Lies dammed lies and statistics, I mean grades

If you are a regular visitor you may have noticed that its not very often I mention a grade on here, this is because they drive me fucking insane. I am not sure what it is. I do try to get around a bit and make sure I go on problems I haven't done for a long time, or even repeat other peoples shit occasionally. Maybe I have some weird morphology that means I just learnt the system wrong. Perhaps I have too many late nights and early mornings arriving at crags fucked on a Wednesday the problem seems hard week on Thursday maybe its piss. I do know that I climb a lot on my nerves and emotions and when life is tricky it does have a big effect on what I can pull on. Or it could just be the rarity of going further out of the village than Llandudno. None of this should be a problem I know, but it is because I probably spend longer worrying about the grade than I spend working most of the problems I do.


You see I do care and treated them as a little yardstick to measure my little progression, with this never ending goal of improving. I am not as bad as some when I topped out Wrestling it wasn't the fact that it was 8b or even that it was my first 8b (I had already had 2 other first 8bs one I started a move in and one was swiftly downed to 8a/+) it was the fact that it was Wrestling and something I had aspired to try. Now truthfully I would perhaps be a little bit gutted if it came down but with the my big problems the experience for me would still be massive. Nothing could top that trip for me, it was perfect on and off the rocks.


This year I have had a lot of problems downgraded. Previously my worst effort had been Cosmic Wheels at the Mallory boulder taken down from a tentative 8a to 7c, others had floated up or down as times changed but that was the worst, it rankled and rotted a bit in the back of my brain but a few others thought 7c+ so you know not too far out. Recently Junkyards of my life was repeated by Pete from 7c to a suggested 7b, last year word came back across the jungle drums that Cruiser Weight (a 7c+ I did at Moel Y Gest) was well over soft 7c at most, and now Special K at Crafnant has taken a tumble. None of this affects the quality of my experience or the quality of these problems I personally think they are all brilliant (well maybe not Junkyards but its OK if your passing!), they are also all my problems, and whatever happens with their numbers they always will be.


Now I am not compleatly stupid and generally manage to take peoples comments and hopefully adjust my framework to help it all make sense. But with so many in such a short time its got to call for a grade recalibration scheme, so in order:
-Stop using 8a so I don't have to think about it with every little thing I do.
-Go to font because that's where the little bastard things come from.
-Think what I would like it to be then -1 or 2 for what I give it.
-If all else fails just stop, and leave the job for someone else.


I can't help thinking that the last one on the list is the right one, its kind of what works with the very hardest stuff I have done, I thought the Tracks



was nails and perhaps an 8b. Gave it hard 8a+, and it got confirmed, so far anyway. Top tip by the way, there is an unreapeted 8a of mine in the pass from the same week as Special K, Corridors of Power,



felt a tiny bit harder to me, could be a good one to try. Also Dolly Rocker is probably more 8a than +, just make sure you start right, left hand in the slot right hand on the arete. See what I mean, still wasting my brain power a year later, I could be gathering beta for Font.

Recentlly I have been struggleing to make things happen. Structure doesn't come easily to me, I find it difficult to stick to the plan, but I have also learnt that towards the upper end of my grade I need to have a plan in order to keep making progress. Last year I hit the ground running with the Tracks and the Sit start to the Crest, I felt really good and some bonus ticks like Dolly Rocker came along. What had I done differently to normal? Basicly I made sure that I was climbing well when the weather came good, I had been working hard problems and every session finished in the mill so that I could get the volume in and target specific weak areas. It sounds pretty dull but to be honest I loved it, because I love getting better, and getting better has got harder and when I find something harder its more worthwhile to me.


Another thing I got right last year was being straight, after all there is nothing worse than sleeping away the perfect day with a hangover. This is exactly what I did this weekend, one of the days of the year and you don't tend to get a lot of them in Wales. Meanwhile CJD my greatest friend and rival, was completing his project at Crafnant, to give Wales a contender for hardest 'real' boulder problem. Once again he has got out of his car put in a few months effort and kicked my arse. Fair play I guess I am wasting my time competing really, he has 3 kids and a pretty full on job, I work in a climbing wall and have 4 days a week to train or work projects, still I guess knowing when to run back to the shelter of "I only compete with myself and the rock, man" is a skill in itself. The fact is I ain't a big enough hippy and I compete with everyone all of the time, I hate getting beaten but hopefully I can get beaten by the better man at least a little gracefully.




Joe also got the 3rd ascent of Special K my lovely soft 8a traverse up there, apparently the conditions were so good everything was a jug. Yeah thanks for that boys.




This year being the tool I am, (I have on and off as settings and struggle with anything in between) pushed too hard too early on the campus board, trying to make the gains come too soon. When I had plateaued after a couple of months instead of letting it be, I decided to have an extra session, a couple of months into a painful shoulder I really regret that. Its getting better and the thousands of light weights I have lifted and theraband stretches would have been needed sooner or later anyway. And once its better I will bury him not just beat him but fucking destroy him. Mwhhahahah.


Disclaimer - All of the competitive stuff above should be taken slightly tongue in cheek. Its basically true but only sometimes.

Crafnant Problems

I went back up to Crafnant to record some of the new stuff last week, here is the footage of problems at the Ratt Roof. In the end I decided to drop off at the lip on Phantom Power and Runaway Cheese, I don't know whether or not this is a good thing. It seemed foolish to clean massive amounts of lichen and moss off purely so that you can top out easy ground after the cool bit of climbing in the roof. But as is often the case now I am back home I feel like I should have done them properly, so maybe I will have to do them again.

Merry new year

Well the snow has melted and left behind a world of dampness to ruin the fun for a little while. Strange deeds have been afoot in chez Nodder, after being pretty much nailed to a pouch of tobacco for 20 years I am 10 days clean. Given the fact that I am still counting the hours (and in fact the minutes) success or failure could go either way at present.


Before the weather turned it was lovely up here, I went down to Jerry's to put in redpoints 50-60ish on Malcs Start, went well got to the porthole move 8 times rather than a normal 6 out of the ten.
Problem is:
Conditions - Perfect
Rested - Perfect
Skin - Perfect
Result - Not Perfect, still on the floor.


So there you go, occasionally you get a wake up call, I am nearly at the level I wanted to reach by this point but still no cigar (not even a roll up.) Back to the drawing board for me, figure i need more core and contact strength. Fortunately due to my smoking ban I have a lot of time to hang on a finger board and try to distract myself. I did have another good cave session, tried Louis Armstrong and was reasonably quick out the blocks on it, very close to the big move and the rest of it is sorted now. Think I will put some hours in in the Cave again, it is a great venue to improve in after all. Other than that I have been wandering round trying some projects trying to get sequences and find what I need to improve on ready for the next good weather.

Clearing the camera

In the interest of cleaning out my camera and computer here is some stuff.

Loose ends

Last week I went to the cave for the first time in ages. It has been so long that I actually enjoyed myself in there. The wind was incredible blowing straight off the sea and into the caves. The cruel truth is that when I was a cave regular my ego got in the way so if at any point I failed on something that I had done before I went into a chronic spiral of sulk. This time I was expecting to fail, so it was nice to quickly get up a few problems like Lou ferrino and Bellpig. Joe had a couple of pretty good goes at Crucial times so I joined in on that, I have done this before but only with a knee bar and pocket in my left which I was happy with, but if I want to do any of the links out of it I would like to use the original sequence. Don't know why, guess its just because some of the holds I use on my other sequence seep so badly it becomes quite frustrating to work. After a little mini session I was coming close to holding the crux, just need to sort out getting my arse of the ground on the start holds.

Continuing in my ticking old problems theme I had a session on Diesel Power the other day, this problem pisses me off, I could lap to the last move for a month or so 7 years ago but I never managed to link it. Now I find it desperate, I know I am stronger and better at climbing so what happened? Well for a start on the cigarette box slot (the hold in the roof) has crumbled a bit on the right hand side which sucks ass if like me you can only fit three fingers in it, and secondly I think i have probably forgotten about the sessions I had to get it worked up to there so feel like I should be able to get there straight away. Anyway I quite enjoyed mincing around on it, hopefully I will dig in and get it done this winter at some point. I also had a session trying the Reverse Grove link on the barrel, this is stunning far better than the original barrel traverse as it actually has a defined start, think it will take a little while to link it up but happy enough to have something pretty roadside, and not a first ascent that I want to do.

Où est la flick?

It was all going so well happy in the hills with my brushes pads stashed around ready for the big winter push. My summer of route climbing seemed to have worked out quite well a much higher volume of climbing and much lower intensity of drinking than normal. The tweaks had healed up, and a mini campus obsession was returning my snap crackle and pop. You could say all was right in my world. A small moment of weakness and a large session in the fricsan and suddenly the flame flickered and died. The Jetta blew its head gasket and money troubles never far away were back to the top of my list of priorities.

The next few weeks were a great example of the worst that the Welsh weather can throw at you, sessions were spent sat in a little cave on top of the little orme, trying and failing to find my psyche. My shoulder was sore and my ability had dropped through the floor. And it had all been going so well!

Fast Forward 6 weeks, I have just spent 3 out of the last 4 days down the Caseg boulder. Now normally I avoid this bloc like the plague as each problem there has been epic. The Gimp is probably one of my least favorite problems that I know is very good, if you see what I mean. However after a decision influenced by snowy weather and time constraints it was a good call for CJD and me, so we headed down to have a play. The snow had frozen to the top of the boulder so after a warm up I installed myself under The groove sitter. After a few goes trying to catch the sloper I got CJD to push while I pulled and a funny thing happened. Because I knew he was going to push I didn't pull up bob down and slap I just kept pulling in one movement and did the move with a tiny assist, next go and boom I had found my secret for the crux. Some moves are just awesome when they go, I don't know how many times I have tried to catch that slope but I do know they are spread out over sporadic visits since it was a project. I pretty much knew then that it was on as the second step through and reach into the groove with right hand I had managed to do before. The inevitable happened and I couldn't do the next move, bugger indeed. I started to try to slap straight up with my right to the sloper directly above on Main Vein. As the day went by I sorted the rest out, and tried the two methods.

The next day I was working and daydreaming about the problem, if I could just get that move then I would be able to do a problem that I always wanted to do, and also get some confidence back to take to my projects. It was obvious the cold was here to stay for a bit and so I decided to use my time honored technique of boring it into submission. My left shoulder was still a bit sore and trying to cross into the groove with my right was hurting so I carried on trying the slap straight up. This was a much more enjoyable move to try, and also assuming that one day I magically become one of those people that think Main Vein is easy then I will have a nice link up to try. This is where the flick came in, smoking and sitting generally enjoying myself I realised that as I had got stronger I had also got worse at throwing myself around, instead of trying to be in any way in control of my body I needed to start flinging myself optimistically at the hold. Inching my way round the bulge learning the move eventually I caught the hold and was into the stand. What to do now, should I try and link the first move or save skin and muscles for tomorrow? As it was already pretty late, and I was pretty fucked I decided to save it and come back.

Le flick innit

Again the day was cold and dry, minty in fact with more wind too. After a home warm up and finger board session I drove over and stumbled my way through the drifting snow to the bloc, the wind was coming left to right (sure that's not the technical term but what the hell) so the face was in the best conditions ever seen sine the glacier put it there. After a couple of hours mincing brushing and slapping I got to the top hold, the frozen snow on top meant rocking out was impossible but to be honest this doesn't bother me. I have done the stand start to this problem dozens of times, including pissed, stoned and in bare feet. Maybe I will go back and try again but for the moment the next line and the next project is more important to me, plus the fact that I get to leave it alone without even getting bored.