Dinbren and LPT - a case of lots of 'almost sends'

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Local climber, Mark on one of the classic 7c’s of Dinbren. Sean Marnane belaying.
I seem to have ended up spending quite a bit of time at Dinbren and LPT the past few weeks, partly due to Dave and Caroline’s imminent departure to Spain. Always ironic that when people are leaving that you see the most of them as you’re trying to make up for lost time! still though, it’s all been fun and a brilliant way to get the body back in gear for some climbing. both of them are going really well right now so it’s easy to feed off their motivation :)
At Dinbren, been trying some of the classic lines. So far, no go on any of the harder routes. Elite Syncopations, one of the 8a’s is killing me on the first crux - I can walk the rest. I just don’t have the power for the first undercut move. But progress was being made before I continued to try others. The 8a that Dave did a few weeks ago, I had it dialled until one of the first holds fell off. Again, haven’t been on it since. Another route, Highway (7c+ - 8a, depending on your route), was a close call last weekend - I worked it once, took a rest for an hour and then fell off on the final moves due to a footwork mistake. Bit frustrating but as always there’s positives to be taken from it. I clip from a single-pad mono, and do the next move off my ring-finger mono so strength of fingers is back and firing on all cylinders. And considering I’d only worked the route once, it was a great first effort. I was taking the 7c+ version (if there’s holds there, I’ll use them and not just stick strictly to the bolt line - seems stupid not to. I’m climbing the routes for the fun movement, not to say I ticked individual grades!).
The big one has been Statement of Youth though. Wow, what I line. I’m soooo psyched for it right now. both myself and Dave have done it with two rests (I’d say we could both do it comfortably with a single rest - it’s getting the sequences dialed that takes time on this route). Beautiful moves, it’s hard to believe how good it is, and that I hadn’t tried the route before this year. Just shows I wasn’t confident enough to try it before now! Hopefully get a go for a send on the route before I leave for Europe in the coming days......
In between all that, there was an epic going-away bash in Llangollen for Dave&Caroline - lots of fun, and again great to see how well everyone is climbing. I’d better get the finger out so I can keep up!

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