It's actually been a pretty ok year. On paper it looks utter dog shit of course.
Having to move house, stress at work, serious family illness and the day to day struggles of neurodiverse kids have meant the minor snatches of adventure have been gold dust. Both in value and scarcity.
To top it all off a niggling wrist flared up and then POp another pulley injury. Quite possibly the cortisol contributed.
So how's it been ok? Well I've found treasure in the small things, prior to temporarily disabling myself it was easy days bouldering with friends, daft mini adventures with the kids. Post injury it's the planning...
Next year I turn 50. I'm a little fed up with the last two years of injury, and have decided to do something about it.
All my life I've saught adventure, when the going got hard I specifically excersised to overcome the chosen objective, but there wasn't a culture training as we know it.
Consequently I'm ashamed to admit there's many gaps in my climbing game, and it's quite possible that as I'm no longer "just climbing lots" I'm cashing cheques I can't write ( flip I'm showing my age).
First I asked a physio to hold me accountable with bi monthly check ups.
Secondly I goal set; to get back to 7B and hopefully beyond by my birthday.
This means infiltrating my life with a culture of training. Not sure what that looks like yet.
Thirdly, as I can't climb yet, I need to have alternative adventures!
The target was Craig y llam, the site of my first ill fated coasteering session, and source of a massive niggle of unfinished business. I'm sure there's some projects waiting for me.
First thing I learnt was I've forgotten how to row. It may not have helped that the electric pump didn't quite have the guts to get it totally rigid, so the oar holes were flapping a bit.
It took quite a lot of whirligig type buffoonery to get round the fishing rock and to the cliff proper.
Some signs of DWS potential
Ahoy! An offwidth memory from 14 years ago
All I have to do now is work out how to pull on. Water seems deep enough and walls are all at least vertical. The chimney extends to an unknown depth within the cliff.
I didn't want to risk popping Binky trying to row to the back. It just occurred to me that I could have swum in, but I had nothing to moor to in any case.
Basically I need to visit in the company of fellow adventurers. Unfortunately being a very birdy cliff, this probably means next autumn.
Once I get the bit between my teeth, I tend to doggedly pull myself along towards death or glory. I will admit to being a little obsessive in that way. I was keen to get this crack done, I didn't want to distract myself with a myriad other projects. Get in, get the job done, then move on. First I had to get the crack clean, that meant cutting the log out. I borrowed an old pruning saw and went back with Ethan and Dave Fidler, a good man for boulder esoterica.
Ethan got a rope around it. It didn't pull out, the rope was a natural fibre fat hawser of shipping detritus. It got stuck.
We sent Ethan up with the saw. It was slow going. After we all had a go we stomped off to find something less frustrating to do.
Next month I was back with Dave, some large cams, a grigri and a shiny new pruning saw..
Unfortunately, the rope had been mashed by the tide into all sections of the crack. Cutting the log out was the easy bit. The rope was slow going, and I mashed my knuckles. Eventually it looked like we could tuck the worst of the rope out the way and have a go.
Buggrit, yet again the rope was found to be still in the way. One key jam was blocked. I was pretty cut up. Literally in fact. The blockage of jams meant my attempts were mainly leg driven, and the enevitable back and footing shredded my back. I checked the tides and gave myself a month's peace for psyche and skin to re grow.
May saw me furiously watching the forecasts. My supposed perfect tide day was at the end of a dry spell well enough. However, the rain was a-coming. It would be just my luck to put all that effort in only to be rained off. Taking inspiration from Caff, who'd managed a successful winter of first ascents by going to bed dead early, then sending in a series of weirdly dry dawn raids. I vowed to emulate this to get a tide window when the kids would be sleeping and easy for my wife to manage.
The rope was still a bugger, and the early morning dew had yet to completely evaporate, leaving the reversal of the down climb to set the cam a little eerie. The rope was hard to reach but I was able to remove almost all, and expose a key jam. I was on my own this time, and was a little perturbed that the pebbles had dropped again. Well, I'd brought all four of my pads, so I'd better make them count.
This was the first go. On reflection it was a good thing as since as far back as following my accident on what became the shard, I've been nervous about proper awkward lobs from height onto pads. Well this was that, and I coped.
I was going to leave that as that. My analytical brain however chose to blame my left tape glove, which had gotten chunky through reuse and reapplication of tape. Out came the shears and I jointed and butchered it, and rebuilt something from its guts. I also realised I've fallen on my most squidgy highball, pad, so swapped it over, bringing the newest pads in my most likely fall zone. Comfy now eh?
Round two:
I called it Cherry Bomb, because it was fairly punk and rowdy. Also the beach is Porth Ceiriad. That, and Ethan is a big Guardians fan.
I think 6C+ to fit in with other boulder cracks. It's easier than Tosheroon and requires less precision than Randy Roof, harder than Big Bad Bari and Maneater. Probably similar difficulty to Nefoedd Wideboy. Boulder crack grades seem so compressed with a world of difference between 6C and 7A. Maybe if there was more of them it would spread out a bit.
So happy and content, I can hobble away, wash away the blood, and look for my next fight. Probably a little closer to home.
So another silent 6 months has passed, I've popped the odd thing on Instagram, but not really felt up to splurging on here. .
Rewind to October:
By this point I'm trusting my ankle, having good sessions at the wall, I even started to try this new crack project..
Then got carried away.
Basically, while I was dealing physically and mentally with my bust Achilles, I had stepped away from climbing.
This meant no maintenance, no conditioning, I needed to compartmentalize that away.
When I returned to climbing I was surprised by how little form I'd lost, possibly something to do with how long I'd been maintaining at a certain level of form. However what hadn't stayed the same was my connective tissue. 6 months of stress free living had made my pulleys soft.
Lesson learnt, a little maintenance goes a long way.
One finger max density hangs have been a real eye opener. I use bungies and a home made edge so I can just make myself uncomfortable. I consider these exercises key to my recovery. 10 seconds of pulling in half crimp, then rest a minute. Repeat 5 times.
I did this twice a week for two and a half months. Now I just do it once a week as conditioning and will do indefinitely.
In the meantime I was going for the odd adventure with the kids, like exploring the woods
I even got an opportunity to walk up a mountain looking for cracks
They're a bit tall, not sure if they will be highballs or trad. I've not really tradded for 5 year's or more, so that might be interesting.
Finally this weekend Ethan and I returned to the crack
Unfortunately, it was a bit wet and the tools I'd brought to remove the stuck log were insufficient. Even our make shift swing didn't pull it out.
Still, I had a good play, and was reassured that my fingers were back up to this sort of shenanigans.
Something for another visit.
I'm really enjoying these adventures with the kids though. They have very little filter so are quite forthright and refreshing.
