A very strange year

 I know its not quite over yet, and that I didn't finish my last post (on long term to do list) but I just felt compelled to say its been an odd one. (That is about to get even odder).

Gwen crushing moroccan limestone

It started with a very odd conditions winter that led to lots of pleasant but quite frustrating tea drinking in Inverness. There was then the Morrocco adventure (misadventure?), which included a grim week of sickness (that lingered on long after the trip), getting caught out in a lightening storm/flash flood and various logistical obstacles. Shortly after was the alps trip which involved roaming obscure parts of the alps, sleeping in bushes trying to avoid the rain/ landowners. Then was a series of work trips. I don't think I have been on a work trip before. 2 weeks in Copenhagen and a less glamorous 3 weeks in Birmingham, trying to give an intelligent and switched on impression whilst still reeling from possibly still the morroccan sickness.

Copenhagen has alot of friendly statues 'It was this big'

And some less friendly ones

Copenhagen biocentre - a tad nicer architecture than Brambell

Posing for a photo in Birmingham, trying to not make it look posed....

Recently it had all calmed down and got more normal. Work and wall sessions were back on the menu. Obsessivly watching the apprentice, mornings eating banana pancakes. Wondering when it will start to snow and where my crampons are. I started to calm down after the frantic summer and feel like myself again. And instead of enjoying this normality for a little longer I decided to volunteer to go and help fight ebola (as a lab tech), as I didn't really feel like I had a good excuse not to. And I feel priviledged that I am in a position where I have skills that may be of use. So life has got a bit stranger and significantly more challenging again, no family Christmas and no climbing for 6 weeks again. The application/vetting process has been so full on for the past two weeks its left me little time to think about actually going. But now sat in a hotel on a course at Porton Down (no aliens yet) the reality is starting to sink in. I hope I will be ok.

Schweiz Plaisir Episode 2: 'Adoption'

After the complications of the first few days, we were due some good luck and this came in the form of good weather and being adopted by the chief of the local swiss alpine club branch.

More animals on the walk in. This time a pregnant mule? Is that possible? Does anyone know?

We slogged enormous rucksacks up to Bollenwees, recommended by the helpful lady in the climbing shop, hoping for a place we could camp for a few days. It became apparent this is a very popular area for swiss climbers and walkers and quite farmy, good for admiring pristine cows and walking on manicured tracks...bad for finding wild camping spots. We were not allowed to camp in front of the huge deluxe 'hut' (if it can be called that?) and it was getting dark. Stumbling further uphill in the twilight we came across a small SAC hut, abandoned as it was a weekday surrounded by a walled in flat area.

The perfect spot. We immediately dumped bags and tipped out the contents and started putting up the tent. Suddenly a light came on and there was someone shuffling around. "Quick, quick lets go!", the swiss are not renowned for their tolerance to rule breaking and we started frantically packing with probably more panic than was necessary. "Really really sorry, we are english!" (Our standard excuse for everything) and we thought there was no one here and we thought we were allowed to camp in people's gardens etc etc....

"No don't go! I love everybody who is coming into the mountains!"

"We are so sorry, we will go immediately....oh you don't mind"

"Would you like tea? Water? Chocolate?"

Once again, we had aquired a guardian angel, this time in the form of Andreas Seeger, head of the local SAC and up in the hut by himself doing some DIY. He had walked from the valley with his pots of paint and brushes.

Middle Earth. Bollenwees. The lake was freezing.

Guardian angel sorted, we could finally think about (and do) some climbing.

Schweiz Plaisir: Episode 1

 Having conquered (?) Chamonix a couple of summers ago, me and Clare were back to conquer the Dolomites, although things didn't quite go to plan (storms and bladder infections and the like) and we ended up exploring some obscure parts of Switzerland......

'You are on holiday? In St Gallen?' 'You are camping?' The incredulous tone suggested that the tourist information in St Gallen was not so used to dealing with tourists, particularly british climbing bums. Logistics were going to be a problem, we didn't have a road map let alone a guidebook and good wild camping spots seemed few and far between. Undeterred (or a bit deterred, but having a lack of other options) we eventually got pointed in the direction of the climbing wall which proved to be a crucial hub of information, guidebooks, showers, wifi and my new favourite drink Ovalmaltine. It was also the most beautiful and massive climbing wall I have ever seen, so perhaps we could just spend our whole holiday here?

Clare uses her reach in St Gallen - drinking water logistics not a problem in Switzerland

Breakfast at the crag!

Armed with our newly purchased guides (turns out there is a fair bit of climbing about, phew!), we headed up to Ascher for the afternoon. For a little known crag, Ascher is pretty Ceuse-like, requiring a fairly hefty walk-in but is a big long crag with lots a sectors and some great views. The remarkable thing about this crag though was the abundance of farm animals. It was like climbing in a petting zoo (no bad thing). A miniture horse, a chalet full of rabbits and a flock of very pristine looking sheep with a handsome and slightly threatening male sheep looking after them.

We unambitiously tried the easiest route on the crag and just about succeeded before thunderstorms descended.

I thought I'd start blogging again

Well this blog has suffered from a rather large break while I had a blogging crisis. This is perhaps not suprising as I am often too disorganised to wash my underwear before I run out, let alone blog about it. I prefer to believe this is because I try and pack rather alot in and not the result of a major character flaw.

But now I have succeeded in thoroughly overuse injuring myself I might give it another go as a rehabilitation activity. I also found it really good to look back over previous posts and remember things that I otherwise would have definitely forgotten. I think this may particularly come in handy when I am 80 and senile and want to revel in past glories but can't remember them. Blogging also seems to be a fabulous procrastination activity for when one should be producing a groundbreaking bit of PhD research.... it will also no doubt be a great tool for developing my writing skills in preparation for writing a thesis (does that sound convincing?).....

Cow print rock tape. Yeah!

Hola! from El Chorro

Traversing in the sun on Amptrax

Chamois things that can climb harder slabs than we can, they struggle with finger locks though 

Sophie coming round the corner on El Navegator

Awesome 6b+ pitch on El Navegator

First few days in Chorro and me and Soph have done some fun stuff. We started off with the classic easy multipitch Amptrax (6a+) which was  great. We abbed off after 7 pitches as the sun was going down but not sure we abbed in quite the right place, we think going an extra pitch gives a better line of anchors. The next day I was grumbling about my calves which are no longer used to slab climbing after 3 months of inactivity but we went climbing anyway and they survived.
We warmed up at Sector Suiza on the arab steps and did a nice 6b Dos tetas tiran and then did an excellent multipitch El Navegator (7a+). Sophie did the two trickiest pitches, the bolting is ok but a bit spaced on the 6c pitch and annoyingly the crux is very badly bolted (but escapable). There is a totally fab cracked wall pitch and the last two pitches are in a fantastic position which makes it totally worth doing.

New years eve was spent at la finca which was serving mohitos! I really like mohitos.

Review of Wide Boyz

Merry Christmas!

Finally finished writing up my masters thesis and plucked up the courage to switch on the computer again. Instead of watching the traditional Wallace and Gromit Curse of the Were-Rabbit I watched the Hotaches film WideBoyz and wrote a little review below. In short I thought it was fab and blew Odyssey out the water and my mum liked it too. I beleive it is on a par with Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which makes it a definite winner in my opinion.



I really, really enjoyed this film and would recommend it to climbers and non-climbers alike. I think the reason it appealed so much was, that unlike a lot of climbing films it follows a story. Two guys on a mission, going from training on homemade plywood cracks in a basement in Sheffield to the hardest offwidth in the world in the american desert. It’s the climbing equivalent of the Alan Sugar ‘I started out selling windscreen wipers and look at me now’ sort of inspirational ancedote. An assurance that persistence and creativity wins out over even terribly inconvenient goals.

Offwidths are a very unusual speciality and I think they make good subjects for filming. Many films following good climbers see them climb many impressively difficult routes, more often than not they make it look so easy and graceful that you begin to doubt whether it was difficult at all (until you go seek the route out and stand underneath it). This is not a problem with offwidths – Tom and Pete despite their considerable skill are still visibly, physically trying hard. There are also some seldom seen moves pulled out the bag such as many foot-in-crack-above-head moves. I must try that sometime.

This is a great motivating film for anyone that likes training, as it features a section devoted to Tom Randall’s inventive training basement and the number of exercises you can create using a selection of plywood cracks. Finally, unlike a lot of films it is about a successful climbing partnership and their eventual success seems like a proper team effort and I think this is something every climber can relate to.

So watch it. Anyway, hope everyone had an excellent Christmas and I hope to get back on the blogging wagon in the new year now the thesis is over.

 

Escapism at the Olive Branch

My most hotly anticipated birthday present was a trip to El Chorro with the indefatigable Dr Bevan, from which I have just returned... I was pretty excited at the prospect of possibly being able to take my jumper off after the north walean summer and being able to leave the downie behind for the first time and it was hot hot hot!

However, it was possibly too hot, be warned there are virtually no shady crags so if you are not adapted to desert living then it would be wise to go a bit later in the year. We were only around for 6 days so we wanted to visit as many different crags as possible and explore. This meant trying to flash or get second go as many routes as possible which was a fun challenge. In the lead up I had been concentrating on lobbing practice to reduce that above-the-bolt phobia and also trying some redpoint projects where I had to move more dynamically than I do usually. Along with having an awesomely supportive belayer this led to some primo performances and being able to push much closer to my physical limit than I have before. For someone who has always struggled with 'head' issues this was a welcome break ( I am sure this isn't the last I will hear of them though...).

Conquests included: Little Brown Baby (7a+) at Sector Castrojo - an amazing pumpy route that is easy on your finger skin and in the shade at about 4. Failed.
Cono paco at Sector Suizo (7a) which has a rep as being easy for the grade but its more cruxy than easy (which is frustrating if you can't do the crux). Success!
Poema de Roca  at poema de roca (7a) - is the super classic of the area, looks totally amazing but had bees drinking from the tufas.... this is not a hazard I had encountered before and I insisted it would be fine until my face was six inches from a whole herd of agitated pollinators. I had images of the whole hunger games type thing and decided no route was worth dying of bees. It is also not in the shade until 4.30 despite what people may tell you!! Failure.
El truco del almendruco (7a) at Los Albercones - caught our eye as a three star wall climb, which is what tiggers do best. It is a wall climb with a hard and hard to read crux. Gets into the shade when it gets dark. Success!
Everything (almost) at Buena Sombra Desplomilandia - is in the shade all day hooray! Although you need to make friends with cars to get there and back. Highlights of the crag are Buena Sombra (6b+) which is cool tufa climbing, Coconut yoghurt (6c) for which the Hole of Creation is probably the best training. Incidentally I tried eating tesco coconut yoghurt the other day and I'm not sure about it. The route is better than the food stuff. Viejos y puretas (7a) the hard bulge felt bunchy, good if you like being bunched. Success, success success!!
Zepplin (6c+) in the gorge, 10 pitches of generally full value climbing. Not in the shade, start early! I remember being dragged up this in my second year of university and having to stand in slings to aid the main pitch (and actually most of the hard pitches), so it was a good progression to come back and lead it clean (clean is relative - both me and Ruth had a bit of an aid on the roof pitch and a bit of a pull on a draw to get off the belay on the 6c+ but other than those minor indiscretions....). All of the tricky pitches feel full value for the grade, esecially with the sun and multipitch kit. The traversey nature of some of the pitches makes it a good idea to carry prussiks! Memorable day out... Success!

Morning in the gorge before Zepplin!

The not enough footholds 6c roof

Looking down over the railway!

Last tricky pitch on Zepplin!

We were camping at the Olive Branch which was an excellent base. It was set up by accident four years ago by Mel and Gary, neither of whom knew about the climbing in the area at the time. They picked up some hitchhiking climbers who happened to want to rent a room and who the started recruiting more climbers to come and camp on the floor. They had the nouse to realise this had potential and turned it into what is now a very busy little hub of climbers, with a plush bunkhouse and a terraced garden for camping. There is a really friendly atmosphere, with everyone keen to go out of their way to help out and lend stuff and improvise to solve any problem.

The must do rest day activity of the area is the Caminito del Ray - a walkway built in the 1920s along the gorges. It is still standing in the main and has turned into an exciting via ferrata type activity. The second gorge is especially narrow and beautiful and makes you feel like you are on some sort of Indiana Jones style adventure.

Looking back over at the train tunnels

Bridge worthy of slate quarries...

Having crash landed back in normal life again, with two months to go until the deadline for my masters thesis I am beginning a bit of a month long hibernation. At least its November. I will largely be found in my windowless airless office or at the bouldering walls. I am hoping to fit bouldering in around my thesis. Partly because power is currently my biggest weakness and also because indoor bouldering is pretty time and faff efficient and will detract the least from my writing. This also means a bit of a break from blog writing so will hopefully be back on it in December! Adios!