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!

A successful redpoint....

I was very happy yesterday to escape my windowless office and decamp to the Orme, I was even happier to send a route that I'd tried sporadically for several years! I was reminded of how enjoyable redpointing can be and the good feeling you get when you prepare for something properly and it pays off!
The successful mission started last weekend, when I was struggling to find a climbing partner for Sunday even though the weather looked perfect. I phoned up Murdoch to have a moan about my lack of partners, which was a bit unfair as this pails in comparison to having a non-functional leg. However, being the gentlemanly sort of fellow that he is, he offered to belay on the proviso that we didn't really walk anywhere. Marine drive was then the obvious choice of location for a broken belayer as you can pretty much belay from the car. I 'warmed up' on Anchovy Madonna (E3, 5c), which had been recommended me as a warm up by Sohphie Whyte. I could see the logic (it is easier than warming up on any of the sport climbs) but it was still too hard for me to onsight through the bulge, and I ended up sitting on the bolt until I discovered some new handholds. Further up it turns into a lovely exposed trad climb which I did alright at except for being a bit sloooow.

Next up was a return to Homo sapien, which as well as having a wonderful zoological themed name, is less burly than alot of the Orme sport climbing and therefore suits me a bit better. I put the clips in with a clipstick like a big wuss, as its hard enough for me that putting the clips in on lead would probably require draining all my physical and mental reserves. Once I had done this I could learn the sequence again, especially neccessary to get through the very fingery start. It was pretty satisfying as the holds are tiny and bobbly with lots of thumb dishes, so initially they seem really poor but they get better and better as you learn the exact position to hold them. With a bit of trepidation we pulled the rope and I had a try on lead before the sun went down. Although I didn't get it, it broke a couple of mental barriers and instead of finding the whole route scary it was reduced to a couple of scary moments and a whole lot that I could do just fine. It suddenly went from impossible to imminantly possible. All it needed was some fresh arms and fresh skin.

Sophie working Homo sapien

However, if I took too long to get round to it I would have to relearn it all again so I set the arbitary deadline of my birthday (this Sunday) to get it done by. I made an effort to rest my arms properly, flaking on all my pre-arranged wall sessions because my shoulders were still sore (sorry partners!) and reminding myself of the moves whenever I got a moment (on the loo, having a tea break). Friday brought a breif weather window and everything was lined up - cold temps, supportive belayer, rested body. I had a bit of a shock when marine drive was desterted except for one team which appeared to be on my route, how dare they get on MY route, just when I want a go!!! Misplaced anger over, it turned out they were Sophie and Owen and they were actually on the route next door. It all went to plan - I put the clips in and had a swing around on some of the moves to warm up - it was very very cold! The pulled the ropes and got on asap before any cooling down could happen. I had that nice feeling on moves that had seemed at my limit last week were now comfortably within it (who could guess, practise makes you better at stuff?!) and despite feeling quite nervous made it to the chain without incident. Lots of whoops and grinning!

Is it a pot of gold? No, its Brian.

While I had been having fun, Brian had been slowly dying of hypothermia so it was time for some payback and we went over to String of pearls and he had a pop at onsighting it placing draws (a brave enterprise) but was spat off thankfully above the scary bit by some totally soaking rock. At this point it started raining and we all retreated into Llandudno for some celebratory cake and lattes.

DIY Information
All routes are on marine drive - park by the route but its a toll road so you have to pay the man £2.50

Minding the wooden spoon at work for a month...

Anchovy Madonna - E3, 5c but also has three bolts on the steep bit. Lots of good wires on the rest of it!
Homo Sapien - 7a+ big arms not required but strong fingers a bonus!
String of pearls - 6b+ but more like E3, the clips are not where you most need them (in my opinion)!
 Coffee - Fountains cafe/bar. Nice and cosy, range of cakes and coffees!

The Hole of Creation

Sophie beholding the wonders of the hole....

Yesterday me and Sophie went for on an expedition to the Hole of Creation. Similar to Phileas Foggs expedition to the Centre of the Earth it took us quite a long time to get there and was filled with perilous encounters (generally with grass slopes in our case).
Once we had found the appropriate perilous grass slope we could behold the wonders of the Hole of Creation! We were amused to find it somewhat resembled a giant sculpture of some female genitalia... not deterred by its unusual appearance I started flippering up the side of the slimy bulge, trying fairly unsuccessfully to seat wires in the mouths of cavernous pockets. Despite it being steep and taking the notion of 3Dimensionalness to another level there are a reasonable amount of large jugs to aid progress so it is more weird than hard to get into the 'hole'. Once inside the hole the climb continues past some insitu threads - the top one being a massive jug. However to reach this hold some very strange reverse bridging needs to take place and it took several retreats into the hole for me to get my head around it and some excellent efforts by my calves and glutes. Eventually, after some more patient belaying by Sophie, I reached the lower off in a state of confusion and the Hole of Creation was ours!!

DIY information
The Hole of Creation is situated in a secret location on the Little Orme. It is given E3 6a, but generally considered very soft for the grade and the hard bit is definitely very safe. (I still found it very tricky....)

Starting up the hole, shortly before I decided to
take my helmet off!

In the hole - what do I do now??!!

Sophie being 3 Dimensional

The grass approach!

The Great Orme looking great....

Not so trad swim

Given Sunday's apocalyptic rainfall, there seemed to be one obvious option for a suitable outdoor activity. My housemates are members of Not so Trad, the southern gay and lesbian climbing club who were up on a club trip and they had planned a big gay swim across the lake. Ben Tibbets and I formed a heterosexual splinter group, Ben looking the most flamboyant of anyone in my pink wetsuit. Getting across the lake went pretty much to plan, but the squall hit on the return journey with those in boats having to fight hard against the windage.


Unfortunately, other than being flamboyant, my wetsuit was also cutting off Ben's airways, meaning that heterosexuality took a bit of a beating in the unofficial race.


A pretty cold looking Padarn and Ben not quite escaping the picture

Ben 'I'm comfortable with my sexuality' Tibbets

It was also on Sunday that I discovered my new favourite food of the week! There are lots of very ripe mangos in the supermarket at the mo and I really like buying them but then forgetting to eat them, so finding a new way to eat mango was great.
You take mango, milk and yoghurt and process well in blender to give great tasting and proteinaceous mango lassi!


Me donning my 'I'm a triathalete hat from the other week'

The Robinson Round

For the first time ever my OMM running partner from last year is keen to do the event with me again and we met up recently for our annual training jog. With me living in North Wales and Jenny hailing from Glasgow the sensible place to meet was the Lakes and even though I was slightly grumpy to leave my bubble and drive somewhere (I have become pretty lazy having all the nice crags and mountains to hand), it was actually a very worthwhile experience getting out in someone else's mountains. Rocio was keen to come along too and witness the preparation for this important sporting event. Our formula from last years training weekend (go for at least one long run, make some dinner, drink wine and talk about boys) seemed to work well so we stuck with that and we shall see where it gets us this year.

Picking up some uphill speed??! Go me and Jenny!
Photo: Rocio Siemens

The weather had conspired against us to provide us with a stunningly sunny windless weekend, weather that will be nothing like the actual OMM weekend. Although on the upside it did encourage us to run for longer and take some lovely photographs.
I had left little time to plan an actual route but in my hasty planning session I spotted a hill with my name on it and it therefore seemed logical to base the route around it!

So, the Robinson Round (as it shall henceforth be known...):
Start in Braithwaite
Up Grisedale Pike (791m)
Eel Crag (840m)
Along to Sail Pass
Down and up to Ard Crags an along to Knott Rigg
Up Robinson (737m)
Along the edges to Dale Head (753m)
High spy (653m)
Maiden Moor (576m)
and then wiggle along roads back to Braithwaite

It worked out at just over 25km and quite alot of up and down, but it is a good runnable route!


Jenny slogging up my namesake hill - Robinson!

Robinson on Robinson
Photo: Rocio Siemens

End of the day jog down and out where cider and crisps await!
Photo: Rocio Siemens

We were staying in Helvellyn Youth Hostel, which was inconvieniently located near the summit of Helvellyn but after a long potholey track we finally arrived to cook fine splodge and drink fine cider.

Day 2 was somewhat more lackluster and we ambled up High Street and back down to Patterdale to sit and gossip outside the cornershop while Rocio found a friendly farmer to take her back to the car. It being stunning weather I probably should have felt some guilt that I wasn't out climbing, but I had forgotten that running in lovely weather is extremely enjoyable. And there is something satisfying about being able to move 10km in a similar amount of time that it would take me to move about 40m when trad climbing......

Anyway thanks very much to Jenny and Rocio for a lovely weekend, and I am now pretty psyched for the OMM. Bring it OMM???