A long cold winter?

What will this winter be like? A much discussed question during the autumn months. Also one which is very difficult to answer. We seem to have passed this years Northern Hemisphere snow and ice cover minimum. As shown in the first figure, this seems to have happened around the end of August.

If we have a look at yesterdays snow cover we can see that already the winter snows have started to appear in Alaska and North East Siberia. If we compare with the snow cover on the same date in 2010 and 2009, we can see that this year we are already a fair bit ahead. There seems to be some evidence to suggest that early snow cover is more likely to lead to Northern Blocking, and thus a cold winter for Britain. Winter is obviously a long way off, and a lot can change between now and then, but things seem to have got off to good start.

12th September 2011

12th September 2010

12th September 2009

A few little slate adventures.

Accessing the new slate routes in Twll Mawr through the tunnels.

I have been spending a bit of time in the slate quarries recently, enjoying the atmosphere of the place, and getting back into the unique style of climbing found here. I have done a couple of routes that I have wanted to do for a while such as Waves of Inspiration (a good long and slightly runout E5) and True Clip (F7b+, but somewhat more technical than your average route of that grade).

Nick Bullock wishing he was just a wee bit more flexible for the crux of Supermassive Black Hole (F7a)

Back in July a couple of new multipitch sports routes were added to Twll Mawr (more information and topo). I recently did these and found them fun and unusual routes in an area of the quarries I had not climbed in before. I did have an exciting moment on the harder of the routes (Black Hole Sun F7a+) when I pulled off a hold, and sent a foot long dagger of slate crashing down two pitches to the base of the crag.

Nick still trying to work crux of Supermassive Black Hole.

Malham

 

Good times on the catwalk at Malham

On Saturday I had a wee day trip up to Malham in Yorkshire with James McHaffie, or Caff as he is known. There was a good scene at the crag, with various people from all over the country at the crag, including quite a few down from Scotland.  When we arrived the crag was seeping a bit, but with some sunshine and a good breeze it seemed to be drying out quite quickly. Despite a few wet looking holds, I decided to have a go at one of the classic 7c+,s of the crag, Mescalito. Between holding Caff’s ropes on his project I bolt to bolted it a few times to get to know the moves.

Caff using a t-shirt to dry out holds on his route of choice.

Conditions started of quite good, a bit hot perhaps. However, through the day the clouds rolled in, and it started raining. This in itself was not a major problem, as the capping roofs mean that most of the routes stay dry in the rain. However, the associated rise in humidity meant that conditions became poor, and instead of drying off the crag was starting to seep more.

As the rain started and humidity rose the seeps started to grow.

My first redpoint attempt ended at a soaking pocket at about half way up. I left the rope clipped in at my high point, and before my next attempt, I hauled up to attempt to dry the hold. I stuffed a spare t-shirt into it to absorb the worst of the moisture.  On the redpoint the t-shirt was pulled out, and although the hold was still quite damp, I was more ready for this, and kept on throwing upwards for holds.  I somehow made it though the crux bulge, and wobbled my way up the final wall to another soaking hold just before the chain. Quite a few routes at Malham finish by grabbing the chain. I am not sure if Mescalito is one of them, but with no nice finishing holds, and being very pumped with soaking wet fingers, I decided that grabbed the chain was allowed and gave myself the tick.

Pembroke parts II and III

 Pembroke part II was mainly like this......

After my successful trip to Pembroke with young Calum (see previous blog post), I was keen to get back down there. The next opportunity I had was a few weekends ago. Unfortunately the weather was less than optimal, and over the weekend I only got two routes done. However, I did get to the Range West Briefing. Much of the climbing in  Pembroke is in a military firing range, and in one area in particular (Range West), access is heavily restricted. Access is only allowed at certain times, and before you are allowed in you have to go to a military breifing, where they basically say don't touch any metal things as they might blow up and kill you.

 My ticket to the forbidden land of Range West

Anyway my next trip down was a bit better. This time I had 4 days and although the weather was quite showery and despite the fact it seemed to start raining while I was committed on hard routes, I got a fair amount done. On the best weather day, after a few delay I got my pass for Range West, and went in there did an amazing E5 called Tasmanian devil.

My helmet can just be seen bobbing around in the sea just below the far wall. 

Unfortunatley it was quite a windy day, and after doing the route while having some lunch, my helmet blew off the ledge into a deep zawn. The swell was quite big, and jumping into the sea was not really an option. However with a bit of cunning I did manage to rescue it and stay dry.

 About to start up a route in Huntsman's leap. A rather committing place to be should it start raining, and guess what, it rained both times we went down there.

Andy Scott, pumped but above the crux on another fantastic Pembroke E5 while Jon is Ace (apparently). This was another route which it started raining when I was on.

Pembroke

 

 The Trevellan area of Pembroke.

I have been climbing a fair bit recently, and started to get up a few routes. Last week I had a good little trip down to Pembroke with youth Calum Muskett, who at 17 was pretty keen, pretty handy (having already led E9) and had never been to Pembroke before.

 

Unfortunately many of the Pembroke crags are either bird banded until the 1st of August,  or/beside a military firing range. Access to the range is allowed during the weekends, and sometimes midweek. Unfortunately we were there midweek, and there was a lot of military activity. The campsite is also beside the range, and the noise of low flying helicopters, bursts of sub machine gun fire and explosions was constantly with us for the first few days. Until the last day access to the even the usually accessible Trevellan area was severely restricted.

 

 The traverse of this bay provided a great 30 metre long deep water solo of about f7a standard. I can seen just be seen about a third of the way along.

 However, we did find plenty to do, some good routes and a bit of deep water soloing.

 Starting the crux sequence.

Despite the access restrictions it was a successful trip, I wasn't burnt off too much by the youth, and he seemed suitably impressed by Pembroke; when I dropped him off back at his home shocked his mother by announcing that Pembroke is even better than Gogarth! Praise indeed.

The youth cruising through the crux.

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