If you love a bird, you dont.......

For some reason i must attract drama, never a dole moment, it seems as soon as i find happiness its taken away again, but one thing that never leaves is the happiness of climbing, its been too long and this weekend I headed out with my good Friends Dan and Ben, with it being a while since any of us had really climbed things got interesting.. a lovely day was had with nothing really hard climbed, there seemed to be more banter about Dan's weight gained over the summer than climbing and encouragement itself but the fun and laughs were at the highest.. thanks for a great day guys.. looks like training starts again... same time next week..

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..

Epic Fail..

Another weekend and another trip to the Winspit quarry, still hoping for the harder routes to dry out so we can get working them, with both myself and Dan having unfinished business from previous weeks we were both psyched to get on with things.. this week we was also joined by Dans mate Ben. Arriving at the crag it didn't take long to realise that most of the lines were wet, including my project and Dans, "peppercorn rate" Dans route, wasn't as bad and looked like it may dry out after a few hours. We warmed up on some on the easier lines before returning, other than a small section the route was near on dry so we jumped on.
We put the clips in and worked the crux for a bit before all attempting the line on the lead, I was up first, I moved well and managed to get through the crux without any problems, there is then a small rest which is followed by an awkward crack and rock over to the lower off, I pushed on through before getting just under the lower then bang.. off I came. Gutted I lowered to the ground.
Ben was up next, he pretty much did the same as me.. And then Dan, However poor Dan manged to get right to the lower off, in fact the jug at the lower off, i guess victory went to is head because he popped.. i was gutted for him so i cant imagine how he felt, especially after working the line for so long.
With time getting on we decided to call it a day, all psyched to return next weekend and put this route to bed.. All I can think writing this is i bet poor Dan is still having sleepless nights over what went wrong... the words he screamed as he fell pretty much summed up his thoughts...

Dan Warming up on an easy 6a

rough seas

Ben on easy warm up

myself moving through the crux of "Peppercorn rate" 7a

Dan looking at Crux of peppercorn

Roadrage..

With weather still not settled and with the constant rain the majority of climbing is being done indoors on the plastic. close eyes have been on the forecast, watched hourly in hope to see a symbol of no rain, luckily that's we we got this week for Saturday, Although raining all day and night Friday we were pretty sure we could find some dry rock to climb somewhere. After a little chat on facebook we decided to head to to cheyne wears on Portland. The main reason being Phil wanted to try the Portland testpeice "Roadrage". Most of the routes here are 7a upwards and all pretty steep. there is one 6a+ which we all opted to warm up on. We also managed to find a pretty hard 6b+ route called "Remembrance Sunday". this felt pretty tough for the grade with a hard boulder problem start.
Phil and drew spent allot of time on "Roadrage" with Phil coming very close only failing right at the top, with high winds and time getting on the face was getting a slight spray from the sea causing the holds to become greasy, I had a play on the route too but soon realised I wasn't quite in the 7b+ grade yet, although all the holds felt positive i would need to work a line this hard to find a good sequence.
I'm pretty sure Phil will send it next visit, Drew was also pretty close considering this was his first day out this year.
I spent allot of time today hanging on a rope taking photos, believe it or not hanging up on the wall gives you time to think, made me realise how lucky i am to come to places like this with good Friends and enjoy something so simple...

Phil Fighting hard on "RoadRage" 7b+

Drew On "RoadRage"

Sitting on the rope taking photo's

Not a bad place to think and take photos

James feeling the strain