rginns blog

Friday 31st January As a connoisseur of scruffy urban crags, I kind of knew what to expect when I went to Woodhouse today, but I was actually quite impressed. Yes, there was the ubiquitous litter and a vague smell of dog shit, but that wasn't important. I got there ealier than expected, and had about an hour and a quarter between meetings. It was 2 degrees when I got there but it seemed really bloody cold. I felt as psyched as I usually do in the morning. i.e. not very. I decided to jump straight on without warming up and chose an unnamed 6a (can't remember which one, will edit this later) and flashed it. To be fair, it felt easier than that but I was going by the Yorkshire Gritstone bouldering guide (Vertebrae one). I'm still not sure about this guide really, bit too selective for my liking, and only the bare bones of information make it difficult to use. Anyway, I digress. After that I wandered along the crag picking off problems here and there that looked good. I really

Here's the vid from a recent Wilton visit. Baltic conditions again. Perfect... Untitled from Rick Ginns on Vimeo .

Well according to the radio this morning, today is supposed to be the most gloomy day of the year. The weather seems to be consistent as it's been pretty much raining in Lancashire for the past week. It's not too bad though as it looks like the next few months may well be a sparse climbing period for me due not only to the new arrival but also we're about to move home, which will undoubtedly be extremely stressful and expensive... agh, roll on the summer...

Well yesterday was full of high hopes of ticking a few classic Wilton problems. Only problem was most of it was wet... Robin had put up a few problems last year that I've not had a chance to check out yet, so the plan was to have a look at those, and possible Snakey B which is still on the list. GCW was up for that plan, so I met him at around 1pm. As he was sat in his car as I arrived, I guessed that conditions may not be great! As I expected, Gareth had had a scout round the Wiltons to find that almost all of the problems were wet. Still, the Graveyard overhang in Wilton 1 almost always stays dry, so we decided to have a play on there as there were a couple of things I've not done and wanted to check out. Conditions were actually pretty good, being baltic and dry on the overhang, and we warmed up on a traversey warm up thing, which I found remarkably pumpy for what it was. After warming up, we had a go at a couple of the eliminate problems. G-man managed to crush the low star

Well, things are all changed in the Ginns household since November. On the 7th December our daughter was born, an event that will undoubtedly change EVERYTHING. For the better though. with a pretty healthy weight of 7 lb 1oz, she's already the Boss of the household and running Mrs rginns ragged. Ah the joys of baby excretions. Anyway, this is clearly the reason that the blog hasn't been tended to lately, but hopefully from now on it should get more frequent. Other news is that the house is now under offer, so we will soon be in pastures new, god knows where - the hunting begins. On second thoughts, I may not get to update the blog quite as frequently as I hope... Well the list this year has been an utter failure, having only completed 3 off the list. I feel the need for a change, as some of the places I never even got to - such as Thorn crag, which in spite of being an awesome place, is pretty impractical to get to at the best of times. The list may have to be reduced to those