New Year New Psyche Old Problems

Its been a while, mainly due to the fact that its been wet so nothing interesting is happening.  Mainly I have been climbing in the Indy and the Mill, occasionally between the showers I have headed down to Jerrys roof, and a couple of trips up to the top of the Little Orme. 


At Jerrys I finally managed to stop falling off the end of Wurzel Gunnage and compleated the second asscent.  Gradewise I think soft 8a+, very similar to Mr Fantastic, however it seems that Mr F is probably going to be downgraded to 8a, so once again I am wrong/disagree. 

 The little orme spanked me on Weirdo and the broken Grass Moustashe, it was a little frustrating as I was really close to the Moustache this time last year, utilising a high foothold. This year I failed to even get the foot on and pull in, which made the move to the sloper too wild to hold. Should have tried more last year I guess, only thing I can think is I was doing about an hour of Yoga a day, cos I had quit smoking and stopped sleeping, guess this helped.












A couple of days ago a big team headed down to Porth Ysgo with a basket load of psyche to get on dry rock. Given the fact the day before I had driven down with Chris only to end up not popping out the grey into dry nice weather as so often happens but starting to walk down as raqin fell harder and harder so we just did one and went back to the Mill. Anyway I tried the little slopey prow on the far right of the beach, and it haad magically gone from no foothold to a big shelf, this made the previously nails slap far more ameanable and more 7 than 8 which was a nice suprise.
    Picture Si Panton http://www.northwalesbouldering.com/

Like I said though mainly it been the mill.  I am about 5-6kg heavier than when we got back from Austria, I feel like my bodys adapting to this now and the only real diffrence is in catching holds, I can lock deeper, train more (13 days on and still feeling fine) jump futher and my feet dont come off as easily.  So at present I am attacking my fingers with a vengence, using the weight vest on the 30 board and starting a bit on the campus board.  If I can just trick them into getting some contact strength I can stay heavy if not I will have to start cutting down the vino and eating less which always sucks.  

next years tick list!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ag_Q7tFm2QsidHc4cGY4Tnl0bEhfSnZveFRweEhlN0E#gid=0

Best in the world?

Please please please...

There is some twitching on the interweb about winter climbing although I have no interest whatsoever in that the last couple of years while the red faced tired looking people gather in V12 for their apres session coffee, I tended to be midway between a project and a mill session or vice versa.  I am hoping the same will happen this year and as the clouds lifted from a ill advised day off booked on the spur of the moment because I spent too long talking to that man Davies.  "But I want it to be dry it will be dry" repeat ad infinity it might come true but no.  At 10 am I was reassuring him mission one was out, he seemed to think the Ogwen would be dry, watching the rain fall in Beris I was sure it wasn't.  Eventually after some questioning he claimed it was dry down the coast, surprisingly when I got there an hour later it was wet and it turned out i was only an hour ahead of the worst of the weather.  Was it wet all along, I wonder?  This is the man who once told me it was mint in Yorkshire for me to drive there, when I arrived we visited Almscliffe, Ilkley and Earl had a pint and drove home in convoy without pulling on.  When I questioned Katz later he laughed and said it was raining at 8am when he left for work.  

there be snow in them hills...

Anyway what I am hoping for is that all the wet in the world will be absorbed by icicles and snow leaving me in a wonderful white world where everything is dry and cold.   Snow is after all better than rain isn't it?

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...