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)