Leicestershire Slate 2nd March 2013

This started based on Jim’s almost unnatural love for slate. He persuaded Jack to go for a day of climbing in Hangingstone quarry with him and Tanner. I managed to tag along thanks to an invitation from Jack and prepared for a day on slate sport. How close it was surprised all of us. It took a similar time as the bus to the tower takes to get there. We parked and set off up what we thought was the right trail trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. Luckily the first person to talk to us assumed we were going to Hangingstone quarry, and was kind enough to point us in the right direction. The right direction was up a hill through a field. Unfortunately there was a land rover parked at the top of the hill but we chanced it anyway. Sure enough there was someone in the land rover, who asked us where we were going and informed us of the nature of the land … not public access.

We left quickly and without protest to avoid compromising possible access disputes. This set a bit of a downer on the day but we settled on Forest Rock as a secondary destination and attempted to find it. This involved a wrong turn in the car and subsequent U-turn, and asking a local for directions. Eventually we found the small outcrop. What an outcrop though. A slate cave with slabbed sides. We all warmed up on the V0 slab, then attempted the V1 crack problem that started the E1 Sorcerer. Jack was the only one that had an issue but this was a height issue for the lower moves. The lanky swine could almost reach the top from the first high foot. The rest of us had to do a really awkward lean through using a hand jam to reach the jug.

The next problem, which occupied most of our time was a tasty V2 called Saucy. At a first glance it looked like a layback problem up a hanging rib next to the V1 we had just done. Tanner had however seen a video of someone chimneying up the route, so we spent an hour or so trying various ways of grovelling up the problem to no avail. I decided after a while to try my initial idea of laybacks and knee-bars which this time came to fruition. Weird moves indeed. Jim then succeeded in laybacking up the route, while Tanner managed to crack the chimney method. Jack unfortunately was again plagued by size. While he would be able to reach the top hold after 2 moves he could not move past the first. Flexibility was an issue that could not be avoided it seems.

After a lunch break we took the mats to a slab by the cave entrance. We move back the V2 quickly after 2 attempts did not go well. Large falls onto a sloped landing, with loose and wet holds was not something any of us wanted to do.

We went back to trying the V2 and the V4 sit start. Despite several tries and various techniques the V4 remained just out of our grasp. Tanner and I were the only ones trying and neither of us could pull of the body tension needed for the moves. Jack unfortunately never managed to crack the V2 despite getting very close several times. That’s just the way of bouldering though.

We all were running out of patience and strength so called the day early. Just as we were leaving though a fellow boulderer arrived, who kindly gave us a run-down of other problems we could try, and of other crags in the area we could check out. Despite the bad fortune of the day we left in high spirits and returned to Leicester in the sun for a nice relaxing evening.

Might be a while again to my next post … May even be my last as part of the ULMC …

Until next time then :)

Yorkshire 15-17th February 2013

Yorkshire was actually looking good when we left. Our new driver, Tom, assisted by Brad and Jim got us to our midway stop in good time and we all grabbed food from the well-stocked store. Most of us had some fast food from the popular restaurant while we waited for the last few people to make it through the checkouts. The rest of the journey was equally uneventful and before too long we were at the hut.

The rest of the night was nice and relaxed by the fire. The lack of people was weird … I kept expecting more people to come into the room when we were all there. We all hit the sack relatively early, psyched for the next day.

Saturday

The day started well. We were leaving around 9ish and the weather was looking set to improve. As we got to the car park of our crag, Crookrise, it was starting to get sunny and warm up nicely. The 20 minute walk-in up the hill definitely affected some of us more than others… several down jackets were removed during our first break. When we all got to the top of the hill and started descending towards the part of the crag we were starting at, we were all toasty warm and enjoying the sun.

We set up around the central slab and divided into groups. With an odd number of people I opted to try a V2 and just pottered around for a bit while everyone started leading. I’ll do another group play-by play as best as I can.

Jack took on Lianne as a second and started on Diagonal Crack. While the start took a while for both of them they eventually broke through and cruised to the top. For some reason, after this Jack decided he liked the idea of chimneys, so set off up Buster. Lianne had a bit of an issue with the lower section of this… damn chimneys, and did not end up finishing the route. I am unsure if he led any more but both continued to mingle/climb all day.

Josh and Lilian started on Face, Arête and Wall climb, which without cams was barely protectable for Josh, and too reachy for Lilian. Eventually though, they both succeeded and topped out. My knowledge of the rest of their day is shaky, but I know that Josh was the last person to lead ‘The Sole’. He finished the day on Octopus to my knowledge

Again my memory is faulty but I believe that Lally started on Chockstone chimney with Tom. Beyond this however I cannot recall the routes L.

Jim started the day with Brad by leading octopus. Brad swiftly followed and then for the hell of it I soloed up after. As everyone seemed occupied and happy we became a trio. Brad led Arsenic slab, with a pretty hefty top run-out, understandable given the gradient though. Both Jim and I seconded fairly quickly and descended in good speed. I took the first step past severe by leading Long climb, and took everyone on a hand jam trip. Well I took myself and brad on the hand jam trip. Jim seemed to layback the route instead. I had the luck of placing the trio’s first camming hex too :D WIN! With it back to Jim’s lead he set his sights on one of the aims for the day … The Sole HVS 5b. The start was an awkward layback which then moved to leaning cracks that traversed up and left to the top of the face. Breaking the lower section was interesting, but Jim managed it fairly well and arranged a cam under the roof. The next move seemed the most unsteady but after a few looks he managed to push through and reach the large cracks above. From this point it seemed a matter of just staying on the wall. He worked out the traverse quickly and was quickly looking at the final moves. The top few holds however were wet and slopey and just a foot from the top, Jim pumped off. That sucked hard and we started debating what to do about the gear left in place. I had a go leading through the gear. I nearly barn-doored off the first few moves but had in my eyes, better beta for the move to the cracks. From there it really was a matter of holding on. I got to the last few moves and tried the optional fist jam, which despite the green rock was solid. I had used the wrong arm though, and had to release it after barely using it. I ended up a move from the top and just committed, and somehow managed to hold the top long enough to get high feet and flop onto the top. I think after seeing that Jim got a renewed burst of motivation, and made the call to pull the ropes through. He jumped on again and went with good speed again to the last moves. Different moves this time changed the style slightly. The top section looked solid and I thought he was going to do it, but alas this was not the case as he slipped of the top. It just didn’t seem like his day. Brad tried the route but couldn’t work out the barn door move low down and did not make it to the ‘safe’ point beneath the route. Josh gave the route a few goes and after falling near the top a few times like Jim, he managed to top out. Jim gave it one last go but again, the fates were not on his side, as once again he fell, inches from the top L.

After the epic at the Sole, Brad decided to lead a HS next door while Jim returned to the slabs he loves so much and did a tasty HVS with Tom.

We all ended up at End Slab at the end of the day for a small session of soloing. A few of us tried the VD traverse of the slab, with me, Jim and Brad leading a VS 5a up the slab via a short thin crack. Jim had already led it when I arrived, but Tom was having issues with the start. I seconded him and then gave the same favour to Brad after photographing him on the route with Lianne’s camera. As the day was drawing to a close however I decided to lead the route to see just how much gear you could place … Brad placed 3 nuts, Jim 2. I ended up, thanks to offset nuts, peenuts and micro wires to place 6 pieces of gear before I got told to just get on with the route :P. After seconding twice already I knew the moves and it was a simple matter of ignoring the fact I was on lead. I topped out and brought brad up through the gear.

We walked back as the light was starting to dim and were back at the bus before it was dark :D.

Natural evening hilarity ensued once we finished eating and cracked open the bottles. We attempted the outdoor boulder problem found last year, managed to get 3 people in the chest in the bedroom and got nice and warm sat next to the fire.

Sunday

The day started well. The weather was looking even better and people were moving relatively efficiently. With so few people we could organise the packing up well and before too long had very little left to clean. We made it out the door around 10ish, which most people were quite happy about. Taking advantage of the return route we set our sights on Almscliff.

The field on the walk-in was pretty damn muddy, but the one of the beauties of Almscliff is that the walk-in itself is short. Barely 10 minutes after we had got out of the bus we were looking at Low Man and starting to rack up. Just after we arrived Frosty turned up which was awesome J. Having an Almscliff veteran with you can only be a good thing. Frosty, Brad and Jim did the Matterhorn Arête right off the bat. Jim then racked up and went for Pigott’s Stride. The stretch is bloody huge. With no gear and a big reach to bad holds, Jim decided against the route.  He rallied quickly though and started up Whisky Crack. Chimney then hand crack … I bet he loved that. Lally took a few people bouldering while Josh and I started up routes on low man. I had called dibs on fluted columns, while Josh had selected … I believe Pinnacle Flake Climb. Going on memory from first year didn’t serve me amazingly well. There was much less gear than I had expected, and I found myself thoroughly glad I had cams. After the trip I think Josh decided it might be worth investing in some also. Still the top section was awesome :D. I brought Tom up, who for his apparent first time on rock was doing awfully well.

I’m not quite sure why, but after returning to the base of Low Man I got the urge to go bouldering, so I went to find frosty and the others. We pottered around a few problems, succeeding in places, failing in others but overall having a good time. Without a guide we went to what looked good, and by Frosty’s knowledge. I don’t think we hit anything harder than V3 and probably spent most of our time at or below V1. Still it’s all good fun J.

We had a nice lunch break and then split up a bit more. I left with Brad for a hopeful HVS tick, with Jim and Frosty on the same page. After a quick look at Demon Wall I decided against it and went to find Jim. The ‘path’ took me past Great Western however. Frosty had mentioned the route earlier and I had taken a quick look in the guidebook. But all of that was eclipsed by how good the route looked. It took little persuasion to get me on it, but physically starting took a bit of motivation. After slimming my rack down thanks to Frosty and Jim, I set off up the pumpy initial cracks. It was this bit I was most worried about, given how steep the whole route was. What if I got too pumped early? Luckily the section was over in 3 swift moves. I could barely believe it, but pushed it out of my head as I started the traverse. The pump was always rising, but I wasn’t hanging around much. Despite the bad feet, I was contemplating the final moves of the traverse to the rest rather quickly. With a small stop for courage I threw hell to leather and committed to some pretty interesting moves and was rewarded with the jugs leading to the rest. It was literally 2 moves from the rest that the pump really started to hit home. I somehow managed to pull into the alcove though. 2 cams went into the break easily and I was left to choose between the 5 star finish and the normal one. With how easy the normal finished looked in comparison I opted for the 5 star finish. A choice I will never regret. The position beneath the final crack was incredible. High feet rolled in to the cracks and still fairly pumped I pulled over the top. What a route!

 

Brad was the second. This part was probably the most interesting of the day. Brad was seconding well and got to the traverse quickly. He unfortunately came off near the end. With the route being steep with the top face overhanging a fair distance over the lower wall, this left brad in an awkward situation. Luckily he had come prepared; with 2 prussiks and an ascender. The process of ascending however was new to brad. Teaching ascending is generally interesting, but with your student hanging in space 3 meters beneath you, even more so. We manage to work out a good method though and eventually Brad was sat in the rest. We managed to persuade him to do the five star finish, which unfortunately he also fell off due to pump. But this was much more manageable given the position.

Before too long we were back on the ground and the ropes were being used by Jim on Overhanging Groove. Jim topped his route after mostly ignoring the bail ledge and placing 3 pieces of gear for the whole route :D. Typical Jim, but good effort nonetheless. We tried few boulder problems in the area which Jim and Frosty did well on. Sticking crimps from slaps and doing large body press moves just didn’t seem to work for me at that point in the day, and brad had similar issues. After we decided we couldn’t get any further we left for what Frosty called ‘The Entrance Test’. At black wall the South Chimney Layback is a S 4b that starts with a 3m jamming crack. If you can’t jam its nails, but if you can it should be simple. As expected Frosty did a retro-flash and we started trying. I managed to top it on my first go but Jim’s lack of jamming experience started to show. Even getting off the ground was troublesome. After attempting to help a little bit I went to grab everyone else so they could have a go. Unfortunately Josh and Lilian didn’t get to try it as they were still climbing but everyone else at least watched. Brad got the problem onsight, as I think did Jack. Jim eventually managed to top out one attempt, but when attempting to repeat the feat he seemed to hit the same wall that stopped him earlier. After a while we decided it was getting late enough and left the crag to return home.

We dropped frosty off on our way and made the, as usual uneventful trip back to Leicester. The second meet of the semester easily made up for the first. Despite the low attendance we all managed to have fun and even get some hard routes in. The weather was awesome and it was good to be back on the gritstone.

Until next time :D

(Credit for the photos goes to Lianne Burtonshaw)

Roaches 8–10th February 2013

The Roaches started looking interesting when Harry became unable to drive due to an accident. Lacking a driver we went searching, to no avail. We planned a test for a member in anticipation of Yorkshire, but with the time restraints we had we couldn’t get a driver through the test in time for the Roaches. Thanks must now go to Amy Hare, Amy Mason, David, Jack and Yasmin for volunteering their cars for the trip. Mason picked up the gear and Jim while the rest of us congregated at the Charles Wilson ready to pile into the cars. Jack and Yas followed their own route, using their own navigation methods while David and Amy went together after ending up on the same route. The motorways were interesting due to large tailbacks, but the traffic stopped as soon as we left the motorway and got on the A roads. We met in Leek and travelled convoy style to the Hut.

We got a nice surprise when we walked in. Mason wasn’t the only old boy present :D. Lidiya, Talbot and Wiil were also there. I had a nice walk around the lower tier due to congestion at the door. When I returned people were still unpacking and settling in so I decided to look at the upper tier. Amy came with me so I gave her a run-down of some of the famous routes and showed her the great slab, and the primary tick for me for the weekend; The Sloth. We returned to a happy drinking group of people. I spent the next hour or so talking to the old boys about recent happenings before I joined the main group. Ironically after being ‘anti-social’ for the start of the trip, shortly after I joined the main group I left with half of them to do some light soloing around Commander Energy. Boots made this slightly interesting but a few of us managed to grovel up a HVD chimney. Much fun and jokes were had and were back inside with no one hurt fairly quickly. With it being Alister’s birthday there was a fair amount of alcohol flying around and some dirty pints were concocted. Alister had one, as did Lally who got caught up in the mess when Mason got confused as to the name people sang (Ali – Lally). Lally however was much more messed up after a significant amount of gin, but he was looked after well and slept pretty soundly. The night overall was a little more interesting than a standard meet, but would not have been out of place on a Christmas trip.

Saturday

The day dawned well, but with a fair covering of snow and a biting snowy wind that did not look like it was going anywhere. We pottered around trying to come up with plans and eventually settled on a walk around a nearby reservoir. Bullock, who had arrived in the morning, offered an indoor trip to Stockport which had a rather low subscription, and using his old-boy wiles, managed to persuade me to join him.

The main group had a strange walk, which was changed halfway through when they encountered a wall where the path should have been. After a few hours though, they were back at the hut, and trying some top roped routes in the snow. They all seemed to have fun :D

The Stockport trip went well … 23 meter walls are long. Paired with frosty I tried various routes and managed to flash a route he fell off, which was at least a grade harder than marked and then almost lead a 6c on the massively tall lead wall. We climbed till 6ish before returning to the hut and the fun and games. After everyone sorted their food we got out the boulder mats and started trying the kitchen boulder problem. Thanks to Bullock we eventually started in the correct alcove and were making some progress, despite the damp rock and a muddy pocket. The crowd diminished over time as we kept falling. After a while it was just a few of us still trying. Various techniques were used but to no avail. While some people had got to the pocket, it was just too wet and muddy to hold. We sacked off the attempts and went back to the living room. People were already hitting the sack though so the night ended pretty quickly with most people in bed before 1am … madness.

Sunday

Sunday unfortunately was no better than Saturday, even worse in fact… It was actually snowing when we woke up. With no good prospects we again thought up alternatives. Most people opted for an indoor wall on the way home but a few people went to a pub to watch the rugby match that was on in the afternoon. The hut was emptied annoyingly slowly but we were out the door and on our way ‘home’ before 11 which is fairly good in my opinion.

With our wall decided to be Redpoint we made our way to Birmingham. Most people did a mix of bouldering, top roping and leading, but for some reason I just bouldered, mostly in the large overhanging cave. I had a good training session, and hopefully helped several members learn some new techniques. The trip ended as the wall was shutting, with roly-polys down the inclined mats. Scarily good fun J. We went home again without much incident. There may have been a wrong turning around the M6 but we shall brush that under the covers :P

Despite the weather being more suited to alpine/Scottish climbing, we still managed to have a good trip and got some climbing done. J Until next time.

Peak District Bouldering 9th January 2013

Well this has been a long time coming… Various excuses are useless in this case.

Midway through exam revision I went on a trip to Curbar/Froggatt. May not have been the best idea for studying but it was a nice break to clear the head.

The destination was not pre-set. When we were on the motorway we were still deciding where we were going. Wick’s wish-list helped the choice though. Curbar was the choice based on a few problems at Curbar, and the possibility of heading to Froggatt if we got bored.

                          

We hit the track-side boulder first, and started warming up on easy routes. After a bit of trying some mid-range routes we had a look at track-side. Wicks had done it before apparently but the route was very beta specific, so we struggled a fair bit. Wicks got to the last few moves but the rest of us couldn’t beat the lower section. When we got bored of being spanked by the steep corner we made a group decision to look for a route called “The Ultimate Gritstone Experience”. This turned into a bit of an adventure when we turned off the path far too early. After going up and down the hill to Curbar a few times, zigzagging around and phoning Frosty to ask him where it was, we found it.

The line was amazing, up the centre of a short steep face and then onto the top. Wicks dispatched it quite quickly but once again the rest of us had issues. This time we were getting further, but the upper half of the wall was blocking our path. The boulder was a little too wide and Jim and I were just a little too short. We had fun trying it though before our hands started hurting from the coarse right arête.

As we weren’t getting any further and getting more and more pumped/pained we opted to move to another boulder problem. Following Wick’s tick-list led us to Froggatt and Ape Drape, a problem at the opposite end of the crag, past the first obvious line and my first E1 Strapiombante. At V6 I don’t think many of us were hopeful for success. Wicks however was psyched and got on it fairly quickly. The crux crimp however was just a bit too small. Gripping it was an issue for him as the finger positioning had to be very precise just to get 4 pads in contact. Nevertheless he kept trying, and unfortunately kept hitting the wall. As he started to really start using the crimp our spotting got a bit more interesting, and we found two old mattresses stuffed behind some nearby boulders. With these added to our pile we could focus more on spotting and less on moving, and it put Wick’s mind at ease about landing on them.

After half an hour or so Wicks decided he would take a decent break and told us all to have a go. I stepped in, thinking I would have a go and have some fun on a grit roof style route.  The first few moves were simple enough to dispatch; pulling on monster ledges. The heel hook sank 1^st go and then I went for the crimp. For some reason it felt OK and I was willing to commit 100%. I was in the zone. Wicks had barely managed to move off the crimp in all his previous tries, so I should have been sceptical of success. But nothing crossed my mind. About this time there was a comment about probably wanting to spot me. I was too focused to really notice though, I pulled and landed the move. Pulling through again I ended up one move from the end. A few psych up looks and I threw for the top, latching it just enough to grab the true jug with my other hand.

A V6 flash! It had never popped into my head that this was even possible for me, yet it had just happened… right in front of Wicks. I felt bad for him, but was too happy to really stay still. Jim tried but couldn’t break the crux either. Then Wicks went for his last few attempts, and broke the crux. He looked solid on the next move but something just wasn’t right, as he dropped with the end in sight. Unfortunately he never reached the same high-point in his subsequent tries, and as the day started to disappear, we packed up and went back to the car.

The video below is of Wick's agonisingly close attempt near the end of the day.

Overall the day was good fun; we tried some cool problems at the track-side boulder, got to attempt the ‘ultimate gritstone route’ and hang around on a V6 at the roaches. And for some reason, after falling on V1’s and 2’s at the track-side boulder and not being able to break the arête’s of the ‘experience’ I managed to flash the hard route of the day … the hardest boulder problem I have ever sent no less. Strange, strange times.

Catch you on the flipside :)