Dodging the rain

Went down to jerrysthis morning and managed a new locals linkup. Starting on Huffys before moving into Wurzel Gunnage Stand Start, grade wise about 7c+ or 8a.  At the moment I have gone for 8a as I think both halfs suit me as opposed to them being easy, time will tell I guess. Then it started to rain again, whoppee back to the mill.

Wad

 
http://en.espnf1.com/f1/motorsport/story/63775.html

Questing

Been around and about mostly to places that I am not going to tell you about.  After 13 years wanting to be able to pull off the ground on a certain bit of rock I managed to pull on and slap yesterday, couldn't hang the holds on the next 2 moves but guess its a slow kind of progress.  Also been back up to last years in-vogue crag Crafnant, it was nice to go back after the summer of training, things that seemed far off last year are a few inches closer this year.


Me trying CJD's Private Idaho.

I 

I have played aroung for a handful of goes while Chris was working it, and yesterday waiting for Jack to clean up on Cruela it seemed a good idea to try.  I managed to contrive a way of getting the sidepull by my face in my right hand but this left me with my feet far to low, guessing the crimp is the only thing to go for.


It was surprisingly good fun hurling myself up and out at ever increasing speeds best of the lot I was a few inches off the crimp but would really need to hammer the fingers for a few more mouths before I would have a real chance.  Or maybe I just need another perfect day that I heard so much about from Joe and Chris...

New Video from Boreal...

Rings & Slings Part 1 from Boreal Video on Vimeo.

Since the return I have been out and tried a couple of projects which required me to clear the memory card on my camera again. So here is some footage from the last few months.  What I am now realising is that pressing record is a habit, unfortunately its a habit which leaves you with a lot of crap on your computer.  Its worthwhile as we all know about proof and the lack thereof so forgive me for filling up YouTube with this shit but I like going out bouldering alone, and it seems the easiest thing to do is to record some of it.  So far as its practical I try to only use uncut footage but occasionally batteries run out etc.  A case in point would be Storm before the Calm in this collection, now this is completely insignificant to the wider world but to me its the 100th 7c I have done. I still recall the jump between V8 and V9 being very hard, so I like that I made it to this milestone. The rest includes Lou ferrino chip less, I am unsure of the grade for this I always thought it would be easier, in the end it took a lot of droping the last move so I left it alone at 8a+.   This made sense to me and my body, perhaps its wrong, time will tell.  Anyway back to the real deal, Christmas is coming and the Dave is light right now, the real welsh boulders, the ones in the hills are calling me back for another round.

Home

So back in the hood, we got rained off. 


After the pretty bad start we got one day of good conditions, it was windy and dry and this brought about a little bit of magic and I am so deeply grateful to whoever or whatever gave us that.  The easier moves started to form into links, and I was able to move on the first move.

So the moves

First move 2 days of failing to pull on a bit of coldness and I was getting full hand scrape on the back hand pinch.

This is the position once you catch it, think I needed to get the position more sorted so i can get higher on my shoulder to hold the swing out.

The Thumb Snag, beautiful and OK

I was reaching up into a lower side pull to allow my right hand to be on the backhand, as I found the jump off the crimps horrific.

Set up for the jump

The jump as you can see by the blur I was going far to fast, the height wasn't the issue it was landing it in some degree of control, this is my definite crux.

The ridiculous cross over method that I thought might help, foolish very very foolish.

Catch and match, the match was far harder than i thought it was going to be.

Heel up

Cross under

Heel back

One day...

So the upshot is move one nearly, two, three, four and five done and linked.  Six not really tried much but am clearly going to find it nails. Seven, eight nine done and linked.  If we had of had perfect weather for the 12 days we were supposed to be there, I think I would defiantly have been on red point, I think I would have been failing on the swing off the jump, if is a big word though so what actually happened is what I could do.

Reality bites

So the cool cross over super style move...  Its really hard.  The getting off the floor...  Its still nails.  So what to do?


Well I think with 7 climbing days left I have to accept the fact that I am not going to climb emotional in the next week, this was always a possibility/probability.  The first problem is weather the conditions are good but not cheating good, the second is the first move, I have been totally and completely closed down on it, in a making excuses way it doesn't fit etc in reality I am not strong enough on the left hand hold.  Its a bit disappointing to have done as well on it in 30 mins at the end of our last visit here 2 years ago, as I have in 3 days of trying this year.

So Plan B...

Big Air

 I went over to another problem called Big Air last night after we had sessioned, even though its only a grade easier, the difference was phenomenal, instead of struggling to move it seemed possible to do it straight off.  So I think I will try to do this for a start, last time we came a lot of the problems were covered in ice, so it is nice to be able to try them.