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Vision Knapdale (http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/c.php?i=147046) and many more old guide book inspired dreams, no longer represent where I'm bursting to get to when the weathers good.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.

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.

My Board is a 45, all wooden holds (obviously). A lot of the wood on this board has come from my travels, Australia, Germany, Northumberland. etc.

Climbing Pic is of the first move of the Gaskins 8B? project. What would it be if G had done it? Piss probably (i managed to link its meaty crux moves today, just a start and finish to add to it now)

90% of the holds are 1pad or less, and thats how it should be. And i'm trying to reduce incuts to underclings only gradually...

Sticking with it:

Last year i started trying a line i’d spotted once upon a time. I babbled on about it in a recent blog saying:

It has proved frustrating as it would’ve been a lovely 8B but for a hold breaking on the last move before entering into springer’s superb highball 7b Launch Sequence. Now it feels a full notch harder as after 3 sessions i still haven’t quite figured out the last move which is a 1-2 jobby to 2 sidepulls.

I’d gotten a bit bummed out by this roof as i’d caved and tried to glue the little ear back on, sods law the bloody temperature dropped right off the day i glued it and the resin only partially went off. So after another half arsed session on it again (whereby i got so pissed at trying the stand move over and over again i just stuck to trying the cul de sac sitter moves. There is something about undone moves which is a perpetual gall which i constantly have to endure in climbing. When head hits pillow in the eve my mind wonders in a stone monkey-esque fashion as to the moves, the moves, how can i solve the enigma, ooh its soo important. Actually i’ve just finished johnny’s great autobiography book and whilst it is essentially a book of slabs and aretes as far as the moves and routes are concerned the passion he has for the magic in moves really comes through. Momentum is something much easier to whip into a févre when things aren’t massively overhanging as you can’t really summon the magic easily when all limbs need contact just to stay on. Recently i’ve tried to work out on my dum dum level what its all about. I thought it poignant to try the redheugh line again having locked the shoes i needed to try the project i wanted to try in another car. Arriving back at the crag i quickly reached my old dead end. heel pulls me under the roof too much to reach any of the 3 holds above. and attempting to reach the biggest one out left is really violent and means i need to double with the right. The middle hold seems holdable in a one move 8b sense. I decided not to consider going for the nearest left hold with my rh and taking a cross armed cutloose on two slopers for a good 20 minutes initially as it seemed ludicrous especially as i had to move my heel at the same time. 

Eventually i decided to try it and it proved laughably easy compared to the other options i'd been bashing my head against, and a great move. So the problem has stayed natural and forced me to come up with a creative solution to an old dead end. The moment i got close to this i got a whiff of that dawes sinasthesia, of it all being connected (movement that is, not a grand unifying theory of everything). completely alone up there, nothing in my head except the bucolic waft of horsehair from the brush liberating clogged grains. i sensed i could do it next go if i tried hard and i did... until i got about half way up launch sequence and it was ballbearingly (nearly pall bearingly at that height) filthy (shame as it’s fantastic), 20minutes later after some perilous cleaning i did it. Its opened the door to a brilliant sitter into it with 4 hard moves on the trot (all of which i've managed, yippee for me) into this one complicated one. Crackalackin’sheeite as they say in Carlisle

Springers excellent launch sequence 7B

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)

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.