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.

New traverse wall

We've finally got round to building the training wall. Upto know its 16ft long and 8ft tall, I want to add abit to the top to make it a touch taller but its a start. I've drilled aloud of wooden blocks and drilled a hole in them to seat the picks. I need to get hold of some old climbing holds to practice on. 

Hot cross training

So my winter training is well under way now, most of my nights are filled with varying types of training and my days are filled with aching muscles. ( a good ache )

 After speaking with different people about what's the best training winter, I decided to try a variety of things, the main one being cross training. http://youtu.be/ytYh1N6niLQ

  

Example:

5 circuits-

20 slashers 

1 min over head slosh pipe

5 laps Farmers walk

10 squats with slosh pipe

10 shoulder to shoulder with sand bag 

10 halos with kettle bell. 

31 minutes dead it took me

Climbing the Blackpool Towers.

Last nights training session took me to the climbing towers in Blackpool, for more info go to blackpool climbing site.
  tonight's session was just me and Andy, we started of with a quick warm up, the usual stretches and a bit of cardio to get the blood flowing, then onto the wall.
Andy led the first route like he does, making it look easy and flowing from one move to the next with amazing strength, i seconded up and for the first time made it to the top of the 25m route, needless to say i was quite happy as my last attempt had only seen me to halfway.

Andy then did a back to back lead and i followed up with my first lead on this impending and very high structure, i managed to get halfway before over gripping and forgetting to breath properly took its toll and i got to around half height before muscle pump kicked in.

once we had finished on the routes we got stuck into the circuits, i did 3 minutes sets and Andy did 4 minutes, which we did four times then had a rest and then repeated.

by the time we had finished my arms were throbbing. great training tho  feels great.

SPA WEEKEND in the northeast.

This weekend I did my SPA climbing assessment with roxcool climbing up in the northeast. 

Our first day was at almscliff doing personal climbing skills and at Macmillan climbing centre in Middlesbrough. 

The second day which consisted of group work was at scuggdale in the morning and then gisebough viaduct to do the assisted abseil in the afternoon. I would highly recommend roxcool for any climbing qualifications you are considering as they were terrific the whole weekend. 

I passed with flying colours and now can't wait to get to work. 

Jims new shoes.

This week one of my friends asked me if I could take him out climbing, he'd seen all the pics I've been posting over the years and finally decided to give it ago.

The first evening we went up to wind gather rocks above kettleshulme in Derbyshire. We started off with a good warm up then went down the right hand end quarry to look at Kim's footwork. 

 

 I gave Jim a pair of climbing shoes which He found straight away to be so much more responsive and a lot more grip on the rock, we went through a few simple rules of footwork, as footwork is the key and vital to progressing in climbing and you need to start how you mean to go on. Once we had done some exercises on footwork and centre of gravity we moved onto some climbing techniques.

The next evening we headed up to stanage to try out jims new toolbox of skills. We started with flying buttress hvd ****. I led up it and Jim seconded. He got slowed down at the top of the first slab entering the upper slab through the bookcase corner. I just had to remind a few key points of what we had learnt the previous evening and he was soon up and enjoying the view from the top of flying buttress and revelling in his first four star climb. 

 Our next rout was holly bush crack vdiff ****, once Jim started climbing you could see he was feeling a lot more comfortable on the rock, this climb was solid climbing all the way to the top and Jim really enjoyed this route and thought it was the better of the two routes.

On the way home we stopped of at the old hall pub in hope for a pint and to have a chat about the climbs and what Jim enjoyed and wants to take a closer look at next session. 

The works vandalism.

I went down to the works on Sunday after hearing the news on my return to the uk from Spain.
I couldn't believe that someone or people would go to such lengths to vandalise such an important venue.
This venue was purposely developed for drytooling and has no other use, there were no routes already there and in no way encroached on any existing routes or venues.
It is a small dank hole the ground that keeps drytoolers of the mountains and in a controlled and well equipped area purposely developed for us.
A very sad incident indeed.
http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=547700&v=1#x7322355