I’ve had loads of porcelain epiphanies lately but when its actually come to penning them down they’ve bunged themselves up and i’ve left them to flush away with all the other crap memes i have throughout the day.

 Moving back home has been really interesting due to the reacquaintance of my current form with the me from 7 years ago. A 17 year old me who’d just learnt to drive in the Morris Traveller. Bursting with fresh psyche for all the new venues around me and many possible new lines. Chapman, Kershaw and Gaskins were my inspiration for the lakes problems! Some inspiration that! you can either look at it as a bunch of visionary Lancastrians with twinkle toes, or a mixture of gel, ponytails and bald/ponytail combos raving about this and that new rockfall/ escarpment which looks a bit like a boulder. I’d been using my new freedom to climb things like Eyes of Silence, Carlisle Slappers (i was 16 then, you can tell by the name, and was learning to drive on the waterworks road as it was private) And i wanted to climb every half decent problem in sight. The guide was all about climbing everything, nice clean consecutive ticks, aah the neatness. 

I left a lot of my Scotland Lakes and Northumberland guides at home through Uni and they stayed dormant, the inky circles of desire slowly seeping into the pages to become a relic of past whimsies. Re-clambering through these routes and problems on the sofa, what were once my dreams now rasp against my current ideologies. Belittled by my older self. That is not to say that the routes are worse, they still look incredible. Just that Prana on Black Crag Borrowdale, Wheels of Fire on Bowderstone Crag, Crystal Vision Knapdale (http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/c.php?i=147046) and many more old guide book inspired dreams, no longer represent where I'm bursting to get to when the weathers good.

Something went horribly wrong over the last 7 years in terms of my aspirations, its not like i achieved and surpassed them, i simply bypassed many of them completely! 

Carrock was another venue I last frequented aged 17, until last week. I remember doing punks life and briefly pretending i was somewhere exotic, Knight Rider with a massive flapper from a crystal (one of the straws that broke the carrocks back for me with this venue) Cave LH. My finest hour, repeating a Gaskins problem the day after he did it! aah joy, his chalk was on it and everything. I even had to tie a strap round my V10s to keep my heel on, i bet Gaskins didn’t have to use a heel. 

Shortly after this i fell in love with the county and Carrock seemed little more than a good place to rasp some skin off in a bogged out midge ridden talus field. In the last fortnight though i’ve grown curious about the old me, the one who went there and had fun. So whilst picking up some wood with Katie to make more holds we decided to swing by on an iffy afternoon for a trip down memory lane. In particular to look at Greg’s sterling work on the back of Boardman’s boulder and Hocks new one move power explosion, Super Yum Yum. The latter was unfortunately piss wrapped so that’ll have to wait for another day.

Metronome (Greg’s new problem) was fortunately dry. 

The stand to this was a funny problem of mine. I remember doing it whilst being really pissed off with myself for doing it. It was sharp (i had some right baby skin then). I only had one pad and my ankles kept disappearing in bouts of unfettered exploration down the holes in the horrible talus landing (i didn’t know to patio landings like this then) There was a big pissing block looming in the way of the direct exit behind me and my left exit kept rasping more skin off. I wanted to leave it but i knew in theory there was a decent problem there, i just didn’t know how to produce it. I eventually did the stand and then drove 3 miles of the drive home with the handbrake still on (only twigging when the burning smell caught me up on a hill) in the Morris (like i said i was learning to drive too) Fast forward 7 years and all is revealed. Greg Patio’d the landing sorting the exit and the ankle swallowing falls in one. Even opening up the true line, with great moves. Literally sorting the men from the boys. reclimbing the stand was bizarre, physical nostalgia. I set about the sit but with no print out guide i got a bit lost and started with the wrong limbs on all the right holds. The other main difference nowadays was that it felt like my skin was indifferent to its sharpness, and i can squeeze the crap out the holds. With my slightly easier sit sequence i managed it after snapping a bit of the crux LH undercling slightly on my first attempt. How things change with the arrow of time.

So the point of all this is that i’ve been consciously trying to imagine where i might be if life carries on this way and finding not just short term projects in the lakes but long term possibilities for people (not just me) too. As disillusionment in an area is not something i hope to enjoy until my more curmudgeonly years. Either that or i’ll have to start traveling!

A quick (with the usual dodgy omissions) summary of the above for people who prefer to keep/peruse scorecards rather than guidebooks

8A

Metronome, 2nd go

poor quality vid (mostly iphone) of some random stuff from the last 10days here:

On a side note if anyone is looking for a Morris Traveller my dad is selling one of ours for £1500ish

it looks a bit like this.

only without the v8, and 2 tone paint job, rally seats and roll cage.

To celebrate we finished a mohogany board for a mate of ours (the wood came from his house) Hopefully a sign of things to come anyway in terms of using a few different woods on the machine. We are desperate to make a few new things for people keen to get stronger too. there is alot of Chaff out there and we try and get straight to the meat when it comes to the most efficient & inspiring stuff to train on.

 I’m pleased to announce that we’ve also been working on a really nice App for beastmaker users (along with a beastmaker phone holder) so hopefully you should all be able to train super easily on the boards, rather than adapting boxing interval timers off the web. We will be charging for the app but it wont be extortionate and alot of training plans have been written for it. Hence the lack of training plans on the site as this took priority. Interactive training has got to be the way forward. Its almost gamifying training! which can’t be a bad thing. 

 Handholds: we’ve been upto my neck in them! They keep selling out fast so i wont promote them any more. There aren’t many >8B boulderers who carve wooden holds by hand for ~£3.30 a hold and hopefully the machine will be replacing us soon, but until it does keep your eyes on the site if you fancy some holds for your board. Aside from all that i’ve been doing a spot of climbing and going through a mental war with the most conditionsy but beautiful problem i’ve ever tried. Its been a month of highs and lows on it (mostly lows) and i’ve been enjoying every minute of the sufference (almost) as its been really reminding me how weak i am, and that strength isn’t everything. 

On my board i’ve been really happy with my progress. My knuckles haven’t; the rest of me has. I’ve mainly been training in the green zone and stopping once i get near to base level as at the moment i need all the squeeze i can get for the hardest local things i’m on outside. The crux hold on the thing i’m trying outside seems to disappear if i’m not fresh, not like oof i’m too tired to hold that, there just isnt a hold there as its a friction pinch only but the fingers need to create the squeeze across the angles so much that it turns to a slopey unholdable mess when mr floppablob comes to town. Aside from thinking about individual holds too much, the feeling of needing to go on a trip has been creeping in, maybe just a little raid north of the border before the nippies come out? 

 A few other sneaky ticks from the last fortnight have been: 

L’anglais parfait, flash, (8m) Goats crag  Ed Brown's Goats masterpiece (7B+)

Ruth Route (8m) Goats Crag  Karl Telfers awesome route to the left, great climbing on this! 7B flash 

Death Knell (8m)  ground up. God this was scrittly, it took me 10 minutes to be able to commit to the last move. 7B+?

Overhanging Crack E2 5C OS solo (the top out of this was an out of body/ all of body experience)

Bernie the Bolt (7m) flying visit down to the peak for the Life on Hold Premiere (seemed hard for 7B+ ground up) 

Shotgun Hobo, a nice new link at Goldsborough 8A? holeshot into shotgun hobo stand

Dangleation, Goats (4 in the guide!) SS at the back of the roof on a small undercling and crap pinch, no block for feet. 7C+ 

Where the Wild things Sit Another incredible Northumberland prow! its like some second century druid ran round all the county crags and carved a perfect prow at each one! The SS uses NO blocs for feet. Morpho 7C+

Suns of Temper St Bees FA Have been meaning to try this for ages, finally got round to it and it didn’t disappoint! 7C/+

Trailer Trash, St Bees. great problem in the classic sense of the word. 7C+

Manuka. AKA Bairn's vision tricky 8A? This takes the wall right of honeycomb wall, left of the manta. Straight up from standing to join the manta at its last juggy flake before the top out. The start holds are the 2 good crimpy holds on the black rock on manta LH. Top out up the Manta for the tick.

My Poor Knees from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

I've been scooped as ever so Marks blog or outcrops fb feed are clearly the places to go for county news! Mark has some nice pics on his blog.

 I've been stuck in a bit of a rut with 5 projects recently, mostly because i've been trying 5 things all at once so my sessions have been spread out to say the least. I felt in the form of my life on the board last week and managed some tricky moves on it (along with a raid upto thorn... nearly collapsed on the walk in, but got up return of the fly for its 2nd ascent after 9 years, and picked my jaw up from the floor after seeing moment of clarity!) With the weather looking perfect in Northumberland this week it was time to head up with Katie and go and test out the purple patch good and proper.

It was too windy for project No1 so 3 and 5 took priority. I'd cleverly stashed my harness and micro gear safely behind my sofa at home away from prying eyes so i was free of my harness and gear for the day (i'm a shit trad partner!) So my trad project was going to have to be a boulder problem if i wanted to try it. That said it is a boulder problem as you can only try it with pads, due to the crux being at 7m with no gear. It is not a normal crux either like on most highballs. It is a proper boulder problem crux that would be tricky on the ground. Luckily Ben was out too and had borrowed some pads off Matt so we had 7pads!  I felt rather good warming up and despite it being in the sun it seemed like a good time to have a bash at the biggy. I hadn't tried it since January so a quick brush on abseil and check of the top was needed for reassurance seeing as though i'd be soloing up there now. On my first go i felt a lot better than in january and. Next go i'd stuck the crux launch to the pocket off the tiny 3 finger crimp and it was time to man up, after a brief pause to turn my brain off i promptly got up the rest of the problem/solo forthwith. The crux on this is lower than the last droppable move on Darkside but is a trifle more momentum stopping so font 8A+ (H) is likely its best expression. Its the only grade i can stomach giving it anyway, it felt nice to be free of the rope too and in my natural environment of deckout failure, although i was a little apprehensive on getting the top slopers.  . We still had a while to go so Ben got on County Ethics. He ground upped it in 3 goes on the day and looked in well his comfort zone on high ground, great to watch.

 It still wasn't home time so i got on a lovely little project coming right out the bitch, its rather innocuous but is a nice reality check in relation to the big stuff on north wall. Normal bouldering, workable moves. The moves are really cool on it. It basically does the first hard move of the bitch to the jug and then you gross to a crap pinch (footer on the bitch) and work your way rightwards using a tricky heel which destroyed 3 of my shoes. With the threat of another anasazi heel getting ruined thus pushing the stats to >50% of this years freebies getting wrecked i thought today would be good to see it off! I'd got super close the day i did four mats wall. the problem has a really hard cut loose to get your right heel up and the LH pinch is so crap that it just fires of. Pretty frustrating! and the odd expletive leaked out. As it got later on i got tireder but conditions actually came good. Meaning the LH pinch got grippy enough to be usable from the start. As the day was drawing in friction and tiredness finally met in the middle and i scraped up it. Not the best line in the county but a really nice problem which is workable and just good fun (like all the problems on those boulders)

As ever the grades on these are a guess. They are vaguely accurate in relation to the other things at the crag but not in relation to things as a whole. Empty the bones of you is kind of like doing two pump up the powers on top of one another into a necky finish, except its not polished or bolted.  I'll be whinging about  hard grades as well as having a bash about where i think the future of highballing might end up going in the UK during the premiere of Life on Hold in sheffield at the weekend.

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)

 The County has been a salvation in this dismal winter weather and there have been a few winter gift days over there of late. Friday wasn’t one of them but i was busting to get out after a week of work. I ended up going to Back Bowden with Alnwick Ben and making the best of a very snowy day. The snow made most things un-playable and i’m not one for going too near wet sandstone. So we played about on the north wall. Unfortunately i’d had a gorgeous sunday the previous week doing all the boulder problems on there. Nothing was toppable so i thought it wise to look at Dark Side and get the bottom wired. I first tried this in 2008 with Ned when i had a finger injury and could barely get off the ground. It was hot and Ned got up the wall until the holds seemingly disappeared. I didn’t get back up to Backers for a while but i always thought this’d be a great route to leave and attempt in good style. Ground up/Onsight climbing is a funny ethic but entirely logical, you just walk to the bottom of something and try it. The problem with most of the climbs i want to try is that they have no gear on (boulders/solos) and if they have good gear on i’d prefer not to use it (e.g Earth boots, Living in oxford, second born, Sheer temptation i have all climbed onsight or ground up above pads only (when all have at least some decent gear) This is a funny niche of ground up style and one which is non sensical if the E grade of the route is looked at but so far as climbing a bit of rock in a purely enjoyable and memorable style then it is second to none. This style only works when its possible to exercise a good level of control and down climbing or jumping off has to be an ever-takable option. 

 Problems begin to arise when things get close to your limit. when you start falling off left right and center its best not to hit the ground in my experience. Compromises creep in for sanity reasons. short “Trad routes” are often a funny concept to tackle for myself as i love the grey area between highballs and proper routes. I think this stems from when i started climbing in Northumberland after learning to drive i was often on my own but wanted to attempt many of the classic callerhues routes like crouching the mahogany, boulevard, ned kelly along with others at howlerhirst, and armathwaite so i just got on with it with my one blue franklin pad (which i still have). Once i moved to Sheffield i was really at home with this style and amongst friends. There is a fantastic Onsight and Ground up ethic at the heart of Sheffield climbing and there is a friendly peer pressure to not take the easy way out and ab/ toprope stuff. This is a great incentive but it does tend to mean you get less done as a climber (but feel better for what you do do) as something that may have only taken you one go to head point can take considerably longer to ground up. Some fond memories from Sheffield ground up days out are (guide book grades)

Superbloc E8 (font 8A+)

Carless torque E6 (font 8A)

Toyboy (e7-7a (font7c) 

My prune E5 (font 7c)

Return of the Jedi HXS (font 7c)

Renegade master E8 (font 7C+) 

Earth boots E6 7a (font 7c) 

Pie hard E6 (font 7B+)

unfamiliar e7/8 6c font 7B+ (used a rope)

Panther dash e7? (font 7B+) fa ground up

Living in oxford e7 7a (font 7B)

nefretiti e6 6c (font 7a) flash

Happily ever after e6 6c (font 7b) onsight

navana e6 6b (font 7a)

4 above all on same day with Ned and Luke

narcissus e6 6a (font 7a) onsight

The power of the darkside (E8) (route 6c+) flash (clearly looking at the above list this is more like E6)

There is one failure from the peak which particularly sticks in my mind and that is when i attempted to ground up superstition above pads (and a bit of snow) so no rope. Miles Gibson is the only person in the peak (with Myles, Welfords, Barker and Moffats additions notable too) who has put up routes which get close to Andy’s in terms of being brutally hard as well as intimidating. Before you leave the ground you know you wont be in a typical trad climbing mode, you’re snatching at crap pebbles and mini edges doing font 7c+ to 8A+s in places where people are imagining trad routes being in a few years time. If Miles bags the lawrencefield project (and lets be honest a closed (gentlemans agreement) one to the likes of Me, Ned, Caff and Ryan etc) then he’ll have pushed this style of boulder/trad blend to new heights. 

I have never been so gripped as the 25ish seconds i stood at the last hard move of Superstition, with no one else there (but my camera), needing the gumption to just pop 8inches from a little cluster of pebbles to the ledge but with that distance feeling more like 8 feet. This situation taught me lots about where my own limit lies in terms of when brain frizz shuts you down completely. Over the last year i’ve tried to push these a bit. An easier project on lion rock tested my mental limits with only 4 pads i was trying to commit to an easy font 6C+ish dyno but at a height where dynos and solos haven’t mixed yet. I didn’t do this or Superstition but the adage that you can learn more from failures than successes couldn’t be more true in this case.

Adam's awesome pic is taken from up a tree so foreshortens the distance a bit.

It's these 2 failures which have taught me the most about ground upping and really seizing opportunities when you have them. Interestingly hard moves can be easier to do than easier ones which disrupt flow and allow you time to think.

Andy has an incredible roster of hard boulders and competition results in his portfolio and Pointed the way in the peak 4 years ago by doing the first ground up ascent of Careless So far in the County (of Andy's routes/problems) i’d only managed to ground up the Magician (E7 font 7c+) and i’d found better beta on the bottom and stuck to the right arete at the top, different to Chris and Andy. The Young was far to intimidating to attempt ground up but it really does represent an awesome challenge for someone with balls the size of Buster Gonad. The Prow could have been potentially ground upped the Day me Mick and Ned got on it but it would have been a bit poop as one of us would have sat there getting all the beta off the others as they worked it which is a bit silly, it was much more fun to mutually work it and figure it out together.

So the Darkside was an obvious challenge to leave. At least font 8A, high but with a great landing and whilst it is incredibly intimidating up there it is also one of the most basic walls in the UK, nearly everything on the upper route is a horizontal crimp, no sidepulls underclings or pinches. So no tricky sequence reading just wind up the gears and pull. It is very steep for a “trad route” and as i learnt on one go foot pings mean lots of pivoting and travelling time as your body follows with the momentum. These are dangerous as you can find yourself flat on your face from high up. Luckily this is something i’ve unwittingly trained in the past, albeit from a lower height...

When it came down to it the Darkside passed in a serene blur for the crux, i was totally psyched and committed once i thought i had my beta and for the crux moves i could just hear a faint whir of intensity in the background. I arrived at the break with numb fingers from the cold (the friction was incredible though) and some serious quick thinking was needed, Mark had brought slightly poor gear as andy has a metolious cam in the pic of him and we tried to guess from that (who seriously owns a set of these in the uk unless they’re sponsored by them?) so Mark had guessed at a half camalot (he’s the trad man), i’d been totally useless and only brought a harness and a 10m rope it was in anyway even if it was looking a little uncomfortable, (if you want to know the gear then i think some small ball nuts and size 0 cams would be great) luckily the gear is almost completely superfluous as there are only 2 pulls to really good holds and you can sit on your heel, after some serious breathing i pulled up to the top of the crag and a large snow patch, being somewhat un prepared for winter climbing we had opted to rest a rope up there to get through the snow as decking out from an icy footslip would be a bit to ironic after all that!

If you’re looking for some huge insight as to whether it deserves the grade of E9 7b or not then bear these points in mind. I’m mostly a boulderer and don’t fully understand the E system when it comes to danger vs difficulty.

If it were a sport route it’d be about 8b+ and have about 4 bolts and a belay in (it’d also be nowhere as good, i love Englands ethics!)

The move to the rail off the quarter pad crimp is probably 7b, if not then its 7a along with the 2 moves before and there arent any moves upto the break easier than 6b, most’d be 6c or 7a.

There are no other trad routes of this uber higball/guaranteed deckout from the crux of this difficult style except for maybe Superbloc which is lower and Andy’s own routes The Prow and The Young (not forgetting The Ayes have it and Endless Flight direct too which i haven't been on). Pearson’s excellent Return of the Jedi is similar but easier but with a slightly worse landing. Lanny Bassham 8A+ and High fidelity 8B come close in Yorkshire but are boulders. (the latter Andy cruises in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdG26UwP1YA) 

Grade bickering is the Dark Side of trad and at the end of the day i think routes are best judged by their reputations and how they keep them. One thing about this route is that i think because it is basic it’d be the most flashable of all the routes of this style, what a flash that would be though! Not many people outside Northumberland really know about this route in the same way that Gaia is famous worldwide. Yet you wouldn’t catch a lady bird on any of the crux holds on Darkside, greenfly maybe, but no one ever got distressed after crushing an aphid. Its a beautiful wall and its certainly an ascent that i'll cherish for a long time to come.

I’m indebted to Andy for pioneering these incredible routes and Mark and Katie for the style of this ascent as without their spotting along with Mark abbing and cleaning the holds for me the route was pretty much un-attemptable. The wall was very wet until 2008 when the trees were felled so moss had grown over two of the 1/4ish pad crimps rendering them totally invisible from below and its impossible to take a hand off and brush (for me anyway) at that difficulty. Knowing the gear is right is a great mental boost too, even if it is superfluous, you don’t know that ground up and it gives you the option of retreating. 

I had 4 pads 1 cam (pre knowledge of gear and placement), and 2 spotters for this. I’d have used way more pads if possible but we just didn’t have them.

To see Mark's perspective of the day then go here: http://marksavagephotography.blogspot.com/

Here's a nice pic from Mark Savage of a new problem i sneaked up at back bowden the other day. The county never fails to dissappoint if you stare at its gaps long enough. It follows the leftwards trending grooveline and is probably about soft 8a to boulder ground up.