NEWS Yorkshire Gritstone Bouldering Vol2 is out NEWS
Total Climbing's volume 2 is now in the shops, well nearly. You can pick a copy up at the Depot in Leeds. Other shops should get it next week. It's been a long wait but I think it's going to be awesome.
Monday, 14 March 2011
Last week the Facewest lunchtime bouldering team made it up to the Mighty Bas West Chevin, an awesome bouldering venue that's a little spread out. The first session last week got most of the problems on the Raynman Area bloc done. This is a fantastic bloc with some excellent easy problems, check it out.
Near by is the highball Brownian Motion (font 7c+) and Particle Collision (font 7b), they don't get many repeats...
Down 'below' about 200m downhill are more problems including a new problem from Tom P, 'Fluid Dynamics'at around 8a.
On our second session we went for 'Eat the Light' & 'Avatar', both superb problems. Well in the 3/4 of an hour lunch break we get it was ambitious in poor conditions, but better than doing feck all.
Today Sam got a new video camera, a smart little Kodak ZX 10. Here is the video of me on Eat The Light, yes conditions were good.
Spring is in the air, well as my Grandma used to say "I've heard geese fart before". All week we've been tempted by blue skies and warmer weather and come the weekend what a disappointment.
Well the winter has been long and cold but I have been getting to Harrogate wall nearly every week. And not a bad wall it is either. It has been built very much as a commercial wall designed to provide the community with a climbing facility with something for every one. Where as some walls such as Leeds were built as a dedicated training facility for local climbers. I think this is an indication of how climbing as a sport/recreation is progressing.
Harrogate isn't much of a bouldering wall, thought it does have some good problems set. The area of the wall dedicated to bouldering is just to small. However a trip to Leeds will take you to two dedicated bouldering walls both of which are excellent and compliment each other; City Bloc The Depot
City Bloc is the nearest to the city center and has a skate park adjacent where as The Depot is out in Pudsey and is in a former Tram shed.
Been a bit shit updating the Blog!.. sorry. Tonight I had half an hour to spare before the sun went down, so a brief trip to Whitehouses to catch up with Jon.
Been out a few time to Caley and Almscliff, mainly with Ian. The highlight was ticking New Jerusalem, though I used the short guys method which seams a lot easier than the cross through.
Still beavering away at the traverse into Morells wall at the cliff. Also I had a dream about Steve's wall, could that be a sign. It's one of those problems that looks quite easy, which generally means it will be nails.
Well I have quite a lot on my tick list at the moment, and a little ambitious, but a faint heart never ...
Anyway I've recorder a short video re the balm. It's a brief intro to the Balm.
Last Sunday morning was 'welcome back to Rugby!'. Well my lad Max is in the under 12's at Wharfedale RUFC, a fine club with fine tradition. For me that means several months on the touchline scoffing bacon and egg butties with mugs of hot coffee. Oh if only Mountain Equipment would invent the Touchline Jacket.
But also Chris was up from Bristol to see Jon, so I was keen to catch up, after all it's been a couple of years since out last trip to Fontainebleau. Well I took off for Caley to meet them as soon as I could...
All the usual banter and some good bouldering followed, the highlight for me was doing Creme egg eliminate 1st time. Here's an old photo of me doing the crux hand swap;
Then it was down to flail on the Horn Left hand, though Chris was rather impressed with the echo. Just stand about three feet away and try it. Jon on his usual form did all three problems, bit of a show boater I say ;-)
What a good week, though not actually achieved a right lot. On Monday I was the lone representative lunch time boulderer at the mighty Bas West Chevin. Actually doing laps on 'Eat the light'!!!, but we did get out another two lunchtimes.
Thursday evening we met up with Jon aka www.yorkshiregrit.com , at The Cliff. My latest project is the L-R traverse into Morells wall. Christ that pocket is hard to hold. But I will.
Friday, 3 September 2010
Bonjour, well there's a clue to why it's all been a little quiet. Though I have been back for over a week now, yes a slack bastard.
I only had one days climbing but boy it was an excellent, this is one area that's little heard of just south of Angoulême in Charnte. The climbing here is pocket pulling and powerfull single pitch sport climbing on perfect French limestone.
Though I only had one day there I thought the grading was either full on sandbaging or pretty steady. We chose a sandbag for the 1st route. 5+ my arse, easy satrt then a limestone slab in the sun proved quite interesting, but we did it...
