Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Why I don't sport climb or boulder much
People keep asking me what I think is so bad about sport climbing (and bouldering for that matter). There are of course a massive number of mocking remarks that can be used to rile up an aficionado of any particular climbing discipline and in the past I have often resorted to these rather than a serious attempt to qualify why I don't find sport and bouldering very compelling. A small seed of an idea came to me a while ago however and recently fully blossomed into a realisation of what drives me to trad climb. Risk. Admitting this raises the horrible spectre that I might just be a bit of an adrenaline junkie which isn't an admission I really like making. When trad climbing, every nut or cam has a chance that it will fail and on most routes there are places where the consequences of a fall are either suspected to be serious or known to be serious. When sport climbing or bouldering (highballs excepted), every fall or failure is assumed to have next to no risk and as I feel like there is no penalty for failure, I also find I have little motivation to succeed. Obvious there are many other reasons I like trad but I think this might be the crux of the matter. there, now it is on record :)
Monday, 27 September 2010
Getting Excited
It's hard to concentrate at work when all I can think of is 100 different things I need to do before I leave. I spent about 3 hours this evening putting yellow tape on every piece of rock gear on my rack while watching Masters of Stone rather than tackle the ecosystem on my floor. I have also officially left Eve Online for the next 6 months (why are online addictions so hard to kick?!), if anyone from Eve is reading; don't worry about defending our stations, I have evacuated all my assets to low sec :D
My kidneys have finally stopped aching about 3 days after I imbibed an ill advised quantity of red wine and by all accounts, including my own fragmented memory, acted with jejune disregard and emotional instability. Time to resort to that oft made and never kept resolution to avoid alcohol I feel.
I have about 400 daily disposable contact lenses that I will never use now that I have had laser eye surgery. They are -6.5 dioptres and unfortunately very out of date. I have used them up till a couple months ago with no ill effects and as they are individually sealed in sterile liquid I have a hard job imagining what the use by date is for. If anyone can use them, let me know.
My kidneys have finally stopped aching about 3 days after I imbibed an ill advised quantity of red wine and by all accounts, including my own fragmented memory, acted with jejune disregard and emotional instability. Time to resort to that oft made and never kept resolution to avoid alcohol I feel.
I have about 400 daily disposable contact lenses that I will never use now that I have had laser eye surgery. They are -6.5 dioptres and unfortunately very out of date. I have used them up till a couple months ago with no ill effects and as they are individually sealed in sterile liquid I have a hard job imagining what the use by date is for. If anyone can use them, let me know.
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Monday, 20 September 2010
So little time!
Only 2 weeks till I leave for Australia and suddenly there seems to be so much that needs done. I've started sorting through my things and the most worrying prize so far goes to the sock that appears to have belonged to a toddler at some stage!
Strange day at work too. 3 out of 4 instructional sessions turned out to be quite interesting which is certainly a first. First was the instructional session with 2 very nice young ladies, always a pleasure ;). Second got a bit more interesting with a mother who had a favourite-child syndrome the like of which I've basically never seen, very strange to see, wonder how that will play out in later life. Finally I had the adult who was sloshed by 4pm in the afternoon, accompanied by the child who had developed a rock solid ability to entertain herself and seemed to function in every aspect at least 3 or 4 years older than her 8yrs. Instructional sessions normally pass with nothing more interesting than the odd pushy parent going a bit beyond "encouragement" with their child. As I'm in control it usually ends well, except when the child in question grabs the wall and refuses to let go amidst floods of tears, never a good turn of events but children recover from that kind of fright surprisingly quickly.
Got loads of shiny new climbing kit today as well, so my rack is pretty much whole again. Happy days!
Managed to get away climbing for 4 days this week as well, was rather a case of trying to dodge the bad weather and nowhere looks that great. Managed to on sight a few routes from E1 to E3 though and found a really sweet looking line that may not have been climbed yet at Floors Craig near Aberdeen. With any luck I might be able to go back and try it before I leave for Australia, only thing is, it does look like a short section of snappy strenuous brit tech 6b, not really my forte. Maybe I will look at it on abseil... OMG, call the ethics police!
Strange day at work too. 3 out of 4 instructional sessions turned out to be quite interesting which is certainly a first. First was the instructional session with 2 very nice young ladies, always a pleasure ;). Second got a bit more interesting with a mother who had a favourite-child syndrome the like of which I've basically never seen, very strange to see, wonder how that will play out in later life. Finally I had the adult who was sloshed by 4pm in the afternoon, accompanied by the child who had developed a rock solid ability to entertain herself and seemed to function in every aspect at least 3 or 4 years older than her 8yrs. Instructional sessions normally pass with nothing more interesting than the odd pushy parent going a bit beyond "encouragement" with their child. As I'm in control it usually ends well, except when the child in question grabs the wall and refuses to let go amidst floods of tears, never a good turn of events but children recover from that kind of fright surprisingly quickly.
Got loads of shiny new climbing kit today as well, so my rack is pretty much whole again. Happy days!
Managed to get away climbing for 4 days this week as well, was rather a case of trying to dodge the bad weather and nowhere looks that great. Managed to on sight a few routes from E1 to E3 though and found a really sweet looking line that may not have been climbed yet at Floors Craig near Aberdeen. With any luck I might be able to go back and try it before I leave for Australia, only thing is, it does look like a short section of snappy strenuous brit tech 6b, not really my forte. Maybe I will look at it on abseil... OMG, call the ethics police!
Sunday, 12 September 2010
Preparation
It's been a successful summer in terms of climbing. I had some superb trips to Sheigra, Gogarth, the Dolomites and Chamonix and a few trips to local cliffs as well. These days it seems like a single day trip just will not cut it because there is almost nothing left to climb anywhere near Edinburgh (excepting garbage routes and routes that are well beyond me, of which there are many). The most successful note being my success at on sighting an E5, a target which I set myself somewhat arbitrarily when I started climbing quite a few years ago. As with all successes however, it has a bitter-sweet taste because after a brief moment of euphoria I realise that climbing will lose it's meaning unless I can concoct another target, and it had better be one that will take a monumental effort too because getting to E5 was not easy!
So. The new target shall be to on sight an E7!
My reasoning is thus:
- There are quite a lot of climbers operating at this level these days and the bleeding edge is really on-sighting E8, so I will not need to be a leading climber (which isn't going to happen!), just a very good climber.
- I am not actually very strong and on the rare occasion I sport climb I seem to start failing at about f7a and fail more epicly from there on up. If I can on sight trad at my maximum sport grade then I only need to get strong enough to climb about f7c or so and E7 should be within my grasp.
- It's "only" 2 grades harder than E5. Haheha, that sounds hollow even to my ears!
I'm off to Australia (mount arapiles to be precise) for several months at least from the start of October so hopefully I can use my time over there to get strong enough to come back and on sight some E6s. That is the plan at any rate.
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