Firstly i apologise for the lateness of the portland update, secondly i thank dan wicks yet again for the trip to anstey's and the opportunity to try the hard stuff.
The portland trip was decided pretty much on the spur of the moment by my dad, so we headed off for an afternoon at cheyne wears. Started on the bouldering to warm up/tick a few, ended up spending a while doing a fair few. I ticked about 4 onsight and 2 more worked, 3 problems did elude me, but i blame not seeing rock for a while, and being scared up high :).
After the bouldering session we ended up by the routes. I tried about 2 4+'s the first with a bit of a dyno start for someone of my height. Good route overall :). The second wasn't in my guidebook, but the people on it before us didn't have my route in their guidebook so we swapped routes :P. Shorter and weirder. The crux about 3m up was a kind of muddy bubble thing, plenty of holds, it was just finding the good ones and the ones alligned correctly. The last route i tried, was partially for the cool name (brace yourself sheila) and partly for the undercut that was mentioned in the guidebook. To be fair the undercut was pretty cool, but the top was a right swine to figure out. I spent too long going right to the large overhang and trying to pull through getting pumped. After probably 30-45mins of trying various techniques i got the beta and did it second try with those moves. Was bricking it at the top clip though when i nearly slipped. Typically found the jug just after i have the heart attack.
Ansteys Cove then. Dan Wicks felt the need to get outside and ended up taking me down to torquay after bunking in my house as a midpoint. The weather forcast was, lets face it pretty dismal. But there were a few cool routes that were on the possible list so we headed down through torrential rain in places to reach a relatively clear skied crag. We headed down and Wicks started working empire of the sun, in the wrong place we found out later. The top would go but it was the lower section that was being annoying and not yielding beta. After probably an hour or so it started to rain and the top of the route got soaked. The bottom was fine so i was nice and dry :), but it was wierd to see leaves barely a meter from me getting wet when i felt barely anything. We moved to the cocytus area in search of different climbs, as empire.. was out of reach with the wrong beta. Discovering it was a slab Wicks started More steam, bigger women F7b. Working out the crux took an attempt and a few goes. I rolled onto it and with a fair bit of weighting ended up at the second bolt (the top of my section), which i found rather impressive. Wicks tried the route again, rested on the crux due to the key hold being greasy, and got to the top in the next push. Naturally annoyed he had a break then did the route nicely next attempt. We left the rope in the first two bolts for me to try the crux again and set up the next route, cocytus, more steam connection F7a. I tried the crux of the 7b again and with barely any weighting did it :D, rather wierd to be honest. after a bit of a high from succeding on something i thought out of my limit that was just brilliant climbing i belayed wicks up the 7a. When he was done he offered the option for me to second it to try the roof which was shared by both routes. I accepted and headed up the 7a (first section E2 6a trad). Rather strenuous and tenuous :P but i worked my way up to the top without weighting or falling, woo me :D. Sadly i was too pumped for the steep section which would have been tricky even on fresh arms due to reachy moves. so when i found my self at the top quickdraw i removed it and got lowered down. On our way back we passed by empire of the sun and shared a coversation with other climbers trying to work it out. We went to a beach for a dip in the sea i chose not to partake in and headed back to warminster.
Onsighting a british tech 6a, french 7a crux and actually doing a french 7b crux hmmmm maybe i need to rethink what routes i am doing, or build stamina like a monster so i can actually stay on the routes at the grade i may actually be able to do (6a/b ? )
Things to think about for the future. anyways peace out and see you at the next update
