Scottish tooling series at Gcc.

This weekend we went to the Glasgow climbing center to take part in the Scottish tooling series (sts).

After a short police escort through Lanarkshire past a jack knifed lorry down an embankment and a couple of pile ups because of black ice we arrived at the venue in good time.

 

                                    

Once we had registered and completed our belay and knot tying test in order to join the climbing wall. Big LOLS. We had a wonder round to check out the routes and form a plan of which to try and get done first and which to hold off till later on. 

There was a varied choice of routes that had been set, from variously arranged telegraph poles to the use of three auto belays in a jungle swing style and lengths of chain and holds that purposely moved. 

  The time went amazingly quick and before I knew it it was time up. I enjoyed all the routes and especially the hard technical routes. The 3 auto belay swing caused me trouble and I learnt a lot to take forward with me to the next round. 

I also met my new sponser for the first time and got my new set of new and improved schmoolz, which I can't wait to get to grips with at the wall this week. 

Overall I came 7th which for my second ever competion I was really happy with and an improvement from 10th at my last comp. I was gutted as I missed the final by a knots hair as the fun route caused me to loose points and if it would of been a proper route I would of got the same points as the finalist and got into the final, but it's all a good learning curve and I can't wait for the next round at glen more lodge on the 8th dec. 

White goods meet

Yesterday Ed came to pick me up at his usual 20 minutes before we arranged time. So after a quick nespersso we were off to the legendary white goods meet. White goods is a drytooling percific crag near Ruthin in Wales, it's mostly overhanging but has a good area of vertical climbs, probably 10 routes in the M5-M7 range then the majority M8-M10. 

Here's the topo- http://ramonmarin-uk.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/white-goods-topo.html

Me and Ed got there in our fashionably early manner and no one was there yet, so we did a few easy warm up routes at the kitchen area, Adams M5 and apple M7. Two ok vertical walls with natural flat edges and crack lines to follow, which makes a nice change from the drilled pockets we've been used to at the works and other venues. Harry Holmes turned up whilst we were doing the first route and once we'd shaken the cob webs out we heard some commotion over at the white goods area and headed over to check it out. 

Dougie enjoying himself perched under the roof. 

Ready steady hook before Stevie Johnson stated the demolition causing a rock fall (scary)

As everyone started arriving we geared up and ed in his wisdom jumped onto jazz and got very pumped under the roof. The one thing I learnt as this venue was beta goes along way and some of the placements weren't as obvious as you'd hope. 

So after a bit of spectating I jumped on to jazz M8 and managed to send it first hit. After belaying for Ed on a few unsuccessful attempts at jazz and inbetween chatting and watching people on different routes I decided to have a crack at white goods, which is to the left of jazz. 

 BUT before I got onto it someone took a big whiper off of bold start near the top and came under the lip and hurt him self then a few other people took a few big hits, which made me feel a bit uneasy, I'm not one for bad Jew-Jew whilst climbing so it didn't fill me with confidence for my next climb. 

 I set off any way and got under the roof with ease, I just didnt feel great comitting to the roof moves so decided to fight another day. (Whimp out). 

All in all we had an awesome day and I was gutted we couldn't stay for the whole weekend. We meet a load of new dry tooling comrades and caught up with old ones. 

 We can't wait to get back there as it's a great venue and plenty of projects in our sights. 

Festival of ice dry tooling comp

Last weekend myself, ed and andy Turner headed up to the festival of ice up at the ice factor in kinlochleven to compete in there dry tooling competition.

 We decided to set of on the Friday morning so it gave us plenty of time to get up to Scotland and relax before the comp on Saturday, before we could set off we had to help andy Turner with a little job for his partner hanging up some climbing photographs at the Buxton pavilions, for the Buxton outdoor film festival. Luckasz warzecha photography . After a quick stop at aldi we were on the road.

 When we arrived at the ice factor we found Phil and Emma Powell there doing a bit of pre comp reccy. Once all our digs were sorted we headed off to the clacaig inn in glen Coe for our pre climb tea.
The following morning we got to the wall and got a coffee before the melee began, once registered the fun could start, the first climb me and Ed did was a traverse with a high step up and jump to a marginal hold. Quite easy as long as you committed to it. Before I did it I was really nervous about about the climbs as it was my first comp, but once I had a few routes under my belt I really started to enjoy it.
I managed to get full points on 11 out of the 15 routes, 2 on the second attempt 1 on the third and could do one problem. Over all I came 10th which I was mega happy with considering it was my first comp.

all in all it was a great day and after a few post comp beers I was ready for bed and ready for Newtyle quarry the next day.