Roll on the weekends....

......because I'm too busy and tired to consider much stuff on weekdays right now :) Yeah, work is busy and I have to prioritise for a while. perhaps my car being killed was a sign from the Climbing Gods for me to focus on getting some assignment work done for a while. I want to agree, but do you think they could have kept it raining so it wasn't so hard?! ;) o.k., joking, as I know loads of people are out and about climbing so it's great to hear and see about that. Still rather it was me though :)

Am I doing anything? Well of course, I'm trying to tick over. So a few hundred sit-ups, leg raises, supermans, tricep dips (less than a hundred of them :) in 45 minutes batches, and an hour on the fingerboard three nights a week to keep me topped up - my core will have big improvements by the summer but fingers aren't going to see any (if not a degradation). I've still got a tweaked finger so can't crimp on one hand, but as trying some routes at Raven Tor, the only holds that I need to crimp seem to be for my left so I can survive. Yes, I'm crimping one-handed. Go figure! It's amazing how weak I am in a crimp-position - blown away by the difference. I'm starting to see some changes but it's taken many many months for it to happen. Who cares, it's all minor, real rock is where it's at right now and the sun is blazing so why are you reading this blog?!!? get out and climb!!!!!!!

How am I staying positive for the summer?! podcasts from the Dirtbag Diaries, podcasts from The Season, video posts from TheNorthFace team in Turkey, some news articles from various websites, and generally getting outdoors for walks as much as possible (the most important part). Oh yeah, and Dave MacLeod has some great posts about how to improve/enjoy your climbing - the short answer? stop waiting to be told how to get better and keep doing stuff. Anything is better than nothing!

positive vibes to all :)

how to become a pro, live the dream

Joe Kinder, one the small band of climbers (part of the original trio out of the States, with Dave Graham and Luke Gomez) that truly inspired me and set the seed of trying harder routes is doing a fantastic series of blog posts about how he got into climbing, all the crap jobs he did along the way, and how he became a professional climber.

It's got all the dirt, is very honest, and really shows the way for anyone young enough reading this blog, and wants to really achieve their potential at a truly amazing sport!

1: Some of my Random Jobs
2: Cell Phone Radiation assembly line
3: Dishwasher

electronic climbing guidebooks?

Welcome to the future of guidebooks, an iphone app, with . Interested to see how it works on an iphone screen, but from my uses of said iphone for everything else, I'm already looking forward to seeing a Euro guidebook do the same. Expensive though at $30 (although, I see that if you buy the app, you get the paper-based version for 50% of the cost), what do you think?!

If this thing works as well as it could (gps location built-in) and even logging of all routes I've done (as it looks like it can) so I can just use as my own personal journal, I'm sold! They look like a serious improvement over the old ipod version from years ago too.

Link credit: thanks to ClimbingNarc.com for this one, once again.

The Tor, trashed finger, some new training books, update

First some nice interesting articles for those interested:
Joe Kinder showing how it is to work super-hard and become a pro-climber, and all the jobs it took to get to that point. Inspiring to see the dedication.......post 1, post 2.


For those bored and somehow stuck indoors this weekend, the Earth Treks Roc Comp is being streamed live this weekend. It sounds like the Mammut comp that was broadcast last year. More info here.


Just a quick check-in from a quiet mid-week. I've finally had to accept that my course is swallowing all my time and major climbing activities are on the back-burner for now. That's not to say that I'm out of the scene but that I'm just not going to make the most of the improving weather as it comes on. Such is life, it'll lead to positives in coming months so that can only be a good thing! It's a good lesson though in having to pace myself, I'm way to worn out to be considering big climbing sessions in the evenings after work for now. Not for long.....

Other than that, I needed some inspiration from this, and the fact of my car being killed in an accident (which doesn't help getting to crags anyway), so grabbed a few new climbing books to peruse when I've free time. It's 9 out of 10 climbers and The Self Coached Climber (amazon links), both of whom come highly regarded. I'm a big believer in educating yourself as much as possible in your hobby, and I can't believe I've waited this long to get my hands on the latter book, it being one of the benchmark books in the last 10-15 years (and almost as valid now I believe as when it came out). I'll write up a review once I've gotten through them. Don't expect it anytime soon, I've enough research and reading to be doing :)

In between that, I did manage a day out at Raven Tor last weekend. It was pretty funny, I've still got a dodgy finger (another good example that if you're not climbing consistently, not resting well, and not training properly, you get injured!) so can't crimp which isn't so ideal for UK-limestone. Still though, it's making me focus even more on open-handed (no pain at all) so I'm sure there's benefits from that to be made! Anyway, got on Rattle & Hum (8a), one that I'd done the boulder problem crux as far as the first bolt. I'd been told, only one hard move after that and then easy to the chains (it's only about 8 metres in height, if even!). I'd cruised the bit off the ground when I worked it months ago and it felt no different this time (a V8 boulder), but the next move was horrific! Suffice to say, I've a hole in my pinkie finger big enough to put another finger into (those on Facebook will have been lucky, or unlucky enough to see it) after blowing off the move so all further attempts were scrapped. Dave, my belayer is looking super-solid on Mecca (8b), that'll go soon, I'd say. The other strong locals were all looking close on their respective projects. It's pretty inspiring/intimidating/motivating/demoralising (in no order) to see so many people hiking hard climbs.
To finish off, I'd a play on Powerband (or is it Staminaband, whatever, the shorter Font 7c one) and touched the holds on Ben's roof (7c). The former is mad, stretched out moves, super polished footholds and the hardest move right at the very end. ouch. Ben's looks sweet, super technical, toe & heel hooks, sneaky knee-bars, long. Good challenges if I can find the time to get on them. As always, one of the locals ticked the traverse and made it look like he was getting out of bed. sobering!

Since then, nada. No car, lots of work stuff getting in the way, life goes on. I've had to sustain myself with the board for now in the room (can't even get to the Foundry!) but am really focusing what I'm doing. Currently 45 minute sessions, but I can barely use my fingers after them so they're pretty hard. We'll see.......

It's a bit late but....the Turkey report

I love having a ticket to an exotic location :)

Lots of work has delayed this post by many, many weeks - here's some, o.k. more than some, text reporting the events!

Update 15/04/2010: TheNorthFace have sent some of their pro climbers to Antalya this week (good timing with my post!) and it's been lived blogged/video-ed/recorded. More info here 

Unfortunately, this is going to be a largely text-based write-up as I barely used my camera, and due to the fact that Irish internet outside of major towns and cities is stuck in 1998 (moronic Government policies - a 3G modem does not classify as broadband so stop classifying it as that!) I can't get any of the photos from Naomi as she's out in the Sticks and if she emails them to me, I wont' get them till 2012. Still though, my eloquent writing will inspire you, eh? ;)

Anyway, Turkey, Antalya. Naomi flew in from Dublin and I flew in from Manchester into Istanbul. Her flight arrived on time and mine arrived 10 minutes before the transfer flight took off. So her bag made it, I barely made, and my bag didn't :) Such is life, and it turns out, a very common problem when flying to Turkey. Lesson to all and something I normally do is bring your harness and shoes in your carry-on…..I didn't this time. doh.
So, the first two days involved climbing in a pair of baggy Katana's that had been heavily used for deep water soloing and had the sea-water-rotten rubber to go with it. But this was the only difficulty of the whole trip as other than that, the place is genuinely fantastic.
It's the closest thing you'll ever get to a climbing package trip. The taxi driver works for the campsite so drops you door-to-door, the campsite itself is run with German efficiency (by some Germans…..), and the crag is at most about a kilometer from the campsite. At it's nearest, it's 50 meters (see photo below)!
In general the rock is un-polished, and consists of a gorgeous European limestone, all orange and white and black and grey streaks of tufas and pockets and edges. Think Rodellar mixed with Siurana, with Siurana steepness (i.e. not super-steep).

yes, some of the crag is that close to the campsite. we were staying in one of the huts - super cheap for what you get!

This was just a teaser for both of us to see how our climbing had progressed over the winter. Naomi was up for just doing loads of mileage and improving her insights, and I was up for finding a project - scuppered a bit by the lack of gear.
Naomi was flying, flashing her first ever 6c+ on the first day, and onsighting another (or was it 2?) later on in the week. A bunch of other 6c's solidified what I regarded as some great improvements for her over the winter.
The amusing incident of the week in climbing revolved around the 6th day of the trip, and what was meant to be an easy morning of 6a's and b's to loosen out after two days of climbing before the final full climbing day on Saturday. It all started so well, a nice 6a to get going about 10am in glorious sunshine right at the campsite. And then the slip-up came when a bit of route-finding-errors occurred and I ended up pulling no a teeny mono and edges up a vertical wall. Seemed a bit stiff for a 6a+, I thought, but knew Naomi could have a good go at this so said nothing and lowered off bar a couple of light jokes that it felt a bit stiff as a warm-up! So Naomi fell off about 4 bolts up and and kept fighting. I had to tell her by the 5th that it was actually a 7b+ (nothing like re-reading the guidebook) so by the time she topped out with only a few rests, she seemed pretty happy. I was happy to just onsight a 7b+ as a warm-up this early in the year, and Naomi got a glimmer of what's possible……rule to all that we should remember, every once in a while, get on something that seems way beyond you to see shock the system and see where you stand.

For myself, I sent the 7b+ as an onsight warm-up so happy with that as a teaser for the rest of the year, I'm hoping to break into 7c/7c+ insights consistently this year as have never managed it (fallen from the chains twice now). I got onto one project, an 8a. A gorgeous, proud 5-degree 30-meter line up the middle of the crag, consisting of small crimps, monos (6 of them), crap feet and a big rest arms-off rest at half-height. So essentially two 8a's stacked on top of each other as the rest was so good. The session working it went pretty well, lots of tough moves, but all felt do-able, bar a really tough clip way up high. I didn't expect much on the first redpoint the next day but much to my surprise found myself in the mid-point rest feeling very very pumped after making much of the sequences up through the lower half sequence of monos (it involves a clip from dime-edge feet on one of them). A long rest (15 minutes) set me up for the upper section but I didn't expect to get through the clip as I hadn't really worked it and expected to take a plummet with the rope in my hands.
Much to my surprise, it all flowed, and I was suddenly at the big large span off the vertical sloper to the final mono and clip completely.
Much to my surprise (intentional re-write), I was then taking a plummet after blowing off the sloper. Oh well! On reflection, I did my number one mistake (And has cost me a few times a route) of taking my foot off the gas a bit as feeling confident and not sending the route to the chains. I tried to flow through the moves, but really should have ripped every. single. hold. off the wall. The final attempt at the end of the very last day ended up with me completely gassed coming into this sequence and the pay-back of the not-really-a-warmup-day-doing-7b+=onsights showing as my ran out of steam.
Reflections
Such is life, and as a teaser of how I'm climbing, it bodes well for the year. A major positive was that I feel much better on crimps now for recovering which had been one of the goals for the winter to improve on. It's still not to where I want it, but it's moving in the right direction.
I found that I've developed a bit of that power that is required for pulling down on tufas also - again, needs more practice.
I also need to spend some time projecting routes at the wall to get that killer instinct, I didn't really have that dialed in and it cost me the route.
To my disappointment, I'd hoped to work an 8a+ or 8b but they were all seeping badly after the winter rains so can't complain with the outcome. Hopefully I'll get some time at Malham or Raven Tor in the coming weeks to sort that out, although there's a few 8a's I'd like to tick first there.



Info on the area:
Getting There
fly to Antalya (there are some charter flights but most seem via Istanbul), and organize either a taxi through Josito campsite (see below) or yourself. We paid about €250 return.

Accommodation
Two campsite options currently, and one place opening this April (2010). The Climbers Playground and Josito camping. We stayed at Josito's in one of the 2-person huts, about €20 a night for the whole huts.

Food
You can eat entirely at Josito's, we did. Breakfast is maximum €3.50, coffee €1.50, lunch is €3.50 (and enough for two people), and dinner (two courses) is €6-8.50. Beer is €2. You can get basic supplies there, milk and break, but you will have to go to the nearest town about 6-8kms away if you want a supermarket. We didn't want to waste time so enjoyed the fantastic food of the campsite. I've heard the other campsite has free milk and break for breakfast so might be a bit cheaper but Josito's facilities are amazing and the people we met from the other campsite used to come to Josito's as said the other was much less lively for social gathering.

Guidebook
you can buy it there.

the climbing
all local, all bolted, all limestone. Much of it is tufas, so we had to deal with some major water run-off problems due to it being just after the winter rains. I'd recommend October - December as probably the most ideal, or March to late April/May. Expect some monos, pinching, and crimps, but bizarrely not many large pockets. It's really good fun :)

Removable bolts - have they a future?

ClimbTech Co-Founder Falls 50ft Using ClimbTech Removable Bolt from Christopher Vinson on Vimeo.

Joe Kinder blogged about this a few days ago (although in an unashamed post pointing out that he was given it free) - these removable bolts from ClimbTech. I'll be honest, I'd never heard of the company but they've been around since the 90's supposedly. And I've just noticed that 8a.nu has thrown up a link about them now under a similar title to that which I posted on myself.

But I have to say I was intrigued - not that I see them replacing permanent bolts as it'd be too easy to have them stolen, people move them around, whatever. But that they might be of use in other places, like for example my incident with the bolts in Ireland (I can't find the old post but it's on climbing.ie anyway), where the short bouldery line could have been tried safely, but there would have been no 'unsightly bolts' to leave and cause offense to those that didn't like them.

I'm not saying they'll replace trad gear either, but in sensitive areas, is this an option? all thoughts welcome :)

Car troubles, Portland and a bit of grit!

a brief video which shows what all the text below is about :)

Looking across the Western face of Portland in the evening sun

So, the first week of my first Easter break as a teacher has come to pass and what an eventful time it's been!

1: had an incident with my car. Due to insurance issues, I won't comment any more here, but lets just finish with the final announcement that my wonderful little Gti has gone to that great scrapheap in the sky. So long!

2. Because of said transport issues, I had to spend a few unexpected days hanging around Sheffield. Not that it was a bad thing, but with the mixed weather we would have much preferred to have been hanging out near the south coast. Wasn't to be though, so I got a re-acquaintance with Raven Tor on a freezing cold day. It turns out my course is completely wiping me out, I had no energy so unsurprisingly had my ass handed to me by the easiest route on the cliff. Day one of climbing complete!

3. Two days of trad climbing on gritstone ensued and reminded me of the fun and enjoyable side of trad. Nice and easy routes, nothing too stressful, made for two great days with some friends.

4. gave up on insurance company and grabbed a rental car, bailing for Portland's coast. We ended up staying in what can only be described a B&B/hotel from the 70's (o.k. maybe the 80's) with a price from 2015! That only lasted a night and instead stayed at possibly the best campsite I've ever stayed at: underfloor heating in the shower/toilet block - made it so nice to go and clean up even on the cold evenings.  Here's their site if anyone is visiting Pembroke - only 6.50 pounds a night per person too! Myself and Naomi got two and a half days on the Portland cliffs. For my first experience it was really nice! Amusingly, it's got a highly dodgy housing estate and a prison on the headland which gave us a few laughs but the climbing and location is exceptional above the sea - think a crag like Fair Head in Ireland, only bolted and limestone. I've still got a gammy finger and couldn't crimp so it was an interesting experience on the vertical technical rock that is there - it does turn out you can open-hand anything though! nothing above 7a+ but to be honest, I'm not sure I would have tried anything harder as the lines up to this grade were so good, there was no reason to want to try the more difficult ones. It's a compliment to the place that you don't have to get on the harder lines to really get the best quality - every line I did (6a - 7a+) was fantastic.
Naomi's camera has all the good photos so will see if I can post any of them tomorrow....

local gritstone hero after an onsight/flash ascent of Master's Edge, E7. Note the only gear, half way up the route!

5. after a brief detour over to Cheddar Gorge on the way home to say hi to Al, currently based in Bristol, we bailed home. I got one more day on gritstone, again probably my best day ever on it as it was Millstone where the routes are so much longer (which is my main love). A fun day getting a tour from the long-term ex-pat, Smacks, on some fantastic HVS's, E1's and E2's. Awesome!

6. since then, it's been supposedly keeping the head down and doing uni work. It's happening but only barely :) perhaps I'll have to sell my soul to the fingerboard tomorrow, the lack of exercise has lost it's novelty!

Positives from the week? The finger is well on it's way to getting back to 100%. I learnt that I can pull on pretty much anything open-handed too - going to have to put that to good use this summer on Euro-limestone where it'll really count for something. And I will take the silver lining of my car being written off, and use it to buy an estate which will be way more useful for road-trips :)

psyche!!!!! hope all's well!