A VERTICAL WORLD....: Seasons changing...

The light of day is starting to shorten and the cold is starting to settle in, There is a dew on the floor and slight fog in the air, the change of the bright green leaves are starting to turn to the crispy golden yellows and brown, With all the changes and emotion in my life this year time as flown by and I haven't really stopped to think what time of year it is, In my head it doesn't feel like Autumn but I guess its creeping up on us..

The Autumn winter months are my favourite time of the year, not only because I'm a lover of winter climbing and enjoy the ice much more than the rock but because I like that being out on a cold adventure and also as silly as it may sound I also like the feeling of looking forward to going home to a nice warm fire and cuddling up around it with my loved ones.

Myself, Paul and Alisha headed down to winspit today to play on the rope for a while, We also had a mission to take care of, Alisha's school was running a competition to see the craziest place the children could get a picture of them reading a book, most of the kids have been taking pictures in of them reading in the garden, the park or maybe the shopping centre... not Alisha! We decided to dangle her from the side of the cliff so she could read a few chapters of her favourite horrid Henry book, hopefully this will go down well with the teachers and also make her look pretty cool in front of all her school friends.

Conditions were really good today, really cold but with a bit of sun, after warming up on a few easy routes we jumped on a 6c called " Silver bream machine". As Paul don't normally lead much I persuaded him to give it go and go for an onsight attempt, he done really well moving up the lower part of the climb, it wasn't to technical just powerful and overhanging, he then came to the crux, after playing for a short while he got a little pumped and decided to come down. I then went on up and had a go, the climbing was really nice and it wasn't long before I entered the crux section, this was a blank slab, flapping for a while and not finding anything i had to rest on the draw, after a little looking i managed to find some small crimps and a sequence to move on up the lower off, I think the route is defiantly undergraded for an onsight attempt, I would give it at least 6c+.
On the walk into the crag i was thinking on trying Gorilla tactics, this is a very overhanging route which moves up the right side of a cave, I have always liked the look of this line but always been a little concerned about the it due to the loose looking rock and big boulders lying around, feeling psyched though i decided to give it a go.
The climbing was amazing, there were lots of good holds but all the moves were constantly powerful from bottom to top, there were some amazing positions and it felt really exposed.. I had to rest a while on it due to not being able to read the route correctly but eventually managed to clip the lower off, we also managed to find a loose block half way up.. But overall a really nice climb, Paul also had a go on toprope and it wasn't long before he realised why i was making lots of screaming noises, too pumped he decided to retire... The weather started to come in after this so we decided to call it a day and make the walk back up to society. I really enjoyed spending time with my Alisha today and it made it just perfect when she come up to me when i dropped her home and said " Daddy I love you, thankyou for today, I think its one of the best days of my life". Priceless and really touched me!!

I finished the day off by taking Alisha and angel for a stroll through the woods to collect some chestnuts, unfortunately they didn't quite seem ready for eating yet... and they done there usual in dragging me to the sweety shop...