Peak District limestone is like Chess!

I know, a weird comparison but I'm starting to think that it's apt. I'd a day out in Chee Dale again, ended up getting on two routes, a 7c+ and an 8a. The former route was short, two bolts and a lower-off, and involved some desperate pulls on undercuts (but it made up for it by actually having a pocket - a pocket!!! - to pull from :) - my wrists are still throbbing from the experience.
The latter route was one that had 9 bolts........but finished 15 meters to the right of where you started. Yep, a traverse route. Basically, it involved lots of holds credit card sized and footholds that, well, I couldn't really see. But it was fun.

The chess analogy is the idea that in chess you have to be thinking several moves ahead (if you're really good at least, if you're like me, it's more a case of make a guess-timate of what you'd like to do and hope the other player has even less of a clue than you have! :) of how you're going to kill/beat the opponent. Peak District limestone, that around Sheffield, is like that: you start climbing, but you're already thinking ahead of the position you have to be in to reach the next hold. Sometimes you'll even sacrifice a brilliant position so that you're in a more optimum location or setup for the following moves. It's fascinating, frustrating, brilliant, challenging all rolled up into one! Today for example, I ignored the brilliant edge I could have stood on immediately so that I could perform two hand manouvers BEFORE I could then stand on the foothold with my other foot. Confused? So was/am I :) The joys of limestone with no holds, awesome :)

As you can guess, I'm back in work proper now. Climbing has taken up that setup of something that I cling to to keep me busy/occupied in the evenings. I can feel all my Ceuse-fitness ebbing away but it's coming into the winter anyway so it's almost bouldering time. Now all I need to do is replace my puny arms with hydraulic pistons and sandpaper-for-skin so that I can drag my way up some gritstone boulders ;)

Hope everyone is well!

Putting the head down

And so work enters the fray of items/objects fighting for my time everyday once again! But like always, I look on this as both a positive and a negative. One of the great things that comes about from traveling is the sheer amount of freedom that comes about from basically having only a few things to do in a day - for me: get up, eat, read, eat more, climb lots, eat, chill out, sleep, repeat. It's simple and wonderfully flexible for a lot of reasons - time to think, discuss, appreciate life in general, discuss lots of things with good friends that you just don't have time for while in the Real World.
but then of course, there's always a difficulty that you could be using some of the time slightly more productively - it gets very comfortable when the odd day breakfast rolls into lunch, etc......  :)

Working a job really brings about that - you really do have to focus so much on being organised with your time to get anything done other than working, and then just relaxing for the evening.
I'm getting back into this groove now after a week back. The initial tiredness is almost gone (almost!) and this weeks focus is just getting a good routine going. Getting to the wall a few times a week, some runs, core work, meeting up with friends. And of course, the one thing that always gets pushed back is the amount of sleep. On holidays, you can easily knock out 9-10 hours a night and still have tons of time to be active all day. If anything, I wonder if that's part of the fact that you start to feel so good so quickly when living this lifestyle - you have time to properly recover. But when working, you're always fighting against time - I'm usually lucky to get 7 hours most nights if I do everything I want to do in a day.

What I do remember though is that the time when I went to doing a grade eight sports route in about 5 goes was the time when I was really watching the amount of sleep and being very focused with my climbing. I also remember that it meant that I ended up having more time for everything because there was less dossing around. So, I'm back onto something like that - really focused regular sessions of activity. Who knows this time if it'll make a difference or not but I'll only find that out in a few months. What I do know is missing right now is a project/goal - something to give me reasons to improve. Something to think about this week!
What's your focus for the winter?

Reel Rock Trailer 2010… "if you don't keep training, you're going to be left behind"

Saw this on Joe Kinder's blog today and was super impressed with the footage - is it just me or are outdoor climbing movies getting much more professional in the past year or two?

Side note: the quote is from Bouldering strongman, Daniel Woods, in the trailer.
Thoughts on it?

Sadly, I had a look and while it is making some international stops, it doesn't look like this will be making it's way to the UK or Ireland......

Irish Lead Climbing Championships

And so another lead climbing championships comes around (October 16th)! (Side note, if it's a championships, does that mean there's more, or will be more?).

Here's the official email that was sent out, and the link to the official page on Mountaineering.ie:

The National Lead Climbing Championship will take place again this year in Dingle, on Play-at-Height's competition wall.

We are hoping that the event will be even bigger than last year's and that the high standards of competition we saw at last year's event will be repeated...

The event will involve 2 qualifying routes, which are demonstrated. The final routes, attempted only by the top competitors in each category, are climbed on-sight. There will be plenty of chances for those who don't make the final to have another go at the routes they missed!

I'm a big believer in supporting this sort of event even if I'm not a great competitive climber (or indoor climber for that matter!) - I had hoped to make it last year but the the location is a little tricky to get to from the UK! Still though, a quick flight into Shannon for the weekend will allow me to attend this year and show my support.
Will you be there?

See the photo below? This was taken at the Climbing Works yesterday evening on a normal Tuesday evening and only shows a tiny area of the wall. No, there wasn't a competition on, but the sheer number of people make it such a fantastic buzz at the wall. Sure, it's a little trickier to get on the wall, but the motivation that comes from a group of people easily offsets it. Actual 'real' 'outdoor' rock may be the king of options for climbing, but there is definitely a place for indoor facilities - the popularity of climbing here in Sheffield is continuously amazing me.

Competition wall at the Climbing Works

Two Tier, the Embankment and a pile of.....

Unknown climber climbing ?Quality Control? (7a I think) on Two Tier Buttress, Cheedale

.....Choss! Another fun weekend spent around the Peak District limestone. We had our first experience of Two Tier (another sector in Cheedale) on Saturday and got the tour from Dave and Frazer. A few fun routes there, although admittedly I was really noticing the length (or lack of it) on that day. Granted one of the routes I was on was only about 8 meters in height (with 4 bolts!) so it was more like bouldering on a rope than big Euro-routes :)

Sunday involved a trip to an obscure little valley called Deepdale. The name should have given it away! Granted it was a gorgeous location in another very secluded valley (much like Yew Cogar during the week), but the rock was shockingly bad crumbling crap. I went bolt to bolt up a 6b+, worried about sending a block down on top of Naomi and the others. Obviously we bailed and ran back to Cheedale, this time to another of the sectors, The Embankment. Stiff grades are the order of the day here reputedly and it lived up the reputation on the few we had a go on.

Dave on the ultra-short and fingery Blockhead (7b+), Two Tier, Cheedale. Managed to bag a flash of this after watching Dave give a good fight on his redpoint attempts.

As it happened I was having a bit of an off day also - sore and achey body, not even just arms. I'm conscious of the fact that the bouldering season is kicking off in a few weeks properly once the temps drop a bit so am keen to get some extra power and strength back in the arms. This means some pretty hard sessions at the Works and on the board back home so I was feeling the effects of it this weekend. It's a little bit frustrating sometimes when this happens as you want to be going hard at each weekend, but for the greater good and for improvements in the coming weeks, I have to let my body suffer a little bit to stimulate it to new levels. This will all pay off in a few weeks :)

The Adventure Life

Interestingly, I didn't even know this was an event, but since the award ceremony took place in Trinity College Dublin on Tuesday I thought it was worth a mention. Another amazing Red Bull sponsored event, for adventure photography this time.

The above image won the award, and more details can be found here.

The photo gallery of the candidates can be found here - trust me it's worth flicking through! They pretty much illuminate the whole range of sports and excuses there is to go and explore our amazing planet! I'm especially inspired by the one of the person high diving into a Venice canal?!?! Let me know which is your favourite.

As for my own adventures, was up at another new crag (for me at least) yesterday - Yew Cogar. Most of ye won't have heard of it, but suffice to say it's near Kilsney which the Irish and UK people will have! It was also my first view of Kilnsey - woah, it looks amazing!!!!

Best to click on the image to go full-screen for this panoramic of Dave Johnson on one of the fantastic 7b's of the crag.

As for Yew Cogar, it's a small (100 meters in width) crag situated in the bottom of this gorgeous valley completely away from, well basically everything. One of those amazing places you'd never even consider going, or seeing, except for this crag being down there. As one of the guys described it, you could have brought a book and had a nap and it still would have been a brilliant day there.
For the climbing? super-rough limestone (a change for the UK!) as it seems to be wet most of the year - keeps the amount of traffic down. It's got some cool tufas (you read that right), and all the routes are short and powerful (nothing new there :) - about 15 meters in height.
A nice day in the end - the 6b+, 7a, 7b and 7b+ were ticked off by the gang.

We finished off with a short trip to Kilsney (we were driving underneath it so couldn't really not stop!!) so had the experience of doing the easiest route on the crag. Wow, what a difference as it was ridiculously polished! Still though, it was a good teaser to the type of climbing. I'm just wishing it wasn't a two hour drive from Sheffield.....

Go have an adventure :)