Well as promised the weather was mintier than a mint with a hole. After a couple of solitary days projecting, I walked into a large team being marshalled by General Panton, so I decided to tag along first up was the in vouge Craig Y Llyn, a few nice lines to warm up on in the sun, Voie normal was good and gavs problem up the hill was tricky. We then headed up the road to Elephantitus, I love this crag but havent been much in the last few years. You know the score ticked the crag so what's the point? The point is everything is wonderful, afterElephantitus and Down on an Elephant I tinkered with Crossing through on Cross therapy, a couple of goes saw the move done and to my surprise it was still awesome. After watching Caff use about a million holds where I use three the rest are too small you see; I realised why I my grades are out, its cos everyone else does different problems. On the Tusk where I originally did 3 moves to the top it appears you now do 6 and get a big heel hook. Although to be fair this method is totally legit, I must have been good at jumping back then as I certainly didn't feel I would be doing do it that way again any time soon. The best bit of Caffs sequence is that you actually use the cool slopers and after a bit of messing about I did it again with a combo of both methods. Something in the training is working as on the big move of Downset I instantly hit the lip, after 4 goes I was sure that I could do it again, fortunately I didn't instead joining Neil on the sloppy lip to the left of the finish of Elephantitus, in the past whenever I had tried this I was climbing straight out from the back to the slopes which is not very good, as a finish to elephantitus it was cool, going at a tenuous 7b+ which I called The Old Buccaneer, the better line would be to do Down on an Elephant into this but unfortunately I fell of and kicked Neil in the nuts, this must have been the second most unpleasant thing that happened to Neil that day the first being swimming in the lake. He really is a bit special that one.
The following day was beautiful again and wilting arms and thin skin were traipsed up the hill to Sheep Pen, a long and lovely day spent ticking all the class problems while watching Pete get close to Kingdom of Pain, The highlight for me was the second? ascent of Hocks problem Rumplestiltskin, after my messing around Pete flashed it and suggested it was easier than 7c, big surprise he thought it was 7b+. I thought its the best conditions ever and a line that relies on heels and smallish crimps, so there you go. I also re climbed my line up the prow to the left Terrapin which was better than I remembered, I thought this was a lot easier than the traverse and probably 7b rather than the 7b+ I gave it originally, (it was summer) again Pete flashed it and commented for anyone smaller than him it would be harder, but I am not smaller than him, so there you go again.
Cheers to Ollie Cain for the photos I am about to copy and paste!
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