Injury strikes...

Its been a while since I have blogged about any of my activities, after my last blog I managed to have a couple of successful climbing days ticking off my project “Peppercorn rate” and coming very close to “dickstardly”, feeling strong and psyched was amazing. Then came the climbers nightmare, whist training mid week at craggy island I latched for a hold on the bouldering wall, with this came a large pop and a very bad pain through my finger and hand, I continued for a short while after but it soon came apparent damage had been done. I have currently partially torn my A2 pulley, so rest and therapy was of utmost importance, its been around 3 weeks now and the pain as eased a little, I am still able to train in the gym lifting weights, I am also doing allot of training on the ice axes on my home training wall, all I can do to try keep my stamina and strength up for my return. I headed out this weekend to introduse my friend Dan fletcher to his first days trad climbing, we headed to the friendly area of cattle troughs, all fairly easy routes fro VD to E1, I lead a few easy lines placing lots of gear and showing Dan the placements and how to set up anchors, Once happy he started to lead some routes, when confident he lead to classic of the crag “Bunnys wall” , the route is VS 5a, not to hard but a test for his first day on natural gear, he lead it well and was pretty psyched by the end of it. Feeling I needed my adrenaline rush I decided to Solo one of the lines there, I do quite a bit of Solo climbing when I am in the mood, the feeling of climbing with no gear, no rope, just myself and the rock gives me a great since of achievement, I had a small moment halfway up the route where I looked down and thought Christ if I slip here I am not going to see daylight again… after a few breaths and a calmness I pushed on and topped out. My finger still feels tender and with little pain so It will be a while before I am pushing things on rock again..

In the meantime, lots of easy trad, gym work & training on the tools.

Soloing

Relief after topping out..