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...

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.