Sarnia cherie

I have been home in Guernsey for the past week which has been lovely! Had lots of relaxation time and seen family and friends again. Been out on the cliffs quite a bit and after a few days I feel like I've got my running legs back. Also been making use of Guernsey's premier climbing facility - the cave. Its a shed in a top secret location that has been converted by the keener members of the mountaineering club into a top notch bouldering facility! I think its really impressive and shows what you can do if you put your mind to it.

My mum is 'into' video analysis (the picture is a still from one of the videos) and I have never really watched myself climb before and I think this sort of thing could be pretty useful for working on difficult problems.

The traditional boxing day swim in pretty balmy temperatures!

In search of the holy grail

This is a bit of an outdated post now, but I haven't quite got the hang of writing blog posts punctually (or sending birthday and christmas cards on time for that matter).

A couple of weekends ago a blog post on the Skye Guides website (http://skyeguides.tumblr.com/), showed stunning pictures of the Cuillin Ridge (the holy grail of uk winter mountaineering) in mint condition. This caused great excitement on Goodman Street and bags were packed with bivvi kit and stoves and Ainsley cous-cous. Plans were made for the all-night driving epic. All that was needed was the weather, visibility being high on our list of priorities. The forecast was not looking primo, but we decided we might be lucky and would leave it to the last possible minute to give the forecast a chance for improvement.

By the time we reached Glasgow however, the met office was conspiring against us, the updated forecast read something like 'Weather everywhere will be glorious, except the weather on Skye which will be shite'. Based on this unambiguous information we accepted our dreams of aquiring the holy grail had been shattered and ate a packet of jelly babies to quell the disappointment.

The sat nav was reprogrammed to Glencoe (incidentally, home of the Gorge of Eternal Peril as featured in Monty Python and the Holy Grail). The damp, dark and chilly morning dawned and we ended up soaking as we trudged up to Stob Coire an Lochain, being hit with big wet snowflakes. The conditions were very wintery, with alot of ice in the cracks and a uniform covering of verglass and hoar and mounds of powder on any ledges. Rob decided on Central Grooves, a classic VII/7 and made pretty short work of the initial tricky section, but then came to a halt looking for runners which were not in abundant supply. The runner situation did not resolve itself, I unclipped from my belay with the idea that perhaps I could heroically throw myself down the approach slope and prevent rob hitting the bottom (after standing on a really cold belay for a while I end up with lots of strange ideas...). Luckily that was not required and he arrived at the belay relieved. I followed and found the initial section savage but overcame it with a bit of swearing and trying harder.

The next two pitches were of seemingly equal difficulty and boldness and had in them some tremendous climbing, which could be appreciated once the hotaches had left. After walking down the ridge to avoid the unstable gullies it was time to enjoy some eccles cakes and tea by the bags before a good bumslide down from the coire.

The next day I woke up with a terrible headache and I remained thouroughly grumpy all of the walk in, despite the glorious morning. It was my turn for a route and I decided to have a second go at Crest Route V/6, which I had tried a few years previously, but had been defeated by a savage crack on the second pitch. I swam (boderline drowning) up the first pitch and arrived at the stance below the crack. I was hoping I had missed something obvious first time round, but it looked exactly as I remembered. I got one axe fully wedged at the back of the crack and used it as a sort of arm bar and then reached around for hooks and wiggled some gear in. The complete absence of footholds means really fighting witn your arms for every move and I repeatedly went up and down and dropped my nuts down the previous pitch and went down and came back up and tried again etc etc. But time was passing and eventually i had to admit defeat for the second time and hand the ropes over to the better climber. Rob made it look a whole lot easier and it was frustrating to think that maybe I had't tried hard enough or been committed enough. Crest Route 2 - Helena 0.

I was pretty disappointed with myself for not managing it and I wonder what exactly i need to improve. Certainly some more pull-ups would not go amiss, I am notoriously poor at pull-ups and the crack was a very physical bit of climbing. Then also, perhaps I wasn't motivated enough, perhaps there was the motivational stumbling block of knowing I was with someone technically better, I could just second it and the I wouldn't have to deal with the stress instead of properly rising to the challenge?

Anyway, we got to the top, and avoided all the cornices along the rim of the coire collapsing in the rising temperatures on the way down. It was then time for the long pizza fuelled drive back to reality.

You take the high road and I'll take the M6

This weekend marked the beginning of what hopefully will be a winter-long ritual of harrowing long drives. It was exciting for a number of reasons. Firstly because I had never driven the big red DMM party bus before, which was particularly exciting for the passengers. Secondly because we nearly got hit by a shooting star. Twice. And thirdly we went climbing.

The extreme seconding team on the Ventricle

After a cosy night in the van me, Rob and Ben trekked in to Coire nan Lochain by the light of the full moon and were rewarded by some nice hoared up buttresses. Most excitingly a flaming ball seemed to pass very close over our heads, nearly making the ground what seemed to be only 20m away. If anyone has any expertise on the subject I would like to know whether this is possible or was I hallucinating?

Rob was keen for something hard so we went for Ventricle VII/8 because it has a plethora of good ledges to belay off and some interesting climbing inbetween them. Rob did a stirling job of torquing, crawling, bridgeing and offwidthing and me and Ben followed with much scratching and popping of axes. The hot aches were particularly severe, hitting about twice per pitch and causing me more pain than I can ever remember experiencing on a winter route before....

The day ended, as it should, in the chip shop with plenty of saturated fat and carbonated drinks. Next in the recovery plan was the Glenmore Lodge bar where I had a rehydrating shandy and met up with my friend Becky to make plans for Sunday.

We decided to head for the infrequently visited Stag Rocks to climb Albino IV/5, because we liked the picture in the guidebook. We made it to the base after a long slog over the scoured plateau and then some deep snowdrifts on the lee side. We stood at the bottom and did the normal thing of proclaiming that it looked extremely easy and we'd walk it. However, the first pitch, despite being easy angled was pretty devoid of hooks or footholds, my calves got very pumped, my axes got very blunt and our overconfidence got a bit dented but I made it to the belay nonetheless. Next it was Becky's turn on an exciting airy traverse round the corner and up a blocky groove with some great turf placements saving the day. Then it was just a womble up a snow slope to the top and back to the van for tea and cake....

Ohno hot aches....

'Hero' Rob Greenwood on forst pitch of Ventricle

Becky Stedham on first pitch of Albino

After another visit to Smiffy's we could finally psyche ourselves up for the drive back. We suffered a puncture (which was dealt with with pitstop efficiency by Rob and Ben) then unbelievably had another run in with an intergalactic object that seemed to be aiming for us! (Or we were hallucinating again)
And finally we were safely back in North Wales,  for some badly needed sleep and recovery before the next two day hit.



Concentrating hard on the road....



Survival of the cleverest

Thanks to everyone who turned up to the Vaynol Arms last night, to take part in my first ever pub quiz. The standard of competition was high, and it remained exciting to the last. It turns out no-one has a clue how many genes we have in our genome (approx. 23,000 in case you were interested). The proportion of mountain instructors in the room was high, so working out how many average sized 9 banded armadillos could hang off a DMM Spectre carabiner was not a problem (300). Probably the most impressize performance of the evening was Owain Williams who gave the correct answer and reason for the following, which is the odd one out?

                                

You can talk the talk but can you chalk the chalk?

The Tube IV photo: Rob Greenwood

A few weeks ago, when winter was not on the horizon and yet I had scotland wishfully pencilled in my diary, it was time to come up with a creative alternative. The idea of going chalk climbing had been bandied around by me and rob for a while but now it seemed like the obvious thing to do. What else can you do when you can't go to Scotland?
So off to the south we went, to stay with Rob's brother and his girlfriend who seemed suitably perplexed at our choice of activity. We set off for the cliffs about at about 8, stopping for a coffee and croissant on the way, much more amenable thing to do than rolling out of a frosty van into a dark and icy carpark at 5 in the morning as it is with scottish trips. Who knows, maybe this is more sensible than winter climbing?
Our objective was the Tube IV, a deep gully splitting the cliff near the port, because it looked like a pretty good introduction to the whole thing. It was drizzling but we optimistically agreed this must be good for 'conditions'. After fobbing off the nice national trust lady with our plan to go walking we tried to make any packing of hardware as inconspicuous as possible, stuffing everything into bulging rucksacks and hoping that no one would notice my out-of-place bright yellow B3s.
We slid around the wet chalk clifftop for a while before finding the very convenient descent complete with sturdy ladder. It was surreal to walk along the beach with the bright white cliffs on one side and the dark blue stormy sea on the other, slipping on the slimy green algae covered rocks carrying axes and crampons.
Rob led up the first pitch, overcoming a steep initial step and getting to grips with hammering in the warthog runners. Then it was my turn to follow and found that our fears about the gear being dodgy was not so accurate. The peg-hammered-in warthogs were almost impossible to remove with one hand, but after considerable effort and swearing at inanimate objects and out-of-earshot climbing partner I recovered the precious warthogs.

All balled up. photo:Rob Greenwood

Next it was my turn, and however great it was that we had managed to accrue 10 warthogs, three were in the belay and another two were needed for the next belay so I had 5 to place in 60 metres. Anyone who has climbed with me will recognise that this is well below my average gear:metres climbed ratio and  the vegetated rubble climbing did not fill me with great confidence so I belayed a bit short and the two pitch route became 3.
It all, however, passed uneventfully and it turns out wet chalk is comparable to ice and warthogs despite being energy sapping to place and remove are totally bomber (on this route anyway). Our main problem was the wet chalk rubble (like snow but not really) balls up your crampons in a way that is resistant to anti balling plates and attempts to remove it. And wet chalk ends up smeared over everything and it won't melt off in the car. In fact it will rub off over the interior of the car. So it was two very chalky people that topped out into the clag and slipped back along to the car park, where luckily the nice national trust lady had left.
It was Nov 5th and we headed to a great fireworks display, and although chalk climbing is a strange thing to do, isn't it also strange to create a national celebration to mark a foiled terrorist plot? But what a fabulous idea!

Solid. Not. photo: Rob Greenwood

Anyway, musings aside, the next day was going to be a 'more chilled' excursion to Saltdean to do some 'sport chalk'. After being very content with the levels of objective danger the day before, we assumed this would be even safer. How wrong were we. Short steep mixed climbs had been engineered using an array of rotting warthogs and, perhaps even more worryingly, bolts. How deep do bolts go? The rock was falling apart in large blocks and reaching the first lower off I pulled off such a block onto my leg, cue some whimpering. Once the pain had dissipated I realised that I pulled the block from between the three bolts in the lower-off which was now my sole point of attachment and they were not not equalised independently either, cue another bout of whimpering. It was at this point I noticed in the guidebook pictures people seemed to be using screamers. Rob then squashed himself with another loose block and decided this wouldn't be somewhere I would return in a hurry.....

I had never visited the south east of england before and was pleasantly surprised with the big white cliffs of Dover. They are are very strange place. Its not Scotland and its not better than scotland, its just different like curry and bolognaise maybe? Anyway, back to more conventional challenges next week hopefully, with winter having made its tardy arrival.......

Jellyfish Paranoia

I never thought I would get on with DWS very well. I like climbing and I like swimming but the thought of falling off a grassy and loose sea cliff top out into ledge-infested water had never appealed. And I suffer from severe jellyfish paranoia.

Tom Bunn on Rainbow Bridge 

However, I had never been to Berry Head before and turning up there on possibly the most glorious day of the summer was temptation enough. The Rainbow bridge section of the crag is so perfect it is as if it has been designed for the sport. Low, solid limestone cliffs into deep, calm and ledgeless water. Me and my two new friends – Tom and Alex (who we met in the car park), also totally new to dws, thoroughly enjoyed the first bit of Rainbow Bridge. Then we took a long and chilly swim back to the start after an unintentional pop at the 7b+ Barrel traverse!

Alex Waterhouse at the mouth of the Old Redoubt cave

After lunch and some warming star jumps we set off on the Magical Mystery Tour which starts through the highly impressive cave at the bottom of Moonraker. This is technically easier than Rainbow Bridge but requires a bit more attention to avoid the ledges and was probably made extra interesting by the ultra low spring tide. Sophie had somehow recruited a fisherman and his boat to our party and convinced him to give her lifts between all the different areas, he seemed quite excited by the whole thing and enthusiastically followed us round, shouting useless beta when anyone seemed in trouble.

Sophie Whyte keeping her shoes and chalk bag dry 

It was all over far too soon and with the winter fast approaching I won’t get another chance this year. But I will definitely be back next summer to face the imaginary jellyfish again.

Helena.