Sicily 2012

I'd heard about climbing in Sicily through word of mouth and although there is limited information online we decided it was worth a trip. A huge bonus was that there was no need to hire a car as we paid for transfers to the el bahira campsite (san vito la capo). We stayed in a mobile home where the 5km of bolted cliffs were simply a 4 minute walk away overlooking the campsite, perfect. The loud music they call animation until 12am not so perfect, although this is only during June- September. The staff at the campsite were not so friendly not that it particularly bothered us as we still got 20% discount for being climbers. Online they welcome climbers but they didnt have a guidebook in stock which made our first few days interesting jumping on routes. The shop was reasonably priced for food and we would also walk for 40 minutes into San vito for food from a bigger supermarket. The food at the restaurant on site was comparable in quality and price to those in San vito- very much geared up for tourists.

That's the logistics out of the way now about the climbing... The routes on the cliffs around San vito are world class with a range of styles from tufas to slabs. The grades (quite stiffly graded) were well spread out so we were well accomodated climbing as a three with different abilities from 4s to high 7s.



Menage a trois 7a+



Menage a trois 7a+



 

Menage a trois 7a+



Day one climbing we eased in with some 5s and 6s, finding particularly the last moves of climbs razor sharp. I slipped off a climb at the first bolt burning my forearms and cutting my finger. Luckily climb on bar stopped this becoming an issue for the rest of the trip. After this i still managed a stiff 6c+ onsite which considering it was day 1 I was pleased with. We also encountered a wasps nests on a climb that day... Three stings later it was time to get on the beach. Over the next few days I continued to warm up on a couple of 5s and 6s then got on the grade 7 routes. Flashing a 7a ('Knockenmaderll') on day two and making a first lead of 7b 'Seltsam ammutende vollspacken'.

Stiff start of 'Il menotauro', 7b



'Il menotauro', 7b







Onto the easier terrain of 'Il menotauro', 7b



This trip I had aimed to go for quality of routes(grade 7s) rather than quantity (lots of routes well within my grade). This strategy worked as I challenged myself each day, although I still found trying to make the transition from onsite climbing to focussing on redpointing routes particularly hard. On several 7bs and 7cs I felt that given more time I could definitely send the routes after a couple of attempts as on the majority of routes I was able to make all the moves. One route I felt particularly motivated by was 'Seltsam ammutende vollspacken' having taken 2 stops on day two I felt it would go clean on the next attempt, and 12 days later I was delighted to have cleaned the route on my second attempt after flashing  'Boandkromer' a 7a just before.



Flashing 'Boandkromer' 7a





The steep roof of 'Seltsam ammutende vollspacken' 7b





Shaking out on 'Seltsam ammutende vollspacken' 7b





Last moves of the 30m  'Seltsam ammutende vollspacken', 7b



One of my favourite routes was an unusual 7a climb with a horizontal roof, missing a crucial hold through the roof and slipping off I cleaned it on the second attempt.



'Yoshimi battles the pink robots'  7a




'Yoshimi battles the pink robots' 7a




The rare choice for me of a more vertical route...'O brothers' 6c



The hardest onsite was a 7a+ named 'Frateelo Caldo', very well chalked and polished through the crux it required a very dynamic move and almost a second crux at the end as the rock once again became razor sharp. There is still a huge potential for climbing in he San vito area which could rival the likes of kalymnos. There seems to be climbs for all abilities. Following further development I would return to climb in Sicily again.

El Chorro 2012

The rest of our El Chorro trip was focused mainly on getting on some single pitch routes much above our onsight grades and get some experience of routes in the high 7s and up to 8a.  After Zeppelin on day one it took me a couple of days to feel ready to do this so we decided to head to a sectors we hadn't visited last year and enjoy some easier routes.



Day 2: Hanging out at Escalera arabe, solo eteitar, 6a

We returned to two of my favourite crags over the next two days (Days 3 and 4), sector suizo and poem de roca.  In a new attitude to my climbing I decided to get back on routes I'd previously failed on as I wanted to use this trip to get my head into redpointing (instead of just trying to onsight/flash routes).  I was pleased to come back and get a route that I was fustrated with at not getting the onsight last year - Cano paco -7a, especially as on one of our warm up routes (prepotencia 6b+) I slipped and fell on a ledge ripping my trousers open and giving me a dead bum cheek!

My ripped beloved trousers left me in shorts for the rest of the week

Al fresco dining with the wild country chef at sector Suizo

Similarly getting back on a very pumpy Bienvenidos el circo 7a+ and getting this clean on second was satisfying as I was unable to piece it together in one last year (a shame I didn't end up going back for the redpoint of this).

Bienvenidos el circo 7a+ sector Suizo

Due to bad weather we spent a couple of days at poem de roca, where I resisted the urge to get back on poem de roca (7a) as we did this route and the 'direct' route of it (7c - on top) last year.

Teamwork got us up Viva porus (7a+ -stated hard for the grade in the guide), as Rich lead to about 2/3 of the route and then I went up and lead it to the end.  As the cave was busy this day we went up it a couple of times to get it clean.  Rich lead up a very overhanging 7c route (Talisbania) -I seconded this route with relative ease on the overhanging terrain but the last couple of moves on the vertical section felt quite bouldery which I couldn't get clean - but a good motivator for future power training.

The steep terrain of Talibania, 7c

Unlike most of the overhanging routes in the poem de roca cave- Slimbo (7b) was a thin route up a crack, as crack climbing is a weakness of mine I decided to give this route a try.  I lead the route with two stops, and then decided to work this route on top rope.  I found I could do all of the moves but it was fustrating I was not able to sustain the required power for the duration of the route.

Lowering off a route in poem de roca

Its worth noting here as a reminder for my next trip to El Chorro that a new sector we visited prior to poem de roca (and the rain) one day was Sector Momia, looks like there are some good hard routes here.  I only had time to do 3 routes here, the best of which was El Onejazo 7a.

The last day involved an epic walk over the 'notch' to makinodromo, except we missed the notch and went further over terrian Rich reckoned was more a grade two scramble - I dont know about scramble grades but I thought it was like a grade 3/4 climb in parts.  After three hours of this trek to include numerous episodes flat on my bum down spree paths we made iut to Makinodromo feeling battered, unlike Rich who enjoyed it...

View from the 'notch'


When I think of El Chorro I think of one of the most famous routes in the world, Lourdes (8a) and this time I couldnt leave El Chorro without trying it.  In the previous year we had climbed the classic life is sweet (6c+) and Lourdes was busy, but this year there was no-one else at the crag.  I seconded la panda Zampabollos (7b) as we accidentaly warmed up on this instead of a 6b.  Rich got on another 8a -Mutenroy, clipsticking up and working, it - I decided to give this route a miss because I wanted to save all my energy (and skin) for Lourdes.

Steep terrain of Lourdes



Again a joint effort got us half way up Lourdes, Rich leading first, then I lead a couple of further bolts to a total of 8 bolts to a mushroom section (about 1/2 -2/3 up i think).

Taking a rest on Lourdes

Feeling battered we felt the best strategy given that this was our last day was to work this section of the climb.  So now I have got this first section clean, and on any future trips to Chorro I will want to primarily focus on this route (certainly not just getting on it on the last day of a trip!)

Unfinished business: One day I'll be back...

El Chorro 2012: Zeppelin

For the second year running Rich Kasler and I decided on an easter trip to El Chorro, although this year I had promised Rich that I would do a mutlipitch.  Browsing through the guidebook it was obvious that the route had to be the major multipitch classic Zeppelin.  This ten-pitch climb scales the largest section of wall in the El Chorro gorge, with the hardest pitches 4 and 5 at grades 6c and 6c+.  The only similar experience I had of a climb near to this magnitude was a five pitch climb in Thailand (Tonsai beach, Krabi) called humanality over three years ago.  It was exciting to be climbing a bigger multipitch especially with the added exposure of the gorge and therefore we decided to climb Zeppelin on the first day of our trip.  It was the access to and decent from the route that added to the sense of adventure of this climb to make it a truly unique experience.

We decided to brave walking through the tunnels through the gorge and abseil to the start of the route off of a bridge in the gorge.

Rich going over the top of the bridge

The abseil must have been just under 30m and we thought it would be more fun to choose a position where we were free-abseiling in an arch of the bridge.

Me enjoying the view abseiling near the arch of the bridge

From the bottom of the bridge the route started just a minute or two walk away around the corner.  We were armed with a free topo online (to save weight by not bringing the rockfax guidebook) but this was not great and led to a bit of confusion about where the route started as it suggested there were two lines up the face where zeppelin starts (which was not reported in the rockfax book).



View of the gorge from the start of the climb


So the first pitch (Pitch 1: 4+ 20m) lead by Rich went a bit off route and was supplemented by a few nuts and it was nice to eventually find the first belay station.  Naturally I lead the next pitch (Pitch 2:6a 25m) which I found much harder than 6a as the rock was getting sprayed in water from the gorge so I was finding it a but tricky with trusting my feet on the technical slab climb.  Rich found the same problem, made worse with the fact that the second would be carrying the backpack with four litres of water, food and shoes. 

Top of pitch 2, rich making the first moves on pitch 3

The next pitch was nice enough (Pitch 3: 5+ 30m) and exciting because I knew I would be going on to lead the 6c roof pitch next.

Me seconding up pitch 3

The roof pitch was very short (Pitch 4: 6c 20m) and as the guide indicated the last few moves were quite strenuous, but fun climbing and it was nice to be doing a full pitch where you can see and talk to your belayer the whole length!  Rich loves to play with his gadgets and this pitch was suitable to use his pulley to hoist up the backpack so we could let him enjoy seconding this route without the added weight.  I was suprised how effortless this was and if it had been suitable on all pitches I would have done it to save my energy.


Rich climbing pitch 4 looking like spiderman



Me at the top of pitch 4 bringing up the backpack. NB from the camera lense you can see that even at this point we were still being sprayed with water from the gorge

Rich had the pleasure of leading the hardest pitch (Pitch 5: 6c+ 25m) and it felt like I was belaying him for quite a while, and once I was climbing it I could see why as it was all over the place.  The hardest moves were simply moving from the belay station, especially as I was freezing (white  hands) but I managed to keep lunging with full arm extentions and somehow stick the holds and keep going, but with the backpack on me I have to say I would have graded it at least a 7a.  I should have gone on to lead the next pitch (Pitch 6: 5+ 30m) but there was no bolts we could see (except one very rusted one) so Rich lead the route (on trad), after trying a couple of directions and downclimbing - I thought he was a bit of a hero on this pitch given the exposure and the wind with some huge runouts. I went on to lead pitch 7 (Pitch 7:6b+ 25m) which I really enjoyed especially once at the belay station where I was sitting on a ledge with great views of the gorge.

Higher view of the gorge from the top of pitch 7

Pitch 8 was an easy scramble (Pitch 8: 3 40m) along the ridge where we could momenarily escape the wind behind the ridge before coming back on to top of the ridge

Scramble of pitch 8

Pitch 9 (Pitch 9: 6b 35m) was probably my favourite pitch of the climb as it was the most challeging with some arete climbing. I guess it was more challanging than if this were a single pitch as we were starting to become tired from not just climbing but lugging the backpack up with us!  There were nice views again from this belay spot...

Rich on pitch 9, notice the bridge we abseiled from in the background

Pitch 10 was a 65m scramble which Rich lead and split into two pitches as we were using a single 60m rope.  This required his trad rack again.

Us at the top of Zeppelin, I have an excuse for looking a mess having been battered by the wind for the past 10 hours or so...

Unfortunately getting to the top of Zeppelin was not the end of the days adventure.  The decent was pretty hardgoing for tired bodies and so we decided it would be safer to abseil from tree to tree down the decent 'path'.

Rich on the decent from Zeppelin

Then it was just a victory walk back through the tunnels and back to the beloved rental smart car.  We estimate the time from car to car to be around 10-11 hours, a day well spent as it was good for me to put myself out and try something different (from single pitch climbing with minimal faffing and chasing the grade).  We were glad we hadn't left this climb for a rest day from hard repointing as we were thinking about doing, as doing this route fresh still took a couple of days to start to recover and feel human again (but well worth it!).

Rich in the tunnel with another gadget, his beloved headtorch









Stanage popular

With a mini heatwave setting in we just had to get out on rock this weekend.  Rather than heading for limestome sport (my nice comfort zone) we decided to head up to Stanage popular as one of my main aims this year is to get my head into Trad climbing again after years focusing on sport.  As AJ wisely says I need to 'wind your kneck in' and serve an 'apprentiship on grit'.  Knowing how I get carried away we set strict limits for the day to do climbs graded up to Severe only.  This would give us an opportunity to get lots of mileage, place tons of gear and rig up lots of anchors, climbing nice fun climbs well within our limits.

Racking up

AJ before he got to the bomber nut that was a bit too bomber...

We were pretty pleased to get ten routes done, most importantly all the placing gear and rigging up anchor skills came flooding back and did wonders for both of our confidence on trad and gritstone.  On our next trip out on gritstone we will be working HS/VS and then the next trip VS/HVS and so on as we want to steadily progress our gritstone climbing (trad and bouldering) alongside limestone sport climbing.

What a team :)

Redpoint birthday bash

To celebrate the fourth birthday of the Redpoint climbing wall in Birmingham I headed over in the snow (in sub zero temps) to have join in the fun competitions.  As always over at redpoint everyone was friendly and it was a great atmosphere, and the tea and cake is always good too.

Now I'm not really a fan of dynoing or speed climbing, but it was nice to join in and give them a go, especially as the dyno compeition was on the stalagtite and therefore on belay with no chance of a dodgy landing.

Getting ready to power up

Boom, i managed to stick the hold in the first round but couldn't match the winning 4.3m dyno of Will Smith!

I loved giving the indoor dry tooling ago with the fig fours, a great workout for the forearms and quite balancy - next time i have an ice climbing trip planned these will definitely feature in my training!

Fig four route

The best part of the day was the leading competitions, and although I was a bit dissapointed at barn-dooring off the womens final route (although I still came first) I was pleased with touching the last hold on the mens final route (which made me third).  The route went up a panel to the roof and across the roof via a bridge and couple of stalagtites, the features which make redpoint one of my favourite places to go indoor climbing!

Moving onto the bridge

Past a tricky clip and to move between stalagtites

Couldn't avoid a photo with me pulling a strange face, but in my defence i was pretty pumped at this stage!

Momentarily on the last hold, I thought I had this until...

Popped off, but I'm still smiling :) Great fun

I'm just hoping all the winter indoor training is going to translate onto the rock this year... Three weeks until a big trip to El chorro

Thanks to Matt Todd for providing the photos from the day.

Why start a climbing blog?

 

 

Bouldering at the Roaches, November 2011



Perhaps its best to start the blog with an explanation of why I chose to set up a blog about climbing.  As outlined in my profile, I'm passionate about climbing.  Whether it is bouldering, trad climbing, deep water soloing (DWS), sport climbing, indoor climing or ice climbing.
 

   

DWS in Thailand 2008



  

Ice climbing in Rukjan, Norway 2010

Furthermore I am motivated to introduce others to the sport, and to help and mentor people with their own personal goals within climbing.  Climbing means different things to each individual, with different preferences for forms of climbing.  
 

Newly bolted route, unamed, 7b
Koh Phi Phi, Thailand

  

Personally I am currently focused primarlily on training to improve my sport climbing grade.  I have climbed for a few years now, but over the past couple of years I have become very motivated and have started cross-training by including weekly gym sessions in additional to my normal weekly indoor training.  The cross-training has aided my sport grade to increase to around 7b/7c, which has simply increased my appetite to train harder and smash higher grades.  My next goal is to climb 8a, and with a new coach and training ideas, and more climbing trips planned I want to record the next chapter of my journey to climb 8a(and beyond).

 





 

Leading ladder final 2009, i gained a third position in the

 recreational category. In 2011 I came first in the same category