Punch Drunk but Happy

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.

There's Treasure Everywhere 

Burying the previous year

 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.

Adventure awaits 

I (still) Ate'nt Dead

 I'm just over 4 months into my recovery from a ruptured Achilles tendon. I think I will be able to safely return to climbing in August, maybe.

It's been a bit of an emotional journey with lots of dips. I thought I'd be able to return sooner, once I could fully weight my toes. However there's more strengthening to do and a rerupture would be back to the beginning again.

Well reasoned words. What actually happened was I tried to climb, I even sneakily pulled on some holds outside 

Nothing serious, just a damp visit to Porth Howel. All excited I went to my physio the next day.

"Returning to climbing would be a bad idea"

What does he know. . I'll text a bouldering physio..

"Not yet"

Next climbing physio.

"Keep strengthening "

Begrudgingly I aquiesced.

So it's been quiet on here, quiet on my Instagram too, just pictures of my distraction hobby; isopod breeding.

It's the invertebrate enthusiast equivalent of pigeon fancying, very geeky.

Other than that I've been trying to score parenting points, took one of my boys for a wild camp.

We got wet.

Other than that, micro-exploration continues. I have even made a second cleaning visit to This 

I was surprised to find some of the holds still clean

Has anybody done the second ascent? I'd love to know, I've never been sure of the grade.

Ho hum. Hopefully more news next month 

The Lockdown Diaries; Home Schooling

So lockdown meant were were suddenly all supposed to elevate our abilities to teaching our own darlings. Nevermind this was not "life as normal" for them or us, and we'd been thrown into Confined quarters with them, let's have another thing to argue about. 

Fortunately, my lot were all still primary, and not really in the sausage factory yet. Throw in some smart alec-ness and a smattering of additional needs, and we felt it was best to follow "child led education".. 

Ethan wanted to go new routing! It just so happened I had the ideal venue. Short walk in, easy to escape from, good rock and all Ethan sized. 

Impressed maybe? Hard to tell with these cool types. 

First off was the left hand crack, and a quick lesson in jamming. He took to it, eventually.. 

He chose to name this first foray "JamRock" , and hence crag had a code name. 

We'd go once or twice a week, concentrating on a different line each time, picking off the low hanging fruit. 

This is Sequencer, the key turned out to be using the holds in the right order (who'd of thought?) 

One of my favourite named problems of Ethan's; Doper Sloper. 

This was the first line that slowed him, tenuous direction holds meant he had to think about his feet a bit. 

His first split tip! 

This route became "First Blood" and has a lovely selection of slopers at the top. 

Big brother paid a visit, however he's more into sport climbing and hurling himself into the sea.. 

This was his penultimate send. Lean n' mean was tricky for him as the leaning arete required some forceful footwork (hence it was mean). Two sessions and an exciting jettison into the bushes later it was in the bag. 

The last gap on the wall was a blank bit with a lovely pocket and a little slanting edge. There was only a little rock pimple in the place Ethan needed to plant his foot, and his stature meant he was a little stretched. Credit to him, three sessions smacking himself through the same move, watching the footage and seeing what worked, it had to go eventually.. 

Jurassic Dyno. 5C++ (Dad is tight as they had to have adult grades. 

Throughout all this Ethan assembled his topo (although the lazy tyke made me his secretary). Therefore, if any of you climbing parents want an off piste roadside venue for your own chaos monkeys you can plug (53.1284168, -4.1528944) into Google maps. 

The bloc is all his own work but as the traverse was a little reach, he kindly let me have a crack. 

Home Skoolin' 6B. No tops, and even Ethan ignored the foot block in the middle. 

The midgets descending, well it is Summer, and the car is 10m away. 

Enjoy if you visit. This is the last Lockdown Diary entry, as I should be back at work next week (yippee). 

 

Lockdown Diaries- Opening Entry

So the world is on fire with itty bitty flames and I'm fighting by staying at home with a 4yr old princess, the twin monkeys of CAMHS chaos, a bolshy pre teen, a (obviously) wonderful wife, 2 ducks 5 chickens and 3 rats.
It a been emotional folk's.
What's a man to do? I started like most fathers by tidying the shed:

 Following that I installed a pull up bar in the kids bedroom, as the ancient and Chalk free fingerboard in the kitchen is crap for actual pull ups :

Then I went crazy.

Being without climbing, especially outside, although with the wall where I work closing inside too, I was without means of release. Feeding the rat, blowing off steam, call it what you want. I have lived for the last 33 years with adventure on tap, and was now cold turkey. It isn't just a case of addiction, as addicts can get clean. This was a need. N Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs were engineered without the ability to produce lysine so they were dependent on their captors. Well like those plucky dino's I was determined to find a way around it. I made a decision to comply with the no climbing request from the BMC, despite my Esoteric tastes and such blocs being 40 minutes walk away. It would be sneaky, and even though nobody else would touch the same holds, there were thousands of us not so lucky, and we're all in this together aren't we? 

My first attempt to get past this was a pull up challenge. 100 a day for 5 days. As my 45yr old body protested, I included 100 press ups and squats to balance it all out. 

This didn't hit the spot though, if I enjoyed exercise I would have become a sport climber. 

Ethan, one of my chaos monkeys provided the solution. He wanted to search for a bomb crater from ww2 that was purportedly on the other side of the conifer plantation on the corner of our lane. He also decided that the best approach was through the plantation... 

This is not a well maintained plantation. Its about 400m square, or 16k hectares. 

I'm not as small as Ethan.. 

We went about 50m without touching the ground, indeed we we often a couple of meters off it. 

Sometimes we were quite close.. 

However, this mini adventure was just what we ( oth) needed. You can see Ethans grin, mainly because of the scratches and twigs in my hair.. 

A more open section, wandering over the pile of grubbed up tree roots. 

We did make it out eventually, even though actually finding the bomb crater is an adventure for another day.. 

Other dad jobs include making bows and teaching them not to stab their legs with knives.. 

Even surprised myself with a not totally rubbish flight for the arrows.. 

Another way for me to improve my serenity has been to start painting again. Before marriage and kids I did loads (even sold a couple) and it seemed to click with my climbing head space. I'd recently started again as I found an unfinished painting, and resolved to complete it in my lunch breaks at work. This was as an alternative to candy crush. That one completed, I started a fresh one of the stone wall outside my kitchen. Come lockdown I retrieved it from work.. 

Obviously with my house full of chaos, there wasn't going to be much painting time. My wife and I needed to a) not kill each other and b) have some down time. So we arranged that once a week, each of us could escape to a room for an evening and not deal with kids or each other. Tonight is my night (hence the blog) and I've taken a fresh pic of one of the stones.. 

It's getting there by baby steps.. 

I'll report next week whether I'm still keeping it together. 

Stay safe! And adventure will still be out there.. 

The Flirting is in the Footwork

So a particular area of geography has got me all giddy. The initial result is a lot of time on Google maps, and much wellie shod exploration.

First on the list was checking out those blocks I saw near llyn llagi..

They were both far away and small, so much for Father Ted. 

However, the altitude gained provided a unique viewpoint. All that was required was, firstly to work out where I was, and secondly,  how to get somewhere from wherever I was... 

Walls, the ML lifeblood, that and reentrants. 

More walls, and promisingly some rocks. 

  

Definitely promising. 

So armed with a pocketful of promises, the next adventure was, you guessed it, more Daddy time. Logan being this sorties padawan. 

Sunny! But chuffing cold. 

So we got some height, and were treated to visions of distant treasure 

Food for future sorties

We did find stuff though 

Some of it big... 

However, as this hoarefrost demonstrates, a little to chilly for father son bonding over Fa's. 

So this current geography is still teasing me, but maybe the next adventure will be the big one.. 

Watch this space