Sometimes i worry i’m becoming a bit of a hermit climber, not traveling much and working a lot, yes i do work a lot nowadays! But its more that i’ve been a busy bee in the last 2 years sorting many things out. So when Katie and I got a nice little gift of a few days in Torridon from my folks for crimbo we planned a bit of a mini trip around it. I never get bored of the feeling of time grinding to a holt when your on holiday, days passing by at half their normal speed. This trip was only 6 days but it felt like a month. Much of this can be blamed on Scotland itself being so pretty and so varied it feels like you’ve travelled the world between places only a few hours apart, especially when its fully raining at A and sunny with a light breeze at B. Of course non of this is new to anyone north of the Clyde. Not that there are many people north of the Clyde. On the map of UK people it barely exists! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationpicturegalleries/6254582/Population-atlas-map-of-the-world-showing-population-density-in-each-country.html?image=1

Which is good because being Cumbrian i’m not inordinately fond of lots of people. Wildlife yes, Sheep all the better. Massive sprawling conurbations, not so much. It also leaves space for lots of nice things which are really hard to be angry at like mountains, lochs, lochy mountains, fjords, hills, inlets, munros. a hugely diverse landscape of anything you can imagine, so long as its watery or pointy. It was also before Scotland turns into Nature’s little hell park in May. Upon trying to book a nice b&B before the trip i got a lovely email back from the lady saying, are you sure you meant march not April? its just that the weather in March is so unreliable we don’t accept bookings! A good omen indeed. Ah well we could always sit in Torridon YHA drink brews on tap and catch up with a good book. As it turned out our B&B lady was well informed, we had everything under the sun thrown at us on the holiday except for the really bad wet stuff that scotland is so good at.

The ponies know the score, west facing aspect is a winner!

Our first day in Torridon we were greeted by 40mph winds and the locals Richie, Gaz, Ann Nigel and the beast of Bronwen. but not much else. Well at least it wasnt raining! we had a decent enough day out if a little short due to the wind battering us about incessantly. Richie complained about being fit but weak whilst kindly warming up all over Gaz's project. Bronwen stole my socks after demolishing the 2 decoy balls. I finally figured out the start of a project i’ve tried the last 2 times i’ve been to Torridon (albeit climbing in a balaclava and down jacket this time), only to snap a pebble off the top in a moment of wind induced stupidity, oh well back to square one. Stupid gets what Stupid does. After we'd all had enough we retreated back to the excellent Torridon cafe and I atoned for my sins with a massive bacon and egg bap. I forgot to mention that our Hostel had been engulfed by a mostly silver topped tai chi weekend; Katie must have trodden on the instructors Chi (qi for scrabble fans) as when she smiled and said hello she was simply greeted with contempt. Lovely. Although when they left on monday they did leave us with enough food for the rest of the holiday thanks to their friendly chef.

Liathach on Sunday.

Annat on sunday.

Sunday Greeted us not only with 40mph gusts but the quickest snow flurries i’ve ever seen. It was like the flurries were a tube train wizzing by Torridon station, I was simply a bystander getting in the way. The morning was just about ok as the sun was out a bit but when Katie finished and i put my boots on it was like someone flicked a switch. We hid in a cave for a bit, got out, hid in another cave again 5 mins later, made it to the cool project prow in Annat. Hid there whilst another one blasted through. Snow stops bust a bit of warm up dance out like i’ve just heard Axel F for the first time. try a few moves then get blasted by snow. Blow my top and produce a tirade about how crap life is. go back to the car to warm up. Snow stops, Ben Moon did black lung when the snow stopped, maybe i can do this because life is that cliche’d. We jog back to the prow. I Do it. Leave for the pub, massive blizzard hits us just as we get to the pub. To be honest i was more relieved than happy after this. It must have looked bizzare to the house whose rear window's face the prow. Its sometimes conditions like this that really test your mettle though, i wanted to just give up and head to the pub but there would forever have been a gnawing at my conscious that technically it wasn’t raining and that i could’ve climbed and got it done, making sure that gnawing didn’t happen was more important than actually having fun it seems. The most important thing this did was free up our itinerary for Reiff or Applecross the next day where i had more exciting things to play on.

Monday dawned perfectly azure with a dusting on the Beinns. I made concrete my overwhelming urge to drive nearly 2 hours to try a problem i’d seen in October. Katie was happy to see a beautiful new place but not so happy to see a very cold shady cliff on such a gorgeous day, somehow she still managed to be nice to me which must be some sort of inherent but very endearing flaw in her personality. Whilst the day before had physically and mentally drained me, from a climbing perspective i’d done very little. So all the ATP reserves were there but i don’t think there was much behind it to back it up. Sometimes in life you get these weird days and it kind of feels like you’ve come through alot to make them happen, i imagine its like big wallers pushing up to a final crux pitch then going to bed knowing that tomorrow you need to be firing. Except bouldering is much easier than that and all you have to do is walk out the car and up to the problem you want to try, the hard part is having the right skin, conditions, arms, core and most importantly mind to actually get up something which has tried its best to be blank. This isn't a huge problem if the problem is nearby but for places you know you’ll be spending very few hours of your life in it somewhat adds to the atmosphere. Here’s some inner rhetoric from my warm up.

Do i feel good? shit i feel ok, or do i, hmm im a bit monged out, naah i feel strong look (crimps a hold). and i’ve got pads and i haven’t been violated by a massive wave this time round, better try another climb (does scooped arete) ok well if that feels ok then you stand a chance, but is that enough, hmm lets try this other thing coming right out of leaning meanie, hmm that felt hard, i dont know if its been done before though, .. ooh i’m all excited. it was bloody good that, well i guess its been a good day no matter what then, Katie looks cold but keeps smiling at me, cubby must be short if he had to use a bucket to reach those holds, i bet its called romancing the stone because its got a Va JJ made of rock in it, thats pretty funny...

It felt like a heady mix of first night nerves and holiday excitement. The project was as amazing as i’d remembered it to be, chalkless it took me a while to remember the holds as they aren’t easy to see, this is why i like it so much. Yes the arete looks stunning to the left but i need to give everything i’ve got to this first. Nature has pulled a blinder here and i for one intend to appreciate its work by clambering all over it and covering it in chalk. There’s a vid of me doing what became Helicoidal Flow along with the annat prow and reiff arete, sufficed to say it felt just about easy enough from stand and i remembered my beta from last time straight away, the stand is a vague non line to a world class sitter though, which really put the pressure on. I would say that i did the sit thanks to a combination of luck and experience, i was starting to feel the squeeze go and my skin get cold and i’d dropped the catch once already, it felt like my chances were going and that it’d have to wait for another day. After a big rest and a brew i told my brain to shut up and put everything into it, no skin preservation no worries about picking up a tweak just try really hard. I dont know how but i hit the holds all pretty well and i caught the catch spot on. The catch hold is subtle and intricate, like every hold on the problem. You don’t know whether the catch is right or not until your feet come out and the extra momentum comes onto the hold. 

such a cool pinch.

To me this is perfect bouldering. A serene setting and some incredible rock, a line that defines bouldering. It starts from a perfect sit start and heads up to jugs to finish (its only drawback is its lack of topout) The moves are fantastic and the holds only work when used with loads of tension through the feet and are some of the most unique i’ve ever used, not a single hold until the catch hold is easily holdable with feet off. Its called Helicoidal flow due to the rock on this wall mimicking water with its strata and features. Like undertow its also a flow process. It also seems to sum up the dynamics of my legs swirling about nicely.

Normally that’d have been one of my best days ever, but to top it off there was a line as proud as misericorde or partage just to the left on older & harder rock, in the sun, with an amazing looking set of features on it including a fang like rooflet that you can pinch. Now by this stage i was feeling pretty knackered but I had half a chance if i spotted the beta fast. I stared it out and pretended that i knew what i was doing, like when comp climbers look at finals problems. I figured it out by going, i’ll try this crazy heel that’ll work. it did! then i though well you’ve got to be able to kneebar this thing, you could! Bizzarre  under guppy to get LH high. No problem. Toehook the roof? Nope your crap at toehooking remember. dynamic heel above shoulder into scoopy pod? kerching! Thanks to the sun coming heating me up by this time i was using less energy just keeping warm and got up it on fumes and by cheating with heels and knees. I topped it out up leaning meanie’s upper squeeze chimney for full points. Sometimes Aretes can be pretty monotonous, eg careless torque, arcangel, ulysees and white wand are pretty much 3star repetitive laybacking, which is great because they’re one big layback up a mega lines but its hardly varied climbing. To get an arete with so much variety move to move is pretty special. I find as i see more and more lines nowadays less and less gets that childish excitement going like i used to feel when out on the rocks. The bouldering cliff at Reiff was a real breath of fresh air in that sense as it seems to solely consist of 100%, billion year old, single malts. I guess thats why it even gets called a bouldering cliff in one of Scotlands great single pitch trad destinations. One bit of useful advice is that it can seep a bit so don’t turn up there on a wet day in a big swell as you might not get the same experience i’ve been selling. We dined out on the tai chi soup we’d been given on the beach at Reiff looking at the sun setting on the summer Isles and hills behind, free food in a setting grander than the savoy!

That was only the first 3 days of 6, i think i’ve written enough now though and i dont want to waffle on too much. I can save it for another time. Katie was the star of the latter part of the trip by doing loads of classics even after a feather filled night in the car at -5. I mostly scoffed our free food and had fun bouldering with Dave Mac. I also experienced the crappest cafe i’ve ever visited in Fort William, mainly because it built itself up to be good. (called sugar and spice or something; cant wait until i hit them with my truthful trip advisor review). And we found an artist we really like so we bought some paintings for our house https://www.facebook.com/pages/Grace-M-Cameron-Art/214221402031083 

ruining a fort william artwork, i thought it was a game until i read the sign!

We have a new machine! It's a laser cutter/engraver. It's very exciting. We are now engraving our fingerboards with it, the finish is great and it is much faster than the engraving process we used to use, leaving us more time to make more fingerboards.

The laser is great for loads of other stuff too - we have been fiddling around with it and making a few new bits and bobs. Our latest product isn't exactly ground breaking but it should be pretty handy to most climbers... 

The Beast Maintainer is a little sanding board you can use to keep your skin in fine fettle as you climb. Smooth, even skin is important for getting maximum friction out of the rock and avoiding nasty splits, tears and holes.

Apart from this, we have been very busy making fingerboards for everyone as well as tinkering with some other new products - which should be more exciting but no less pretty than the Beast Maintainers. 

Brocken Spectre whilst finding new pebbles

It sounds silly but i hadn’t really planned what to do as this year came about. Everything was 2012 this and 2012 that.  I blame the olympics personally 2013 started to feel like a bit of an afterthought. I joked in January that it should be the year of the drought (draught) after the year of the flood last year. Like Chinese animal years but adapted for our new climate. So far so good anyhow. Except i haven’t really done anything that i really wanted to do yet. I also seem to be getting busier as i get older and finding time to write anything worthwhile on the web is getting harder. As such this is a bit of a mish mash of stuff from the first 2 months or so this year, easy reading, lots of buffer just like a good trash novel. The abysmal end to last year and bad january this year really killed the motivation in me and at one point i had “nothing new to do- complete bollocks as ever” I then found a bunch of one mover projects but i find it hard to prioritize those over the bigger lines. And as such i’ve had a dabble on each but done none. The big lines have been spitting me off and i’ve been struggling to get in the closing things out mindset. Everyone needs a rest once in a while i guess, mine just got forced on me. So with a bit of trundling here and there to keep me busy as well as being a good all round workout to keep the strength up. (moving 300KG blocks for over an hour does wonders for your lower back) I’ve started to find a bit more March motivation.

January and February have passed by in a mess of split tips, wrong crags on the wrong days and the odd new problem from 7C to 8A+ but nothing great just average stuff or variations, some were great fun or great moves with good company but none were the big stuff that really keeps me training hard, after all there are enough good VS-E5s in the lakes to last anyone a lifetime of days out and you dont need to maintain a base level of 8A/+ bouldering to do them. 

Katie's lovely pic of the Lakes winter on Dad's Birthday, Later on i tried some optimistic bum boarding, sufficed to say the classic descents weren't in condition despite being white.

I’m gradually getting back on form though. Before Christmas i was about 68KG and found it hard to keep warm when outside so i ate and ate and ate over December and January and now i’m still under 70kgs! although i have felt a bit warmer whilst out of late. The best thing about the eating is that i’ve got the squeeze back and it is the funnest part of climbing for me. Unfortunately i’ve only really felt the benefit on one project outdoors so far and on the board (that and one armering the 45’s and pinky mono front levering as a dick about at the end of a session, (i’d never one armed the 45s before but had a spate of doing full repeaters on one arm on the 35s in 2010). Luckily Rob Fielding and Dave Birkett were on hand as witnesses to such silly feats (I dont think Dave was impressed at all, he's seen it all before; atleast my woodwork in the wall got a nice nod of approval though). The 55 board (or Beak Master as i've named it) is where i’ve made the best gains, just to wind up Eden Rock customers as its still shut to the public! It feels like i’ve only just got the measure of it after 2 months though so it might not be the most user friendly board ever. I’m hoping to use it a lot this year to find that elusive next level of technical incapability, that and its really really fun.

Micky cruising the 55 (its got a lot more holds on now)

The biggest visual change of 2013 is my move from Bigstone to Mountainboot company. It made sense to me after a long think over. I live in the "Scarpa North" now and was a lone 5.10 raider up here. Geordies always looked upon my shoes like a bad smell, how dare i wear those on this rock! Nearly all the hard first ascents up here got done wearing Scarpa’s whether its Dunne, Dunning or Katz’s routes and problems in Yorkshire, Birketts routes in the lakes or Andy and Malcs ascents in The County. Macleod and Malc dominate the hard FA’s in Scotland too in most disciplines. With Ricky Bell in Northern Ireland it really is the Scarpa North (In the interests of fairness there is a fairly large Boreal Gaskins and 5.10 Mcclure limestone history there, a Peckitt lead evolv yorks grit development surge and Hocking's fingers are currently pulling red chili's up behind him on hard trad and boulders). 

It was a bit funny adapting to different shoes for a week or two (i’ve worn 5.10s for over 7 years) but after a couple of sessions in the Instinct Vs’s it felt like i’d gained more than i’d lost in terms of a shoe that does nearly everything well (which considering the price of rock shoes nowadays for most non jammy people is a very good thing!). That combined with a very cool custom made pair of Vapour Vario's Thanks to Heinz Mariacher and i couldn’t be happier with what i’ve got under me. To be honest if i hadn’t been bouldering for so long that i can be arsed to exploit the difference between a linear, catch and friction heel (total nerd) then i would probably just wear the instincts all the time but there are some heel hooks which are best in a certain shoe and the instinct heel is amazing for friction heels but not catch. Sometimes that makes the difference between doing something in a session or in several. Which over the course of the year adds up. Anyway i’m looking forward to putting up some classics in them.

Classics are going to be the attempted theme of this year for me (esoteric might come a close second) if i can help it. I’m partial to the odd filler in/ blinkered problem from time to time but i’m hoping to keep the standards high this year (last year i almost managed but a few lines lead me astray) if i can get going well enough, I’ve certainly found the projects to work on, they are just getting further away with more conditionsy and harder moves on. A stressful thing at times!

Still i can always go on Holiday...

 A busy year:

Thanks to everyone who bought something off beastmaker this year, we hope you're all happy with your purchases and that they are helping you in your various walks of life.

 This year has turned out fantastically in many ways for me, at times its been very stressful and i’ve definitely had my fair share of bad luck too. Its been a good year for changing my mindset and approaching climbing differently. I am seeing it more as an engaging hobby rather than something to spend all my time on, i don’t have the time, money nor conscience at the moment to jetset worldwide month after month. Part of this is getting older and gaining responsibilities but part of it is the clarity that i now see in my motivations, i know what i like in climbing and what i want to do and it doesn’t need my whole life orientated towards it with colossal holidays (im not saying the odd one wouldn’t be nice though), i’ve also found enough challenges in the UK this year to keep me more than busy and i can see 2013 filling up already if the UK was good enough for all our previous greats to push standards it is still that way for me. yes the weather’s been pretty crap but so’s reality sometimes, our weather will get crapper and more extreme the more we pump it full of energy. I reckon i’m happy with dabbling in this droughty/flooded isle, putting up 4 new 8B’S & 13 8A/+s and dozens of high 7’s (90% of which are independent blocs) is an alright tick list for a rainy year (i even had time to do some trad and a days sport). It was a funny year for repeating things. I did all my other 8’s in 1-2hrs or under, except second coming, which is my hardest ever repeat & problem i think and took more time to do than... well grannies have made patchwork quilts a lot faster.

  Its been the first year i’ve not climbed out the UK and it might have been the worst year for a loong time to do so. That said i’ve progressed more this year as a climber than i have since i started i think. Part of that has been the weather putting my back to the wall or at least creating the illusion of pressure. Being back on my board in my garage for most of the year really forced me to focus and follow my own rhythm, which is basically resting when i don’t feel close to 90% of my best but training really hard when i do. Its been a nail biting strategy as i’ve been trusting my guts rather than the formula of train though the pain and keep pushing. Much of this strategy has come from needing to switch my plans round the weather, there’s no point knackering out the pony only to find out its race day tomorrow. Either way everything which i found pretty hard at the start of the year on my board i now do at the end of my warm ups. The reason for this is the gathering of the crimp. in the start of 2011 i was much weaker on crimps than i am now, i needed 9kgs assistance to hang the campus rung on the 2000 half crimped for a set on one arm. That was about the time i did voyager, cypher, BOP, stanton deliver, nth power, primitive notion, the pessimist, dandelion mind and Bewilderness etc etc. I was also heavier then too. I tried second coming that year with Ned, neither of us got anywhere near to pulling on near the start but we figured out an easier way to do the very end, it was so fun and unlikely that it sparked up the idea that i would love to be able to do it one day. I’ve been going to goldsborough since i was 16. I had a great evening there once with Ry, Gangle, Katzy and Dunning. It really is a favourite crag of mine, with mostly immaculate rock, the crag is so barren and timeless from one vista but surprisingly near habitation if you look south east. Second coming always fascinated me, when Steve chatted me through it i could never get my head round smearing in a roof. But thats what you do, to pull on you step up to the right foot smear and tense like Mr Universe, the first holds are un-holdable without the smear, otherwise you’d just campus from them, the RH is a decent cresent crimp the left is simply a two finger half pad crimp which i stack my other fingers near and pinch. I’ve never tried a problem before where its been so hard to pull on (once you pull on its roughly a single move 8A+ into a soft 8A). Even on things like Traci Lords sit or ATHOIA, all the pull ons are quite easy (although on the latter the moves between are horrendous). This is what is brilliant hey? working the pull ons, i only know of a few dedicated boulderers (who’ve already got a good protfolio of ascents) who work the pull ons on projects for long time scales. Maybe its taking the bar too far on, bouldering becoming too niche and unapproachable? i don’t think so, mainly because of the simple fact that by November this year not only was it relatively easy for me to pull on, no more lower leg tapping to get off the floor, but i could work the holds to do what i wanted with them, and i wanted to move in a way that was perpendicular not opposing to them, which needed more power and a different left foot. It really was a fantastic effort in 2001 by Steve and a great find. Shortly after doing second coming i went back on the beastmaker to check how i was doing and i could now hang the littlest outer rung on 1 arm half crimped for 7 seconds no problem and 1 arm it at the same time, with no assistance, which for 12 months work is a ridiculous change, interestingly last year i could hold 1 pad pinky monos for at least 8 seconds and now i cant hold them at all at the moment. My drag strength has dropped from easily doing a full set on the same arm on the rh eye to needing 3kg assistance to. Mind you thats not a bad rate of decline over 12 months of relative neglect.  

Earthworm Jim 8A/+ (hope this gets some attention as is near the road and great fun)

I like this game, its tricky to play and like snakes and ladders there’s always the threat of injury to take you back down a few notches but i’ve learned this year that by simply waiting 18 months (and guessing the training well) you can prove how short sighted the minds eye is. which begs the question where is the end of the line? I’d love to try traci lords sit next year if i get the fortune. Plus Gaskins did it in a session which makes me think i can possibly do it. He also flashed the stand, again a phenomenal effort and possibly the UK’s hardest ever flash in terms of doing a single 8a move first go.

So thats what i’ve realized this year. I’ve also realized i’d like to go on holiday somewhere abroad, bouldering next year, Fairhead counts right? I’ve realized Scotland has some incredible boulder projects just 2 hrs from my house in Carlisle. I’ve also realized i can both fart and burp at the same time. I’ve realized that no matter how hard you try some projects will always be a victim to the weather, the only thing i haven’t done this year that i really wanted to is the ultimate in seeping frustration. I’ve realized i’ve said the r word too many times now.

some rubbish uk projects for 2013 if the weather holds out!

So some highlights?

Everything i did in the county is special to me but End Sequence really was great fun and it was a pleasure getting to do Chris’s Launch sequence many times over. The county as a whole is where i feel most at home, even more so now thanks to Katie and her family, whether having a barefoot jog along bamburgh, hanging out in Pilgrims on holy island before heading to bowden for some soloing.

I felt my best performances this year have to be when success and failure were a hairs breadth apart. I did Traci lords in about 30 minutes in July (just after turning 25, Greg is still the youngest ascender!!) and it took everything to break the move down that quickly and hold the swing in control. 

Rhythm was great, the feeling of hitting all the dimples right was great. It’d been shady when we arrived but just as i sat down to try the sit the sun came out and i had to wait, Then as it got lower i started trying it, i messed up the top twice and calmed down a bit then hit the perfect go, body working overdrive stuff. 

Fat Lady was the other ascent that i had to wind up the gears on, its just like a board problem and after finally sticking the long move well i had to finish it off there and then. A great day out with Micky and Katie on a busy month.

The other thing i’ve helped with this year is building Eden Rock. Aside from being 3 months of graft we’ve finally started work on the training room. Which is good as i’m keen to get back on a steep board and pulling beaks. The aim is to make the nicest/ most effective board in the world for 8th grade climbers. After 3 sessions it definitely feels a lot harder than any other board i’ve used. I hope by the time it feels easy and i can use all the holds a few more obvious gaps will appear from the blankness outside.

Some nice new ones in the county in 2012 (well ones i have nice pics of anyway)

As an aside i have witnesses or unedited video (or both) for all my problems i’ve put up this year (as i’m aware i’ve put up more new blocs this year than si o' connor ever did and he churned them out! which might flag up the bullshit radar) End Sequence is the only exception as the camera was left in Katie's car and she had a meeting in Newcastle. I do however have the footage from the session before with Katie and Ben when i dropped the very last hard move on the out swing and i’d be more than happy to head up there again if it was an issue. Lying makes no sense to me unless you’re weak and have alot to prove. Strong climbers are strong fact. Strong developers cherish undone lines alot more than done ones as they are bloody hard to find.Thankfully bouldering seems to be moving in the direction of it not being taboo to ask for proof. 

Home 8B: Floated up this on a great day out with Dave and Elsie, weightless movement on small grippy holds.

Autumns great hey? There’s something about the trees gilding their leaves that feels like a convivial rustling of a years work well spent. New growth and strength achieved and offerings of those lovely crispy leaves before winter sets in. Watching the wretched bracken die back you cant help but celebrate. I love the first day out when a cold wind barges through the space between you and the rock. I had a good October this year, something clicked, i got fired up on a line i’ve not yet done but a window opened just slightly, not big enough for that yet but it had a knock on effect and 3 other lines fell with relative ease, it felt like all i had to do was show up and pull on and my body would handle the rest. Then something very British happened, i thought oh fuck i cant go on like this, i’ve only got 2 things left which mean a lot to me, if i do them this month then i’ll be lost in a world of pointless shuffling, doing moves just for the sake of them but without being all there in my head. Like a once talented pianist tapping away in a deserted hotel bar. What’s the point really in any bouldering? Dawkins is prattling on about the pointlessness of everything on channel 4 at the minute, He’s right of course (until proven wrong), and there is solace in the miracle of us consciously floating through this brief blip in time when almost everything is possible which we set our faustian minds to, and we have so much free time for minds to wonder. I’m staring at rock nowadays and seeing it eat up life with the flicker of an idea, “i want to climb that” well thats a year gone “and that” another 3 months “and that” well that you may never do, but you probably will because you think you can” 

Nature's Angry 7B+ (stand start in the near the right of the patina shield and head straight up) Pic: by mark Savage (horizon by me not straightening it)

I am a bit lost in it all to be honest, too many projects this year and too many things undone, if it looks like i’ve done a lot, in my mind i haven't (i’m tricky to please) the weathers been great for wild plants but shite for bouldering at many venues. Bowden and St Bees are oozing green lichen that i’ve never seen before and it may well be a sign of crags beginning to be adapted by a changing climate. Also my body has changed so much throughout the year from lots of hard work/ stress/ training that its bizarre, i’ve never been so light and good on little crimps, which is great for some stuff but most climbers i know of this ilk are one trick ponies. Its time to change again, force exertion is what i have ultimate respect for in bouldering and i’ve got a bit worse at the backy side of it in the past few months. Hanging on with strong fingers only gets you so far on projects (watch the difference between Jan Hojer and Dave Graham climbing Sky to see an example of this). sometimes you’ve got to squash the angles to get the holds out of them and that means having the crush to both squeeze and hang on. If i lived in another country with loads of rock in 1 style i’d maybe just wriggle away on little edges but the joy of being here, where i am and will live for a while is that there are almost all the worlds major rock types within 2.5 hours of my house. So i may as well play on them all. But what to do when you begin to run out of things to play on? Crags are more developed now and optimism for new lines is logically waning in a sea of established classics. My mind is a powerful but short sighted thing. Within a week of it massively bumming me out and convincing me the end was nigh then i was back on some great new things. If i want to do everything i set out to then i’ve either got to reign in my expectations or meet them with a bigger window for success. I want to make that window bigger now and not try things so far out of it that it closes up to a size thats hard to deal with day after day. Real gains can be made through proper training, its not just some shallow thing for inflexible gonks to do to look strong, real training creates a base level of pure and mechanical strength for the brain and nerves to fine tune, Climbing is one of those tricky sports in that the hardest things can only be achieved when the mind truly wants them, the processes of doing a hard problem are so complex that not a single thought can interrupt the process, absolute focus propogating though to each limb, if it doesn’t then success hasn’t been hard enough earned for me. I love discovering new challenges, geology and weathering set problems that resin can never achieve. Perhaps i’m taking it all a bit too seriously?  but its hard not to keep trying to better myself with a personality like mine, the conflict is only between my expectations and reality. My climbing summed up on a billboard. Expectations vs Reality. Reality always wins but only for a moment before my expectations whisp me off again into a future that may never exist. Where i’m great and can climb whatever i’d like. There have been two moments this year of this being the case. I’m not the best climber in the world, i’m not the most powerful or the most impressive. But non of that is the reason i try so hard on some climbs. Its so that in those moments i feel what i’m pretty sure is true happiness. Struggling so hard to become better at something which will never happen unless i struggle. Schrodingers cat turning out to be a perfect pet instead of landfill. sisyphus with a happy ending, sisyphus but learning on each roll of the boulder what was going wrong, and finding that perfect spot where the boulder will sit forever, so you can always look back upon the achievement and draw upon it. As pointless as the achievement is, for me it beats anything else i can think to come up with.

Sometimes I do moves on projects that even i find ridiculous, but if they work; they work. Believe it or not this is currently the best (least power sapping) solution i’ve found on a project i’ve just managed to do all the moves (and a few decent links) on on my first session but it took all my past history of technical nous and power to combine into a sequence which worked, it can be refined next session anyhow. There’s always the possibility of a next session, whether or not there’ll ever be another one i don’t know.

Here’s a nice quote from Tom Paine, talking about something much more serious ( i was listening to a folk tune on youtube and it cropped up)

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. T’is dearness only that gives everything its value”

short summation of all the above:

Basically if you do it in a session its piss but you’ll never be as happy as if you really try on something. (if its been a few years you might start going mad).