Its Ned again. Now its warming up I though it would be a good time to reflect on this winter's gritstone season. I really enjoyed going big this year, here are my highball highlights:

Samson
I tried to do this ground up but got a bit stuck. Rather than banging my head on a pebbly wall I decided to check out the top on a rope. I immediately found a sequence that worked (albeit very different to the sequence I was expecting/trying) and fell from the very top on my next go. We returned a few days later with a mountain of pads and I did it. It is a great effort by John Welford who did this above minimal pads a good number of years ago. His ascent was way ahead of its time – respect.

Lip of Fools
Jon Fullwood climbed this route at Eastwood a couple of years ago. He protected it with “baby bouncers” using gear in gear in a crack on the right and a tree on the left, making for a pretty physical and exciting, but totally safe E7. He had recommended it as a potential highball and after the weather had taken a turn for the worse it seemed like the perfect perma-dry option. After some begging and borrowing of pads from pretty much everyone at the crag (thanks) we had a decent landing zone. The route traverses a lip on crimps at about 15 feet before busting straight up the head wall. The gear tree that protects the lead actually makes the landing worse for a highball ascent. Oh well, your on jugs by then. After some initial wobbly goes getting used to the fall I committed to the last of the hard moves and gingerly shuffled through the top section in a sea of greenness. It felt good to be reasonably relaxed at such a height (although I am sure I didn’t look it).

Superboc
A couple of days later things had dried out considerably. One of my main goals for this winter was Miles Gibsons’ Superboc at Moorside. This was climbed as an E8 above 2 small pads (and seemingly in the height of the summer, in a pair of tiny shorts) many years ago. Nowadays it qualifies as a mere highball. The crux is pretty low down but the top out is far from easy or obvious. I had been to Moorside many times before but things had never quite aligned. Either bad conditions, bad skin or weak arms had let me down time and time again. 

This time a freezing wind was whistling down the crag keeping the crucial pockets in prime condition and I was feeling well rested. After a quick brush and a couple of goes I surprised myself by getting right to the top only to explode off in a cloud of gritty dirt. My keenness had got the better of me and the dirty top out spat me off without even a whisper of warning.

After another (proper) clean and the obligatory rubbish second last go I found myself flopping onto the top. Brilliant. How things change. I remember the first time I went to superboc (3 or 4 years ago?) I saw it as a huge and very intimidating highball and got totally shut down. This visit it felt relatively small and I didn’t think twice about committing to the top out. Maybe that’s foolish…

The Promise
I first tried this about 3 years ago with Gaz Parry and Tony Musslebrook. I remember being terrified above a few pads and not really making any progress. I went back again this year and had more luck,. After a few big falls I got through the crux only to find myself stranded. I didn’t have the holds well enough to push on, and I couldn’t reverse. All that was left to do was shakily jump off. Oof! The fall wasn’t actually that bad but I was lacking the commitment to really go for the moves. 

The next session was with Michele Caminati, the visiting Italian beast. This time we had even more pads (about 10) and committing was slightly easier. Michele cruised up it 2^nd go and this inspired me to pull my finger out and do it. Not exactly ground breaking stuff but I am really pleased to have finished this off as it was my last highball goal for the winter.

All these (along with some actual impressive achievements from Dan and Mickey etc.) are in Life on Hold (www.outcropfilms.com) which you should buy. 

Things i've learnt this year: don't put biodiesel in common rail diesels even if you buy it as you can't guarantee filtration and it is an expensive initial saving. 

10m isn't that high

2m is high enough to really knack your ankle

Shin jags can be more painful than Peter makes out in family guy

Well its been quite a fun year all in all. My yearning for cotching along a bit more and not getting injured stuck with me all year and things seemed to pan out nicely in pulses with the seasons. It was mostly a UK based year for me with only 19days spent abroad in total. Something i’d like to amend next year as i feel i could learn alot more from foreign boulders at present. The other thing i can see alot more of in 2012 is board training. Since moving back to Carlisle i’ve got right back into my personal 45 board and each session i’ve been trying to make 4 new holds for it which’ll fit what i want to improve on (crimps which you can’t cut loose on and mid sized pinches at the mo). The board training is mainly for stuff in the Lakes, i figure if i can try a few Gaskins problems next year then i might not feel so guilty at pretending to climb hard that said i can’t see myself ever managing il pirata even if it wasn’t a crap line. I’ve also been armchair exploring on geograph and have a bunch of venues lined up to explore in the county history has taught me that i’ll find things if i go looking with the right eyes, hopefully they wont be all be crap venues! 

so 2011...hmmm its been a long year thinking back i dont know which ascents really stand out.

Soloing pinnacle ridge in Glen Nevis with my dad (he doesn’t climb really) was great fun and memorable as it was nice to meander about up it chatting away whilst taking in some good exposure for a severe. Mike’s problem in Torridon was also fantastic on this short trip as it was showering horizontally, The problem is perfect in the old fashioned brad pitt esque-sense obvious start and finish, except its on flawless rock and a sea-mountain location its got a lovely drop knee pounce to catch opposing pinchy sidepulls, generally a fantastic problem.

Most of my year was spent at badger cove 1 in 6 days april to june and a few in august. It never felt like a chore climbing there (well one hot june evening it did so i just left and went for a run along stanage instead) It was genuinely delightful to find stuff to climb on which was exactly what i’d always looked for in a local project, a dream come true in a way, i don’t think the problems there are crazily hard as in the grand scheme of things they were rushed from birth and it was pretty much just me tinkering away rather than a few climbers of different styles. Badger Badger Badger did well this year though, seeing off over a dozen repetition candidates except the crafty Mason who nabbed the 2nd ascent before heading to South Africa for the summer. It was a lovely spot to spend much of the spring and summer and a cracking process from writing Bewilderness off completely for the year in april to climbing it on a breezy August day with Jonesy.

Its lovely to end up somewhere you’d never bet a penny on going once in a while and Pietra di bismantova was certainly somewhere i’d never heard of before April, on a short long weeks holiday to Italy. Michele showed me round some of his fantastic local spots, both in the city and out at the crags. I had a great day out at pietra with him and his friends eating deep fried fritters up in the rifugio (England sadly lacks in these types of places) along with working boulders down in the fields below, we set about trying to crack il Gobbo, a great overhanging prow project with the hummockiest sloper top out i’ve seen. Between us we sussed a great sequence of heels and compression and grappled it out, lovely, it was one of the better 8A+s i did this year.

I've also got an LX5 to play with this year so flickr should be a bit more active after my old camera broke last year. (they wont all be macro)