Its a beautiful thing

Getting stronger that is. Been enclosed in the mill and the Indy for the last little while, went outside for only the 3rd time since i was in font yesterday. All the holds felt massive, a mounth of training has certainlly paid dividends. Six more mounths to go and i might have made real progress or maybee I wont, but at least I will know the truth about me and my relationship with rocks.

Bye bye lovely Jetta!

Well its time for me to say goodbye to my one time pride and joy, my chronic lack of mechanical knowledge and lack of cash means the jetta must go. So if anyone out there wants a project I am sure this is an ideal place to start... After all it features in the Parisellas Guide and makes a (very) fleeting apperance in Pierre Bolingers Vid from Raven Tor.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220770650682&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:GB:1123

Bye bye...

Fontainberry

Well it was great even better than I remembered to be honest. The conditions were good and it stayed dry for the whole trip till the last couple of days. Jack hurt his arm, Joe split his tip and I tweaked my shoulder all on day one. I discovered soluble ibuprofen, its like a constant drip to keep the aches at bay. Shockingly I didn't get drunk all trip, apart from on the journey in each direction obviously. Anyway it was top.


This was my first attempt too write about the trip when we got back and as you can see its shit, this is mainly because the return to real life hurts. I dream of having time in places like font to explore and touch all the holds I have read about and seen on videos over the years. The problem is you can be time rich or cash rich its difficult to be both. Anyway one thing I don't want to be is a whining bastard, too much of that in the world already, and I am a little prone...


Take 2

Day one, after driving through the night we arrived at Rocher Casspot at 7 am the conditions are mint and with nothing better to do we head to the boulders. None of us do anything, I tweak my shoulder on ---------- and demand we head into town for some water and food before we do anymore damage. Later the same day we head to isatis and do EL pousah, at least me and Joe do, Jack pulls his bicep and then Joe tears a whole the size of a 5p piece in his index finger. Good start.

.

Day two, we decide to go to Rocher Cannon, we set about 36.15 power, using a variety of bad sequences until I do it with a heel on. At the time this seems totally logical but now thinking back it is almost certainly illegal, ah well 36.15 powwow it is. Do a nice prow Le Mare Droight 7a+ and fail to try hard on Chanon Maniquet because a few years ago i sprained my ankle on day one of a week in font and the tree routes under it are wigging me out. Getting better.

Day three, Went to Apremont envers to try Apparoment 8a, First go I was on the slope just below the top, on my third go I hit the boulder behind it falling off and basically failed to try hard again. As a consolation I flashed a nice 7b called Paul's Boutique. Later we went back to Rocher Cannon so Joe could do 36.15 powwow. He crushed it 2nd go of the day, and I did Le channon Maniquet, We ran into Kook as he was on his way to try Le Baline. As the day closed in I had a couple of goes on that and decided it would go with a bit more juice. Good but not good enough.


Day four, Le autre toit. Yes a big roof ye haw etc



I was pretty confident of doing Oil de Sybile, having dropped it on the finishing holds in damp and very tired state last time I was in Font. Turns out I was better at climbing roofs a few years ago, in the end I did it from the pocket in the roof but failed totally to link it. As a consolation prize got Le Nouvelle Vauge done, this kind of felt easyish, I am guessing we were lucky with the condition of the rock that day. After this i had a go at Le Maxx, all I can say is I wish I had spent the effort I put in on Sybile there instead. Pretty shit.

Day five, Rocher de osiex, Basically spent the morning mincing trying to walk my feet about on le Mandarin before getting fucked off, deciding I wasn't going to do it, then pulling really hard and doing it in 2 goes. Yes, a good day.

Day six, Bas cuvier. I love Bas Cuvier. Did Apothese and La Balance in the morning, two problems that I always wanted to do. And they were easy in the end. Had a mini session on Hypothese, shocking myself by being able to pull on the ming crimp, caught the sloper once and cursed everyone who has told me its easy from there, I failed. Finished it of by doing Aero Dynamite on the way back to the car as it went dark. Fuckin ace.

Day seven, rain in the morning, Le Angle Ben's in the evening, one of my favorite problems.

Day eight, Rocher Cannon. Went back to try La Balanine as I was too tired to try anything new. Bit of a tussle but go it done. We then shoot off to Bas Cuvier so Joe could do Aero Dynamite which he did just as it started to rain. Back to Isatis to so he could do Angle Ben's, it rained stopping his full house of things for the trip. Home time.

Prisoners of the Rising Sun

Before leaving for font Jack and I were casting round for places to go, we decided to find this mythical problem. We both knew it had been done but were unsure as to its precise location. Si filled me in so off we popped for a quick look. It was good, a very fine addition in the vein of bus stop, barrel groove or the sting sort of problem. It took a while to delete the probable sequence for the first move, Jack and I did the stand and climbed it from 1 move in then spent a while nearly catching the slope in my left hand turning toe to heel rocking up to the right hand (that I think from the description John went to first) After starting to pack up in frustration and thinking to myself what a shit time I was about to have in font, I swaped to swinging heel up and throwing all the way to the slope with my right then matching to move back and right to finish, it worked so well that I could instantly lap it, so I did and added the left hand finish into Simons problem Pacamacrack. (Or something like that)


If I hadn't of done it I would definatly have been saying it was hard for the grade. Then I could do it, so its fine. So its about 7c with a potential morpho sequence that may potentially make it easier, but mainly I think its great.

Video of The Problems

The Law

Apologies to anyone on the edge of their seat/bored at work. I had got my footage all sorted and was ready to put it on with a trip blog, unfortunatly the Man has caught up with me and taken my car away until I pay up. So I won't have the footage till next week. Bugger.

Till then...

Viva le Fontaineberry

I'm going to font on Friday, super psyche. Its was all a bit last minute to do anything much about my strength or lack of it, but it should be good. My normal holiday routine is to go to somewhere with Chris and roll in the siege engines and not really try anything apart from the project till its done. These trips normally involve a couple of days in a gutter in some small alpine town making friends (and occasionally enemies) with strange people. This time however I am going with Jack Rat and Joe Sterling who seem to think that you go to whole different areas on each day never mind different problems!


My last trip to font was in 2005, so its been a while. Previous best efforts were things like Controle Technique 7c+, Koala 7c+ and Halle Bop dammit 7c+. So that leaves an obvious challenge really doesn't it. Been watching the classics, Real Thing and HTTP bloc as well as the more recent Between the trees. Hopefully my preparations will turn out to be enough but even if they don't I am keen as, its been over 2 years since I climbed outside the UK. And I haven't really left Wales much during that time, so I may not have power to waste but definitely have psyche to spare.

move along

So then lets try and move that grading shit down quite quickly then. In order to facilitate this I need to write some shissle shit about what I have been doing. Last few weeks have been all about the Mill for me. First I was driven in by the weather, now its got me all keen, and it costs a lot less in petrol.


There is a grade barrier in the den grades, I like to think of it as a Doylo barrier, and I think to me the 7b+ means being OK on a board. So far I have only reached mill 7b, roughly the same as den 7b, and what with 7c being a classic grade in every scale this is my aim for the year. As it clearly should be an established problem, I have a choice of 2 by Sam. First is the one I don't remember right now, and second is the magnificent Slap on the Strap on . Obviously as i remember it, I should try this one. To reach this goal I will need lots of mill sessions because I fail in the strong on the board category, still should be easier for me to progress then.


As I am trying to form the habit of always having my camera with me and trying to use it what I am finding is that I have a lot of warm ups and mill bull on video. Unfortunately I haven't done anything awesome to show off with. But in the interest of using it for something and clearing the hard drive I have put it on here anyway. However if you have anything important to do i recommend doing that instead of watching these, or indeed instead of reading this.


First up easy good problems at Angel Bay and Porth Ysgo.



Second Some 7s at the Mill.