Fulfilling a long held ambition

Yesterday I took a trip to the Skull entrance to Twll mawr

Inside the skull

Artifacts from the Skull's last visitors

Giveaway Project of the Month - January2011

Bit of a special one this Month, Start of the Year and all that. Its a whole undeveloped area:

The Crystal Chasm
This is situated high in the eaves of Australia Quarry and is best accessed from the top levels of Braich, a couple above Far out level, at a rail track dump. Distilling thefinest attributes of the Lleyn, this compact mainly solid vast wall of quartzy stuff is about 40m long by 30m high, and would give many exciting adventures. As well as this the level incudes some very steep dolerite bouldering

This one extends far deeper also

Think moel y gest or Fairhead. a bit of groundwork and a pad stack.

Go get it

Grandpa's Spade

Today a fortuitious alignment of free time and baby sitting allowed me to perform a task whose performance had eluded me for a while. I headed forthwith to filmset and decended the scramble in...

This was a bit wierd, as I'd done this loads of times (that view is from the bottom btw), but today I was imagining the added weight of fatherhood, combined with the light frost would make it a great psychological challenge. However, I still appear to be the same man I once was. This was a great revelation to me, as most people bang on how your perception of risk and danger is altered by parenthood. The risk is the same folks, you just avoid splatting a little harder.

This was my Goal
I first brought Grandpa's spade down into filmset quarry in 2007 with the intention of reopening the tunnel between gideon and filmset, which involved shifting a few square meters of slate scree which had slipped over the filmset exit. I succeded on new years day 2008, and due to a fair amount of affection for the place, left the spade in place for further adventure. For one, there was still a bit of scree coming down the shute, and also there were these amazing boulders..

Obviously I never got to platform them out, and 3 years or so after arriving down the hole, I went to retrieve my keepsake of a rather special man (To which he would probably say "Silly Boy...")

End of a chapter? maybe not, those boulders still look great and There's easy abseil / lowering access down Near Dark. Probably needs some corrogated iron tho'... Here I go again!

Entering the tunnel 1/1/2008

The hole stil visible with a bit of digging and imagination 19/1/2011

Out of the Blocks and into the Hurdles

Did my timed block today (did too much extra on Saturday, come Sunday, My tummy hurt..)

10 x (4 push ups + 2 pull ups in pike) = 2 minutes 54 seconds

Divide by 3 and times by 2 = 1 minute 56 seconds

This is my block goal

That is one set per 11 and a bit seconds

Might need to cross train...

Block around the clock

Today was a good day.

I finally reached ten sets in one go, This is to be my standard block.

I don't quite know how I know this is my standard block, but it feels right. The last week has been painful, and mainly about reminding my body what exercise is, and what is expected of it. My only rest days are those when I don't come to work, as I use the fingerboards here. But Hols are due so I'd better think of something..

Anyhoo I can now initiate phase 2!

Tomorrow I will repeat the block against the clock, and then I need over the coming days to reduce that time by a third.

Then I'll attempt two blocks a day.

Once that works I'll try climbing something thrutchy...

Pain passes

Right.

Refined the training regime:

4 press ups then 2 pull-ups with legs raised (in pike)

repeat until:

a) bang head against the floor

b) fold up like a broken deck chair

c) puke

d) any combination of above

Managed 5 sets today.

Going to be a long road...