rginns blog

Yesterday I had a rare evening spare so headed over to Cadshaw. GCW was at a loose end and was keen for a revisit after his recent project progress. As I flogged away at Brian Jacques he was getting close to latching the final crimp on the arete project. Originally a line that I had my eye on, he seems to be making more progress and seems more psyched than I am to get it done. I dare say he'll have it done before long. As for Brian Jacques, what a class problem. I can now link the start to gain the arete, and set up for the big move to the crimp. Once I've got this move nailed, it's on. I think it's a timing thing. To catch the hold for me feels hard, and although I can get the hold, I can't hold it as I swing off. The promising thing however is that getting there doesn't feel beyond my limit. I'm going to crush this problem. Anyway. We then moved on to find Twist, a problem I've known about for ages, and sought out in the past but never actually tried.

It seems a long time since I've written on the blog. This has been for several reasons, the main one being that we have moved house at the end of last week and as expected it has taken longer than I thought to get things straight. Moving house is difficult anyway, with a 4 month old it's virtually impossible... So I haven't been out climbing, but hopefully things in a couple of weeks will start to calm down and a version of normality can resume, along with some crushing. Well, that's the plan anyway. I had the opportunity recently to get some professional coaching from the man Jennings , which I took advantage of. I wasn't sure what to expect when he turned up with 'legend' written on the front of his tee-shirt, but in the event, it was well worth it. My target this year is 7a (yeah, ok, for the third year running) and in spite of our bundle of joy I'm hoping I can actually get out enough to get it done. The coaching consisted of a 2 hour session with a

Cadshaw is a pretty fickle place. I remember the last time I went over there, I could barely pull on to Brian Jacques, a problem that climbs the left hand side of a slightly overhanging wall. I think its' location, being quite a sheltered and enclosed area contributes to the mostly greasy conditions that you tend to find there. Anyway, last Wednesday conditions were sueprisingly good - fairly cool, and there had been a dry few weeks, so there was little seepage. I managed to negotiate a couple of hours out and met up with GCW for another attempt at working the problem. To be honest I wasn't that hopeful bearing in mind my previous failures, but to my surprise I managed to pull on first go. After working it a bit I managed to slap the arete, but had difficulty holding it. After a few goes though I could do this move too. There appear to be two different betas (betae? beti? whatever...) for this problem - the first clinbing the face in small moves a la Mr. Mueller via some horren