after pork products and sandwiches we decided to break out the rope.
I went through the fundamentals of tradding with T as he's not done a great deal outdoors before, then went up Wings VDiff, very pleasant route, then we climbed Ronson Kirby VDiff. After that we decided to hear over to Nicks traverse area.
This is quite an imposing crag with a large undercut roof. I played about at the left hand side for a bit and climbed the low start to No more monkey business. Looking back at the lakesbloc guide it gives the problem 6a+, which I'd probably agree with, the holds are positive but it is pretty beefy.
Then after messing about on various things I soloed Gorilla Berengii HS 4c then headed back over to where the girls were picnicking.
I had a good look at the straight start to Cyclops, one that I wanted to look at but no matter what I did I couldn't make progress. The weather was pretty hot and all of the holds felt slippy. It didn't help that the holds are horrendously polished and felt awful. I guess this is inevitable with a popular venue such as this, but it felt terrible! I may come back to it, but I was put off a bit to be honest.
Anyhow after that I was pretty knackered and so we left.
A most enjoyable barbecue was enjoyed in the evening with rather too much Vin Santo which didn't help the hangover...
Sunday was spent clearing trees and fencing and generally being productive. All in all a great weekend.
Lofty goal for me, a mere trifle for many people...
The weekend just gone was very enjoyable. As the weather was due to be scorching I decided against the grit. The limestone was calling and i'm enthusiastic for it after recent trips.
As my sister and brother-in-law were up and fancied getting out also, I decided on Hutton Roof. A typically lazy morning meant that we didn't get to the crag until after 1pm, but there was no urgency to the day. I soloed a couple of routes, then after pork products and sandwiches we decided to break out the rope.
I went through the fundamentals of tradding with T as he's not done a great deal outdoors before, then went up Wings VDiff, very pleasant route, then we climbed Ronson Kirby VDiff. After that we decided to hear over to Nicks traverse area.
This is quite an imposing crag with a large undercut roof. I played about at the left hand side for a bit and climbed the low start to No more monkey business. Looking back at the lakesbloc guide it gives the problem 6a+, which I'd probably agree with, the holds are positive but it is pretty beefy.
Then after messing about on various things I soloed Gorilla Berengii HS 4c then headed back over to where the girls were picnicking.
I had a good look at the straight start to Cyclops, one that I wanted to look at but no matter what I did I couldn't make progress. The weather was pretty hot and all of the holds felt slippy. It didn't help that the holds are horrendously polished and felt awful. I guess this is inevitable with a popular venue such as this, but it felt terrible! I may come back to it, but I was put off a bit to be honest.
Anyhow after that I was pretty knackered and so we left.
A most enjoyable barbecue was enjoyed in the evening with rather too much Vin Santo which didn't help the hangover...
Sunday was spent clearing trees and fencing and generally being productive. All in all a great weekend.
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