Blessed are the weak

I have been down in Wales for almost 3 months now, and have been pretty busy during that time. Between work, climbing and another wee project which I will discuss more in the autumn, I have been pretty busy, hence the lack of blog posts.

Generally climbing has been going well. I have been mixing it up between trad, sport and bouldering, with some good routes (for me) in all those areas. One of the great things about North Wales is the number of keen climber and good climbing venues close by. 

 Myself of some steep and powerful terrain in the cave, this is the sort of ground I struggle on.

Getting out in the evening and on my days of I have started to notice something; compared to other people who climb about the same level as me, I am weak, well weak. This is most obvious on really steep terrain there are some moves that others do with ease, and I just can’t do. For example I have been trying Jerry’s roof  (a classic V9 boulder problem in the Llanberis pass) for a while, and just can’t do one particular move on it. Usually what happens is that I turn up, and fail repeatedly while my friends lap it with ease. I feel sort of like King Sisyphus from Greek mythology who was made to roll a huge boulder up a steep hill, but before he could reach the top of the hill, the rock would always roll back down, forcing him to begin again and thus condemning him to an eternity of frustration.

However, get them on the 8a’s at lpt, trad routes or on a long sustained but not super steep boulder problem, and then suddenly I can keep up with them. For example of Over the Moon direct (a classic 8a) others seem to cruise through the lower hard moves, but then fall off higher up where as I am struggling right from the start but seem to be able to somehow keep on slapping and struggling to the top.

 Dave Evans working on Left Wall High (V9) while Guy and Steve show very little interest.  Starting at the very back of the cave this gently overhanging, long sustained and technical traverse was my first (and so far only) boulder problem of this grade.

Long sustained endurance routes have always suited me more than short hard powerful ones. I think I have reasonable technique and am good at being tenacious. Anyway will keep throwing myself at Jerry’s, and who knows maybe one day I might get it and unlike Sisyphus free myself for an eternity of failure. Even if not I am not too bothered as I am enjoying trying it,  am getting up plenty of other good things, and if it gets really bad I can always tell myself it is a rubbish boulder problem anyway.

FairHead.

Sheltering from the strong winds and rain at the top of the crag.

Keith looking unimpressed with the windy conditions.

I am just back from a trip to Fairhead in Northern Ireland. Fairhead is an amazing crag, about 60m high made of top quality Dolorite. Unfortunatley the weather was pretty epic with high winds and frequent rain. Despite the conditions we got climbing everyday.  We were a team of 10, and between us we climbed about 150 picthes ranging from HVS to E7 during the week that we were there.

Finally getting some climbing done. Myself on the superb Face Value E4.

A trip report (written by someone who obvioulsy has more time than me) can be found under the latest news section at http://www.fairheadclimbers.com/ and more photos can be seen at https://picasaweb.google.com/115022919213251550475/FairHead?feat=email

 

The Promised Land?

 The view from the Barrel boulder across the Llanberis Pass to Dinas Cromlech.

Lower Pen Trwyn, home to some fine sports routes of various grades.

For the past month or so I have been living and working in North Wales. I seem to have been pretty busy, working, and bouldering or doing routes in the evenings and on my days off, hence the lack of blog updates. Despite spending all spare time climbing, I only seem to have got up one decent route which was Citadel, a big E5 at the main cliff on Gogarth. Even this was slightly tainted by the fact that due to a small navigational error we climbed the top second pitch of Graduation Cermony instead, thus accidently missing the Citadel crack, supposedly one of the finest pitches at Gogarth.  Sports climbing and boudering wise I have come close to a couple of reasonable routes/problems, but not quite suceeded yet.
However, there is plenty of time left this summer, so hopefully I will have a bit more to report/discuss next time I blog.

The end of winter, but not quite how I had envisaged it.

Early Spring, around late March/early April, is often the best time of year in Fort William. Long days, settled weather, good skiing and/or ice climbing in the hills, and dry midge free rock in Glen Nevis. That is what I had hoped for this year, but it didn’t quite work like that.

Aonach Mor on the 7th April 2010; Blue skies, light winds, great snow.

Aonach Mor on the 6th of April 2011; High winds, heavy and persistent rain and +7°C on the tops. Not quite as nice as this time last year.

Until about the 20^th of March, winter was very much in charge. Although the snow cover was good, it was pretty windy, not what you could call settled weather. Then it all changed, bit not in a good way. Conditions returned to November style weather, windy with persistent rain. These seemed to last for weeks, well until a few days day, when suddenly summer arrived.

With the rapid demise of snow and ice in the mild conditions I rapidly lost interest in winter activities, and turned my attention to rock climbing. This year I have been putting a bit of effort into getting strong for the summer, and was interested to see how I would be feeling when I got out on the rock. The answer was quite positive. I had a couple of days up at Sky Pilot, trying the classic traverse Beetle Back. It still feels a long way off, but my attempts this year were certainly more positive than those of previous years. I then had a day at the Ruthven Boulder, and was pleased to repeat a problem that I had climbed there last year, and felt that a big traverse that I would like to do there would certainly be possible if I was able to put in the hours to get all the moves slick.

Enjoying the outlook from Sky Pilot bouldering area on a rare dry day.

Another great out look, this time from Goat crag. Gaz Marshal can just be seen in yellow below the classic 7a+ Mactalla.

Finally I had a day at Goat Crag. It was baking hot, and I didn’t really do anything I hadn’t done before, but enjoyed the atmosphere of the place.

However, that is likely to be it for my Scottish rock climbing this year. The reason for this is that I yesterday I moved South to Llanberis in North Wales. I will miss the space there is in Scotland, and the outlook you get form many of the crags. However, living down here will be great for my climbing, and I certainly won't miss the Scottish midges (they like to pretend they have a midgy problem down here, but compared to the West of Scotland they don't really). 

 

Snow Patch Survey

As readers may be aware, I find snow a very interesting material. I have always been impressed by a few patches surviving right through most summers to become incorporated into the following winter's snowpack. It appears that I am not the only one to show an interest in this. In the summer of 2008 a bloke called Iain Cameron got in touch with me. Each year he collates information about snowpatch survival in Scotland through the summer and autumn; a summary of which published in the Royal Meteorological Society journal Weather. He, and Mark Atinkson (another interested person) were going to do a survey of the remaining snowpatches on Ben Nevis and the surrounding hills. It happened that 2008 had been quite a snowy winter, and even through it was late August we found an impressive depth of snow high in Observatory Gully. 



Myself and Iain Cameron examining the Observatory Gully snowpatch on the 23rd of August 2008,  which had an estimated depth of 10 metres. Photo: Mark Atinkson

The Observatory Gully snowpatch on the 23rd of August 2008. This is probably the most permanent snow patch on the West Coast, and there has been snow here continuously since October/November 2006. The top photo is taken in the bergshund at the top of the patch. Photo:Iain Cameron

I have taken an interest, and where possible been involved with these snowpatch surveys since that first trip up Observatory Gully This year we decided that we would head up to investigate this patch in early spring when it would be at it's maximum depth. This time Iain, Mark and myself were joined by Eric Gillies, a aerospace scientist from Glasgow, and his wife Jenny who is a meteorologist. Between us there was a fair bit of knowledge about snow and weather. Last Saturday (2nd April) we made the long plod up Observatory gully.

Team snow geeks; Eric and Jenny in the foreground, Iain and Mark in the background.

The plan was to recorded the depth of the snow against the steep sides of the gully, and to discuss possibilities of more sophisticated ways to measure snow depth that could be used in future years. Unfortunately visibility wasn't great, but we did manage to get some pictures of  the build up. By comparing with pictures taken in the summer (such as those shown above), and measurements of the snow depth then, Iain estimated the depth of the order of 20 metres at it's deepest point.  Hopefully we will be able to estimate this more accurately by returning in August to what snow remains, and measuring the heights of the rock features the snow was banked up.  However, with plenty of snowfall high up and lots of South-Westerly winds to pile the snow into locations like this, it is looking hopeful that the snow will survive another summer in Observatory Gully.

 Heading off down. The snow up toward the narrowing of the Gully above is very probably the deepest snow on the West Coast hills at the moment. This picture was taken a bit downslope from the position the second picture in this post was taken.

The Winter of Nae Climbing

Well the past couple of months seem has come and gone with very little winter climbing action for myself. Winter climbing seems to be a fickle beast, and I find that weather, conditions, partners and days off all have to coincide for success on a hard route.  My main problem is the last of these, days off. The reason for this is my work (avalanche forecasting). I love doing this job, I find it interesting, get out on the hill, get some good skiing in, earn some money and it gives me time to train for rock climbing during the evenings. This year in particular I have been offered quite a lot of work, which has been great, but has also meant that I have not had too many days off, and the ones I have had are off are random mid week days which can make finding a climbing partners quite awkard. 

Take February for example. Between the 1st and the 12th I had some training to do at Plas y Brenin in North Wales for a job I have there over the summer, and so this meant no winter climbing. I got back up the road on the evening of the 12th. From then to the end of the month I had 5 days off, the 16th and the 22nd to the 25th. On the 16th I tried to go climbing with Andy Turner and Nick Bullock. I figured getting dragged up something hard by those boys would get me going climbing wise. Unfortunately the weather was pretty foul, and we ended up blethering in the carpark for Stob Coire an Lochan with various other teams who were also bailing before heading back to Fort William for a coffee.

Charlie seconding Cutlass as the temperature rises (although it hadn't quite started to drizzle at this point)

On the 22nd, I did mange to get out, but the weather turned mild and drizzly through the day. We made a quick ascent of Cutlass on the Douglas boulder, before heading home. Then next few days the freezing level was miles above the tops, and it rained. So winter climbing wise, in February I have managed one short and quite easy grade VI,7. Not exactly ground breaking stuff, but there you go.  

Has your luck run out?

Enjoying some sunny rock in Spain. Photo Jack Geldard

"Has your luck run out?" she laughed at him'.
"Well I guess you must have known it would someday”

Lyrics from Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts by Bob Dylan.

I have always found these lyrics quite profound. Though my early to mid twenties my luck seemed to run out in various aspects of my life. This tended to result in a fair bit of both physical and mental pain, as well as a few trips to various hospitals and physiotherapists. 

Looking back to that period, and although it didn’t realise it at the time, the reason my luck would run out are pretty obvious. I was really pushing what I was trying to do, without a particularly high level of skill or experience. Since then I have been a bit more successful, and despite plenty of hard training, I had managed to stay almost totally injury free. I have definitely got a lot stronger than I was, and although not as “go for it” as ten years ago, my improved technical skill tends to make up for that. I am beginning to stack the odds more in my favour.

In November, I was on a sports climbing trip to Margalef in Spain.  When doing the crux moves of Dr Feelgood, one the classic 8a’s of the area, my knee made a horrific ripping noise that everyone at the crag heard. Above, although my knee did not feel sore exactly, I knew something was not quite right. I muttered something a few friends who were watching from the ground, and pushed on.

A repoint attempt at Doctor Feelgood. It was a couple of moves above this point on the

successful redpoint that I hurt my knee. Photo Jack Geldard

The next day my knee was pretty sore and I had trouble walking. With the winter avalanche forecasting season approaching (time of year I when I earn most of my money) the prospect of not being able to work or winter climb was not too appealing. I felt perhaps my luck had run out.

Getting back to Britain, I went to see a local physiotherapist. Fortunately the knee was not as bad as I had feared, there was no major damage, and although it might be a bit stiff and/or ache for a while, it was fine to go climbing/skiing on it. To hear her say that was a great relief.

Although we can vary the odds of causing ourselves an injury to some extent, some level of risk always remains. People have been injured doing the simplest little things, while others have got away some really bold routes and huge falls. I guess in climbing, as well as the rest of life, we all rely on luck to some extent, and I am aware that mine could run out at any point. Guess we just have to accept this, and enjoy things while our luck holds.

Note; I wrote this back in Decemeber, but did not publish it due to difficulties in getting hold of the pictures. My knee is now fine I am glad to say.