stuff

righto, just a quick update really.
my new camera has just arrived, so mega psyched to get out and shhot some stuff. Found a new project at grinshill, a faint seam up a just over-hanging wall (probbabley about V10-ish!), and the water is almost gone from the cellar so the training wall is back in play!

Also went for a quick look round harmer hill with ed and spied a mighty amount of projects!
Psyched!

projects and plans

yo, not been up to much exciting recently (hence the lack of posts)

However I did spend monday wondering around grinshill in the rain with ed. we found several little projects which I am dead keen to go back and try and also chatted about his recent ascent of a tough 7c at dinbren and his plans to attempt el ricon, a hard 8a also at dinbren.

This got me thinking about how cool the rock is in the local area, and how hard some of our locals are cranking. this in turn has inspired me to make a film about climbing in shropshire, hopefully featruring some cool first-ascents and hard repeats.

So that evening i dug out my camera and soon learned it was broke, and spent the rest of the night looking at new ones on amazon.

Time to save up the pennies methinks!

quick classic tick

Headed up to Helsby yesterday, keen to have ago at morgue slab but it was far to wet to attempt it. However it did dry off enough for a quick tick of flake crack, so not an entirely wasted day.

Photo Shoot Photos

Here they are. Keen eyed readers among you will notice that these were not then ones taken by Mr Simmonite, but by Stu Cathcart.
Enjoy:

photo shoot

Today David Simmonite of climb magazine was up at grinshill taking picutres for the mag, so the highsports team rolled out to give him the tour. We took him to the classic thomson twins, and black bulge at middle rocks, then up-ed the level with Eliminator at the prow.

It was a very enjoyable day, but was hard work. Climbing problems four or five times, so he could get the shot. I will upload any pics as soon as I get them, but for now here's an old one of me on the first ascent of The creature for the green lagoon.

Grady's Back

Righto, long time since i've been on here, but a couple of my freinds have recently started blogs and I felt I should carry on with mine.
And in answer to your first question, no I have not been back to lead the quarry project, though I have been fairly busy.

Myself on Indecent Exposure E2 5C

Where to start? earlier this year I headed over to Font with Isreal,Alister and Stuart, for a week of hard moves on perfect boulders

Various problems in Font

Back in this country I had a breif session sports climbing at trevor rocks and dinbren, flashing routes up to 6C

Flash of Traction Control 6C

Following this I got my trad head on, and for my birthday headed out to the roaches and did some quality routes includung prelude to space (which has super-psyched me for attempts at elegy and smear test) and condor slab which, despite its low grade, proved to be tricky and run out and as I topped out I felt like I had just had a proper onsight experience.

Prelude to space

Condor slab

This ascent inspired me to get out and do some more trad, and to try and up my level. So I did via a tour of the minor clwyd crags: maeshafn and pot hole quarry, Where I onsighted a couple of hvs cracks like the bulger and the dog, Then finally broke into the E's with an ascent of the minstrel at E1 5B. (i have previously climbed an E1 but that was crystal tips at ramshaw and is more of a problem than a route)

The dog HVS 5B

The next major trip was to Dinas Cromlech in Llanberis. Having never climbed there before I wasn't intending to push myself so set off up noahs warning (HVS 5a), then my partner wanted to try left wall (E2 5c). He looked steady as he set off but it turned out not to be his day as he got very pumped and lobbed off, as I lowered himdown I realised one of us needs to get all the gear out, and short of walking all the way round to the top and abseiling down, that means i'm gonna have to try it.

Thinking it was way out of my league I decide to leave the ropes in place and climb to his high point on top rope. As I progressed up the wall the doubt in my mind started to clear as I found the moves very enjoyable and as I arrived at his highpoint I was excited, not nervous about leading the top section. I carried on to the top,it went well and as I hung off the tat at the top I had big smile on my face.

I was very happy with my effort, but as I thought about it on the journey home I realised I had felt comfortable and in control the whole time and began to feel dissapointed that I hadn't pulled the ropes and gon for the proper lead.

So I was pretty confident I could onsight up to the grade of E2, but I needed to prove it to myself.

My next trip continued my exploration of he minor local crags, this time Carreg Y Byg. Reading the guide I got pretty excited by descriptions of technical walls and soaring aretes, but on arrival we found the walls to be almost completley hidden by moss and the aretes under attack from the trees!

Walking down the length of the crag the story was much the same, untill we came to the very last wall which seemed clean enough. I flicked through the guide and found where we were and what routes were there. Sundance wall is a neat little wall with face and crack climbs ranging from VS to......E2.

Was this some sort of weird fate? The last route on the last wall was exactly the same grade as left wall. Okay so in comparison the short crack and overhang of indecent exposure was nothing compared to the awesome, massive line of left wall, but they were graded the same and that was good enough for me.

I warmed up on a couple of the HVS's then went for it, and topped out steadily enough. Sitting on top I was content, I had onsighted an E2. Not that I ever thought it was out of my abbility, but more the fact that I had now pushed my grade from HVS toE2 in the space of a month. I had broken through extreme barrier and gone beyond, and i was thirsty for more.

And so to my most recent outing. Taking advantge of the nice weather I headed out to worlds end. After ticking some nice VS and HVS's I was nicely warmed up and felt I was climbing well, so decided to have a go at taerg wall (E2 5b).

Setting off I rocked up through the flakes and ledges smoothly, arriving at the rest before the crux feeling good. Iarranged some gear, which seemed fine and I didn't worry to much about it as the good peg was only a move away.

I reached up to the next hold, it was very un-positive, tried the move and retreated swiftly to the rest. I had another couple of goes but it just didn't quite feel right.

The gear I had placed all of a sudden didnt seem so good so I faffed around slotting two or three more small wires into semi-good placments, then continued trying to figure out the move.

Having been at the rest for some time now I was starting to get tired, and my fingers were getting cold, I knew I couldnt hang on much longer, so made a couple more adjustments and went for it. My fingers latched solidly on to the hold and I quickly clipped the peg, then made the long pull to the top.

Sat on top I felt amazing. I had once again onsighted E2, but this time it was a classic route on a classic crag, and I had the proper onsight experience I was looking for.

So that about brings you up to date with me ( sorry for rambling on) and I will try to keep this a bit more up to date in future.

Oh the other thing I have been doing is exploring Grinshill, I have put up a couple of new problems there and found a couple of cool projects.

So I'll leave you with this little trailer thing I made (you can view the whole film here)

pics of me on the route!

This project has been pushed of the back of my mind lately, but after finding these pictures, I'm keen to get back down there again.

uff!

So its Sunday afternoon ad i get a call off my good friend Benjo asking if I was up for climbing on Monday. I filled him in on my quarry projects and he was happy to come and give me a belay.
So I met my friend in town, and we caught the bus to mine, packed our shizzle and headed out. It was a glorious day, the birds were singing, we were sweating, and there was barley a cloud in the sky. On arrival we ab'ed down the line and cleaned the route, the stopped at the bottom for some lunch, followed by a quick fag, then I tied on for the lead.
I double checked my knot, made sure Benjo was ready, placed my foot on the first hold, looked up at my line and was hit in the face by a large drop of rain!

The rain then continued for the next couple of hours making the route almost impossible.
Oh well, next time!

Finally

I have finally returned to the quarry, and armed with my new micro nuts managed to find a somewhat sketchy three extra placements, (although could not manage to fiddle in the wc rock 1 I had place last time).
So here is the definitive list of the gear on the route:
1st piece is zero G no.1 nut
2nd is the zero G no.3 nut
3rd BD no.2 micro stopper
4th BD no.1 micro stopper
5th Bd no.3 micro stopper
6th zero G no. 2 nut

the limited and kinda small gear

another new line

I also managed to flash the moves of another line slightly to the left, which seems to yield harder climbing and even less gear!
And for the last hour or so of my session I swung the rope over to the smaller slab, and was completely shut down by the technical moves that it offered. After inspection there appeared to be possibly four good lines up the face and no natural protection so I am considering the possibility of bolting it up.

So thats you all up to date, and I sign off pretty confident that the next good day we get I will be on the lead.

In the mean time

I till haven't been back to the quarry, but in the mean time i have not been idle.
(In the style of the fast show guy):
The last couple of weeks I have mostly been bouldering.

Bits and bobs on the grit, a host of new V0's and V1's at the secret bouldering area behind the quarry (now christened Ditchville) , a trip to the works in Sheffield, and practicing in the trees at the bottom of my garden.
Unfortunately my camera is out of action at the moment but here is a couple of vids from last summer etc.
Enjoy.

Because I gots nothing else to report

Woop I am now the proud owner of a set of BD micro stoppers.

Now as soon as the weather dries up and the daylight comes I can get on my route!

Poles coppice quarry

This shall be my first project of the new year, I stumbled upon this old disused quarry towards the end of last year, after hearing about it in the "other places" section of the westmidlands rock guide, and have just recently been back to look at route possibilities.


After checking out a few of these old quarries I was thrilled to see the scale of this one, there was loads of rock there! Alright some of it was a bit loose but I was immediately drawn to the two main slabs smack bang in the middle.

A view of the two main slabs

I decided to first look at a route directly up the center of the larger wall to the right, and after a quick play on a grigri established this line:

Proposed new line.

After I had kicked most of the loose crap off i was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the climbing. The route starts with a slight rising traverse (with a lovely bouldery sidepull move) to a small stance, then follows just underneath the obvious ridge, untill you are able to move out right on three small crimps. From there the route goes straight to the top on a mix of two and three fingered sloping pockets(first knuckle joint).

After a little play on the moves I decided technically the route is around brittish 5a/5b, so then abseiled down the line to look for protection.

the route with the gear marked

What I found was pretty thin, the first piece is a zero G size 1 nut, which must be pushed into the crack then seated hard.
The second is a compilation of a zero 3 nut and a wild country size 1, both in semi-ok placements.
The slab is then pretty blank untill a small crack just before the end, where you can just wriggle in a zero size 2 nut to protect the top out.

With that in mind I finished the tea in my flask, packed up, and went home to see if I had enough cash to afford a set of micro stoppers.

right then.

hello to one and all and welcome to my blog, which should hopefully be covering all of my little projects and trips from now on, so lets get started.