The Spherical Cow

The Games

2011-11-08T11:43:00.002Z

"It's really great if you do hard outdoor climbing, but you cannot say you're the best. The only way you can say you're the best is if you compete with the best and show the best - I'm the best" - Reindert Lenselink (World Cup Official)

Last night was the start of the Foundry Bouldering League. I used to love bouldering comps; I went to them religiously, got a spot on the GB team, had some mediocre international results. Hard to believe that was back in 2001. Back then Tony Blair was PM, and still the apple of the nation's eye. Many of the events that shaped the modern world were still to come - 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, the launch of Facebook. But last night there was a funny wind in the air, and for the first time in ten years I really felt like going to a comp again. I felt youthful and strong, so I went along to show them all who's best.

Well, the best stayed away (they'd probably heard I was coming), but there was a really good scene down there. Rob Napier had done a great job with a brand new set of Core holds and there was 25 problems to have a crack at and a lot of keen folk around to have some banter with. The Foundry guys had also come up with a new twist on the comp format; as well as the standard problems there was also a "Flash Problem", which gave everyone who flashed it the chance to win a cash prize in a raffle.

The best bouldering comps are the ones where you can drop the 'easy' problems. It keeps the nerves jangling. Last night was a great example of this. Many of the 'hard' problems were fine, but the easy probs were also easy to drop, with some awkward lurches, some technical grooves and some graunchy traverses thrown in to mix things up. I was quite pleased with the way I climbed. Only two problems gave me any real trouble - a desperate slopey yellow and a huge dyno to a large red ball. Both succumbed in the end, but I had to get really angry on the dyno and embarrassed myself with a bit of a roar when I caught it.

It was great to watch the other climbers, too. There were some really cool displays of technique, especially from the females. Leah Crane, Emma Twyford and some young blond lass I don't know climbed really well. These girls have really precise, and very different ways of moving on the rock; I think I could learn a lot from them, if I could get my hips to actually move more than 5 degrees in any direction. There were some great displays of tenacity too; one tiny pre-teen girl kept setting up for the dyno, even though it was much further than her body length. She never got close, but optimism like that is gonna get you up something well hard someday...

There was good cake as well. Basically I had a ball, and I won the aforementioned raffle, so went home with enough cash to take Jules out for dinner. Heartily recommended.

Damn You Evolution!

2011-10-31T13:29:00.001Z

No, this isn't some anti-Darwin rant, just an outpouring of frustration about the difficulty of Jerry Moffat's Raven Tor "creation" (ahem).

I've had a hate-hate relationship with this route in the past, largely born out of not being able to do the moves, or in many cases hang the holds. Over the years I've been making creeping progress. Each year I inch a move or two closer - a reminder that I am still getting stronger, if only in certain styles and at a pace that would make a sloth blush.

This year I have returned for a dabble, making good use of the freakishly good October weather. I have reduced the "moves I cannot do" count to one, although the "moves I can barely do" count is still pretty high. Perhaps a winter's training will improve my crimp strength and hip flexibility enough to start red pointing?

When I did Make it Funky, back in the year 2007 AD, I couldn't do any of the moves at all on the crimpy headwall. By contrast, pocket power midget Ru Davies was enjoying a career break. Between law school and donning a silly wig Ru took time off to write THE peak bouldering guide, go climbing a lot and get freakishly, stupidly strong. His levels of crimp strength reached McClure-esque heights, and it is amazing (and a great shame) that he didn't tick Evolution back then. Here he is, captured in all his glory, by ace cameraman Rich Heap. Watch it and weep....

Evolution from Rich Heap.

Wall

2011-10-26T22:13:00.001+01:00

You can't climb every weekend. This weekend the wife and I went up to the quiet county to walk sections of Hadrian's Wall with my mother-in-law. We stayed in the excellent beggar bog B&B which is o'er the wall from Queen's Crag, run by a climber and does really excellent cooked breakfasts. Heartily recommended for those looking for a luxury bouldering break.

I found the days walking along the wall fascinating. Mind-boggling to think a centurion could stand on that wall looking south, let his minds eye roam over thousands of miles to the edge of the Sahara and know it was all one single Roman empire. It struck me how much the pace of life has changed out of all recognition. The wall was built over a ten year period, by two teams starting from either end of the country. That's an average of 16 metres a day, though they would have to have gone a bit faster than that since they also built forts and milecastles in those ten years. How could they stand it? There are sections on the wall where you can see to the end of the earth, and they would have inched along those hillsides at a measly 16 metres every day. It must have felt like their entire lives would be spend placing bricks in a line.

Was this as unbearable as I think it must be, or has our modern pace of life changed our sense of time forever? If something takes me ten days I begin to think of it as a ceaseless task. On our way along the wall we met a man who was walking the route from coast to coast with two fell-ponies, descendants of the original ponies who helped build the wall. He was doing it to draw attention to the plight of the ponies who, apparently, are endangered. The ponies make slow progress on the rough terrain and he was moving at around five miles a day. We met him on Saturday and again on Sunday, barely any further on. It will take him over two weeks to complete the walk, at which point he'll turn round and start walking back...

Some shots below.

Coach Randall done good!

2011-10-09T22:39:00.001+01:00

I'm not going to write much about my weekend, because it was wet and fairly unimpressive on the climbing front. On saturday I went to the Works with the two mini-Ruperts (age 33 and <1year, respectively). On Sunday Jules and I went back to Malham to get some pics. It was horrid, so we drove from there to the Tor, which was also horrid, so we drove to the Foundry. Which was dry, at least.

Much more exciting though, is that Coach Randall destroyed his U.S project, the only off-width visible from space! The ascent has made a bit of a splash in the news, with UKC articles, a great blog post from Alex Ekins, and some grumbling from Stevie Haston, one of the great heroes, who's lost a project to a younger man.

What I like about this news story is the backdrop of obsession and quirkiness that lies behind it. Developing an unhealthy attraction to off-widths is pretty rare behaviour for anyone, but is right out of left-field in the UK, where we don't have much of this particular type of climbing. It's so impressive that Tom and Pete buried themselves in their cellar, burdened themselves with huge weights and hung from parallel joints of wood until their eyes bled, their muscles burst and their sanity cracked. There's something oddly British about emerging from a small cellar as two of the best crack climbers in the world. As someone posted on supertopo.com - "this is the attitude that built the British Empire". What a pair of legends!

Double Crush!

2011-10-03T15:06:00.001+01:00

One of the great things about epic sieges is that you never have to ask "where shall we climb today?". Back from France, back to Malham. The unseasonal weather had worked its charm and the cove, which we left sulking under a coat of black is pristine again.

Plans to climb on saturday are quickly shelved. The mercury rises to record heights, and paint peels from fences. This is not the day to be sat at the focus of an 80-m wide reflector. Instead we visit Jenny and Bruno and their new arrival Sam, who is the definition of adorable; lively and with a wide range of interesting facial expressions. Cafes and gentle walks are a perfect match for the 30-degree heat. In the evening we drive to Malham and have dinner in the Listers, where we encounter some fools who tried to climb, sitting in the shade and peeling their blistered skin.

Sunday brings rain, warm air and cloying humidity. Not perfect sending temps. On my first dog up Bat Route it is quite obvious that things are against me: conditions are gash; my new shoes feel clumpy and don't work in the crucial heel-hook. Worst of all, my hurty elbow has acquired a new trick, and my left bicep appears to have gone to sleep. It simply won't recruit, and seems to have no power. This is disappointing because if there's one thing you want on a roof full of undercuts, it's some guns to brag about.

Jules is looking in better shape on Predator. In fact I've never seen her so strong on it. It's still a bit wet, and she's carrying a towel up with her to dry footholds on redpoint, but it's game on I'd say. And so we start.

Round 1

I fall off the roof; something I haven't done for ages. Jules cruises to the crux, but fails to get through it.

Round 2

I fall off the roof again. Biceps would clearly be of some use here. Jules gets through crux but then gets muddled up and falls getting her feet up.

Round 3

I'm through the roof! God knows how, but still. My mum-made kneepads work like a dream and I get loads back in the knee bars. Which is a good job, because the runout above is horrendous; I smear and stab and grease my way through the pinches; I've never come so close to taking the lob. This is proving to be a massive fight; obviously I've got no chance. But here's something funny; I'm not pumped. All that French grade chasing must have done something for my fitness and I leave the rest feeling good. In fact, I fully crush my way through the crispy headwall and onto the French 6b finish. It's in the bag! Except....

On the walk in, Jules asked me if my route stayed dry in the rain. "Of course", I answered. I should have thought about that a bit more. The top wall is soaked. Naturally, I keep my cool, which is to say I wobble and scream my way to the ledge. My screams of "Oh christ! It's so wet!" cause much mirth around the cove but it's done. Finis. Nothing to do but lower off and enjoy the exposure one last time.

Back down to earth and I am ecstatic. But, poor Jules. How many more people must she see complete their projects before she nails hers? She congratulates me, of course, but the disappointment and sadness shows through, and I feel crushed. She deserves it so much more; why did it have to be me to tick today?

She still has a chance though; her third red point sees her through the crux again, and in cruise control this time. She looks strong and composed and she falls from the moves at the first chain again. No! How can she do this? No-one falls there. Certainly not twice. Certainly not three times! How can she be so cheated? Obviously, at this point Jules is pretty angry. It's not helped by the fact that the damp is coming through; holds on the start are wet. The top tufas are slimy. Will she get another chance this year? Amid all this pressure, she dusts herself down, and sets off for

Round 4

Shaky and wheel-spinning through the start. A bad sign. Leaving the half-height rest she looks good but stalls on the traverse; feet shaky and a few wild slaps. I hold my breath. She makes it, and powers through the crux and onto the easier headwall. Surely this time? You can't drop it from here four times, can you? I hold my breath. She does not; aggression and power screams pouring down the wall. She's there! Across from the first belay and into a monster rest; one bolt from the chains. The cove is crushed into silence. I glance across at Keefe and raise my hands in silent prayer. Aeons pass. She sets off and cruises to the chain. Clip. Silence. I think she's a bit confused by what just happened. Then it hits, and her face is split by a grin of pure joy.

Double Crush! Chapeau Team Littlefair! It goes without saying that we celebrate with a massive McDonald's blowout. Today I feel a little queasy. But dead chuffed.

Operation Grade Chase

2011-10-02T22:43:00.000+01:00

8a. It's a grade. It's the grade, if we're honest. It's not 7b.nu is it? I've been slogging up the steep hill of progress for many years now. A few years back I reached a bright and sunny plateau, where on sighting 8a felt like the kind of thing I could do pretty regularly. I've never reached that beautiful spot since. But I've been slogging around the hillside some more since then and I reckoned I was ready to try again. So. 6 days. South of France. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to onsight every 8a you can find in the guidebook. This blog post will self-destruct in five seconds...

Day 1

Jurassic Park. Grade chase status: total failure.

Our ex-pat hosts take us to meet other ex-pats Mike and Elaine Owen at their favourite crag. Everyone is english, just like the costa del sol. Don't even get on an 8a, but do fail to redpoint 8a+. Chapeau Monsieur Littlefair.

Day 2

Jurassic/Cayenne. Grade chase status: dismal failure.

More classic tufa action. I don't understand tufa. There seems to be jugs everywhere but I just end up getting massively pumped and baffled. More brits at the crag today, including Al Cassidy, who floats up Diplodocus (8a). He makes it look so easy I get on after him and totally balls it up. Redpoint yesterday's 8a+ to make me feel better. Go to nearby Cayenne; looks awesome. Fail to get on an 8a.

Day 3

Deverse. Grade chase status: almost successful (i.e failed again)

Really psyched. Today is the big one. Deverse Satanique; the best 8a since they were invented. Snaky tufas snaking up a big overhanging wall. I'm so psyched for this one I watch videos of it all night, and bring them to the crag. Nothing's gonna stop me here. I pull on, cruise through the bottom and balls up the first hard move. I see a theme developing here. Balls up another 8a on the RHS, even though it would get VS in Cheedale. Not a happy bunny.

Day 4

St Martin Vesubie. Grade chase status: are you still even asking?

What an amazing crag. Really; it's completely incredible. Cool features. Enormous routes. Beautiful locations. There aren't any 8a's here. I don't even know why we came.

Day 5

Jurassic/Cayenne. Grade chase status: I'm so depressed.

Actually tried an 8a today. Fell off it.

Day 6

St Cezaire. Grade chase status: YYFY!

This crag is British. It's got crimps and everything. Finally, finally I onsight an 8a. I think it's soft. It gets 7c+ in one guide. I'm taking the tick though. In fact, you couldn't prise the tick from my cold dead fingers.

All in all a great trip. Thoroughly recommend the area to all looking to fall off 8as. One thing puzzles me. Every day we drove past the "Easy Love, Love shop". Looks like a classy establishment, but can any of my worldy wise readers tell me what the duck is all about?

The Circle of Life

2011-09-05T16:12:00.000+01:00

The death of the humblest creature may provide sustenance for the King of Beasts. And so we mourn not the passing of any creature, because all creatures are connected by the great Circle of Life (apart from Jellyfish).

As with nature, so it is with climbing. I have returned from my self-imposed exile in the Canary Islands, and am eager to begin battle proper with the mighty Bat Route, which soars imposingly up the centre of Malham Cove. Regular readers of this blog will note that I was having a little trouble with squatters on this route. I was sure that with the onset of Sendtember, the nesting birds would have begun their flight to Africa, and I could destroy their home whilst they weren't looking. I was a little sad to see that the Peregrine had beaten me too it; the nest was in turmoil, and a suspicious looking hole had appeared in the front of the outer wall. Sad news for the swifts, good news for me!

And so the siege begins! Bat Route consists of a short 7b into a orgy of thuggy undercut moves through the main overhang. These bring you, panting, to a perfect double knee-bar rest. Whilst hanging upside down in the middle of the cove you can wave to the tourists and contemplate the next section, a bouldery runout on terrible smears. If you have recovered enough, then a tenuous layback move, miles above a pathetic rust-stain pretending to be a bolt will bring you to another great rest, this time on enormous jugs with poor feet. From here you have only the final 7c/+ section on smee smears and tiny crimps between you and the top. It's just that this last section is about a million moves long.

Day 1 sees me get much higher than I thought I would; through the pant-filling runout and into the good rest. From here you can kid yourself that you're going to crush the headwall but most goes see me fade out by a hard move halfway up the headwall. This is a move that tall people can lank past, but most will have to pull on a despicable side pull, rendered useful by dint of a tiny tiny thumb-catch. When I get here I feel as if all strength has been sucked form my arms, and I can't even crimp up. I leave the crag psyched to get this high, but wondering if I'll ever have the stamina to pull through this move.

Day 2, Go 1 answers that question with a resounding yes! Everything goes wrong on this go; the holds have filled with mud and water, and I have to clean them off after each jug. Worse yet, my feet pop on the runout, draining my bowels along with my reserves of stamina. Nevertheless I manage to shake out a little before the hard headwall move and cruise through it. Suddenly there are only three moves between me and glory! Move one, piss. Move two is piss. I feel strong, quite fresh and the sound of angels singing Glory! fills my mind. I get so excited I miss out the little intermediate crimp I always use, which turns out to be an appalling mistake. Disaster! My left brain is pleased to reach this highpoint, and cooly logs it to feed future optimism. My right brain has a proper paddy and spends ten minutes shouting and cursing, before sloping off to its room for a sulk. From this point on, things go from bad to worse. The sun comes out, instantly turning the cove from a piece of rock into a creeping wave of slime. Worse still, I am struck low by the worst migraine known to man. Instead of dusting myself off and finishing the route I am left to lie on the catwalk and gently whimper.

So now the wait begins. Will it stay dry for a whole five days? Who knows - the forecast is for rain and I may yet see my victory snatched from my grasp....

And what about Jules, I hear you ask? Well, Jules is still trying Predator. Despite having made it through the hard climbing about a month ago, wet rock and life have got in the way and she had yet to regain that highpoint. On Sunday, despite poor conditions she was determined she would at least make it through the crux again. Four red points later and she had failed at the last move each time. At this point other people would see sense and give up. Indeed, everyone else had gone home and dusk was falling as Jules tied in for an epic fifth go. Obviously tired, she fought her way to the last hard move and strained through it, finding herself on the easier headwall for a second time. Cool and collected she cruised through her previous highpoint and was looking good for the tick when a flash pump threw her confidence and her right foot slipped! She was robbed!

In fact, we were both robbed and on the same day. Climbing can be a cruel mistress sometimes; run a good time in a 100m race and you go home feeling happy. Yesterday Jules and I were a whisker away from our best climbing performances ever, and we go home totally empty handed and with 'what-if' ringing in our ears...

Tangible

2011-08-23T04:35:00.006+01:00

I've been an astronomer now for over 13 years. One thing that surprises many people is that professional astronomers don't have much of a visceral connection with the night sky. When I'm operating my telescope for work I sit in an air-conditioned control room with fluorescent lighting. Images come from the telescope to my PC where they're often analysed automatically by software written for the purpose. Most of of the time I interact with a stream of numbers, and never even see the pictures.

I don't even need to know my way around the constellations. The telescope's computer-controlled mount takes care of finding my targets for me. I just type in the co-ordinates and off we go. There was a time when I'd been a professional astronomer for nearly 5 years, and didn't know more constellations than Orion and Cassiopeia!

My relationship with the night sky changed a few years ago, when I started to use my spare time at observatories to take pictures of pretty parts of the sky. No telescopes here, just a camera, some lenses and a mount that will track the rotation of the stars in the sky. I've had to actually learn where things are in the night sky. And then there's something truly amazing about pointing a camera at a patch of sky, opening the shutter for a couple of minutes and seeing a beautiful picture of some galaxy or cluster appear on the CCD screen. Suddenly those objects I've known from catalogs and papers seem incredibly real. Tangible. One photo and I know, with a certainty I've never had before, that the Andromeda galaxy is there, hanging in the patch of sky near Cassiopeia.

So tonight I have one of those rare things at an observatory; a night off. Actually, I'm supposed to be working, but the telescope is broken so I've got some spare time, and having worked the previous 11 nights straight, I don't feel like trying to write papers, or analyse data. So I've spent the night outside, under the Milky Way. I set up my camera and my fingerboard, put the Smashing Pumpkins on my iPod at full volume, and hung under the stars whilst my shutter clicked repeatedly. During rest periods I watched for shooting stars. I could get all hippy on you at this stage, but suffice it to say it's been a pretty fucking amazing night. And now, at the end of it, I'm 0.005% stronger, and have this picture to show for it....

Drudgery

2011-08-20T03:12:00.004+01:00

My job is a privilege. I get to travel to exotic locations and do anything my curiosity drives me to do, provided I can justify it to the taxpayer. The observatories where I work are breathtaking locations. The night sky contains views like these:

So I love my job. But sometimes, just occasionally, it's a pain in the ass. As part of my job, I help operate a special camera for astronomy. I wrote about it here. I'm out supporting other astronomers who want to use that camera, and it's been a total bitch. We've had loads of technical trouble, which means I'm up all day fixing things and up all night operating the camera for other people. I've been averaging about 4 hours sleep a day. It's all a bit like hard work.

On top of that, I'm trying to keep training whilst I'm out here. I've still got a set plan from Coach Randall, so I'm trying to do all of that all my portable fingerboard that the nice boys at Beastmaker made for me. This I have achieved with a clever combination of bungee cord, pulleys, weights and a harness. There's even a winch in the optics lab where I can train with the lights on, and not worry about disturbing the telescope. It's a weird place to train, amongst the lab equipment, and I can tell you now that stamina training on a fingerboard is pretty damn boring. So work feels like work, and even climbing feels like work.

But I don't care. I've got my eye on the prize, 'cos I'm coming home to September; the month of crush. I've got two weeks at Malham and a 10-day climbing holiday to look forward to and I'm going to be in the best goddam shape of my life, because nothing prepares you for heroics like sleep deprivation and hanging from planks of wood. Plus, I've got the Patxi training bit from Progression playing on a permanent loop on my laptop. So that's nice

Coach's orders...

2011-08-03T00:39:00.001+01:00

I'm quite a few weeks into coach Randall's plan now. It's quite a break from what I've been used too. Out go the endless circuits on the foundry bouldering wall (to the delight of the regulars). In comes 4x4s on the lead wall and 'continuity' sessions where I try and climb an "easy" route as many times as I can in 10 minutes. Then do it again. And again. And again, until my eyes bleed.

This weekend I ended up doing 50 for 5 at Kilnsey about 15 times in under an hour. It's surprisingly invigorating and aerobic as you're moving fast enough to get your heart pumping and a proper sweat on. The 4x4s have been the real killer. Initially I was making them a bit too easy, but some stern words from Tom, and a bit of competition to keep up with my training partner (the awesome Emma Twyford) means I've racheted up the intensity, with routes between 7a+ and 7c being lapped in short order. Brutal, but the missus says she can see the difference already, so by the time the nests are vacated, I'll be in crushing form!

The new regime has one slight problem. Tom is a wide crack fetishist, who thinks that real climbing consists of doing a thousand sit ups with your body contorted like a car crash victim. Since I don't routinely climb routes with my legs, he thinks my core strength is lacking. Once a week he's got me doing the core endurance session from hell. A million crunches, side crunches, dishes, leg raises. By the end of it I can only curl up on my bed and whimper. I think he hates me. But you've got to have dedication, and keep your eye on the prize. As Jules' coach wrote to her in an email; NON STOP, NON STOP A MUERTE!!!!!!!!!!!!

In search of the perfect rock shoe

2011-07-27T20:17:00.001+01:00

Well, where are we? Last time I wrote Jules was working predator, and looking good for a quick ascent. My elbow was sore and giving me considerable worry. I was keen to start red pointing on Bat Route, but nesting birds had postponed plans. That was over a month ago now. Such is the breakneck pace of my life that as of today, we're pretty much in the same place.

The birds have hatched on Bat Route, and the peregrine has totally failed to do my dirty work for me. The Internet doesn't know much about how long swifts take to nest, but I'm guessing I'm gonna be in business in a month or so. I've done the links to and from the nest without much rest, so if the birds leave and it stays dry, we're game on. That's if hurty elbow allows; he's still a lot hurty.

Jules still hasn't done predator, but is ridiculously close. Her Spanish coach/Torquemada has her training harder than anything I've ever seen. Watch this space.

The only news of any note is that the quest for perfect climbing shoes continues. Why am I so obsessed with shoes? It's probably because for a (not so) modest outlay of cash, you can improve your climbing. It's an instant hit! Previously my heart has gone out to the Sportiva Miura VSs; they're just so precise. But they're not green. The new 5.10 Hornets are the coolest looking boots I've ever seen. That counts for something. Sheffield coffee shop impresario and one-time training guru Matt Smythe used to recommend wearing a baggy harness; it makes you feel thin, and if you feel thin, you feel good. Stu feels good, Stu climbs good! So I quite fancied a pair of green shoes and the fit in the shop felt amazing. £110 duly parted with.

The shoes are also quite a break from the norm; there's no midsole and the rubber is only 2mm thick. They're so soft you can crush them in the palm of your hand. Sadly that means that they're too soft for me, at least on British limestone. The quest continues. I wonder if these are any good?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Dead shit birds who stop climbing

2011-06-13T16:29:00.003+01:00

Got the Randall assessment thru the mail last night. Not too much controversy there; I was pretty amazed to hear him praise my above average technique and footwork, and totally unshocked to find that I'm a bit stronger than I am fit. Other than that, the take home message seemed to be that I'm reasonably well rounded, but with some weaknesses we can work on. He reckons with a couple of weeks work I can be onsighting 8b+. Well, maybe not, but there are things to work on at least...

This weekend we were full-bore, all guns blazing up to Malham so Jules could put some more time in on the proj. My goals were less clear; the hurty elbow is still quite hurty, and I've received some conflicting advice about cause and treatment. I think this means I must exercise some caution and restraint with the hurty elbow. Still, after warming up it seems to hurt a bit less, so I figured I'd put in some big links on Bat Route. After many, many days struggling with the crux on this, it is starting to come together, thanks to slightly larger biceps, and a radically different sequence. In fact, in the back of my mind is a little feeling that the route might actually go sometime soon. This feeling is elusive, and scurries away every time I notice it. To be honest, I'm trying not to pay it too much attention. If I ignore it completely, there's every chance I'll tick the route before I've had a chance to stress out about it. This is going to take some mental fortitude, and a bit of luck on the route itself...

Unfortunately, mother nature has failed to bend meekly to my will. A swift has made its home in just about the only hold you can't climb round. Damn birds. I hang on the rope looking bemused at this turn of events and debate in my head whether the route is worth becoming an evil bird-murderer for. My better angels win out, eventually. I need another project for the nesting season.

Idefix won't do. It's quite horrible and sharp. I make sure I tick it quickly, so I never have to go on it again. Urgh. On Sunday I have a quick look at Cry Freedom. My previous on this route involves yarding past most of the climbing to get to the top crux and completely failing on it for a best part of an hour. I've always felt a bit disappointed in this route. The climbing to get to the crux is fabulous and really involved; it really makes me want to climb it. Unfortunately the great climbing only takes you as far as the decidedly reachy and totally un-great crux. I can just about span between the two holds, but only with a couple of fingers, and only with very high and burly feet. With an extra inch it would be much easier, and that's not a very satisfying kind of move to spend your days falling off.

This time up things go a bit better and I actually manage to do the moves about one go in three from hanging on the rope. Bizarrely, this makes be even more ambivalent about the route. At least when I simply couldn't do the moves, it was a clean cut not-project. Now it occupies the hazy nether world of the possible project, which makes the prospect of repeated reachy failure high up both more realistic, and more intimidating. One to leave until I've ticked Rainshadow, or grown a bit, whichever comes first.

Still, Jules doesn't tick, which means I'm still in need of a Malham proj; Totally Free II? Hmmm..

We can rebuild him...

2011-06-09T13:30:00.001+01:00

Well, as i mentioned, I decided it was time to get a coach. Everyone who's everyone has their own coach these days. Last night I went for my assessment session with Tom Randall, all round nice guy and wide crack fetishist. It was good of Tom to squeeze me in, as his little girl Hannah is only a few weeks old, so he can't be getting much sleep. Hannah was very cute, and impeccably behaved whilst I was there, by which I mean she was unconscious.

The assessment session is meant to assess my strengths and weaknesses, so that Tom can tailor my training plan for maximum effect. To this end, Tom has built an impressive array of torture devices designed to narrowly focus on one particular kind of strength. His "crack cellar" is infamous, but pales in comparison to the horrors of the lattice board; a diagonal grid of identical edges designed to test strength, endurance and recovery to the max. No subtleties or places to hide here, just an endless series of good edges on a steep board, circling and circling until you drown in your own lactate.

It was interesting to see how accurate the lattice board was as a predictor of climbing ability. I exploded off the board after 68 moves. Apparently, 70 moves is the standard target for those wishing to onsight 8a; therefore the board neatly agrees with my own idea if where my climbing is right now.

After the board we tested some core strength and did some routes down the wall to assess technical ability and my climbing style. It mostly flagged up that I can't see a hold in front of my face. We also did some front levers to make me happy, and some flexibility tests to make me sad.

I await Tom's assessment with bated bated breath...

Bat route

2011-06-06T15:03:00.006+01:00

On UKC at the moment are some videos of Adam Ondra at Malham, including one of his onsight of Bat Route. Obviously I watched it intently, hoping to pick up some beta, and watching the world's best climber attempt a route I have spent (to date) seven days on.

Once I'd picked myself off the floor, I watched it again, and gleaned some useful and interesting ideas for the section through the roof above Seventh Ardvaark. This section has some tough and beefy moves on undercuts, and was punishing me out of all proportion to it's difficulty. Sam can cruise it. Mawson cruises it. Obviously Steve cruises it. I don't so much cruise it as crash heavily into the pier. In the UKC video, Adam uses a brute force and ignorance method which had obvious appeal...

So on Saturday we head off to Malham. It is hotter than the Sun, so a late start is in order, and when we arrive (at about 3pm) conditions are only absolutely awful. The perfect opportunity to train with a weighted bat, so to speak. So I bust up to the roof and try Adam's sequence and, whaddya know, it works! It has the slight disadvantage of occasionally sending me towards the Seventh Aardvaark belay at high speed and head first, but I can live with that. It looks like we are game on apart from a) a bird has made its nest in a 'crucial' heel hook and b) there's still a desperate move on the headwall that I'm worried about. I work out a sequence ignoring the heel hook, but the headwall move remains stubborn. Adam is no help as he lanked past it. Cheat.

After camping at the crag overnight, we climb at Kilnsey on Sunday. It is colder than Hell; the delights of climbing in the UK. At one point Jules flakes out completely and runs away to the trout farm for nourishing sustenance and hot beverages, leaving me huddled in my sleeping bag, sat on my camping chair. I am the only one rocking the sleeping bag/chair combo, and it attracts lots of sarcastic comments. I am warm for my redpoints though, so the last laugh is on me. Anyway, I hear that big issue chic is making a comeback this year. It is of no help on Indian Summer; two redpoints see me falling off the last move. Again. Frustrating route this; it feels well within my abilities, but obviously isn't, or I'd have done it. Maybe next week?

I have an exciting week this week; I am engaging Tom Randall as a coach, and this week is my assessment session. I imagine I'll get told off a lot, and he'll laugh at my hip flexibility. I just hope there's some front levers on the exam, to reclaim some ego...

Rodellar

2011-06-01T13:48:00.015+01:00

Public Safety Notice: This post contains bad language. Sorry Mum.

I am still psyched out of my tiny little mind. It's like being 18 again. Most of my waking thoughts are about climbing. I try to be productive and get work done, but with the students gone, there are no immediate demands on my time and it's easy to let things slide and burn time on the internet cycle. I start with UKB, then make sure UKC is still talking about biscuits, and whether forearm strength is important for climbing. Then onto facebook, and the climbing blogs (who's done what, where, how quick?). After that, it's time to start on UKB again...

This bank holiday was the first one I haven't worked for as long as I can remember. So I risked the wrath of Varian and bought a couple of flights to Spain for me and the wife. The plan; fly to Barcelona and go climbing somewhere every day until dark. On leaving the UK it was 30 degrees so we needed somewhere cool. My spies inform me Rodellar is looking good. Crush mode engaged.

Jules narrowly missing the flash on Sopa de Ajo, 7b+

We arrive in Rodellar at 3am on Saturday morning. After a boatload of faff with the hire car and refugio I am tired and snappy. But the next morning we awake to birdsong, blue skies and vultures circling above the beautiful Mascun gorge. The late night has dulled my psyche a little and it's not until noon we reach the Gran Boveda and get in touch with our spies; Dan and Tom. Warming up in the sun convinces me that the shade is the place to be. The heat of the last few days has eased and a gentle breeze means it's comfortable to sit at the bottom of the crag in shorts and t-shirt.

Dan belaying

So, what to do? The whole crag is dry, which is a first for me, and I'm like a kid in a sweetshop. But before we came out we'd been discussing the curse of the "first day on". Made famous in Stone Love, this is when you arrive at a climbing area and run around like a dog with nine cocks, trying everything in sight. Next morning you wake up trashed; you've done too much, much too soon. Like the seasoned pro I am, I was very keen to avoid the first day curse and thought I'd restrict myself to a few nice 7s. Sopa de Ajo was the perfect choice; a wonderful continuous drainpipe tufa, technical and rounded. I'd wanted to do it for ages, but it was always wet. The route passed in a delightful blur of total absorption; palming and twisting my way from kneebar to jug to kneebar. So good.

Dan was trying a great looking 8a called Les Cadres Regeneren in the middle of the wall. Might as well have a look, eh? After all, the clips were in and a quick 8a redpoint would start the trip nicely. It didn't quite go to plan; legs trembling an uncomfortable distance above the last bolt I'm switching quickly from hand to hand, desperately trying to get some strength back in my arms. I don't know whether I'm fighting to keep the onsight dream alive, or whether I don't want to take the fall. I claw my way a couple of moves higher and into a poor rest and realise the chains are one move away. I remember a hard slap to a poor sidepull and some desperate re-arranging of feet and then a jug you could hang a cruise liner off. Words fail me; I'm back in the saddle baby. Fuck Yeah!

Tom redpointing the rude route in style

Since I'm on fire I might as well keep going. Tom has the draws in a mega (and mega-long) 7b+ called Commando Coño. I won't translate it, but it's not a polite route name. Jules has a flash go, and gets achingly, ludicrously close as she falls off the last hard move, failing to spot another of those titanic jugs that Rodellar has all over it. She doesn't make it look too bad; plenty of good rests, so I hop on, engage crush mode and immediately hit a massive wall, creaking like a lorry dragging its roof on a low bridge. I keep getting to the good rests only to find slopey tufas and awful feet; how did Jules rest here? So I push on to the next rest, getting more pumped, more stressed and more crab-like in my movements. Somehow I manage to fall into the finishing jugs and wobble up the slab to the chain, but I can tell my day is over. Except it isn't; one more duty as ropegun getting the clips in a short 7a and then it's beer, bed and sleep. Ready for the next day

Which, unsurprisingly, does not go well. I get a raging, full-bore flash pump on my 6b warm up and nearly fall off. Once again I fall victim to the first-day curse! What a punter! Today is never going to go well and so I resign myself to having a rest day, except that I simply must try Sayonara Baby; a long 7b+/c on Surgencia up massive flowstone jugs to a tough little sting in the tail. Should be an easy onsight. Oops, perhaps not. Ok then, at least an easy redpoint. Wrong again; I get to the top, but not without dropping the clutch, and a healthy dose of luck! I spend the rest of the day being more sensible, putting the draws in easy 7's for Jules to flash, which she does like the pro she is.

Unknown chappie on Maroskum, 7c+, Gran Boveda

Last day, last chance. We wake to stormy skies and leaden humidity. We're straight up and out, trying to make the most of the day and warm up in the hammering rain. Jules has her eye on an ascent of a mega-classic 7c up tree-trunk tufas on the right of Boveda, and I fancy a day onsighting, hoping to re-capture the form of the first day. It quickly becomes obvious that this isn't going to happen as I fall low down whilst putting the clips in for Jules; and on a route I've previously onsighted. Oh dear. Dripping with sweat I work out a better sequence, and it becomes clear I missed about six no-hands rests. Good onsighting form then... The day doesn't improve much, either. I completely fail on a vertical 8a in the middle of the wall having totally failed to realise that 30 degree heat and 100% humidity do not play well with sloping tufa crimps. Still, I can recover the day with a nice onsight of the classic Argo, can't I? Well, no. Nor can I redpoint straight off either. I use quite impolite language at this. By now it's 8pm, we've been going all day and neither of us have ticked our routes.

And this is what really pleases me. In the past I've been pretty morose about failure. If I'm honest, it's made climbing quite a lot less fun for me at times. I looked back at posts on this blog, written when I was in my best ever form and having great success on the crag, and it's a ceaseless tide of whinging crap. Now, here I am on a short trip having completely muffed up my strategy and failing to redpoint a route that I should be walking up, and I'm having a fucking great time! The route is, quite simply, amazing. I'm quite happy to fail as long as I can keep trying and, for once, I'm happy to just to be where I am, and not beating myself up and wishing I was climbing better. It feels like such a breakthrough. At last, climbing is fun again.

Still, it's cool now. The wind has picked up and heavy thunder is rolling down from the Pyrenees. The rain is blowing into the crag and run-off is creeping steadily down the route. I've got one last chance to go big, or go home so I lace up my shoes, strap on the knee-pads and tear the route apart, grinning like an idiot the whole way. Jules is similarly inspired and pulls out a last-ditch, last gasp redpoint on the 7c, skipping clips and somehow catching wild slaps at the edge of her strength. It's past nine now, and very dark, but I'm too psyched to go home yet so we rush off to the Ali-Baba cave and I hurl myself at an onsight of the short 7c+/8a on the right hand-side. No-chance; it's pitch black, and I'm knackered. Hanging off the rope and peering through the gloom I spot a crucial foot-hold and lower-off, re-tie and shake wildly to the chains. I run up a 7a to the right whilst I've still got my shoes on and finally admit defeat as the last of the light vanishes.

Today, I'm back on the internet cycle. I must need a holiday...

A slow start

2011-05-17T14:57:00.003+01:00

Told you so.

That last blog post was months and months ago now, and very little of significance has occurred since then. I did a lot of physio to heal my wounds and a lot of work to heal my publication record. Success on both counts.

I had a fortnight in France. The Cote D'Azur in Nice, where there are a lot of very nice crags which are mostly wet. It was here that I came to realise how stressed the last two years of work have made me, when my head collapsed in spectacular fashion, leaving me unable to toprope 6c's without a hissy fit. Fortunately, two weeks in the sun was exactly what I needed.

Now I feel like I'm back, in more ways than one. I'm back to training; the injuries clear enough to try hard and want to try harder. I'm back ticking, with success on a whole route at Malham this weekend. The blog is back. My psyche is back. Oh yes, the last one gives me the most pleasure. If I'm honest, there have been times when all climbing has felt like a chore over the last few months. Today I find myself surfing the internet for climbing news. Googling for pictures of potential projects. Watching movies on Vimeo and You Tube. In short, doing many things which are not work.

I am psyched out of my tiny little mind.

Double Bum

2011-01-11T01:14:00.002Z

You'd better like that photo, because it involved a lot of pain to take. That's a Vizcacha right there, a relative of the Chinchilla and native to South America. They look a bit like a cross between a rabbit and a squirrel who's had too many nuts.

See that rock it's stood on; looks unstable doesn't it? Looks like the sort of treacherous rock that might shift under an unsuspecting chap, pitching him headlong down the slope, his expensive camera and lens banging along behind him like an over-enthusiastic puppy. Well, if that's what you're thinking, then you'd be right, except it wasn't that particular rock, but one much like it. Miraculously my camera and lens survived with only (fairly major) cosmetic damage. If only I could say the same for me; my legs are pretty bashed up and my finger is the size of a watermelon. I think I bent my finger back trying to stop my fall, and it got crushed under the rocks that were pitching down the slope with me. It hurts a lot. If I had to guess, I'd say I've sprained the collateral ligaments pretty badly. Hurts more than any climbing injury I've ever had and I've almost totally lost mobility in it. At least it's on the same hand as my other injured finger.

Something tells me this years season is going to have a pretty slow start....

Back at the saddle

2011-01-10T03:09:00.008Z

It's a clever pun, see. The title. I'm back at La Silla, the observatory in Chile where I've been doing most of my research over the last few years. La Silla means 'The Saddle'. Back at the saddle. See what I did? Never mind.

At this time of year, La Silla is a beautiful place to be. The weather is still and warm enough for shorts and a t-shirt and I spend my afternoons sat in the courtyard outside the dining hall watching the birds and listening to the quiet burble of the fountain. And eating ice cream. The nights are short, the days are long and leisurely, the view stunning. Basically, it's a bit of a joy, especially compared to winter, when there's no time to do anything other than work, and sleep.

That chap above is the NTT; the anachronously named New Technology Telescope, commissioned in 1989, and my own personal toy for the next few weeks. I'm actually out doing the donkey work (arf!) for other people's research projects, so I'm doing a pretty wide range of science out here. We're trying an ambitious project to try and tell the difference in brightness between the day and night side of a planet around a distant star. Pretty cool, but I think we've two chances of success, Jack and Shit. And Jack's left town. Meanwhile, I've been using the dark nights to try my hand at astrophotography again. The first image below is the nearby galaxy the Small Magellanic Cloud. You can see the globular cluster 47 Tuc below it, too. The bottom image is the Coal Sack; a cloud of dust and gas which appears dark as it blocks the background light from stars in our own galaxy....

It's good to have some work to do, 'cos it is distracting me from being upset about my injured finger. The last few days of our spanish holiday were dominated by me nursing the finger on the juggy pockets at Margalef. As is often the case with injuries, it could withstand quite a lot of load fully open handed and I had a nice few days ticking some nice 8a's at Cova Soleida, which I think is less frequented than other Margalef crags, but has some stunning routes following leaning cracklines. In fact, the finger dealt with Margalef so well, I was beginning to forget it was injured, but a day on the crimpfests at Siurana soon reminded me that it's going to take a lot of rehab when I get back to the UK. Never mind, I'll just keep looking at the pretty pictures...

An Xmas break in pictures

2011-01-06T23:23:00.002Z

Ahh, Christmas. The joy of giving, the winter sun holiday and the relentless tide of marketing.

There was plenty of the latter at the "winter experience"; a park just outside Wetherby where we took my nephew Alex just before Xmas. Ice skating, big wheel, snowflake maze and cafe/shop. The winter experience has it all, and for the pittance of £15 a head you can enjoy all the above, plus the Nordic ski trail around the Enchanted Forest. Here you'll find animatronic raindeer, lit by fairy lights, stooping to drink from a frozen lake. I loved it!

Christmas was spent at home, opening presents and getting fat. This year was a little sad, as my sister couldn't make it back from her home in Mexico. Still, it was lovely to spend time with the family and see them enjoying their gifts. My Dad got particularly lucky this year, as Santa brought him a Canon 400mm lens. I couldn't resist borrowing it for a few shots, and now have serious lens envy!

Usually I weigh myself before and after Xmas dinner each year; after a heavy meal the difference can be nearly a stone! This year I refrained from the scales. I took it pretty easy at dinner though, probably because I was psyched for the winter break...

This year, we're splitting our trip between Barcelona and Siurana. The Barcelona part was a treat for surviving a difficult year; we stayed in a posh hotel in the city centre and combined rest days sightseeing with days climbing at Monserrat. The climbing was a bit of a disaster as I pulled a tendon on my second day, so am now in full rehab mode. The sightseeing was more successful though. Barcelona is my favourite city and is lovely now as they are gearing up for their big Xmas festival, the day of the Kings, on the 6th Jan. Here are some shots of the city in all it's seasonal splendor.

Finally, we have come to Siurana, for Jules to crush and me to take it easy. Taking a tip from Dave McCleod, I've been climbing as hard as my finger will take; taking care to stay open handed at all times. Thankfully the finger can take a lot of strain in that position, although it's very sore in a half-crimp. The steep pockets at Margalef are just what the doctor ordered, thank god.

We are staying at Cal Giral 2 in Cornudella; a good option for those with cash to splash. Friendly, comfortable and a nice breakfast of fresh pastries each morning. Heartily recommended; and the view from our balcony is stunning...

And, we're back

2010-12-14T22:09:00.008Z

Thank god that's over with. Like most people, I had a little chuckle when the queen described her annus horribilis. Not any more. Suffice it to say that I've been far too busy writing lectures, giving lectures, fixing telescopes, training and trying to climb to keep you entertained with my erudite outpourings of wit. I'm sure you've coped, somehow.

One of the things I've been mulling over whilst I've been incommunicado is an issue of self-awareness. I'm sure we all meet dicks from time to time. However, I assume that most dicks don't know they're dicks. Which raises the interesting question of how to tell if you're a dick. Is there some objective test of dick-ness? Some set of hard criteria against which you can measure how much of a dick you are, so to speak.

One trait all dicks seem to have in common is that they don't seem to think other people matter as much as they do. If you think that you're more important than the people around you, it's hard to understand why you shouldn't get special treatment. That guy who thinks he should get to the front of a traffic jam by caning it down the outside lane. He's a dick.

Also, dicks seem to think that everyone else is an idiot. The spuming, ranting fool on the Internet who can't accept you have a different point of view. He's a dick, because he assumes you're stupid, just because you don't have the good sense to agree with him entirely about absolutely everything.

So dicks think they're more important than the people around them, and everyone else is a moron. There's only two problems with that. The first is that, based on those criteria, I don't come out half as well as I'd like. The second is that what if, objectively you are more important and more intelligent than people around you. Does that make you a dick?

One person who is definitely not a dick is Ned Feehally. Lovely chap, total beast. Here he is introducing me to the genius idea of warming up on a fingerboard.

Brilliant idea; the same warm up every time and without trashing your skin! One of the reasons Jerry Moffatt is such a legend is his professionalism. WWJD is a great mantra for the aspiring hero. Jerry would never go on a Spanish sport climbing trip without training stamina. Jerry would make sure he had great skin to try his project. The only problem is that, since Jerry stopped climbing, we can add no more top tips from the tip-top to our list. Perhaps it's time to find a new paragon of professionalism? If so, I suggest Ned.

WWND? He'd probably have stopped writing pages ago.

Location:Hammerton Rd,,United Kingdom

(I do like) Mondays

2010-08-23T23:17:00.000+01:00

Monday night is campus night! Which means it's off to the works to use the "biggest campus board in the world". Fatxi is back after a week off to go surfing - his shoulders look huge and he is crushing the motherboard. All that paddling must be good for you. Monday is also gun-day, which means team bicep, Sam and Gus are in the middle of their campus board-based endurance workout from Hades. Think over 500 moves squeezed into around half an hour with some deadhanging and pull ups thrown in after for good measure. At the end of it, Sam's forearms look like the Hindenberg, and are actually bigger than his considerable biceps. Savage.

I had a great campus session, and an even better day at Kilnsey on Sunday. I was trying Ecstasy, which is steep and brilliant, but felt very hard to me. I couldn't get through the crux from the ground, which is a big throw to a jug off a poor undercut and bad feet. Adam '8c' Jeeworth (sp?) was there, and crushed it first go of the day; is he the most cheerful 8c climber in Britain? Certainly, a breath of fresh air and a nice guy to share a route with. Now the sad news for Kilnsey fans; lots of rain has meant that the big umbrella has started to leak a bit. The start of ecstasy and the bulge was nigh on unclimbable by the time we left, and the North Buttress looked in a bit of a state. Hopefully, things will clear up again by the weekend, and I can sort my ecstasy problem out once and for all...

Location:Hammerton Rd,,United Kingdom

Injured party

2010-08-19T22:58:00.000+01:00

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field. ~Niels Bohr

People frequently ask me advice about injuries. How to treat them, what they've done to themselves. I can understand that; if you want to avoid mistakes, talk to a man who's made them all.

The best advice I ever got about injuries, I completely ignored. My first injury was an impinged shoulder, suffered whilst belaying, of all things. My guru at the time, the dark horse himself Tim Clifford, safely advised me that injury was inevitable and the only path to success was to learn how to manage them by climbing through them. I totally ignored his advice and took what I thought was the prudent action of a months rest. It was a disaster; when I came back to climbing my shoulder was no better and all my fingers hurt. They haven't stopped hurting since!

It's pretty much essential to climb as much as you can on injured tendons; scar tissue needs load to grow properly. Rest instead, and the scar tissue will build up into knotty lumps that catch and inflame. A lot of people don't believe this advice, and I always see examples of people being too careful with injuries; it never works out.

These days I try to climb as much as prudent on an injury. The catch, of course, is knowing how much is prudent. If it gets better, you did it right. If it gets worse, try again!

One injury that's been worrying me a lot this year is my right wrist, which became sore after a layoff over Christmas. Pretty sure it was the usual problem of scar tissue build up I've continued climbing and done plenty of massage, ice and stretching, but the wrist has not improved. Last month my physio suggested it could be cartilage damage, and my only options were to live with it, or risky surgery. I didn't like the sound of that, so I sought a second opinion. The second physio agrees with me; a loss of movement caused by scar tissue buildup, and has begun a campaign of brutalising my wrist until it starts moving properly again. I like that diagnosis better, and hope to see improvement over the next few weeks.

If it clears up, the first thing on my hitlist is Sean's Roof; this video of it on the beastmaker blog makes it look absolutely brilliant (and has cemented Leo Moger's reputation as the strongest beast in beaston).

Location:Hammerton Rd,,United Kingdom

Training with Fatxi

2010-08-09T22:12:00.001+01:00

After finally ticking a few routes at the weekend, it's time to start the hard training again. Monday night is campus night so I pootled down the works to take advantage of their massive campus board.

Dobbin was in his customary position under the beastmaker board. I've taken to calling him Fatxi because he's got a Patxi-style weight vest, isn't as thin as Patxi but there is a faint resemblance there (not in climbing ability, obviously). Sadly, this appears to have gone to his head, as he is now sporting a Patxi-style haircut (see above). Since reading the bible as a child I'm a firm believer in the strength giving properties of hair. Time will tell if Fatxi's new do gives him a grade...

On the subject of campussing, Ru showed me an old Gresham article discussing the future of climbing, and the likely influence of the Nürnberg Lat Board, as people were calling it then. Gresham hinted at rumours that Wolfgang was close to a one-arm campus move. Such a feat (Gresham wrote) would surely be 9a. I reckon this is the only way I'm ever climbing 9a, so I'm taking the tick. Unfortunately, I couldn't find "pointless showboating" using 8a.nu's "search and add" feature, so I can't put it on my scorecard. Shame.

The Age of Vice

2010-08-09T12:28:00.002+01:00

Rupert loves Cheedale. So we went there.

Saturday. Breezy, cool, humid.
Venue: Two Tier

Nearly a massive angry rant day as my trick wrist was feeling very sore and I was getting box-pumped on 6b's when warming up. Plus I couldn't do any of the moves on my route. Rupert turns up and saves the day with beta and levity. Seven years ago, Rupert crimped his way up an old Gav Ellis project to give one of the best 8b's in the peak. From time to time he reminds me that I haven't done it and I come up with a variety of excuses to mask the fact that this is because it looks too thin, and too hard. Today I run out of excuses and MTFU.

It's interesting for Ru to see what's become of his project. Intermediates have been found and brushed up. The sequence has been refined; removing five hard moves. Finally, the addition of a belay to the right has meant the hard climbing finishes a couple of moves earlier on a big jug. The modern Kali Yuga aspirant faces a much softer challenge than Rupert. Such is the lonely fate of the first ascentionist. The moves are still hard and at the limit of my crimping tolerance so Rupert's beta is essential and allows me to shake like a shitting dog to the chains. I am pleased to tick, Rupert enjoys seeing me do his route. Everyone is happy. We go back to Rupert's gaffe in dingley dell where I spend the night trying to ignore Ru's kittens, which are sat on my pillow, purring constantly and farting occasionally.

Sunday. Cool then Hot. Still.
Venue: The Nook

Rupert still loves Cheedale, so we return on Sunday, but not before Sarah fuels us up with tea, toast and apple muffins. The Davies' appear to have reached a level of domestic happiness that our household lacks. Suitably alerted to this fact, I shall attempt to persuade my wife to make muffins for me in the morning. I predict this will meet with failure. I have never climbed on the Nook, because it's too far to walk, always wet and usually has decaying animal matter underneath it. It is now dry and free from the stench of death, but I still moan to Rupert about the walk in, which has not improved, sadly. We aim to do old-skool boulder/route classic, Theoria. Theoria is a route from John Hart, who was everyone's favourite old warrior until Keith stole his crown. It is short, steep and slappy. I am very excited.

Rupert and I display all the professionalism we have learnt from 15 years sport climbing. We attempt to pre-equip the route and succeed in getting two and a half clips in, and the clipstick stuck. Some inelegant rope-work and a bit of thrutching fix this problem, with the added benefit of showering Rupert with a good covering of Cheedale dirt. Rupert and I both express relief that Adam Long wasn't here to witness all this chicanery, and agree that it's a good job we don't try many big walls in Patagonia. With the route clean and equipped I fully fail to work out any of the moves and send Rupert up to sort things out. He fares slightly better and a sequence of sorts is cobbled together. In the meantime, Gus and Sam pop over to the Nook, in a very shabby state from the night before. Banter ensues and Sam crushes Lockless in about 0.3 seconds, after which they leave us to our thoughts. Rupert wants to know why I'm not as entertaining as Sam. This makes me angry enough to tick the route. I warm down by also crushing Lockless, just to show Sam who's boss. Admittedly he'd left by then, but maybe he'll read this and gracefully accept my mastery in the comments section?

All in all, a good weekend. A bit like the good old days, but with more arthritis.

Tor. Huh. What is it good for?

2010-08-04T23:07:00.001+01:00

It's good for just about blinking everything. Back to the best crag in the world again for another failure session on Revelations. I am convinced this is the hardest move ever climbed by humans. Am convincing myself I'm making incremental progress, but it's hard to say as it boils down to whether I manage to stay in contact with the hold for 3 or 4 microseconds. What an amazing route though.

It was a good scene at the Tor today, with Ed, Dylan, Dobbin and Nedwin van Feehally all present and correct. Dobbin is doing well on Mecca; much better than he thinks he is. His redpoints nearly take him into the groove, a point at which most aspirants start to dream of success. He needs to believe he's up to the route (which he is) and take the time to become comfortable with climbing and falling off the top groove. If he spends some time getting happy with the idea of falling, he'll do it for sure. Ned also plays on Mecca, but looks bored by the sheer number of moves; a boulderer's boulderer! Nevertheless he works out some sort of sequence. Ned - if you read this, this video shows Smitton milking the kneebar! Then he gets on Hubble and looks strong; nearly busting out three of the six moves on his first go up. This is actually a fierce effort and I inform him of this, but he looks sceptical. I would love to be strong enough for Hubble, but I fear there is one move (the last) which will always elude me. Shame.

The downside of trying revelations is that falling off the second move again and again doesn't leave you feeling sated. So to get a burn at the end of the day I climb Revelations from the third move in, strip it and try Mecca without resting; desperate! The groove is in really smeggy condition and I realise what a good effort the boys have been putting in. I will consider myself fit when I can lap this route; I'm about a year off this I reckon.

Go home thinking how brilliant the Tor is. There are so many good moves here, and so much history. I just love it.

p.s my sportivas are still brilliant.

Location:Hammerton Rd,,United Kingdom

Germs, Grades and Shoes

2010-08-01T22:03:00.001+01:00

Disclaimer: massive post this week, and with no point whatsoever. Feel free to skip to the last paragraph, where the controversy is.

I was really looking forward to this week; I was going to take a couple of days off to climb in Wales with the missus and was massively psyched to visit LPT as there's quite a few routes of (just about) onsightable standard there. I'm running out of routes around the 7c+/8a level in the UK that I haven't already blown the onsight on, so anticipation was high and I was making and re-making lists of projects to have a crack at.

Sadly, the best laid plans of mice and midgets gang aft gan agley. Agley'ing us this time was a nasty little virus. As usual this struck the wife down viciously whilst I was relatively unaffected. Neither of us were going to be tearing it up though, so we came home after a day's pootling on the boulders in the pass.

The trip wasn't a total washout, however, as I bought a pair of Sportiva Miura Velcros. I'm quite fetishistic about my climbing shoes. In fact, I'm the Imelda Marcos of climbing. I certainly own more climbing shoes than you. Probably. After all, what other piece of climbing gear can give you half a grade's performance for a week's pay packet? And these shoes are, hands-down, the best pair of climbing shoes I've ever owned. They feel foot-shaped, as opposed to my five-tens which are very much not foot-shaped, unless the foot in question belongs to a duck-billed platypus. I've put up with Five Ten's odd toe boxes because I used to think that no rubber could match stealth, especially on the horribly polished limestone of my favourite crags. How happy I am that the Miura's have proved me wrong. I think I'm a sportiva man from now on, despite the horrible, horrible £120 price tag.

This weekend I have been unleashing my fantastic new shoes on Kilnsey and the Tor. On Saturday I returned to Indian Summer, with the hope of finishing it off, but failed even to get back to the crux. I was exhausted just getting through the bottom 7b section. I'm blaming residual sickness and poor conditions, unless anyone has any better ideas? The Tor on Sunday was fun. Spent the day with Rupert, trying Ru's own Seraphim, and Revelations. Still nowhere on both routes as both feature spectacularly tough moves which I can't figure out at all. Revelations in particular must be all of font 7c+ on the crux, and there are people who insist it is only 8a+. What are they on? I have never done the crux move, but Paul Reeve has, and in fact can do it with ease. Which brings us to the controversy.

At the start of this year, Paul Reeve ticked Unjustified (8c), along with two of his foundry compatriates. This is an amazing display of determination and grit, particularly as it was done on two disintegrating elbows. Then a week ago I saw a certain someone refer to an ascent of an 8b+ at Kilnsey as the 'hardest ascent this year on Yorkshire Limestone'. This comment comes amongst the background of mutterings that the route is overgraded. I have to say, these mutterings have made me a tiny bit annoyed. Annoyed because I don't know anyone who's actually done the route and suggested a downgrade. The mutterings seem to have arisen because the route had four pretty quick ascents this year, by some dark horses (and Paul). Anyway, I just wanted to remind the mutterers that the repeaters of this route are complete beasts, who can do the crux move on Revelations, amongst other things. So repeat the route, or stop muttering. Pretty please?

In Brine

2010-07-25T20:16:00.001+01:00

The morose post before this one invited a certain amount of comments from my fans, for which I'm always grateful. Britain's best bum doctor suggested that trying to mix hard training and hard climbing was trying to have my cake and eat it. He should know, because he's medically trained. Nevertheless, what's the point of having cake unless you're going to eat it? Meanwhile, purely by chance, Dave Mac posted on his blog that "there's nothing worse than moaning blogs...". And he's right; I hate whiners, and happy blogs are much nicer to read. Like that nice chap Ben Morton. Over on the Blog of Dob he's got a funny post about how women really want a Gok Norris, but often get a Chuck Wang. It's better than I make it sound.

So I'm going to be more happy, which isn't hard because I've just had one of those fucking brilliant weekends that split your face from ear to ear. Anyone who knows anything knows that it's ALL just training for deep water soloing, and this weekend was a chance to put all that training into action. Great weather, great company and plenty of salty warm water to fall into; what more can anyone ask for?

Specifics are needed; this weekend I hit the south coast along with a group of reprobates from my Exeter days. Sutton and Happy have the enthusiasm (and energy) of a Labrador puppy; Fat Will isn't but is a laid back cheerful counterweight. Then there's the infinitely mellow Jules V and Theo; an incorrigible pervert with enough charisma to get away with it. Think Jerry Moffat meets the sex offenders register.

All in all the team brought more testosterone than a gender re-alignment clinic so it's little surprise that the wife sat this one out. First port of call was Lulworth, where we met South Coast legend Gav Symmonds for some briny fun. I think Lulworth is the best place on earth; nowhere else combines swinging around footless on jugs with a soft, salty landing and a nearby cafe and ice cream shop. Perfect. With such a psyched team it was all going off; Rob Sutton made the first(?) solo of Never Kneel to Skeletor, Gav did Pump up the Beast and I managed a slimy ascent of Adrenochrome. The rest of the lads provided much entertainment by hurling themselves like lemmings at the area classic 'Mark of the Beast' with varying degrees of success. Nearly everyone got wet, with some spectacular faceplants into the ocean from the top of the cliff. As good as DWS gets, I reckon. All rounded off with dinner in a beautiful old pub near Langton Matravers, which serves the best Ginger sponge pudding on the planet; or at least those bits of the planet that I have both visited, and bought Ginger sponge pudding in.

Understandably after a day like that, Sunday was a bit more mellow, and we all went to Connor Cove to bask in the sun and tick a few more classics. It wasn't all mellow though; most people managed to fall or jump from near the top, and Theo pulled out a masterful and improbable ascent of the very hard "Herman Borg's Basic Pulley Slippage" which seemed to consist of power screams and more footless moves than seems prudent for a slab climb.

That done, it was time for everyone to go their separate ways again, back to wives, kids, jobs and other things which aren't climbing above the sea. As we all make our way home, I can bet that everyone has the same thought running through their heads; how soon can I get back?

Location:Banbury,United Kingdom

Dry Spell

2010-07-18T21:56:00.003+01:00

I can't seem to climb for shit at the moment.

Since returning from Chile my climbing performance has been showing solid and steady progress. Unfortunately it's all been downhill! My body is falling apart, showing a startling amount of synchronicity with my 34th birthday. The list at time of writing consists of pulled stomach muscles, three fingers showing tweaks of various levels of seriousness and a very sore wrist which the physio thinks might need surgery.

Unsurprisingly confidence levels are dropping in step with performance levels so I was hoping for a step up this weekend to get this dry spell over and done with. No joy; the only downpours have been meteorological. On Saturday I went to the Cornice (Cheedale) and fell off Monumental. Flipping brilliant route. On Sunday I went to the Cornice (WCJ) and fell off Rumble in the Jungle (brilliant route) and Yorkshire 8b (crap route). Also, I managed to fall off Brachiation Dance during my warm down. That's a lot of falling off. By contrast I saw Neil Dyer both days, who was very impressive, crushing Monumental on Saturday and nearly flashing Unleashing the Wild Physique. He looks to be fully on a roll; I am well jealous!

If my climbing state of mind is depressed, it seems as naught compared to my general mood about the direction we are heading in. The coalition government has embraced 'austerity' with open arms and is bearing down full-bore on the budget deficit. Quite rightly in my view. However, as predicted, public spending is bearing the brunt of the load, with the balance between spending cuts and tax rises being roughly 4:1. It's hard not to feel that the coalition government is letting ideology, as opposed to sound economic reasoning, be their guide in these decisions, and I'm appalled by the prospects of what 25% cuts will do to my home turf of Universities and Science funding.

Everyone considers the Thatcher government to be a paragon of cold-hearted axe-wielding. Faced with a gently recovering economy but massive public discontent with the direction the country was heading, Thatcher too undertook a deficit reduction program. The period is remembered with some horror by many people who lived in the industrial north but even Thatcher's plans only had 2:1 ratio between spending cuts and tax rises. In fact, I don't think we've ever faced such a dramatic cut-back in the size of the state in modern history.

Still, we all know that New Labour was profligate, pouring vast unaffordable sums of money into the public sector. Worst of all, it is a standard trope that much of that money was wasted. After all, take the NHS; all that money seemed to go into cosy salaries for GPs and layers of bureaucracy. It's no surprise the public sector is so horribly inefficient, is it? Surely massive cuts to public spending could be a good thing. Won't the good old private sector handle things more efficiently and deliver some sorely-needed efficiency reforms?

Well, no, I don't think so. You think the NHS is bloated and inefficient? Not so: even after all that wasteful New Labour spending, the Commonwealth Fund still found it to be the most efficient Health Service out of the seven it looked at, including Germany, USA, Canada, New Zealand - all of which have a larger role played by the private sector. The idea that the Health Service (and by extension the whole public sector) is bloated by nature seems totally unproven to me, and I have a terrible depressing feeling that the coalition government is going to embark on a massive series of cuts, re-organisations and private sector initiatives only to find that in areas from health care to education we're going to get an awful lot less service, for a bit less money.

Enjoy your Monday.

Damages

2010-07-13T01:04:00.001+01:00

Can't sleep tonight and I've finished watching the Green Zone and Serenity (again); so a late night post seemed apposite.

Turns out I didn't completely survive last weeks sessions, even with assistance from deep heat. On the last circuit of the last night something went crunch in my stomach and breathing, moving around and sneezing got really painful. The diagnosis is a torn/pulled intercostal muscle, but it seems to be healing quick so no worries there.

Saturday we got rained off from Chapel Head Scar. We went there 'cos the otherwise excellent northern limestone guide told us it'd be ok in heavy rain. Erm, nope. So we salvaged the afternoon by paying Ru a visit in his new house. Turns out he lives in dingly dell in a fairy tale cottage. No campus board up yet though.

On Sunday, the day of rest, we join the rest of the English speaking world at the cheedale cornice. Are climbers tribal, sheep-like or just unimaginative? Anyway, the world is there. The Hamer brothers representing the young blood and looking strong, as always, whilst the old guard is there in force. 90's legends like Seb Grieve, 7b+ Welford and Robin 'rolypoint' Barker are there lapping the 7s. Ru, Jon Fullwod and myself make up the in-betweeners. Jon is on Monumental Armblaster which seems quite hard now after hold loss. I am reminding myself that I can't climb slabs on Unleashing the Wild Physique and Ru shuffles off round the corner to onsight the Lockless Monster. He doesn't seem too happy though; I guess he thinks it's soft but the reality is probably just that he's a beast. Crap at plumbing though.

More training this week, if I'm allowed. I have a physio appointment tomorrow to see if I'm doing lasting damage to my chest by climbing. I hope not, as I need to get fit and fast. DWS season is nearly upon us...

Living at the speed

2010-07-07T14:34:00.002+01:00

Forgive me Internet for I have sinned. It has been two months since my last confession. A pause in communication brought about by a month long Chile trip to use the telescopes in the Atacama desert. We had more rain than the UK did. Don't ask. Then I had exams to mark, with the pleasant surprise that the students did quite well. Must have been doing something right.

Since then it's been getting back into climbing. This is hard. I've been at this game for more than twenty years and I didn't have a clue for most of those. It's no surprise that my body is nearly 80% scar tissue. Therefore, after a long break all that scar tissue builds up and some sort of injury is totally inevitable.

No change this time either. A horribly jet-lagged session on Free Monster was enough to bring on a middle finger pulley tweak. The last few weeks have been about managing that before starting to train again. As a result I'm not ticking much, but ticking over, with an Anstey's cove trip to finish of Tuppence a particular highlight. I've nothing left to do down there but nasty link-ups, which is a relief; best mates John and Sheila are leaving Exeter for Nice, so I was hoping to replace Anstey's raids with trips to the South of France!

This week the training starts in earnest again; probably the hardest week's training I've ever done, and on the same week I turn 34. I'm not worried though; I've got a secret weapon...

Location:Brunswick St,,United Kingdom

Mandela

2010-05-19T22:43:00.005+01:00

Mark Leach making the first ascent of Mandela, in the days before heel hooks. Photo: Ian Horrocks

"Only a rope-length from the ground, it was like nothing one had ever experienced before." - Dave Nicol, Hard Rock.

Perched on a square foot of real estate; trying to block out both the wide plains of Wharfedale below and the oppressive heft of the roof above, the real meaning of these words hit home. And yet, this was familiar ground. There has been many times I've tentatively approached the main overhang at Kilnsey, only to lower off; shuddering and thinking of new excuses for my cowardice. The break looks wet. The in-situ gear is rotting away. In reality, they were only ever masks to hide the truth; that I was terrified by that massive, frozen bulk of limestone.

I think Mandela has been one of my climbing ambitions from the day I first put toe to rock. Christmas, 1990, and I'm sat in bed wearing my brand new Joe Brown helmet (canary yellow, to match my lycra) and reading about Kilnsey Main Overhang in a pristine copy of Hard Rock. Summer, 1998, and I'm getting to grips with some of the harder sport routes at Kilnsey; glancing up at the overhang with a mixture of lust and trepidation. But mostly the latter. During the bank holiday I watched Adam Ondra onsight it with ease and realised it was time to slay the great grey whale. It was clean. It was dry. The in-situ draws were new. Time to go big, or go home.

On Sunday myself, Bob Hickish and Dan Walker got to grips with Mandela. Bob equipped the roof with draws and worked a sequence. Dan went up and scrubbed the holds. Nothing left for me to do but try and flash the thing. The weight of 20 years of expectation compressed my fear until I was crouched below the roof, the panic welling in my mouth. Tense and crablike I crept up and out along the juggy break until I reached the first hard move at which point I snapped, yelled take, and sat on the bolt, whimpering.

For the rest of the day I had redpoints which all failed at the crux moves; a technical rose move into a thin, back-three finger pocket halfway along the break. When Kristian Klemmow climbed Mandela he said it would be 7c+ if it were at ground level. That might not be too far wrong. Apart from these moves, and some slaps at the lip, the route climbs massive jugs and the whole roof is crossed in a surprisingly small number of moves. But the route is not at ground level and the exposure teases frayed nerves. I found it almost impossible to climb well; both the desire to achieve a childhood ambition, and the terrible position made a relaxed climbing style impossible. I wasn't going to do it that day.

On Monday, I sat in my office and daydreamed about Mandela. At the end of the week I'm going to Chile. A work trip; three weeks. Would it still be dry when I returned? I couldn't leave it to chance. Bob was a student; he'd definitely be up for a mid-week raid. And so yesterday saw us back up on the roof. Up the directissima to warm up and straight into a redpoint. Relaxed now on the enormous holds; able to enjoy the situation. Watching the crows surf the updrafts below me. With a calmer mind I cruised to the crux and, feeling strong, easily reached the thin pocket. Disaster. Instead of the rose move I'd meant to do I had crossed over, and couldn't unwind. There was nothing to do but slump onto the rope. Things went from bad to worse; dogging the moves through the lip I find myself suddenly in space, watching the remains of the finishing jug plummet earthwards. A new, harder sequence has to be worked at the lip. I wonder if this will make a difference.

It does. The next go I get through the crux, and find myself below the lip, a few moves from glory. Now I am at the lip, my head and torso into the vertical. Now my foot is over the lip and... No. Disaster again. I forget that both feet need to be over the lip before the finishing jug can be reached and am off again. With the rests at the top of the Directissima each redpoint is taking over an hour. I am running out of time.

Third time works the charm. I am more tense than the goes before; feeling the pressure. My climbing is tight. Jerky. Still, I stagger through the crux moves, I lurch to the lip and thrutch my way over onto grassy holds and glory. The sudden change of angle is bewildering. Inspired by my success Bob nails it too, power-barking his way round the lip as the light fades over Wharfedale.

I am still glowing; I have climbed Mandela. The route my gym teacher showed me, tauntingly, when I told him I was a rock climber. The reality lived up to my expectations in every way; it was intimidating and spectacular. I urge everyone to get on it, and get it done. The route is dry and clean and, though we've taken out most of the decaying fixed gear, it is easy to reverse and get your clips out once you're done. As for the grade, I think 8a+; it was surprisingly hard to link, and the lip moves are no longer as easy as they were once... It might be easier though; get on it and find out!

The success of friends

2010-05-09T20:53:00.005+01:00

8B crusher, Ru Davies

A great weekend just gone. Given the relentless self-publicity that I seek through this blog, it will not surprise any of you that by nature I am quite a self obsessed individual. This weekend however events occurred that gave me that rare experience; genuine pleasure in the success of another. Ru Davies is one of my oldest climbing friends. We have been climbing together since my university days; long enough ago by now that I don't care to think about it. Ru is also one of the strongest climbers in Britain, surprisingly still true even though he holds down a very demanding job as a barrister. He's also one of the biggest under-acheivers on the peak scene, having never bouldered 8B; a feat achieved by many these days.

Well no longer, for little Ru crushed Keen Roof at the Tor this Saturday. And crushed it with aplomb. No longer will Rupert sleep poorly at night, for he is an 8B climber, and will surely drink mead at the high table in Valhalla. I think he was a bit shocked to succeed this weekend, as he staggered about the Tor afterwards in a daze, struggling to come to terms which his awesome new found power. Anyway, it totally made my weekend to see him succeed; I hope he has similar success on some of his other yearly projects.

On an unrelated note, it was heaving at the Tor this weekend. The entire length of the crag was draped with punters of various persuasions with some very strong individuals bearing down on the tiny tiny holds . More worryingly, the right-hand end of the crag was home to this dodgy young man; if you see him at the crag in future, do not approach him, but just call the relevant authorities at 1-800-DOBBIN-IS-A-FREAK...

Shoulda, Woulda, Ondra

2010-05-04T18:04:00.006+01:00

Adam Ondra onsighting Mandela - Credit: Ru Davies

“Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength.” - Henry Ward Beecher

This week and bank holiday weekend the British sport climbing scene was set alight by the visit of Adam Ondra to our finest two crags; Malham and Kilnsey. The internet forums are awash with rumours of his feats and claim and counter-claim are fizzing over the information superhighway. The bank holiday brought an opportunity to see the truth for ourselves and so, sure in the knowledge that Adam would be at Malham trying Overshadow, the wife and I headed to Kilnsey.

Our plan for some time away from the circus was foiled though, as Adam sacked off the Malham route and headed for Kilnsey's North buttress; which has been left dry by some freak of nature which is obviously a precursor of impending apocalypse. This had one obvious drawback, as it meant no-one was interested in my paltry redpoint attempts on Massala Martyr. I am accustomed to being the main attraction at the crag, so clearly this was disgruntling. Nevertheless, for those still interested (Hi Mum!) I crushed with aplomb. A great little route this; and well worth seeking out. The top bulge seems to be shedding holds with alarming regularity though; best get in quick!

Adam did nothing. Just worked the moves on some route over on the right hand side.

Since Kilnsey was so cold on saturday, we headed to Malham on Sunday (are there more than two crags in Yorkshire?) The wife opened her account on Predator and I had a peek at the headwall of Victor Hugo. It's amazing to me that Jules is now working routes of the same standard that I am; even if her timescales for success might be slightly different, it's a testament to how far her climbing has progressed. More on that perhaps in another post. Victor is an extension to the standard warm-up Consenting Adults. Put up by Gaz Parry at 8b it's been repeated by Strong Steve and (as far as I know) no-one else. Rumour has it that Mick Lovatt has repeated it; can anyone confirm? The route climbs to the chains of Consenting, where a no-hands kneebar can be had for the short-legged. After that some powerful moves on large undercuts take you to a big hole full of bird-shit at the lip of the roof. Drop off here and you've enjoyed Pete Gomersall's "Thriller", 7c+. If you can crush a few more desperate moves on small crimps and cruise the easier headwall; that's Victor Hugo.

I've been on it before but really struggled on the moves past the lip of the big roof, so I was really pleased to find that they now feel OK. On my first redpoint I did the hard first move and couldn't do the second. The second redpoint saw me through the hard moves by the absolute skin of my teeth as I wildly improvised through the crux, including a thumbs-only gaston move. Once on the easier headwall you shouldn't drop the route, so I was mortified when I got nervous, fumbled a clip and then grabbed the draw! I think I panicked a bit and wasn't thinking straight. That was the last go before it got dark, so at some point I've got to go and get back through the crux somehow, and then remind myself to calm down!

Even the most stylishly dressed punters couldn't keep warm at Kilnsey this weekend

When Monday dawned it was one of those difficult days; too sunny for good conditions but with a stiff north wind that meant baltic conditions at the big K. Perhaps foolishly we opted for Kilnsey; maybe I was intentionally avoiding a rematch with Victor? Anyway, it was completely freezing and most people wisely opted not to climb. Rupert was there trying to warm up enough to tick Massalla Martyr; floating up to the last move and fumbling it each time. The last move is a really quick slap; perhaps it was too cold for quick movement? The Ondra machine rolled on. He'd ticked North Star (9a) on Sunday and made a quick redpoint of Northern Lights (9a) today. How did he keep warm? He even went up it in his T-shirt for photos! After ticking that, he had an onsight attempt at a dirty True North (8c) and very nearly made it. Heavily taped fingers prevented an onsight of Indian Summer but he did manage onsights of Ecstasy (which he downgraded) and Mandela, which hasn't been climbed since Kristian and Steve did it years ago and must be filthy. Apparently the holds are so big it doesn't matter; or doesn't if you are the best climber in the world, anyway.

I was trying Indian Summer. Put up by one strong Steve and flashed by another, it has recently been repeated by Malcolm Smith and is a very underrated 8b+ with good climbing of increasing difficulty and some cool rests. Kind of like a harder 50 for 5... I'd had a couple of burns on it previously but was unable to work out a decent sequence for the last move from a big sidepull to a thin letterbox pocket. Thanks to the magic of facebook I am now equipped with a sequence for this section and manage to do the moves, but they feel really hard; how will I be able to do them from the ground, after 20 meters of 8a climbing? Amazingly, I nearly find out on my first redpoint of the day, cruising through the lower section and falling off with my fingers in the final letterbox slot; so close! The cold conditions really helped but it was so cold that none of my other goes came to anything and so once again no cigar.

A cool weekend though; I came so close to ticking the kind of 8b's that would have been impossible for me a few years ago. It's so exciting to have made this sort of progress, and makes me hope that some of my long term goals in climbing are still possible. More importantly, it makes me think that the last six months of heavy training after work have been worthwhile after all. Can't wait for next weekend!!

kilnsey!!

2010-04-27T00:08:00.001+01:00

it's not yet may and yet Kilnsey is dry which may not yet be usual. After a whole term of writing lectures I decided to drop my standards somewhat, and decided that writing Monday's lecture was monday's problem. For the first time this year that gave me two days free to climb at the weekend, and there's nothing I like better than a weekend climbing and camping at britain's premier limestone crag near a trout farm.

kilnsey really does have it all; great routes, a good pub nearby, a beautiful campsite at the right price and the aforementioned trouty attraction. this weekend it had the added attraction of watching big malc on a tour de force, crushing everything beneath his mighty frame. that might be a slight exaggeration, but it was awesome to see him in action again. amongst the highlights were casual retro-flashes of biological need and zero option, and an almost-flash of massala martyr (he fell off the start, once). I missed his ascent of Indian Summer, but apparently it was sufficiently casual for onlookers to mistake it for a repeat of the ashes!

amongst us lesser mortals, it was great to catch up with Rob Sutton, surely the inspiration for They Might Be Giant's "Triangle Man". picking himself up from his punishing schedule of raising two young kids and training for triathlons by cycling the 30 miles to work, he managed a good onsight of biological, and provided me with enough beta to scrape up a flash ascent by the skin of my teeth. rob obviously didn't find two days at kilnsey as tiring as his home
life, as he finished his weekend off by running to malham. he's good company, but he makes me feel very lazy...

other highlights of the weekend include shunning britain's best bum doctor, starting his quest for fitness and thinness; and playing on Indian Summer. this is a great addition from steve dunning. I don't know why it isn't more popular; perhaps because it starts up sticky wicket, the world's gnarliest 7b...? anyway, I still have to work out a viable sequence on the headwall, but am looking forward to doing just that over the bank holiday.

between now and then I have two whole evenings free to go to the tor! an unprecedented amount of free time for climbing. I am excited beyond belief, and especially looking forward to seeing if I can do "the" move on seraphim. hope springs eternal, after all...

formula weekend

2010-04-18T21:18:00.000+01:00

This weekend looked like it was going to be pretty miserable. Saturday dawned clear, sunny and warm. I had to work; getting Mondays lecture written so I didn't have to wing it in front of 70 students. luckily I pulled a blinder and got everything done, so I was free to climb on Sunday.

And so this morning, bright and early, the missus and I bundled into our shiny red mini and trundled peak-wards. we thought we'd check out Thor's cave. ever since Spikes dad put in a mega bolting effort this has been one of the best sport crags in the peak. sadly it's wet. Hold your horses cave fans.

And so it was we trundled up to the trusty old Tor. Mr Davies was present, and Stone (as always). About three years ago Ru put Seraphim up on the RHS of the crag. It's short, gnarly and hard; with one desperate move but sustained from start to finish. Strong steve repeated it this week and I thought it was about time I tore the route up and ticked one of the best short routes in the UK.

Oh dear. That move hasn't got any easier, has it?

Rupert was in fine form; doing the harder pinches wall problems on 2 fingers and pissing Malc's one armer.
Also, he made a very casual repeat of Tumbleweed. Beast.

bizarrely, the tor is still quite wet, despite it being dry for weeks. Where does it come from?

Tarned and Feathered

2010-04-08T11:58:00.009+01:00

My god I'm busy. A long absence from posting has been because my life has contained little but work and training these past few months. The pace of writing lectures, trying to keep up with research and actually teach at the same time has been draining. Each tomorrow creeps in it's petty pace with little time to catch breath. On the days when I train I'll work until 6, go straight to the wall, go home, eat and straight to bed. The days I don't train, and most weekends I catch up with work. I know people who fit in climbing around this schedule and have time for small kids too. Frankly, I am in awe.

Easter sees the students leave and gave an opportunity to prove it's not all work, work work. For once I persuaded the wife not to go to Spain, and tickets to Tarn were booked. I had pretty high expectations; after all I finished last year on a high, and had worked like a bastard to keep the training up. Plus, Tarn's all soft touches anyway, right?

So now I'm back. The trip was good and bad. On one hand, I discovered that "Le Bel Ete" in Sainte Enimie serves the best crepes in the known world. On the other, my climbing was a constant source of frustration. This is a damning fact because, viewed objectively, I have to admit it was a pretty good trip. I was consistently onsighting the 7c's and 7c+'s. Hell, I even snagged an 8a flash, albeit on Moules Frites which is not the hardest 8a around, to put it delicately.

Bruno crushing Les Ailes du Desir

So the fact that I feel bummed out about this has prompted me to take a bit of a look at my expectations and self motivation. I think my feelings have three root causes:

My performance is a backwards step from last autumn. The 7c+'s I did were real fights, and they felt pretty casual in Rodellar.

My expectations were too high. I thought I'd be crushing 8a onsight, and maybe even snag another 8a+ flash. In retrospect, I'm not there yet.

(and this is the kicker) Bruno was better than me.

Bruno and I have known each other since university and I have always, always been better than him - even at long pumpy routes at which he excels and I suck. In the years we've known each other he has got steadily better and on this trip he was quite clearly better than me on those long routes. I did not deal well with this fact.

Bruno crushing a 7b+ at Tennessee

So Tarn has reminded me that I can be too competitive. But to be aware of this fact is to be curiously liberated of it. Just by typing this post I am starting to feel better; happier with my climbing and pleased for Bruno without the complicating pangs of jealousy I felt on holiday. Freed from this jealousy I am starting to feel the psyche return, fuelled by the simple joy of climbing great routes on good rock in the company of old friends. If only I didn't have all this work to do...

The weather has gone quite mental

2010-02-21T21:55:00.003Z

It's been a bizarre winter for weather this year, but this weekend really was the icing on the cake. With sun forecast for saturday we booked a ticket for the malham catwalk and were up early and heading north in Horace, our mini (which is proving a delightful little motor).

Having driven through patches of freezing fog and with the car thermometer reading -3 degrees, the wife and I were pretty apprehensive about having made a bad crag call. By the time we reached Malham we were sweating. The sun was out, not a breath of wind but great conditions on the rock. Twas a fantastic day; warmed up with tops off (for power), and there was a whole lot of dry rock. We could be in for a classic spring...

On a Malham theme, I've been casting around for a project for this year. I really wanted to step up the level a bit this year if I could but there were no 8c+'s in the country that passed my rigorous 2-stage quality control. Stage 1: the route must be high quality, inspiring, and not too nasty. Stage 2: I have to believe I can do it. Several routes pass one stage or the other, but none pass both. This weekend I thought I'd have a look at Rainshadow - the extension to Raindogs and the best route Steve Mac's ever done, apparently. In summary, I think I've found my project. At the moment, it fails spectacularly on my second criteria. There are still moves I haven't worked out, and I'm miles from linking the crux section at the moment. But the climbing is completely brilliant, and it's got under my skin, so I reckon it's become my new goal. Perhaps it's too ambitious. There's certainly lots to do. I've got to strengthen my left hand (always my weakest), strengthen my toes and improve my wrist flexibility and body tension. Then there's the small problem of getting fitter so I can recover at the chain of raindogs. But I'm just more psyched for it than for more realistic goals. So let's have it! If anyone fancies a dogging session to try and sort out the moves, let me know...

Sunday morning brought quite a change from all the sun at Malham. Snow. Who'd have thought it? Still, it gave me a good chance to write the exam papers for the course I'm teaching, and in the afternoon we headed down the works where Rupert gave me a campussing masterclass and later on Dave Mason showed a dismaying amount of contact strength on the comp wall. No wonder he ticked all of Font.

Up in the Air

2010-01-24T20:37:00.002Z

Tired.

This weekend we had friends up from Devon. A walk in the peak saturday morning allowed us to assess the state of the crags. Verdict: drying but not dry. There were a few problems dry, but not enough to really satisfy everyone and so a retreat to the Foundry was called. I feel tired from the weeks training so routing is an effort. Go home beasted and feeling a little shaky. In the evening we go out for tapas on Ecclesall Road; quite good for a chain.

Sunday is Works day. We go, we warm up, I struggle. I am really feeling old and exhausted at the moment. My shoulders and wrists feel sore. I don't feel strong. I get a little fired up when Dan Varian shows up. He shows me some of his and Leo's board projects. I am frankly staggered by some of the things they can do. It makes me feel even older, but very psyched. And, if we're honest, it awoke my sense of competition. So I get my ass in gear and try and campus some of the comp wall problems. Go home beasted. Again.

Having finished climbing early, the wife and I are casting around for something to do, so we go and see the latest, and much hyped George Clooney movie - Up in the air. It is OK, but not as good as most reviews suggest. Clooney is his usual charming self, but the movie suffers as it goes on, and the plotline becomes a bit clichéd, and frankly very predictable. Still, a good way to pass an evening. FIsh finger sandwiches after; the food of champions.

Littlefair, you tool!

2010-01-18T14:13:00.005Z

Saturday dawned, and it was nasty. So we went to the Foundry again for some mid-grade routing action. I was completely destroyed from the mid week training, and barely able to climb at all. And so, I took advantage of the dry-tooling routes that have been set down there.

My mixed climbing experience amounts to a handful of easy routes in Scotland, all climbed with archaic axes and leashes so it was with some bemusement that I donned my face guard and state-of-the-art leashless tools. Before setting off I had persuaded myself that dry tooling is a piece of piss. Basically just a series of pull-ups on jugs. So I jumped straight on the hardest routes down there (about M7), and proceeded to show the entire wall just what I was made of. Needless to say, much mirth was experienced by all.

I first came unstuck about a move off the ground, at a section where a slopey undercut required a can-opener move to progress. Unable to bring weight smoothly to bear on the tenuous axe placement I hung around while the axe repeatedly popped and shot alarmingly towards my face. Finally having got this placement to stick I proceeded with style and verve up the remainder of the route, with only a few minor sticky patches where the rope got caught in my helmet visor, or my axes got hopelessly tangled in the rope, or I dropped an axe. There were a few moments where I struggled to cope with a single point of contact for my hands and I pirouetted nicely around my hurriedly placed footholds. Oh, and a point where my feet cut loose, which I don't think is normal operating procedure in mixed climbing. And my axes kept falling off my shoulders. Apart from that, I like to think I made a pretty good show of it.

Despite my incompetence, I managed to muscle up the two M7 routes, which seems to suggest to me that mixed climbing indoors is well suited to the sport climber; probably why comp climbers can win the ice world cup after a few weeks practice with tools. I don't know how relevant they are to modern sport-mixed climbing, but the foundry routes are a brilliant way to spend a wet weekend, and I heartily commend them to you. In fact, I intend to spend a few nights tonight practising axe swaps on the sofa, and I'll be down there next weekend putting in a much smoother performance, just you wait!

Back in the saddle

2010-01-15T13:15:00.003Z

At the end of last year, various events conspired to keep me away from training for a while. A climbing holiday, a month-long bout of flu, Christmas, snow, New Year and a work trip. All these things taken together means that whilst I've been climbing a little bit, I've been off the training plans since the start of November.

This week it all kicks off again. Stopwatch out and down to the wall for a couple of months of endurance training hell. This week I was at the foundry tuesday and works last night. The big surprise is how low my level has actually got. Anything approaching hard work is resulting in an insta-pump that stays with me for the rest of the session. After the training I am enormously sore - just typing this is straining my forearms! Despite this, it feels pretty good to be back on the schedules. Good to have a structure, good to feel disciplined. The only thing I dislike about it is that I feel pretty unsociable down at the wall, dividing my attention between friends and a stopwatch...

Last night at the works was good though. Dobbin the wonderhorse was there; chirpy as always. Seems quite strong at the moment too. I tried to talk him into modelling for my latest photo idea, but he wasn't keen to jump off the top of NTBTA repeatedly for the camera. Lots of the usual suspects there as well, which took my mind off the agony of repeatedly looping round the circuits board. Since it's the start of the year, the most common question was about goals and ambitions for the next twelve months. I'm a strong believer in setting some targets for yourself, and not being cagey about them when asked. If you've got a goal, 'fess up to it! Being secretive about them only makes them feel more important in your own mind, which can only add to the pressure. If you're relaxed about admitting your goals, you'll be relaxed about the possibility of not achieving them too. Having said that, this year I have no ambition; simply hoping to maintain last years standard against a heavy workload. I suppose it would be nice to onsight a couple of 8a's in Spain again, but I'm not hoping for anything harder. My biggest goal is not to let another year go by with such a tiny amount of trad climbing in it. I miss weekends at Pembroke; getting a couple of routes in and eating ice creams by the seaside. So New Year's resolution #1: more trad climbing.

Also, I wanted to put more pictures on the blog, because I like pictures, and because I want to get some incentive to learn a few new tricks with the camera. In that spirit, here is a picture of my cat, Tuppence. Because everyone likes cat pictures, don't they?

Night watch

2010-01-08T01:10:00.007Z

Back again on La Palma; this time to use a special camera designed and built by the boffins at Sheffield University. CCD cameras for astronomy are not too dissimilar to the CCD detectors in digital cameras. They can weigh nearly a ton, of course, and they're cooled by liquid nitrogen (which I wouldn't recommend doing to your little compact), but apart from that, they're very similar. Professional astronomy cameras are absolutely amazing at capturing faint light from distant stars, but they have one major drawback; they are mind-numbingly slow to read out. Your digital camera can probably manage something like 3 frames a second, more if you've dropped a wad of cash on a state-of-the art SLR. CCD cameras for astronomy typically manage something around one frame per minute. Normally, this doesn't matter; exposures can be as long as hours so waiting a minute to get the results is no big deal.

For some science though, that minute is a total disaster. The Crab pulsar is a white-hot ball of Neutrons about the size of Sheffield, and it spins on it's axis 33 times a second. If you're hoping to freeze the Crab pulsar in it's steps, that minute long readout time is looking pretty irritating now, isn't it. In fact, there are literally hundreds of objects in the sky that vary on rapid timescales, and need a CCD camera that's both sensitive to light, and can be read out very fast. That's where ULTRACAM comes in. Designed by my PhD supervisor, Prof Vik Dhillon, ULTRACAM is three cameras in one, which capture red, green and blue light simultaneously, and can take over 400 images every second. I've spent a large part of my career exploiting ULTRACAM;searching for dust clouds on the surface of the coolest stars, watching White Dwarfs, as heavy as the Sun but as small as the Earth, as they are occulted by some of the lightest stars ever weighed. This time we're out on La Palma trying to detect the tiny, tiny change in brightness that occurs when an extra-solar planet passes behind the star it orbits. By measuring this change in several colours it will one day be possible to measure the composition of the planet's atmosphere, but for today a simple detection of the change in any colour is a major feat, only accomplished a handful of times.

Unfortunately, the weather has not been kind to us this trip, with plenty of cloud and rain. This has, however, given me the opportunity to mess about with a different kind of camera - the Canon 7D I got for Xmas! It's the first Canon camera that allows you to control flashguns remotely - something Nikon cameras have done for ages. I've been having a lot of fun with it, including capturing this cheesy self-portrait next to ULTRACAM, and even cheesier combination of star-trails, the William Herschel telescope, and Prof. Vik Dhillon himself...

And, last but not least, this photo-composite of the William Herschel Telescope at sunset, and Orion

Snow!!!

2010-01-03T20:52:00.007Z

Burbage Valley in all its winter splendour, New Years Day

Happy New Year to all, and a merry Epiphany to boot. Not much climbing has been happening, which is why this blog has been slow of late. Nothing to climb = nothing to brag about. And nothing to brag about = no bragging = no blog posts. Rest assured that normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Cornice Surfing at Burbage

The reason for the hiatus has been the snow. It's covered the Peak district, Yorkshire and Wales. Snow in the peak means no climbing for a while; no climbing while it blankets the rock, no climbing while it melts. Normally no climbing = unhappy Littlefair, but not when snow stops play. I love it. I just bloody love it. Before Christmas I actually went nordic skiing through an enchanted forest near Harrogate, whilst on New Year's Day we joined the rest of the English speaking world and drove up towards Burbage. It was a veritable winter wonderland; we had some snowball fights, went body sledging off cornices and just pissed about until the sun set. After that we had a jolly good laugh watching the rare sport afforded by British people trying to drive in the snow. At times like this, when the snow falls thick and hard, it makes me wish we lived somewhere with proper, honest-to-god winters, like Sweden.

In recent years there hasn't been much in the way of heavy snows. It's tempting to blame global warming, but the truth is a little more complicated. The middle of last century saw very heavy snowfalls, with the winters between 1945 and 1970 seeing regular large snowfalls, with several feet of snow often lying for many weeks. The seventies saw little snowfall, whilst the eighties often saw 6ft drifts of snow! This chap has collated all the data for any snow nerds if you're interested. Sadly though, global warming does mean that snowfalls like this one (and last years) may become increasingly rare. Poo, I say.

Arboreal Delights

2009-12-15T17:17:00.005Z

O Tannenbaum

Picking a christmas tree used to be something close to a religious experience. I would tog myself up in kermit-the-frog wellies, hat, gloves and a massive parka and drive with my dad to a field of trees in the middle of freezing nowhere. As the frost crept slowly up from our feet and into our marrow we'd examine EVERY tree, until we found the perfect one. It would be a specimen of utter beauty; perfectly conical with thick, green branches packed as densely as penguins in breeding season. And crucially, it would be several feet too tall to fit in our house. Dad would get out his saw and cut down the chosen one, then risk hernia dragging it out to the car. Once the farmer was paid we'd make our way home, where Mum would have brought the decorations down from the loft. Once she'd told us off for getting too big a tree (again) and the top few feet had been lopped off (again) the tree would be brought in and decorated to soft choral renditions of our favourite carols. Once it was all done the tree stood ready for christmas, and my Mum would being her seasonal complaint about the needles dropping all over the house.

Christmas is not quite what it was. Our tree this year is shown above. It is almost a foot high, slightly deformed, and was the first tree we could reach from the pile outside Morrisons. Back home, my parents will be unpacking the same, artificial, tree that we used last year. Nevertheless, I am full of festive cheer, and feel some deep attachment to my dear, deformed tree. We shall see how that survives a trip to Meadowhall for present shopping tomorrow!

Home again

2009-12-12T20:14:00.007Z

back in the UK, and looking forward to enjoying some crisp winter afternoons on the gritstone over the weeks up to Xmas. Went out to Stanage today in the warm sun; it was Jules's first day back on the rock since her month long stay in the house courtesy of a bunch of Mexican pigs. Very nice to be out, and more tomorrow! In the meantime, here are some pictures of my office on La Palma. I love my job.

Looking over towards the 1-m Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope, sadly now decommissioned

The 2-m, fully robotic Liverpool Telescope. This telescope is fine-tuned to rapidly follow up cosmic explosions like Gamma-Ray bursts, and has produced some top-class science. Sadly, it is likely to become a casualty of the dramatic cutback in astronomy funding which has occurred over the last few months

Sunset towards the Nordic Optical Telescope, which has prime position on the lip of the volcano's crater...

Hot and Cold Air

2009-12-08T03:17:00.004Z

Observing again - this time on La Palma, one of the Canary Islands. La Palma is probably my favourite observatory. It's stunningly beautiful and a very nice site in the Summer, when the weather is excellent. Winter is much less reliable but so far I've been very lucky. I have two nights on the telescope, but they're spaced by 4 days, which has been giving me a chance to take some pictures (see above) and catch up on some reading.

With Copenhagen and the climate the big news at the moment, I thought I'd share with my reader (hi Mum), "Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air" by David MacKay. It's free to download, or available in conventional book form via Amazon. The book isn't really about climate change at all, but instead starts from the assumption that you want to stop burning fossil fuels, either to combat global warming or because of peak oil. The book poses the question - can we get ALL of our energy needs from sustainable sources? The great thing about this book is that it is refreshingly free of agenda. It ignores difficult political problems and questions of economic viability, and instead looks at the simple problem of whether it is physically possible to get the energy we need from various sources. To do this he employs simple physics to ask how much power is available to the UK from various sources like wind, wave and solar energy. The results are not good for renewable energy advocates. The UK is actually quite well endowed with sources of renewable energy compared to most of Europe, and it is often suggested that the UK could get all it's energy from renewables. This book shows quite convincingly that there simply isn't enough energy available to meet our transport, heating and lighting needs without non-renewable forms of energy generation.

Although the author is careful not to advocate any particular energy solution, it seems pretty clear that either a new generation of nuclear power plants, or a vast array of solar farms in the African desert will be necessary to wean us off our need for oil, coal and gas. I can imagine that the idea of Nuclear power is going to have a hard time being accepted here, but the book has some surprising facts to offer about the relative safety of nuclear. Did you know that there are more deaths per mega-Watt of power from wind power than nuclear, even including Chernobyl? And you might want to ask Chinese coal miners how safe burning fossil fuels really is... Anyway, the other thing that struck me about this book is how *easy* switching to a carbon-free economy would be, provided we accept a new generation of nuclear power stations.

I can't recommend the book enough, and it would obviously make a great (and free) Xmas present for the nerd in your life.

Back in black

2009-11-28T19:38:00.000Z

Hi there, been a while, hasn't it? The wife and I have had swine flu, which has curtailed both climbing activity and blogging since the return from Spain. Also, I've been renovating the bathroom; the first piece of DIY I've undertaken in my life. In the past I've been mystified by people who would sacrifice a day on the crag to do DIY, but times change. Maybe it's the pride of home ownership, but I've actually quite enjoyed it. Also, I've been working with my dad, which has been a real pleasure. Dad is a DIY master and he's been passing on his knowledge, father-to-son style.

Finally, this week, i'm well enough to go climbing again. Not with Jules unfortunately. Three weeks later she's still bed-ridden. Still, on Tuesday I went down the works and had a mini board session with Sam, Nic and The Sausage. I like team board sessions; everyone has their own party piece problems and it's interesting to see where everyones strengths and weaknesses lie. There was at least one problem that the others could cruise and I couldn't touch, and vice-versa. After the board I hit the yellow circuit, which is filth, as always. I went round with Ed, who is stronger every time I climb with him. What does he eat for breakfast?

Today I went to the Tor, along with the rest of the English-speaking world. I tried the link-up du jour, Tumbleweed, which is actually a really good problem with some quality climbing. I managed to drop the last move a number of times; my power endurance is not what it should be! Perhaps unsurprising after such a long illness. The weathers been so bad though, so I don't feel like I missed much, and I'll soon be back up to speed.

The tor is getting damp though; time for the grit! Ben Morton has a great blog post at the moment, pointing out the great thing about Sheffield is the atmosphere at the crags when a big team is out. He's bang on the money again, and I can't wait for the big team sessions on the grit this winter. Maybe this year'll be the year a few bête-noirs go down as well, who knows? See you out there...

sunny side up

2009-11-02T21:53:00.000Z

Rupert sent me a text message on reading my last post. A précis of its contents is roughly "cheer up". Perhaps my last post was a bit gloomy. In the spirit of being cheerful, here are all the lovely things about my holiday.

We've had a great time in Rodellar; it's perhaps the most beautiful climbing area in Spain, and at this time of year the leaves are turning. The tall poplars lining the gorge are spectacular. Yesterday I was lucky enough to find Coliseum dry (enough) and put it to rest, after getting smacked around by it on my first day here. It's nice to see that you've got the knack of a place during a trip.

There's been lots of chums out here as well. Dan Walker & his beau Emma provided company and word games; Paul & Nat and Neil & Ruth were out here too. They've been great company and inspiration, the girls in particular have been very impressive; totally going for it. Jules has been ticking 7c's in a day with comfort, Nat and Emma have both broken new ground and Ruth has made a really impressive flash of Orient (7c/+) at Terradets.

On our last night, Jules and I celebrated our wedding anniversary in a hotel in the beautiful village of Alquezar.

All in all it's been an amazing trip, and has provided me with some great memories and some great ticks. Can't believe I'm now home.

It's so depressing.

instant karma's gonna get you

2009-10-27T20:06:00.001Z

Dobbin promised, the bitch. Said my bad karma was totally bogus and that I had nothing to worry about. Well, I've got news for you. The day we arrive at a dryer-than-ever Rodellar it starts raining, and rains a lot. We are now fugitives from seepage, seeking dry rock at every turn. Also, it turns out that despite all the training, I am not fit. I am many things: handsome, strong, modest. Many things. Fit is not one of them. As a result Rodellar is kicking my ass, big style. So it seems that Karma is a bitch, after all.

So far we have had five days climbing, split between Margalef and Rodellar. Jules is on fire, ticking personal bests every day. We have a points-based scheme that works a bit like a handicap in golf - 10 points for equalling a personal best, then two points off for every grade down and so on. After two days Jules had doubled my score. Humph. I have mostly been failing to onsight 8a's at Rodellar but found the time to fail to retro-flash 7cs at Margalef. Great success. A bright spot amongst the dingy dismal failures was that I did manage an "onsight" of El Fustigador at Margalef (having seen Daila on it in dosage V). My head says flash, but in my heart, I know. Also, Jules has just bought me a coke, and tomorrow is our anniversary, so things are looking up...

humble pie

2009-10-20T19:45:00.000+01:00

Phew. Think I might have been getting a bit big for my boots over the last two weeks, but thankfully the wheel has turned and karma has returned everything to its natural place.

This has happened in two ways. First, the send train I was riding has derailed. Leaves on the line perhaps. After ticking Unjustified I had another weekend at Malham: Jules wanted to do New Dawn, and I wanted to do Idefix, the easier of Gaz's two 8b's which breach the roof above the warm ups. Needless to say, Jules dispatched efortlessly, but I couldn't match the feat, getting totally shut down on a move off a shallow two finger pocket. I did what I always do in these situations; get angry. Big mistake. I now have no tick, and a re-appearance of the injury I received at Rubicon last autumn. Poo. So since then I've been taking it a little easier. I did go to Rubicon hoping to flash Dangerous Brothers. Oh the vanity - I couldn't even do the move. I'm so impressd that Superted flashed this route. Beast.

My second slice of humble pie came from the wilds of the interweb. The forums at UK Bouldering have a 'karma' system, where you can dole out good or bad Karma to those who deserve it. Until now, I've been inordinately pleased that my 'bad karma' rating was on zero. Today it stands at minus one. I believe this may have ocurred as a result of excessive bragging on this blog, amongst other places. I feel crushed.

So now I have attempted to escape my rush of bad karma by going to Spain. I gambled that bad luck wouldn't follow me here. Wouldn't you know it, we've just arrived at Rodellar, and it's started raining...

A Muerte

2009-10-14T14:27:00.004+01:00

I'm growing to loathe that phrase. "A Muerte" - you can hear it on every climbing DVD, at every wall and from the mouths of slack-panted youths as they redpoint their first 7a. The phrase "A Muerte" is everywhere, but it seems the spirit of "A Muerte" is nowhere to be found.

Last weekend I took the wife/ticking machine to Malham, where she wanted to do New Dawn. As always there was a good scene up there, including the new "South Wests greatest sports climber™", Bob Hickish, who has moved up to these parts to study Physics at Sheffield (good choice). The thing that struck me most about Malham this weekend was the absence of anyone prepared to dig in to the bitter end. Rather than the power grunts of folk going "A Muerte", the sounds echoing round the catwalk were people mostly saying "take". Or occasionally "I am tired, take", said whilst hanging on the crux crimps. For god sake people, try harder. I reckon there were at least two redpoint attempts that could have ended in glory if the climbers in question had put in a proper balls-out effort to get to the top.

If I were King, the word "Take" would be banned. And alphabet letters would be free.

Unjustified

2009-10-03T21:53:00.006+01:00

Shazam!

This week I've had the work shocker from hell - lots of deadlines corresponding with the return of the dreaded students meant that I didn't climb at all monday, tues, wed, thurs because I was in the office till late most nights. The deadlines elapsed on Thursday and the weatherman said cool and breezy, so I took Friday off work and drove to Malham. I'm glad I did though, because I managed to tick Unjustified, my third (and best) 8c!

Unjustified has a reputation as being very soft for the grade, and the grade math backs this up; it's probably 7b+/c to the big undercuts underneath the roof, and maybe 8a to the top from here. That shouldn't add up to 8c, but I think it does. The route just keeps coming at you, and there's nowhere to rest, or really even pause. Although it only took me five days, I'm choosing to believe that's because I've made some big gains this year. It certainly felt very comparable to Mecca Extension in difficulty.

Rob Sutton had driven down from Glasgow and was there too. Rob's an old friend, and I should have been more chatty but I was really psyched to get on Unjustified while the conditions were so good. I said sorry afterwards though, so that's OK. Occasionally I get so focussed on climbing that I get a bit anti-social at the crag. If I've ever ignored you because of that, consider this a belated apology, and I hope you didn't take it personally! Since becoming a father Rob's had little time to get on the rock, but I don't think it's slowed him down at all; I watched him cruise his way up Energy Vampires first redpoint. A really strong climber... It was good to catch up, and we all went for a celebratory beer and meal in the pub. I do love Malham.

Diet, diet, and the other one...

2009-09-28T12:34:00.005+01:00

The title of this blog post comes from an old copy of the Thing, still the funniest look at the climbing scene in the mid-90's ever written by Jon Barton. Back in the hey-day of UK sport climbing, thin was in. Jerry somehow managed to dominate on a single slice of toast, whilst Malcom ate only steak and broccoli, and went to the extremes of padlocking his fridge. The joke in the title comes from the fact that three Sheffield climbers had set up a coaching service, which promised to look at "all the aspects of climbing".

2009 is looking more like the early-1990's every day. There's a grim economic mood, and lots of laid-off folk are hitting the crags instead of the job centre. Sport climbing is getting more and more popular, with even gnarly trad-heads getting in on the action. And, once again, dieting for climbing is cool.

Everyone's on a diet. Chris Doyle is blogging about his green tea-fuelled exploits. SuperTed is looking positively skeletal, and enfant-terrible turned grandad-terrible Stevie Haston has shocked the dieting world by going public with his 700 kcal-a-day super-diet.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. We all know climbers are some of the most body-conscious people on the planet, and I feel very uncomfortable with the idea of people publicising the fact that they are doing some pretty extreme dieting to aid their climbing. Within any cross-section of society there are people who struggle to eat healthily, and to have heavy dieting promoted by climbers they might look up to could be the spur that someone out there needs to enter a very destructive cycle.

The problem is that dieting for climbing works, and it's a nonsense to suggest otherwise. Try putting on a 5kg weight belt and repeating your hardest problem, and then tell me that you don't think losing a little extra weight might help your climbing. It's no coincidence that Doylo is in the best form for ages, that SuperTed has finally done Mecca, or that Stevie has dragged his geriatric frame up a 9a sport route that most of us couldn't even get to the first bolt on.

So that's why I'm not sure what I think about it all. Maybe the best thing to do is to make a pact that crash weight loss for climbing is not discussed, or is at least always discussed with heavy caveats about it being short-term and not good for your general health? Which is why I may or may not have lost weight recently, but I won't be telling you about it.

lazy on a sunny afternoon

2009-09-14T11:14:00.006+01:00

Had high hopes for this weekend - blistering sun all week meant the crags would have dried out, the wife and I are in prime condition, and my project even has draws in-situ. Magic.

Saturday is too hot for Malham, so we hot-foot it to Trow Gill. Which is a long way from Sheffield. And a bit dirty, to say the least. However, the low-grade sevens are very nice, and I have a pleasant day demonstrating that I have completely lost any route-reading ability I once had. The missus flashes a 7b, which is a first for her, so we walk out feeling pleased. Until I realise I've lost my very expensive heart rate monitor watch at the crag.

Saturday evening we meet some old faces from Brizzle in the pub, and crash at Jenny and Bruno's house in Harrogate. Bruno is the single most dedicated individual I know. He raised the roof of his garage to fit in a home training wall, and has built himself the 'torture chair', where you can strap yourself into one of the 'electro-zap' machine thingies for a post pub workout/mock CIA interrogation. I am unable to resist. It hurts quite a lot.

On sunday we wake and it is cool, cloudy and dry. The wife and I have developed some nasty colds, but a head cold doesn't stop you being savage, it just makes you feel grim whilst doing it, so off to Malham we go. It turns out that Malham Cove is the only sunny place in the world. It is 1000 degrees, and we spend most of the day hiding in the shade, watching other people be impressively heat-resistant. At about 5pm, after several hours of snoozing Jules has a RP on her project and gets pretty much nowhere, and I fail to retro-flash the Maximum, but get it second go. We head home early.

Monday is cool and cloudy again - why can't the weather arrange itself around my redpointing shedule?

A tale of two 8c's

2009-08-31T18:12:00.006+01:00

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity..."

This year I've been trying to avoid epic sieges. Jules and I have a fair few mammoth battles buried in our climbing CVs and I thought a year of fairly rapid ticks and no major headstress couldn't hurt. On the other hand, there are a few lines that have been fairly tempting...

Two of these are Unjustified and Mecca Extension; perhaps the best two 8c's in the country? I have past form with Mecca Extension having spent six or seven days on it over the last two years, and having reached the last hard move once or twice. Unjustified is newer ground for me; one short play about 3 years ago, and a full day earlier this year.

With three cool, cloudy days forecast for the bank holiday I figured it was time to man-up, and put some serious effort into these two beasts. Saturday and Sunday were two very contrasting days at Malham; the best of times, and the worst of times. Saturday was cold, windy, dry. Steve Mac was there attempting Cry Freedom and for once could actually remember something about a route he'd done. The result was some very useful toe-hook beta on the crux moves round the roof on Unjustified. The new sequence made a massive difference and I managed to snatch through the crux on two consecutive redpoints; my best finishing about halfway up the headwall. Not bad, but with a lot of hard climbing still left to go. Still, I was pretty optimistic about my chances on Sunday...

...which was shit. Humid, cold, drizzly. The rain was blowing into the cove and it was all a bit grim. Most of the routes were wet, including Unjustified, which had a collection of wet tufas and undercuts to negotiate at the start of the harder climbing. Despite the damp, I still managed a new high point, getting to a move away from where the climbing eases enough to allow you to hope the route is in the bag, but not enough to believe the route is in the bag. To get to here though I had to pre-clip the route to the first draw in the roof, as the holds I clip off were too wet to spend any time on. At the end of the day I attempted to downclimb from here, and did pretty well, downclimbing all of Something Stupid and shaking out at the jugs at the first bolt, before greasing off wet holds a move from the ground! Much amusement at my expense was had, but at least I know the downclimb is O.K, and I think I'll have the high bolt pre-clipped for all my redpoints.

With Malham so wet, I thought I'd head to the Tor on Sunday and try the old Extension. Char was there, looking like a good candidate for a Mecca tick, and we gave Steve Mac a lift out. Like a true gent, Char put the draws in Mecca, but the fact that he greased off several moves didn't inspire confidence! When my redpoint came around things had dried off a bit and I managed to fight my to the top of Mecca. The Mecca flake was wet, so I didn't get back as much in the rest as possible - setting off on the top wall I was pretty certain this wasn't the go. Perhaps this lack of pressure helped, because, after a few sticky moments, I found myself clipping the chains! Well chuffed!

I lowered off feeling like the Top Dog, the Man, the King of the Crag. Until Steve tied on that is. He warmed up on Mecca Extension. Casual as you like. So that's me in my place. Then he linked Kristian's 8b traverse into Mecca Extension, but wasn't tired, so kept going all the way to the top of the Prow. Oh, and I think he was hungover, too.

Then I got stung by a wasp. Wasps are cunts.

And now for something completely different

2009-08-25T19:25:00.020+01:00

The Tre Cima

I never wanted to be a sport climber. When I started climbing, I didn't even know sport climbing existed. My heroes were Arthur Dolphin, and Emilio Comici, my climbing equipment was a hand-me-down collection of slings, moacs and hexes. Summer evenings basking on the grit were used as training for long summer holidays sweating in Chamonix. I didn't even know who Jerry Moffat was. Then came bouldering. Competitions. Training. I got obsessed with a small number of projects. Trained more. Then one day I got out of bed, looked myself in the mirror, and realised I'd become a no-good, pansy bolt-clipper. Something had to be done.

This March an email arrived in my inbox. It contained a photo of three of my friends, shivering through a storm on the Marmolada. They had headed out in 2001, young and inexperienced; a small group of Exeter based climbers with big dreams. They hadn't checked the weather forecast, they didn't bother following the topo. Very high on the face and completely off-route, they were caught in a massive storm. Freezing, scared and cold they managed to descend over two miserable days. Time passes, and four years later they decide it's time for revenge - on steroids. Do I fancy joining up for an ascent of the Brandler-Hasse? 500m tall, with several pitches of E4 and E5. Loose. Committing. And on one of Europe's most sought-after north faces. I'm in!

The Tre Cima from Misurina Lake

Fast forward a few months and I'm on a flight to Venice. My preparation has been perfect for an Alpine North face. I've managed a whole day's trad climbing at Stoney. And I didn't even get too scared. After a few delays and false starts, the team assembles at Venice Airport. There are five of us on this trip, and the team spans a wide range of abilities; Rob and Myself are sport-climbing wads, but have done little trad climbing in recent years. Julian is both physically and mentally capable - he should be cruising. For Will and Graham, the Hasse represents a major physical challenge, but they're both unbelievably pumped-up, and determined as hell. A decision is made to drive straight to the mountains, get a brief hour's sleep, and head straight onto the Cima Grande's north face.

Will holding up the crowds on the Comici Route

With difficulties up to E2, the Comici route should offer no real difficulties for us. It is only when we reach the col, and get our first view of the North Face, wreathed in cloud and silhouetted by moonlight, that I realise what I've got myself into. The face is massive; dark and foreboding, and in the still night we can hear the faint clatter of rockfall. We reach the face before dawn, and scramble up the easy ramp at the start. Straight away it becomes clear that I've done a very silly thing indeed. The rock quality is awful; so much worse than I'd feared. Loose stones cover every ledge, and the rock is shattered, rotten and yellow. Worse still, things go wrong right from the start. We go off route on the first pitch, and whilst we sort ourselves out a steady queue of climbers is building impatiently beneath us. The day doesn't improve much. We are slow, and I cannot bring myself to adapt to the exposure or the rock. Hanging on stances, or leading pitches, I am constantly frightened; my body taut and flinching at every noise, or sudden movement. Nevertheless, we inch upwards, pitch after pitch, and the relief when we reach the end of the hard climbing (and first big ledge) is palpable. Sadly, it is also short-lived. As the angle eases, the rock quality deteriorates and the chimneys are dripping and dark. I am terrified, mostly of kicking rocks down onto the crowds beneath us. I reach my low-point in a dripping squeeze chimney, three pitches below the top. A mouldy sling hangs within arms reach and I grab it and pull, desperate to get out of here, into the sun and back to the hut.

Jules on the descent from the Comici

On the following rest day, my morale is low. Not only have I failed to free the warm-up, but we've been painfully slow doing so. On the descent from the Comici a young girl passes us and shouts at us about holding her up. It doesn't make me feel any better about our chances on the Hasse. Over breakfast we discuss our plans; it becomes obvious that the others in our team didn't find our trip up the Comici anywhere near as traumatic as I did. Everyone is still keen for the Hasse. I am not sure what to do. I don't want to let the team down, but I don't feel like I could cope with climbing french 7a+ on dodgy pegs and on rock as loose as the Comici. On the other hand, surely rock as steep as that on the crux of the Hasse couldn't be that loose, could it? A decision is made to go for it, despite my fears and the evening rain, and we retire early in the vain hope that I'll get some sleep before the pre-dawn start

The next morning the rain has cleared, and we set off on the short walk to the face. Once again, there are other teams wanting to try the route; one couple from France, and a pair of super-mean looking Bavarians. We let both teams go ahead, unwilling to spend the day feeling the same time pressure as on the Comici. It was a wise decision, as both teams shoot ahead, particularly the Bavarians, who look fast, elegant and fit. We proceed upwards in our own, snail-like manner and I begin to feel more comfortable. As I'd hoped, the rock is better on this steeper section of the wall. I'm even beginning to become more used to the exposure, and the feeling of dangling in a harness on the small stances. These initial pitches are around E2-3 in standard and offer delightful wall climbing to reach a long traverse, which will bring us to the start of the crux pitches.

At the start of this traverse things start to get hairy again. Stonefall from the upper reaches of the face is an ever-present companion, but for some reason it is starting to get distressingly frequent. Rationally, we know it's OK - the face is too steep for the rocks to hit us - but we still hunker against the wall every time we hear that unmistakeable thurring sound. This is seriously disturbing my cool, and I begin to feel the same low-grade panic that was my constant companion on the Comici. Then, half-way along the traverse, Graham shouts for us to look out. The sound of something huge, plummeting down the wall, fills my ears and I turn to see a dark, distinctly human, shape drop like a stone towards the ground. I assume the worst, that one of the Bavarians has fallen to his grave, until the figure comes into focus, and I can see a small parachute clutched in his hand. Shortly after, the sound of a parachute opening echoes around the wall, and we watch as the BASE jumper drifts safely to the scree below. At least that explains the source of the dropping stones; it must have been the BASE jumper timing his descent. But the episode has shot my body through with adrenalin and now, beneath the crux climbing I am, once again, terrified.

Me seconding the first of the crux pitches

The crux pitches look mind-bendingly steep and we take a moment to watch the super-fit Bavarians on them. They come to a total standstill on the second pitch, and are fighting to get through, even pulling on the gear. What chance do we have? Graham leads off on the first pitch, which proves surprisingly reasonable, and we join him on a tiny stance on the lip of a big roof. The next pitch looms head - a vile flared chimney which arcs through huge roofs. This is the pitch that caused the Bavarians such trouble. It looks soaking wet. My lead. Huge, soaked, jugs lead up to the flared chimney, where I can clip some old tat and a stuck wire. From here some desperate squirming, and a lot of shouting, bring me to a no-hands rest in the chimney on the edge of massive roofs and 300m above the scree. Rob has the next lead - the crux pitch, though it looks relatively amenable, and is at least dry. He pulls off a fine lead, and I have just to second this pitch clean, and lead the next E4 pitch and the route will be in the bag. By now though, I'm beginning to get seriously tired. My hands and arms are cramping, and I pull a huge spike off the crux pitch, somehow managing to stay on the rock, balancing the spike on my knees until I am sure it is safe to let it fall. The last hard pitch turns out to be easier than I'd feared and suddenly we're in the easier groove systems, and in the sun!

I'm acutely aware that this is the part of the Comici I found so terrifying, and so I'm delighted to find that the top pitches are dry, relatively solid, and sustained at a delightful HVS/E1 standard. There is quite a lot of them though, and we top out on the last pitch just as dusk falls. The descent by headtorch is not too bad, especially as we know where we are going from our ascent of the Comici. Only a stuck abseil rope halfway down causes any problems, and that is soon sorted with an exhausting prussik. We make it back to the hut, enjoying a well-earned beer before collapsing in our beds.

The team posing below the Cima Grande, halfway round the Tre Cima pub crawl

With our major objective complete, there's still time for a relaxing day in the meadows, and a mellow ascent of the classic Yellow Edge on the Cima Piccolo. Being down by lunch, we decide to finish off with a tick of the Tre Cima pub crawl - beers and grappa in each of the three huts on the circuit of Tre Cima. A brilliant end to a truly memorable trip. Our holiday has really got me in the mood for alpine rock climbing, but what should be my next objective? To be honest, I'd prefer better rock than we found on the Cima Grande, but would be really keen for something a little harder, with similar exposure. Any ideas?

Happy Christmas

2009-08-05T16:34:00.005+01:00

Today my random lunchtime reading reminded me of the unadulterated genius that is the British Medical Journal's Christmas issue. Each year, the BMJ publish an issue which contains research papers which could be described as spoofs, but are sometimes extremely rigorous scientific studies, but which focus on slightly whimsical topics.

My all time favourite of these articles is "The case of the disappearing teaspoons", a study designed to investigate the vexed question of where do all the bloody teaspoons go? The study managed to show that the half-life of a teaspoon in a communal tea-room is 42 days, and that more expensive teaspoons fare no better than ordinary ones.

Occasionally there is a serious take-home message to be found amongst the frivolity: this study investigated the evidence that wearing a parachute reduced your chances of injury when falling from an aeroplane. They found no evidence for the efficacy of parachutes. This was largely because there have been no randomised controlled trials of parachute intervention! A reminder that the absence of evidence is not (always) evidence of absence...

Other classics include How long did their hearts go on? A Titanic study, and the inspired and vital research into Ice cream evoked headaches (ICE-H) study: randomised trial of accelerated versus cautious ice cream eating regimen (cautiously eating ice cream is better, in case you were wondering). What worries me about these articles is the frequency with which they are reported in all seriousness by the mainstream press. This blog details the failings of the press in some detail, but I despaired to read that the BBC covered a paper discussing the impact of "retro" dress (flared jeans, Hawaiian shirts, moussed hair, and nose rings) on patients' confidence in all seriousness, despite the data analysis being described as "two statisticians eyeballing the data over a glass of vodka"...

It might be a bit early, but I'm already wondering what they'll come up with this year.

Saturday Sport

2009-08-04T12:54:00.006+01:00

Un bon weekend.

Lots of folk are grumbling about the state of the lime at the moment. There has been a tremendous amount of rain, and many crags have donned their winter coats of damp and slime. Instead of getting depressed about this, why not view it as an opportunity to indulge in some guilt-free summer training, and destroy the crags when inevitable Indian Summer arrives?

There are some dry spots still to be found however, and Jules and I trogged dutifully up to Malham on Saturday. Dear reader, you won't be surprised to hear that it was mostly wet. Parties were fully established on all the warm-ups, so I agreed to frig up Raindogs to get the clips in for Jules. I guess Raindogs has morphed from training route into party piece as I managed to get up in a single push, and it actually felt like a warm-up, rather than a burn-out!

I had wanted to play on Unjustified, but a bit of nerve damage in my arm and a lot of damp on the route suggested it wasn't a great idea. Instead I decided to polish off Connect 5; a tiny additional piece of climbing that actually makes Connect 4 into a proper route. 'Twas quite good, though probably only for Malham regulars... The rest of the day was spent getting mileage in, mostly on routes I've done before. I really miss being able to onsight easier routes - any suggestions for quality mid-grade venues I might have missed?

Jules was looking good on Raindogs, getting to the last pinch on six out of six redpoints. Two redpoints actually failed going for the chain. Looks like she'll definitely get it soon, but it'll have to wait for a while as we are both entering a phase of more intensive training, and less time on rock.

Sunday we went tradding at Stoney. I'm still not sure what I think of Stoney, the rock is either polished or a bit snappy, but some of the routes are lovely. We had a very lazy morning, and a pleasant afternoon ticking classics like Froth, Bitter Fingers, Armageddon and Pearly Gates. I was pleased and surprised to find my trad head wasn't too shabby; I had expected to be a wobbling pile of punt. In a week and a half I head off to join the rest of Sheffield on the Brandler-Hasse, so it's a good job I can handle a day at Stoney without crying...

universal truths...

2009-07-29T14:13:00.002+01:00

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

rubbercon

2009-07-26T10:23:00.000+01:00

Despite the baking sunshine, the wife and I sampled the fine delights of rubicon today. The crag was jam packed with strong young things, including a Lincoln, a Doyle, a solitary Cattel (sam) and a Pasquill. The youth seen to have discovered dieting; it's like the 80s again. It seems subsisting on green tea and salads might have something in it though - the boys look strong. Doyle and Cattel both ticked Zeke, Sam on his second go.

I had a pop on Salar, and didn't get very far on the flash. It proved a fairly routine redpoint though. Note to aspirants - this is not a nice route. It is sharp and over before it starts. Good for boulderers learning how to use a string though, I guess. After that I retro-flashed 'too old...' putting the draws in for the missus and got slapped about something awful by the moves on a bigger splash.

Went home feeling unsatisfied. This is either the consequence of being so bad on the boulders, or the usual rubicon dissatisfaction. Tomorrow I'm having a massive lie in, and a nice brunch before heading out somewhere to pootle.

Best Forgotten

2009-07-20T13:32:00.008+01:00

On friday I treated myself to a shiny new TV. I love watching TV, it's an activity that matches very well with my energy levels when I get back from the crag. If I was Timmy "Red Bull™" Emmett, I would get home, drink some Red Bull™, run to the club, drink more Red Bull™, and 'have it'™ all night long. Instead, I slumped on my sofa and watched the Julianne Moore movie "The Forgotten".

Oh dear. I won't say it's the worse movie I've ever seen, but it is one of the most dissapointing. It actually starts rather well, building itself up to be a taught, psychological thriller, with a few nicely done shocks along the way. For the first 20 minutes the only problem is that the cinematographer thought a black-on-black colour scheme would go well with his moody, low-key lighting. Then, after about twenty minutes you catch yourself thinking, "Wouldn't it be just shit if it turns out that aliens did it". Lo and behold....

Oh dear.

As you might have guessed, things have been pretty muted on the climbing front recently. I've been struggling with my fingers since returning from Chile. Time off seems to be a death sentence for me - in only a few weeks my hands fill with scar tissue and I develop aches and pains where none existed before. Despite being very careful on my return, I have indeed picked up numerous aches and pains. These will no doubt clear up soon, but it does mean taking it a bit slowly.

Still managed to have a good weekend though - primo conditions at Malham on saturday, and I took the opportunity to remind myself of the moves on Unjustified. Still feels reasonably steady, so hopefully a short-order tick of this is possible soon. Watched Jenny Woodward destroy the Groove, becoming the first woman to achieve the Yorkshire Triple Crown, and very shortly after giving birth too. Major wad points awarded... On sunday I hit the works, after failing to escape the showers at Stoney. Good to see they've got some long problems scattered around the place, including a choice burly 8a on the skips - get it done Sheffielders!

WTF ?!?

2009-07-14T17:07:00.003+01:00

Life? Ok. Death? A bit grim for a mid-afternoon coffee break, but I can handle that. Life! Death! Prizes! What the hell is that, some sort of extreme version of It's a Knockout featuring large spikes and the prospect of winning a speedboat? We really are going to hell in a handbasket.

The road to Elysium

2009-07-13T14:50:00.006+01:00

"The older I get, the better I used to be" - Lee Trevino

This weekend was filled with reminders that I am not the young hotshot I used to be. Saturday was spent pleasantly bimbling at Troller's Gill. I'd been before, but long enough ago to forget all the routes and enjoy the amnesia-onsight. Afterwards we swam in the Wharfe. Very pleasant, very relaxed.

Sunday I got the information from the internet that the classic "Arch Enemies" in Dovedale had been rebolted and tried to assemble a team to dispatch. Unfortunately, my friends have aged with me, and the reasons for non-attendance ranged from DIY to nest-building. With Jules under the weather I was at a loose end, so dragged myself down to watch the British Bouldering Championships in Millhouses Park.

I missed the ladies' final, but was just in time for the men's. The final turned out to be a battle between the young turks and the ageing tyros. Representing my generation were stalwarts Gaz Parry and Mark Croxall. Also, I was particularly pleased to see the Ginger Hulk, Roddie Mackenzie in the final. Back in my competing days I used to use Roddie as a kind of yardstick for how I was doing; we would always seem to do similarly well. Since then it appears Roddie has gone from strength to strength, he appears to have thighs for biceps... The young turks were represented by London-based beasts John Partridge and Bodley Chang, and northerners Dave Mason, Dave Barrans, and beastmaker svengali and current champ, Ned Feehally.

It soon became apparent that Barrans and Ned were in a different class to most of the other competitors. After three problems there was nothing between them, but the final two problems looked well reachy. Surely the relatively diminuitive Barrans had no chance? I guess I'd underestimated how much Dave has improved because he absolutely destroyed problem four. Ned was up next, and spent too much time looking for a technical solution to a vicious jump into an iron cross. With one problem left it was advantage Dave. The last problem had some massive moves on it, and not even Dave's ridiculous lock strength could save him. Ned had to do the problem in two tries or less to retain the title. By this point the (massive) crowd was doing their nut, and things only got more tense when Ned fluffed the starting move on his first go. When he destroyed the problem on his second go the crowd went beserk for the local boy.

The comps have come on so much in terms of spectacle and standard since I used to compete. Watching Dave and Ned battle it out in front of a crowd which was perhaps a thousand strong got me ridiculously psyched. Maybe I'll try the comps again next year.

The psyche lasted all the way home, so I thought I'd start getting in shape, and resume my running schedule. It was hard, but satisfying. There's no escaping the sad truth of ageing though. This morning, my hips hurt...

Perks of the job

2009-06-27T01:05:00.015+01:00

I travel a lot with work. Observing trips and conferences mean I travel far, and often. Tonight I'm in Chile, working on one of the telescopes at an observatory name La Silla, just inland from the beach resort of La Serena. I'm not here doing my own science, but am here to help my collaborators operate a camera built by a colleague at Sheffield.

It's a surprise to many people how much I moan about the travelling: I guess it seems like an exotic perk from an outside perspective. For me, the reality is somewhat different - hours in airports, weeks away from my wife and long, long nightshifts
at the telescope. At the moment, we are working during the Chilean winter. This means getting up at 3 p.m to run calibration tests on the camera, and then working non-stop until 8 a.m the next morning. Then it's back to bed to hope you can get to sleep for the seven hours you have before the work starts again...

Sunset from outside of my room, La Silla

With the long nights, and missing Jules, it's easy for me to forget that this is a privilege. Sometimes I remember... Tonight there was an absolutely amazing sunset as we were heading up to the telescope after dinner. Great sunsets are a mixed blessing in astronomy - good sunsets mean clouds, and that's never great. In fact, tonight we cannot open the telescope, so I get to waste time writing blog posts. It looks like it might clear up later though, and we get to do more science, which is, after all, why we're here. Despite all the grumbling, this is actually my favourite part of the job - working at the telescope if the time discoveries are made and by the end of the night, we might have found something entirely new... Either way, the sunset was pretty.

Sunset over the mountains from the La Silla Observatory. The Magellan telescopes can be seen in the distance

Bunch of bankers

2009-06-11T21:41:00.004+01:00

Not content with ruining the entire world's economy, bankers are making my life grim in more mundane ways too.

I like internet banking. I like the convenience. I like the fact that if someone wants me to make a bank transfer I can whip my phone out, and two minutes later they're a little bit richer. I like being able to check my balance anywhere. I heartily appreciate paying my bills from my office chair, and downloading statements into a spreadsheet so I can Scrooge and Nerd at the same time.

I guess the problem has always been that there is a compromise between convenience and security, but the banks always put a lot more emphasis on security than convenience. Of all the banks I use, the co-op are the worst by far in this respect. In order to prevent random folk from accessing my account I have to provide my account number and sort code, a four digit pin code, and then answer a randomly selected question from a list of topics which range from a memorable date or my mothers maiden name to my first school, and the girl who snogged me behind the bike sheds in 1988, for a bet.

Now, they've sent me one of those bloody card reader things. The inconvenience of accessing my account online has shot through the roof. Imagine the following scenario: I'm in my office, and receive an email from a nice Nigerian gentleman who needs my help, and is prepared to reward me handsomely. Previously, he would have been a few minutes away from the entire contents of my bank account, but now? Now, not only do I have to log on and pass the entrance exam, but I have to spend hours looking for this bloody blue piece of cheap electronics, some more hours finding replacement batteries for the thing, then another 35 minutes finding the manual, which I thought I'd put with the card reader, but actually found it's way under a pile of marking from three years ago.

By making me use one of these things they've robbed internet banking of it's convenience, which was the whole bloody point of the thing in the first place. It would have been quicker just to visit the nearest branch, for gods sake. And, I have to ask myself, who the hell is all this security for? Presumably, it's for my sake, but honestly I'm no Howard Hughes, and even if I was, surely it's my choice? Surely I can choose how much security I'd like, or how much convenience. But no, I'm forced to use the card reader, and so my life gets a little bit worse in one more annoyingly insignificant way. Bum.

Day 6

2009-06-08T12:01:00.007+01:00

Ding ding! Round 2!

Sunday morning in Sheff was cool, cloudy and windy. Perfect summer Malham conditions. As we hurtled along country lanes in Simon Lee's over-powered BMW estate-car-of-death I was feeling very excited, and not a little bit nervous. The closer we got to the Cove, the more my perfect ideal of crushing the Groove in awesome conditions seemed to fall apart. The clouds parted. The sun came out. Temperatures rose. As we walk along the path, nodding silently at the bloke from the National Trust, I am horribly aware that the wind is dropping. At the base of the cove itself it is warm and still as the grave.

Mark Hetherington (sp?) is established on the route already, but graciously allows me to use his clips so I sit down and wait while he has his first redpoint. He crushes it! I feel something approaching shock as I watch him on the route; watching him casually shake out in positions where I am desperately stabbing for holds. I feel outclassed.

My turn. The familiar routine of sticking the first bolt, smearing my palms with liquid chalk and pulling on too-tight five-tens. I feel strong and powerful all the way until the second move. After that, it's a shocking display. At one point, I think I'm going to fall before the first rest. Somehow I manage to wobble my way to the rest but my forearms are so pumped that it hurts and, deep down, I know this go is over. I try not to admit that to myself as I shake out. Don't look up. Don't think too much. Just relax. In the end I recover well at the rest, regaining some optimism as well as strength. It's not enough. A few moves higher and the pump is back with a vengeance. I barely manage to stab into the first move of the crux sequence before sagging defeated onto the rope. The bolt is by my waist. I go miles. I'm too pumped to care.

Back on the ground I am disheartened. I'm so tired. It's worse than last year. I've made no progress. I've read Jerry's book so I know the drill. I try and stay positive, learn my lessons, focus on the good points. I can't find any. I trudge back to my bags and pull on my "What would Jerry do?" T-shirt. Behind me, some wag comments "He would have pulled harder". This does not help.

My second go is no better. In fact it's worse. I've got nothing. I feel like an idiot for being so optimistic this morning. It would be fair to say I'm getting a little depressed. It's a good scene at the cove today; Polish Barbara is being dismayingly strong on the Maximum, Super-Ted is running around, hyper-enthusiastic, ticking everything as usual. The Haigh brothers are looking good (and sounding off!) on Cry Freedom. Normally I'd be into this, a bit of crag banter, watching people on their redpoints. Today I'm too miserable, too self absorbed. I curl up and have a nap instead.

"See you stu!" I wake up; Adam Lincoln is leaving. In fact, the crag is virtually empty. It is late and the Groove is in shade. What the hell, I might as well have another go. Again, it's the usual drill. Clip. Chalk. Boots. This time though, something is different. I get through the first bulge and I actually have strength left. I rush through to the rest, relax, relax, relax. Dammit - I'm too excited, too eager to get going. A quick shake out and I'm off. On the upper wall, still feeling strong... Into the crimps, still feeling strong... Into the crux sequence and I'm starting to pump out...

When I do a route there's often a moment, an otherwise insignificant event, when 'belief' starts to replace 'hope'. In the middle of the crux sequence, mid-move, I quickly flick my left hand, and I can feel it recover. Just a little bit. It's a tiny thing, but my mind latches onto it, and thinks, 'yeah'. The rest of the route becomes a sure-thing. My climbing is different, more aggressive, more certain. I get to my previous high point and feel a brief flicker of uncertainty, but then I grab the tiny sidepull and tube up. Yes! Yes! Powering up the final shallow groove, my energy-saving sequence is discarded in favour of the joy of feeling my muscles work after so many hard moves. A final tricky rock-over and I'm on the slab, stood in balance. I'm there! I may have let out a small roar in my excitement. Stripping the route, I take a large swing over the stream beneath the cove and look between my legs; this might be the most exposed moment of the route. It feels great.

I don't know why this route has meant so much to me. It's certainly not the hardest thing I've done, and since I started working it, it's probably had five or six ascents, all smoother and more composed than mine. But maybe it's because it always seemed like a route for other people. When I started sport climbing I was a boulderer. I got pumped on my warm ups. I would look up at people on the top of the Groove and they'd look like another species. Since then I've got fitter, and stronger, and probably just better too. The Groove lost none of its aura of impregnability. I trained all winter. I went to Spain, and onsighted routes of similar length, and only half a grade easier. Still, the Groove looked impossible. This morning, I know it isn't. YYFY.

Nemesis 5, Littlefair 0

2009-06-01T09:19:00.009+01:00

This weekend was not ideal Malham conditions. The village was packed with day trippers; lobster-pink and bulging unpleasantly out of their crop tops. On the walk into the Cove children and tattoed bikers dipped their toes in the stream. What were we doing here? Had we descended into a heat-induced mania?

Not quite. Jules and I were both possessed by desire for our various projects, and we had gambled on the late evenings meaning a decent session once the sun had departed from the walls of the cove. We were not alone; Steve Crowe and Karin Magog were also at the crag. Steve is attempting to repeat John Dunne's unparalleled ascent of the cove from top to bottom, in one push. It's a mighty undertaking which is often talked about, but never actually attempted, so I'm impressed to see someone with the chops to take it on. Steve is taking the marginally easier option of linking free 'n' easy into breach of the peace, and earlier in the week had fought his way up to the lip of the massive capping roof, only to be clawed back by the gaping void below. Today though it doesn't seem to be happening, and he heads down to his van with an early start in mind the next day.

I too am on the Groove, but with much smaller ambitions. I would dearly love to tick this route, probably THE stamina tick in the UK. The route starts up Something Stupid, a gnarly, awkward little 7b. After the chains of this route some powerful pulls on undercuts and sidepulls sees you established in the Groove and trying to milk an awkward rest, strung together from a tenuous bridge and an undercut mono. More hard pulls lead up to a 'good' rest, which is where your arms start to recover and your mind starts to pump out. From here it is 'only' 45 thin and intricate moves to the belay. The climbing above the rest is technical and crimpy, and leads to a very thin crux to reach an even thinner break. From here, a leftwards traverse on terrible footholds leads to a positive undercut and a desperate shake-out; only two more hard moves between you and a medal.

Counting attempts last year, this saturday makes day 4 for me on the Groove. This route is the reason for all the stamina training over the winter, and I hoped to have made major progress. Last year's efforts saw me failing on the first moves of the horribly technical crux. Today starts badly; I can't remember the bottom section and only just cobble together a sequence that leaves me panting at the rest. Worse still, my stamina training hasn't caused the revolution I'd hoped for and I'm not getting enough back. I fail again at last years high point. The next go is slightly better and I find myself established on the upper crux, but too pumped to move my feet. As night descends, hordes of midges hidden in its dark folds start to eat us alive. There is time for one more go. Rushed now I spend less time at the rest; revelation! I feel fresher on the top wall and fight into the crux proper. Excitement grips me as I firkle my fingers into the thin break. The traverse is a real fight but I find myself in the good undercut staring at the last moves. I move up and foot slips, so I drop a gear, let out a yell and catch the next hold, and the next one and....

No. Back on the rope, back on the ground, back in the car, back again another time.

Day 5. Steve's clips are out of the top roof. Did he succeed that morning? Has he given up? The rumour mill will provide. I feel tired from yesterday and nervous wondering if I can re-gain my high point, or perhaps a little higher? I have broken a barrier yesterday though, and I climb through the crux and into the traverse twice today. One attempt fails on the traverse itself, unable to bury my fingers in the deep undercut. The other attempt finishes slightly lower than yesterday, as the foot slippage which nearly ruined me yesterday is my undoing. I work out a better foot sequence and vow to return in cooler weather.

What an amazing route. How can anything be so hard, for so long? I am in awe of anyone who climbs it. On the drive home I spend my time thinking of a quiet man from Buxton who, one day in 1990, tied his laces below this route and strolled up it first time. A simple matter for the champion of the world. Simon Nadin, I salute you!

Rocklands!

2009-05-15T10:39:00.007+01:00

Climbers can be some of the greatest people on earth. Last weekend in Rocklands I got taken under the wing of four Swiss-Germans from Davos, and a couple of Hueco locals who were spending the summer there. These guys fed me BBq'd beef, gave me beer, and patiently spotted me whilst I flailed around on problems that were plainly too hard. Having turned up with no stove, and a single day's supply of biscuits these folk were a godsend, and cool to hang around with. They really made my trip.

I was very, very, very excited to be heading to Rocklands. The climbing looked amazing (hmmm, steep sandstone) and there were a couple of super-classic problems I was hoping to try. The reality wasn't quite as good as the hype, but it still seems like a really cool area, and I'd definitely consider going back. The deal with Rocklands is that there is bullet-hard sandstone absolutely everywhere. Miles of it. Unfortunately, much of it is too featured and juggy to make good bouldering, so there's a lot of grubbing around looking for problems. And because there are boulders everywhere, finding the needle of a hard problem in a haystack of jugs is not all that easy. A tame local would be a definite asset here. Also, when I was there it was hotter than a baboon's armpit. I'm not sure if it ever gets down to what I would consider bouldering temperatures; I definitely prefer the temperature in the single digits, and not somewhere in the 20's!

On my return home I dive back into training, and days at the Tor. I have a great weekend there with Rupert. Saturday we try Keen Roof, and I am delighted to have made progress; managing a link from the last big holds to the top. Rupert is looking really good on it, but needs to up the percentages on the difficult slap to the lip. Sunday: back at the Tor, despite our bruised tips and battered skin. Rupert puts in a great show on the roof, and would have ticked it had I not stood in his way causing him to catch me with his legs as he holds the swing. I feel very bad about this. I try Mecca Extension again and am delighted to get through Mecca twice in two goes; I am getting somewhere! Both attempts end high up, and on one go I fail again on the last move, too tired to place my heel properly. That is three times now I've failed on that move; the route must go soon!

Away again

2009-04-29T19:22:00.013+01:00

At the weekend I go to try Mecca Extension; it doesn't happen. I feel really fit, and even a little strong, but only get through Mecca itself once, and then I spoon the headwall. The genius of a route like Mecca is that it is so hard to beast it into submission. I'd say I'm in much better shape than last year, but getting somehow Mecca always manages to spit me off, no matter how strong or fresh I feel when I get there. I like a challenge like that. Tenacity #1 is there, and he looks smooth and precise on the top half. I envy him his technical assurance, but it will only come to me after years and years of climbing. I'm ok with that.

Sunday, it's back to another airport, another flight, another observing trip. This time it's a trip to South Africa, to look for new planets around other stars. This is a cool thing to be doing, and I'm very excited, but I'm feeling very guilty about the number of flights I've taken this year. I have a carbon footpath, not a carbon footprint. Modern telescopes are computer controlled and can very well be operated robotically (for example, have a look at this cool press release), so the days of traveling to observe are numbered. This is both good and bad. Good from a climate change point of view, but it's sad that astronomers won't be as connected to the process of looking at the stars.

The observatory at South Africa is great from this point of view. We're observing with the 1.9m Radcliffe telescope, and it's fully old school and manual. Finding your target star is done by moving the telescope around with a handset, opening the shutter is done with a little flywheel attached to the telescope. It's a more hands-on and satisfying observing experience than any I know. Shame, really, that it's raining...

Meanwhile, in the future...

2009-04-24T17:57:00.004+01:00

More climbing talk soon, I promise. But I'm in a mood for musing...

So the government also wants to give us £5k to buy an electric car, and £2k to replace our old banger with a shiny new car. But for someone worrying about their carbon footprint, motoring is a thorny issue; is there any realistic prospect that the guilt associated with piling your car with climbing gear and heading to Pembroke will be going anywhere soon?

Green motoring as it stands is a sorry compromise between ethics and practicality. The current options are limited to electrical cars which travel 40 miles between charges and take all night to charge again. But there are options available in the very near future which look very promising indeed...

Honda's FCX Clarity is a hydrogen powered vehicle which is already available (for an exorbitant rental fee) in California. Hydrogen-powered vehicles are a great solution for the motorist; apart from the lack of engine noise you could be driving a petrol car. The car is filled up at a bog-standard filling station. This is motoring as we know it. But hydrogen also has some pretty massive drawbacks. Each clarity costs $500,000 to make. That ain't cheap; it's unsurprising Honda reckons a mass-production car is about 10 years away. And making hydrogen is still difficult. The easiest way is using electricity (which would be sourced from zero-carbon power plants), but this is much less efficient than just using the electricity to charge a battery, which leads us to electric cars.

Electric cars suffer from one big drawback, which is that battery technology is a long way away from where we need it to be. Batteries do not store enough energy, don't charge quickly enough and are too big, heavy and expensive to be practical. Hence the terrible practicality of currently available electric 'cars', which resemble battery-powered Reliant Robins. Most car manufacturers are trying to engineer a solution to this problem that's contained entirely within the vehicle. We have the Mini-E, which uses the latest battery technology, and rips out the back seats to house it. The Mini-E does around 100 miles on a charge, takes only 3 hours to re-charge and is available now, if you live in California, and can afford $850 a month. Other manufacturers aim to produce so-called "plug-in hybrids" which run primarily on electric motors, but have small petrol engines to charge the battery and hence extend the range. The Chevrolet Volt is a prime example. Now plug-in hybrids should start turning up within a year or two, but forgive me if I can't get too excited about them; after all they still rely on burning petrol.

But why try and solve the problem entirely within the car? If the battery did not come with the car, but instead was part of the supporting infrastructure, the problem is solved. Battery-changing stations can be set up next to existing petrol stations, and a battery swapped for a new one in minutes when your charge gets low. Coupled with charging stations at home this means electric cars can have the same range as a petrol or diesel model. And electric cars are fun to drive; they are torquey and accelerate very fast indeed (the Mini-E will do 0-60 in 5.5s). Furthermore, buying an electric car without a battery would be much cheaper; the battery makes up a lot of the cost of existing vehicles. Why would I want to buy a big battery anyway? It's a bit like car manufacturers insisting I have to buy a little oil-well with every new car. A large infrastructure of charging car batteries has fringe benefits too. One of the problems with renewable sources of electricity is that it's hard to predict when the electricity will be generated. Windy days produce excess electricity and calm days not enough; a large pool of car batteries would make a convenient storage location for the excess electricity, and the charging stations could be hooked up to the grid, feeding energy back in when the renewable sources couldn't pull their weight.

This isn't some pie-in-the-sky idea either. This is happening now. American start-up company Better Place is rolling out this infrastructure in Israel, Denmark, Australia, California and Hawaii, with Renault providing the cars. In Israel, the cars will be available next year, and will cost roughly the same as a petrol model to buy. The only downside at the moment is the cost of leasing the batteries; prices in the region of $500/month are being suggested. For a heavy driver, you might be spending this much in petrol costs now, but it's still very expensive. however, the price should come down very rapidly as the infrastructure grows, and battery tech improves. Schemes like this are really exciting; I wish it would be adopted in this country. Write to your MP!!

But what should you do if you have to replace your car today? Well, a range of so called eco-diesels are being introduced by the likes of Ford, Seat and VW. These models are actually pretty impressive; Ford's Econetic Fiesta and the eco-versions of the Seat Ibiza and VW Polo do around 70 mpg, and impressively emit less than 100 g of CO2 per kilometre. That's more than 50% less than my 10-yr old Polo. In fact, it's so low that these vehicles are tax exempt. And they're not awful to drive either, the Fiesta does 0-60 in a reasonable 12s, and the lowered suspension apparently makes the handling better than the standard model. Cars like this are currently a much greener option that a Toyota Prius, and should be the first port of call for someone replacing their motor. What bothers me about them though, is the tiny changes the car manufacturers made to achieve these figures. Slightly lowered suspension, shedding a small amount of work, slightly narrower tyres and (most importantly) a longer ratio gearbox. If this is all it takes to get excellent fuel efficiency, what the hell have car makers been playing at the last twenty years??!?

A greener, better future...

2009-04-23T10:21:00.003+01:00

I promised a post on the future of green motoring, and then the budget came out, and got me all depressed. The chancellor is pinning his hopes on a "hi-tech Britain that will lead our economic recovery". To achieve this, he has announced a £750 million investment fund for "innovative businesses" in hi-tech industries. But where are these innovative businesses to come from? Very often, they emerge from our universities, as academics take their bright research ideas and collaborate with industry to design a new product, or improve manufacturing techniques for existing products. As a result, a hi-tech economy needs to be underpinned by a strong and healthy research sector. Likewise for higher education; the hi-tech economy needs well educated physicists and biologists and chemists like never before.

So how has the chancellor ensured a thriving research sector? By cutting the Department of Innovation, University and Skills' (DIUS) budget by £118 million, to be achieved by "refocussing spend on new research priorities". This can only be civil-servant speak for axing science the government thinks is unlikely to yield immediate economic impact. Things get worse later on, as the budget states that DIUS should move a further £106 million of funding from existing projects in order to support "key areas of economic potential".

What this boils down to is that something like £200 million is to be taken away from blue-skies research, and maybe £100 million of that put back into areas that the Government thinks is likely to yield economic return in the short term. This comes at an awful time for the organisations that fund science; the physics research council already has something like a £70 million shortfall in its budget, because the cost of things like CERN has risen massively (we pay our subscription in euros).

So, at a time when we need a thriving hi-tech sector to drive our economic recovery, the chancellor has cut funding for research. Worse, he believes that he will be able to fund only those bits of research that provide jobs in industry now; designing more efficient batteries, building satellites and developing new drugs. I don't think it works like that. Those industries rely on the cutting edge blue-skies research for their ideas. An example; the ground-breaking cooling technology developed for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is now being used by the massive fusion project ITER, in France. The breakthrough needed to help develop clean energy for the future came from a £10 billion exercise in curiosity. You may think it's right to focus research spending on green technology. I'd agree. But you can't do that by pulling money out of other areas of research.

Hi-tech industries also rely on the universities for their supply of manpower. For this reason, funding curiosity-driven research is also important. The overwhelming majority of student who study physics, for example, state an interest in particle physics, or astronomy as their reason. No-one chooses to study physics at university because they always loved L.E.Ds as a kid. But the same undergraduates who studied physics because they were inspired by astronomy went on to be the solid state physicists who designed efficient L.E.D lighting, which is a vital element in reducing our energy usage, and a growing hi-tech industry. If you want a thriving hi-tech economy you have to invest in science across the board. This is what happened in America, with Obama's budget announcing a massive uplift in science spending, particularly in energy research. Something similar really should have been done here.

On a personal level, this is very bad news for astronomy in the UK. Our budget was already being squeezed, with funding for astronomy projects and postdocs being cut to allow research areas with more "economic potential" to be funded. This budget only ensures that this process will accelerate. That's bad news for me, but also for the UK economy as a whole.

Vignette

2009-04-16T16:46:00.004+01:00

I'm working up to a couple of weighty posts on moral crises of our times, and the future of green motoring. Neither of those are appearing today, but I did find a tasty turn of phrase here on the blogosphere....

"Alas, many people, perhaps even a majority, have decided that I need to respect their beliefs simply because they hold them. To these folk, we are all special, unique flowers who must be allowed to blossom unfettered by the fat slug of reasoning."

I must admit, I've often found pleas to 'respect my beliefs' more than a bit annoying. All the more so if their beliefs are beyond contempt, let alone respect. At these times, I shall remember that turn of phrase, and have a little chuckle

Decision Time

2009-04-15T12:41:00.000+01:00

The problem is simply framed; climb or train? Over the winter I have made really good progress, both in performance and injury management, following an indoor training plan, with only the weekends free for climbing outdoors. Now the days are getting longer, do I continue to follow the plan, or head out and enjoy the fruits of my winter's labour?

The decision is not so simple to make as there are two factors to consider; which will have the most beneficial effect on my climbing, and which will I find most satisfying? Honestly, I'm thinking of staying on the plan. Most climbers would find it bizarre to actively turn down opportunities to climb in favour of training, but there are a few reasons I think this is the right thing to do.

For a start, I've seen great improvement so far following the plan and I think it's my best chance of moving on to the next level in climbing. I don't want to appear an obsessive grade chaser, but then I've spent more years than most climbing for climbing's sake, and there's always my dotage to go out and smell the flowers. Then there's the practicality of it; for various reasons my work/life balance is moving steadily work-wards, and a few hours at the wall is a more realistic option than an evening on the lime. Lastly, but by no means leastly, Jules is fully committed to a season of training. Climbing with Jules is my favourite thing, and it wouldn't be the same heading out without her. For these reasons I think the training is the way to go.

And yet, somehow, it just seems wrong to go indoors when the sun is shining...

Wet, wet, wet

2009-04-14T14:47:00.006+01:00

It's good to be back in Blighty, if only for some dry rock. This is what L'Olla looked like on our last day. And to think I'd told Ruth Smitton that Pota d'Elefant would be dry...

Sector L'Olla on a dry day

me caga en dio

2009-04-11T10:42:00.000+01:00

Oh dear. After our rest day we had four possible climbing days left. The plan was to climb every day, interspersing hard days with easier days so we wouldn't need to take days off.

The weather has not been kind; it has rained four of the four possible days, and on two nights the area has been rocked by rainstorms of biblical proportions. Luckily, Margalef is sufficiently fast drying that we have been able to get some climbing done.

We had one day at the excellent Racó de Tenebres. This is a very steep venue on conglomerate that is so pebbly it looks like rubble from below. The climbing is mostly deep two finger pockets, with the occasional large "potato" to shake out on. The main action here is two very good 7c's and an excellent 8a, which luckily stay dry in the rain, apart from the last few feet. This made them very busy indeed, though we were lucky enough to get there before the crowds so I could onsight the 7c's. No such luck with the 8a, but the vast amount of beta that could be gathered from a large boulder that made the perfect viewing gallery meant a flash ascent was pretty straightforward.

That day has turned out to be the highlight of the second week though sadly. The next day I re-injured the tendon I ruptured last October whilst trying to onsight an 8a that was very wet. It's not serious, but coupled with the wet rock and rain meant it seemed best not to climb much the last two days. Today the weather has finally beaten us down, and we haven't even tried to find a dry crag. Instead, we're packing to go home, and wondering how to fit the stuff that Jules has accumulated over six months in Barcelona into our Jet2 baggage allowance...

rest day blues

2009-04-07T18:14:00.000+01:00

Today is a rest day, and I thought I'd write a little bit about our gite; Pla de Castell, in Albarca. Don't stay here. The house is tiny, the advertised 2nd bedroom is a desultory loft in the living room with almost three feet of headroom. The "bath" is a tiny little tub that even I don't fit in and into which dirt falls with depressing regularity from a small window overhead. Worst of all, the oh-so-charmingly-rustic rock walls are treated with a damp-proof chemical which smells like creosote, gives us headaches, keeps us awake at night and means we need the windows open, so it's freezing. Today it is also pissing down, so our rest day has not been a pleasant affair.

Yesterday was very nice, by contrast. Margalef was pleasantly cool in the shade and the routes were nice. I made a terrible choice of warm up route and acquired a new A2 pulley tweak as a reward. Nothing too serious, but it kept me from trying what I wanted, so instead I stuck to onsighting a few routes between 7b and 7c. Joy of joys: the run of form I've hit in the last few days shows no sign of vanishing and I found the routes much easier than I would have before. Looks like I'm going to be much more irritatingly evangelical about my training when I get home!

All of Sheffield is in Spain at the moment. I bumped into Ben Heason whilst shopping today, and he tells me Lucy Creamer has ticked her 8b+ project, Kale Borroka. This is a mega effort, especially in the current weather, and finishes up an amazing run of form for her this winter. I think she's got about a week before she comes home, so buy her a drink if you see her...

Mobile Blogging from here.

the sweet smell of failure

2009-04-07T15:48:00.001+01:00

Sometimes a good failure can be almost as satisfying as success. One goal I had for this trip was an onsight of an 8a+. Like all mindless grade-chasers I had already carefully selected a route to try; Flix-Flax. The route fit all necessary criteria, including the most important one; lots of onsights on 8a.nu, and widely regarded as being very soft touch. Today being our last day at terradets it was time to have a stab.

At first, the all-new stamina-stu proved up to the task - climbing with confidence up to the crux, and having the endurance to shake out below it until I'd worked a sequence out. After the crux I fought my way through seemingly endless wall climbing, making slow but steady progress. Things started to look a little ropy when I reached a good shake below the top roof, pumped out of my gourd, and couldn't get anything back. Just too tired to recover, I pushed on anyway, snatching desperately through the top roof and finally failing only two moves from the chain. I lowered off happy, safe in the knowledge I'd have got nowhere near that far last year.

It's fair to say that I'm not an relentlessly sunny individual and, sure enough, the happy feeling didn't last. 10 minutes later I was cursing my luck and feeling robbed. Luckily, my ego was saved by an onsight of Effecte 2000; a very soft 8a at the top end of the crag. Not much to say about that, except it felt pretty steady. I am clearly a legend.

Now we head to Siurana/Margalef for a week. As has now become a tradition, big ticks in the Littlefair family are celebrated with McDonalds, so we stopped in Lleida on the way to toast a succesful week with McNuggets, Coke and a McFlurry. Class, although we didn't see Sharma there.

non estop

2009-04-07T11:53:00.000+01:00

Walking up to Bruixes the day after my rest day I was feeling the little knots of tension in my stomach that have become all too familiar before a hard redpoint. I think I had come to need a quick redpoint of Non-estop in order to believe that the winter's training had been worth the effort.

I was gutted to see that the night's rain had left the tufas much wetter than before, and all the holds in the cave were full of wet, tacky chalk. After some hard work with a towel, and a new sequence to avoid the wettest holds though I realised it was still on. Tying on I made it through to the rest at the lip of the roof with much more ease than before, and tried to relax, getting as much strength back as I hung from my toes and a single hand. This was were I could feel the winter's effort working; as the strength came back I knew that a year ago the same position would have seen me slowly pumping out. I was still getting something back from the rest when my toes gave out and I had to push on. Hoping I'd got enough back I raced up the opposing tufa pinches on the headwall, reaching the final jugs with seconds of strength left to spare.

I was really fucking chuffed to make it up this route; I feel certain I would not have been capable before the training, and it's great to see it paying off. Later in the day I tried to onsight a tough 7c+, Xarop de Basto. Defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory as I again misread the sequence a few bolts before the top. Again though, I feel like I've transformed myself as a climber. I spent a long time on the route, shaking and relaxing at the rests. A year ago, this route would have been a desperate sprint against time; there'd have been nowhere I could have recovered.

It's interesting to see this transformation as it reminds me yet again that there is no weakness that can't be trained. I used to believe that I just couldn't recover on routes, that it was a flaw I would have to live with. I see this in other climbers time and time again - "I'm not a strong climber", "I have bad flexibility", "I have no stamina". Always said as if this was some unalterable truth, and not the call to action that it really is. I've come to believe that anything about your climbing, from your weaknesses to your head, or even the speed you climb at, can and should be trained so that it becomes your best asset, instead of your favourite excuse.

After today, I feel very positive. Time to try some onsighting...

what's my motivation?

2009-04-02T18:38:00.000+01:00

Sometimes it seems my motivation to climb harder comes from competition and jealousy. I read today that Gaz Parry has climbed another 8c in Spain. I'm psyched for Gaz, but my initial reaction was one of jealousy, with a tinge of bitterness. Is that a bad thing? As implied above, it can be motivating. It would be bad if it affected the way you treat others, but I hope I'm a nice enough guy never to be anything but outwardly pleased when someone crushes. Nevertheless, there's always a part inside me crying "why can't it be me?"

Not the best day at the crag today; cold, wet and windy, with dampness starting to come through on all routes. More like an April day at Malham than Spain. I felt too sore to try non-estop again, and a shortage of clips meant starting new projects was difficult. I satisfied myself by re-climbing some 7b's and c's I did last year, which already had clips in. Also, I tried to onsight a mega-looking 7c+ called "Mallorca es funky", but fell just before a good rest; I conclude I am very poor at reading tufas...

Rest day again tomorrow, after which I plan to crush non-estop and onsight a few routes before we move venues. However, today's heavy rain and more forecast for tomorrow may mean that seepage stops play. Just hope the gite lady doesn't mind me making her towels muddy...

fatigue

2009-04-01T21:10:00.000+01:00

Interesting day today; I wanted to try a very nice looking 8b in the cave at the top of the crag called "non-estop". Rupert had told me it was both excellent, and hard. It most certainly is excellent: a line of large holds and large moves through the roof, to a toe-hang rest on the lip, and then a sprint up twin pinchy tufas on the headwall. It felt fine on the onsight/dog attempt, so I was surprised to get fully spanked on the two redpoint attempts I had. I think it's been a long time that I mis-judged the difficulty of a route so much. In fact; it is so draining that my legs felt like jelly after each attempt and my heart was racing as I lay on the ground, trying to recover. I even needed a snooze after my first go! As I write this, a few hours later I am still actually pumped!

I hope that I'll be able to tick it tomorrow, but my fingers feel a bit rough after so long off, and I don't want to push it. To be honest, I'm a bit dissapointed - I've been training like a bastard, and it's been a few years since an 8b took me more than one day. I'd hoped to have made more progress in my climbing. Hmm.

On the other hand, I don't think I've ever climbed an 8b with so many moves, so perhaps my expectations are too high. Either way, I'll have to stop writing, 'cos the pump is coming back!

Update...

2009-03-31T18:34:00.002+01:00

It's been simply forever since I wrote anything, mostly because I've been away at a conference on binary stars in Arizona. Conferences are always time-sappers; lectures all day and then drinking all night. After the conference I had a few days to check out Arizona, visiting the desert around Arizona, the Grand Canyon etc. The Grand Canyon was ace - much better than I'd been led to expect. Perhaps the people who leave unimpressed don't take the time to fully explore? We walked up and down to the bottom, which was a long day out, but the canyon is very pretty up close, so it was well worth it.

After coming home from Arizona I had half a day at home to do my washing and headed out for a fortnight climbing in Spain. We are near Terradets now, avoiding the Brit-fest that Siurana has turned into this week (I think the entire UK sport scene is there this week). I'm intentionally trying to build up slowly as three weeks off coupled with monster jet-lag is probably not compatible with caning it and not getting injured. Bruixes is still awesome though, and have opened the account by ticking Primera Linea, 8a and onsighting a few 7c's in the last few days. Today is a rest day and I'll try and up the ante a bit tomorrow...

Lurgy

2009-03-09T13:40:00.004Z

The last time Jules was home I got some horrid vomiting bug, and spent the weekend in bed. On her return to Barcelona Jules caught it too. It is most unpleasant, resulting as it does in a bloated feeling and unpleasant gassy farts combined with a continual nausea, aching joints and general weakness.

Bizarrely, this weekend Jules was home once more, and once more the same bug returned. We both felt a bit grim heading up to Malham, and the general cold & wet conditions at the crag didn't help things much either. Nevertheless, as predicted Jules & I crushed. Well, Jules did very well on Raindogs, finding all the moves steady and putting in some decent links. I spooned off the last moves of Connect 5 thanks to some wet footholds, but felt very strong and (more importantly) fit on it, which is pleasing as Connect 4 has always been a bogey route for me (5 days to RP it)!

Sunday we tried to go to the works, but it was hard enough getting out of bed, and we only lasted five minutes there before calling it a day and heading home to watch the latest Indiana Jones film on DVD. It was OK actually, probably if I was still 15 I'd enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the other Indy movies.

La Reunion

2009-03-06T14:01:00.001Z

My wife is coming home from Spain for the weekend! I can't wait. I miss her loads whilst she's away, and together we will crush Malham tomorrow, just you wait and see!

Big, black binary bruisers

2009-03-05T11:57:00.001Z

This is probably the coolest astronomical find of the year.

Rooftop fun

2009-03-05T09:53:00.004Z

There's an observatory on the roof of the physics building here in Sheffield. We use it for teaching the students, but until last night I'd never actually used it myself. Last night I went up with three students to try an observe an eclipsing binary star for their 3rd year project, and it was great! Sadly there was a lot of cloud around, so the data won't be useful, but the experience of hands-on observing was very different to that I normally experience at a professional observatory, where everything is computer controlled.

The telescope on the roof is fully manual, and finding your star is a difficult and very interesting job. All in all I loved it, and actually hope to do some more observing for myself, if we get some clear nights in future!

something's gotta give

2009-02-28T20:37:00.000Z

"When an irresitable force such as you
Meets an old immovable object like me
You can bet just as sure as you live
Something's gotta give, something's gotta give, something's gotta give. " - Frank Sinatra

Well, ol blue eyes was right. No matter what I threw at it today, the cave would not budge, and I have to cope with failure on not one, but two projects I thought I'd destroy today. To be honest i'd become too cocky, hoping i'd tick at least two 8a+'s today, and without breaking into a sweat. Mostly I wanted to tick In Hell, which I thought I'd be ok on, having got to the last move a fortnight ago, even when exhausted. Today though, I was weak as a kitten, and really struggling on rock atrocity, up which it finishes. Again, I got to the last move, but that last move is a heartbreaker and I just sagged onto the mats. Next time. I'd also wanted to try cave life, the left hand exit from the cave, but I was exhausted from the goes on in hell and couldn't get through the start again.

Never mind, I shall try hard to maintain my currently high levels of confidence and try to get back to the cave as soon as possible, although that is looking like sometime in may, now that work commitments are starting to kick in...

Crushing

2009-02-24T20:30:00.004Z

I feel on fire, like an unstoppable tsunami of crush approaching the puny shores of my projects.

This weekend I took another guilt-ridden cheap flight to Spain to see the missus, and the mighty cave of Sta Linya, in that order. On the menu was a quick ascent of Rollito Sharma, the classic 8b/+ of the cave and a beefy joyride of tufas, toe hooks and knee-bars. I have wanted to do this route for a LONG TIME, so my arrival at the cave was greeted with a bout of redpoint nerves more appropriate for breaking new grade territory. This probably explained why my first redpoint ended in a couple of skipped clips, a doom-laden awareness of fading power and a girly scream to draw attention to my failure.

The next go, obviously, I crushed.

Young Tom Bolger and Lynne Malcom turned up a bit later, joining the very strong Belgian crew already hanging out there and we had a lovely three days camping at the cave, huddling round the fire for warmth and climbing as hard as our bodies allowed. I spent most of the weekend trying the 8c extension to Rollito, which is very hard indeed (and my new obsession) and flashing a few 7s and a 8, thanks to Tom and Lynne's excellent beta. The missus continued her mini-siege of the 5-star mega pumpfest 7c on the right of the cave. Sadly she suffered from an error in her beta that none of us noticed until too late. The error was only corrected on her fifth go of her third day on, and somehow she still found the endurance to crank through to the last moves, before the "oh-my-god-I've-made-it-don'tblowitnowohshit" gremlins pulled her earthwards. An inspiring effort!

Talking of inspiration, what a climber Tom is. There's been a bit of coverage of his antics in the press recently but he really is shaping up to be a very impressive climber indeed. He recently ticked yet another 8c and has his eyes on something bigger for the future. I hope he gets the recognition he deserves. Below is a piccie of him on the latest 8c, Favelita.

La Cueva de la Justicia II

2009-02-15T22:07:00.005Z

No, not that cave - the other cave of justice, Parisella's. A year ago I was there whilst the Mighty Sutton tried to crush In Hell, an 18 move 8a+ starting in the back of the cave and finishing up Rock Atrocity. I had a couple of goes on the crux and it seemed really good but hard; I've wanted to get back and try it since then. Last week Rupert got stuck in, so today I joined him for a session.

Damn, it feels hard! The holds are actually pretty damn big, but the moves are long and powerful, and it quickly tires out your back and shoulders. The initial sequence to the Rock Atrocity jug was causing me a lot of trouble until I worked out a sequence which took the beef out of the sequence by using a few extra heels. By then though I was completely exhausted and realistically had little chance. It put me in mind of a passage from Jerry's book; he would contemplate a hard redpoint and think "It would be just like me to snatch this out of the bag", and then crush it. So I set off and gave it every last ounce of juice, making it to the last move of Rock Atrocity and then choked, getting nervous and fluffing the foot sequence. That was my last go. Rupert did brilliantly too, nearly ticking the problem despite having climbed very little this year - what a beast.

Although we were trashed by now, we thought it would be a good idea to work the left hand finish, another 8a+ which heel-hooks and toe-scums it's way into the left wall traverse. I think this might be a little easier for me than the RA finish, as I linked it from the RA jug at the end of the session. I'm incredibly psyched to go back and try and tick these both in my next session, but first - some unfinished business in the other cave of justice....

On the way home Ru persuaded me to stop and take pictures of the factories near Ellesmere Port. Not the most traditionally pretty scene, but a day in Parisella's is all about finding beauty in unusual locations.

ace again

2009-02-14T21:14:00.000Z

Was undecided about what to do today. I'd heard Malham was dry, as was Parisella's, but wasn't sure if I could face such a big mission.

Inspired by Ben Morton's efforts on the Joker I headed out to the plantation to try the Ace. I was surprised how much snow is still around, and the road to the plantation is still shut. Even so, there were plenty of people out, enjoying the cold, dripping boulders.

I have a lot to learn about the ace. I got to the last move today over ten times, but was never anywhere near the top. This means I've made no significant progress for 8 years now. Wierdly, I remain optimistic, especially as Ben has referred to a 'secret' that makes the last move easy. One day I'll find that secret, or maybe someone will actually tell me!

Low fat spreads

2009-02-11T20:57:00.004Z

Today I visited Warwick University to give a seminar on some work I've been doing on star formation. It's always nerve-wrecking standing up and presenting your ideas to a group of peers, and today could have been really bad, as my sickness meant I didn't have time to practice the talk. Still, I think it went reasonably well, and no-one actually threw any rotten fruit, from which I can deduce the talk was received with polite interest. I'll take that.

There's still a lot we don't know about how stars are born. For example, we know that they form from dense clouds of dust and gas, but how long does that process take? Theoretical estimates range from 250,000 years to almost 10 million years; which is a quite a range of disagreement! One thing that could help us decide is that, when we look at areas of the sky in which young stars form, there seems to be stars with ages ranging from 1 to 10 million years old. That seems to favour the slower star formation theories, as it's hard to get stars with a wide spread of ages if the whole show is over in only a few hundred thousand years.

Unfortunately, it's a bit more complicated than that. It almost always is. In this case, there are quite a few reasons why we might not be able to trust the ages we estimate for young stars. One of these is that these stars haven't quite finished accumulating all their material yet, and models which don't take account of this could get the ages wrong. In the talk I presented some evidence that this is exactly what's going on, and went on to argue that there weren't large age spreads amongst groups of newly-born stars after all, which is good news if you work on theories that suggest that star-formation is rapid.

I had hoped to get some training in when I got home, but the man-flu has not left me yet and I've gone straight to bed. I definitely need to work on not getting grumpy when unable to train...

Jerry was sickening!

2009-02-10T09:35:00.001Z

This weekend was a bit of a dissapointment for me. In search of dry venues we headed to Almscliffe but the snow had started to melt, and it was largely unclimbable. We headed to the new bouldering wall in Leeds, which will be very good once the route setting beds down a bit. Sunday we did routes at the foundry, and to be honest I felt awful. I got so pumped so quickly, and got in a bit of a strop about it.

Still - there was Jerry's lecture to look forward to. We were fully prepared for the icy venue and brought a blanket to sit under. Sadly, even Jerry's talk was a bit of a let down. It was a decent show, but many of the photos and stories were familiar to me and the man himself seemed a bit unprepared and unsure of what to say. Worse still, I was beggining to suffer from a dodgy belly (which made me laugh when Siobhan caught a whiff of one of my farts and demanded to know who had brought soup!). My belly rapidly got worse and by midnight I was fully in the grip of some death-virus. Shivers, headache, aching joints, vomiting, diarrheoa - this baby had it all. Monday was little better but I am now starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. With any luck, it will be good for weight loss, to make up for the training I've missed!

The professional

2009-02-04T10:06:00.005Z

Last night I finished Jerry's book. It's a good read, and there are plenty of fascinating insights into the great mans mind. What struck me was just how thoroughly professional he was in his climbing. Anything that would give him an edge, he'd try it. Famously he blagged the first sticky rock boots from Bachar for routes like Ulysses and Master's Wall, but on Master's Wall he left them in the sun to heat up, and become stickier. That's professional. When he did the Dominator, he existed solely on salad for weeks, and microwaved his chalk, so that there would be no moisture in it at all. That's professional. Many of us say we want to excel at climbing, but do we go to those lengths? When I finished school, I applied to university, and thought about my career. Jerry didn't have to think about it - he hitched to Stoney and lived in a shed, because that's where the hardest routes are. So, few of us share Jerry's level of desire, but we could all learn something from his professionalism. Why lose skin trying a problem in bad conditions? Why climb in worn out boots, or dirty boots? What possible excuse can there be for having too many goes, or not resting enough, or resting too much, or pulling on without sussing the sequence. Professionalism. It's the future...

The power of the internet

2009-02-01T21:24:00.007Z

The internet is a war-cry, a tool for rallying the troops. If you want to get everyone dancing on the tube, use the internet. Likewise if crag has been unjustly neglected, and needs some serious re-evaluation, use the internet.

Last week, on ukbouldering, Jon Fullwood gave us all a very stern scolding for ignoring the subtle hints he'd been dropping for years about the bouldering potential at Birchen. As a result, and seemingly overnight, Birchen was transformed from dusty, neglected backwater to major Peak scene and the place to be™. This saturday, a massive complement of the great and the good of peak district climbing turned up to sample Birchen's rare delights.

Nick Sellars on 'Thing on a Spring 7a'

There must have been over twenty folk there, presided over by the word-fizzing Master Fulwood himself. Despite the vast amount of talent and experience present, everyone still sloughed-off skin trying the hard problems in lousy conditions, but it wasn't really until the sun dipped towards the horizon and it started to cool off that people started getting stuff done. Most folk focussed on the area around Hornblower; this section of the crag has seven good problems to go at, and a couple of projects still remaining. All the existing problems got a number of repeats, and Ru Davies and Andy Banks were close-but-no-cigar on the right-hand project. I think a good day was had by all, and I heartily recommend you add Birchens to your list of venues.

Jerry Moffatt - Outlier

2009-01-28T11:00:00.005Z

I have been reading Malcom Gladwell's book "Outliers". It's an analysis of what it takes to be the best of the best, and to a certain extent it's a debunking of the rags-to-riches stories of personal genius that you often hear. The ones where a plucky individual succeeds against all odds because of his innate talent and hard work. In the book, Malcom makes a point which is obvious in hindsight: by definition the very very top performers will be the ones who not only had innate talent, but had the odds stacked in their favour. The classic example of this is the Silicon Valley millionaires - sure Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Bill Joy are all bright guys, but to take advantage of the revolution in computing you had to have the right background and be the right age at the right time. Hence, all three mentioned above were born between Nov 1954 and Oct 1955.

As I said, this isn't really that surprising. Two things did jump out and grab me though. If you want to be the best, you need talent, and the odds stacked in your favour. How much talent do you need? Maybe not that much: Gladwell makes an interesting case that you only need to be 'good enough'. The example he uses is to win a Nobel prize you need a good IQ, maybe 120. However, you're not more likely to win a Nobel if your IQ is 180 than if your IQ is 160. Gladwell argues that once your innate talent reaches a certain threshold, other factors become the ones that determine the outcome, for example whether you were raised in the right environment, whether you were born at the right time and perhaps most intriguingly - how hard you work.

In the book, Gladwell discusses the 10,000 hour rule, which states that in order to become world-class at anything from computer programming, to sports, to music, to business, you have to get in 10,000 hours of practice. He cites an interesting study of violin players, which found no exception to that rule. That's amazing! The study found no "innate musical genius" - no-one with world-class ability who hadn't done his or her practice, and that's fair enough. The real stunner is that the stufy found no "grafters"; no-one who had put in the time and effort who wasn't world class. Think about the implications of that for a minute. Now, if you became a professional violin player in the first place you had to have some talent, but the conclusion seems to be that if you have that talent, and put in your 10,000 hours, you will be world class.

Taken altogether, Gladwell's book suggests we throw out the idea that world-class performers are intrinsically better than us, and instead view them as people who were talented, sure, but more importantly had the very best of opportunities, and worked like a shire-horse to take advantage of them. Now, Gladwell's arguments aren't watertight and you could spend days arguing about them but instead, let's take them at face value and think about how they pertain to something important, like climbing.

By strange co-incidence, and as mentioned yesterday, the autobiography of a certain Jerry Moffatt landed on my doorstep yesterday. Jerry is the big-cheese of rock climbing: the daddy of outliers. When Jerry declared he was the best climber in the world back in the 80's no-one could really challenge him because he had proven it time and time again. But what made Jerry the world's best climber? Certainly he claims he was not the most talented of his peers when he was starting out. But he was born at exactly the right time, when the benefits of systematic training for rock climbing were becoming obvious. He had the good fortune to start climbing early. Most importantly, Jerry wanted to be the best. He wanted it more than anything, and he worked and worked and worked until he damn well was the best.

So, let's say you're a half-decent climber, and you want to be better than that. You want to be the best in the world. Then nothing's stopping you - all you've got to do is put your 10,000 hours in, but that's a lot of climbing. Say a training session is 4 hours long. Maybe 2-3 sessions a week? Longer at the weekend - perhaps 10 hours of climbing in a weekend. You'll still need to put in 500 weeks, or nearly ten years of climbing in total. Best get started!

Gone with the Wind

2009-01-27T20:59:00.013Z

My last weekend in Catalunya. Jules trains Wednesdays and Fridays, because that's when her favourite people are down the wall. That means Saturdays are rest days, and I spent this one doing as little as humanly possible (i.e watching Knight Rider in Spanish) before picking up the hire car and heading off to Siurana for the weekend. There were high winds on the motorway, but we were surprised to get messages from our parents asking if we were OK. Apparently, "Storms rage through Northern Spain" was the top news story on the BBC website. It must have been bad in places as three people were killed when a roof collapsed north of Barcelona. The wind got worse as we approached Siurana. There were lots of fallen trees, some blocking the road and one which had crushed the bonnet of a passing car, which must have put the fear of god in its occupants. When we arrived at Siurana things were pretty wild; the electricity to the whole valley was out, and the campsite was running on generators. I was keen to see how bad the wind was first hand and went out to climb Remena Nena - a classic slabby 7a near the road. Suffice to say it was very windy, and that a thin slab turned out to be an exceptionally poor choice of route. I managed to scrabble my way to glory eventually, though. Overnight the wind got worse, ripping the roof clean off the kid's bungalow (see pic), but the wind had almost entirely gone by morning.

We headed to Margalef, where we were surprised to meet Britain's Best Lady Climber™, Lucy Creamer, who is on a road trip to the area. After warming up I got stuck into a cool 8b up the middle of the wall. Basically, it was two British-style 7c+'s on small pockets stuck together with a good rest at half height. With beta from Lucy, who did the route just before New Year (beast!), it succumbed second redpoint with little fuss. It felt nice to be back doing hard-ish routes again, but before my ego gets too big I present to you the following fact. Just before we arrived the crag, Czech wunder-kind Adam Ondra onsighted the same 8b. For his warm-up. I am slack-jawed in amazement. Incidentally, Lucy made very short work of the 8a+ to the left this weekend, ticking it in two very short days of work. I've got an enormous amount of respect for Lucy's climbing, and I'm not sure if people realise how many impressive ascents like this she has made with very little fuss...

The next day our old friend the wind was back, and it was cloudy and cold. I was freezing just walking around the campsite, so Jules and I reckoned it was too grim for climbing. We had arranged to meet and climb with a Swedish chap called Pär, so we dragged ourselves out of bed anyway. Pär thought Raco de Mísa would be sheltered and it looked sunny too, so we risked a walk-up. It was perfect! We warmed up in T-shirts and Jules excelled herself by onsighting the excellent 7a+ in this picture; her hardest ever onsight, and a real step forward for her to keep her head together on such a long lead. I was dead chuffed for her! As Jules set off up her next route, a huge weather front rolled over the ridge and by the time Jules got down it was snowing. It was so pretty to be up at Montsant, watching the flakes drift lazily around the amphitheater. I felt as excitable as a kid at christmas. Unfortunately, it had become too cold to carry on climbing so we began the long drive home.

So now I'm home in Sheffield again, and Jules and I are living in different cities once again. To soften the blow, I came home to find the autobiography of legendary climber, Jerry Moffatt waiting for me. And with my own personal dedication on the dust cover! Words cannot describe my excitement, and I assure you that future blog posts will almost certainly be discussing the wisdom of the great man at some length...

Jugs Ahoy!

2009-01-24T12:21:00.005Z

Training again at Jules' gym last night. I've been building up from 400-move sessions to nearly 800-move sessions, which is supposed to be general conditioning! The hope is that it will give me a solid base level of fitness, which will enable me to train harder and longer when I start to focus on power endurance and power in the early spring. I've got a couple of longer routes in mind this year, including the awesome Groove Nemesis from HELL (a.k.a the groove), so I have high hopes for all this fitness training.

Last night's 750 moves were broken down into circuits of 25-80 moves, with 1 minutes rest between them. After all those circuits is a series of deadhangs and 60 pull-ups. Why they do the deadhangs after the stamina work I don't know, but when in Rome... Now, there's no chance I'd be able to manage a session like this on a British wall. The moves are easy, on big jugs, but by the end you're totally worked. It feels somewhat akin to a long run, and I finish the training feeling physically drained and shaky. Look at that photo above - no British walls have a collection of jugs like that on their 45 degree board. Are we missing a trick? Is all this stamina training worth it? Does ballooning round on massive holds have any relevance to crimping up Malham? It is my fervent belief that all these questions and more will be answered when I flash your redpoint projects come Autumn.

Moving back to things that actually matter, it's hard not to get excited about the Obama administration when you read things like this.

Two reasons I love Barcelona

2009-01-22T08:51:00.000Z

La Cueva de la Justicia

2009-01-20T13:26:00.007Z

This weekend I achieved a long-held ambition, which was to climb at Santa Linya. I've been wanting to get there, and in particular to try the classic 8b/+ Rollito Sharma for a long time now, but circumstance has conspired against me time and time again. This weekend no such problems stood in my way and I found myself stood in the cave in perfect sunshine getting the tour from young Tom Bolger and Lynne Malcom. Tom and Lynne have moved out to Lleida permanently, and since then Tom has been tearing it up - ticking 8c+'s like they're going out of fashion (and let's face it, they are; unless you're a girl or fifty-year old expat).

I was a bit worried about this weekend, because I hadn't decided yet if it was prudent to get on hard routes yet. My finger is still far from recovered from the injury I received in late september, and I didn't want to make things worse. On the other hand I was just so fucking psyched. It was inevitable prudence was going to lose out in the end. So, after warming up on a juggy 7c I hopped on Rollito, with Tom providing the beta. This route is brilliant! It is short, and has big juicy moves on reasonable holds. Every move is interesting, every hold is pleasant and it has funky kneebar/toehook rests, round-the-clock moves and a jump at the end. What more can you ask for? Also, at the risk of sounding like a bragging fool, it felt quite easy. Certainly very easy in comparison to something like Mecca, which lead me to believe that the route has never seen 8b+ in a month of Sundays. On the other hand, my spies tell me that several well known wads (Marcus Bock) have failed on it, so who knows? The point is, that although the crux pinch was wet, and some tufas lower down were soaked through, I was pretty confident I'd bag it first redpoint. Sadly, this was not to be. By the time Jules had worked the moves on her route the seepage had started coming through in earnest and the pinch on the crux was now dripping steadily. I contented myself with dogging the moves once more, and finished the day by attempting to onsight a 7c+ to the left of Rollito.

The next day the seepage was worse, which made it an easy decision to sack off Rollito for a future date. A good job too, because I was completely worked. After months away from hard routes, the physical climbing in the cave had destroyed my back and shoulders. It was a bizarre feeling to have quite strong fingers, but no ability to lock off moves or swing my upper body around. I felt like a punter version of Dave Graham. Anyway, after sacking off Rollito I wanted to do this amazing looking 8a+ which climbs the full height of the cave. In my exhausted state this was just too hard, so I satisfied myself with a couple of skin-of-my teeth ticks of some of the mid-sevens on the lower walls.

The cave is brilliant. The cave is the future. For the first time in a long time I can see a crag where I can make progress, a crag where I think I can climb hard, and on spectacular routes which are classic, long and physical. I want to climb at the cave a lot. If only it were dry.

the absent work ethic

2009-01-16T13:14:00.008Z

I tried to work yesterday, but just couldn't get down to it. It was a beautiful day too, so I decided to take the afternoon off and go for a look round the town. We had a really nice tapas in Born. There seems to be two types of tapas bars here in Barcelona; the ones for locals, with tapas available at the bar, and formica tables and chairs, and the over-priced, fancy-looking tourist traps with wine lists and posh decor. Obviously, we opted for the latter, and had a very nice meal indeed. I can't help thinking that tapas is best enjoyed in larger groups though; there was about ten things on the menu I wanted to try, but in the end two tapas each was quite sufficient.

After lunch we walked down to the seafront, and got the cable car over to the Montjuic, where we went to look at the Olympic stadium. It struck me how low-key it was, especially after the extravagance of the China games. The diving pool was very cool though, as it overlooked an amazing city view towards the Barrio Gotíc and the Sagrada Familia. These days it looks like it is predominantly used by seagulls. So much for the olympic legacy.

It seems the English language is in fashion in Spain, just as it is in Japan and elsewhere. Lots of posters are in English, and there is a trend for clothing with English slogans on. Inevitably, there are times when it goes a bit wrong...

Beasted - spanish style

2009-01-15T10:20:00.006Z

For the month of January I've allowed myself the luxury of visiting my wife in Barcelona. She has been spending the winter here to improve her spanish, and scout for business and I thought it was about time I spent a decent amount of time with her. She has a beautiful flat on Carrer de Baìlen, about 20 minutes walk from the city centre, and a membership to a climbing gym near the station.

It would be wrong to call it a wall, it's purely focussed on training; holds everywhere, a range of angles and a slave driving coach called Salva, who will sell you a training plan for a pittance and then beat your ass with a stick to make sure you're doing it. Last night we went training there. After months of not training because of injuries it was a major shock to the system, but it felt great to be putting in some serious effort again. The wall is set up to do circuits on, so I got stuck into some endurance training. Warmed up, then tried a 40-move 8a circuit; four circuits with 6 minute rests. Then, because I was in Spain I set off on an 82-move 7c+ circuit. Got round that twice before feeling physically ill, and going for a lie down.

Jules has a training plan from Salva. It is a six month plan and supposed to work on general conditioning. It's truly hardcore. The most shocking thing for a British climber is the lack of rest; she'll be doing the same sort of training you'd be familiar with (deadhanging, circuits etc), but the rest between sets is usually one or two minutes. Beastly.

Ahem...

2009-01-14T10:51:00.002Z

Everyone has a blog these days; the only thing keeping me from having a go is that I couldn't think of a name. After scratching my chin for thirty or forty seconds I gave up. Thankfully, a post on the excellent astronomy blog cosmic variance gave me the idea, and the spherical cow is born.

I know, I know, what the hell is a spherical cow all about? It's all quite nicely explained at this wikipedia entry ...

Milk production at a dairy farm was low so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking help from academia. A multidisciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and two weeks of intensive on-site investigation took place. The scholars then returned to the university, notebooks crammed with data, where the task of writing the report was left to the team leader. Shortly thereafter the farmer received the write-up, and opened it to read on the first line: "Consider a spherical cow. . . "

Basically, it's a nerdy physics joke about the kind of simplifying assumptions that physicists often make, a very common one being spherical symmetry. Sometimes, these assumptions bear little relation to reality, but are the only way we can tackle complex real-world problems. It's always worth keeping an eye on your assumptions though, to make sure you don't have any spherical cows lying around...

One assumption that I'd had for some time was that doing some cardio exercise would help my climbing; so I've tried to go running at least twice a week. Seems like I was wasting my time. These posts on UKC form the very well-informed Serpico, suggests that cardio exercise has little impact on climbing performance, but instead climbing fitness is determined by factors like the blood supply to the small muscles in the forearm. If I was twenty again, and didn't need to run to keep the weight off, I'd spend my time doing more productive things, probably on one of these.