the rough and the smooth

I've been climbing outside solidly for the last 2 weeks as a kind of summer break from training and just a general chillout relaxo time. Its been great to make use of the stable weather and get up to the highergrounds. One brilliant session (more so than usual) was last wednesdays. With our bunch of overpaid, undertrained ball chasers distracting much of the paunched population from leaving the house I made an afternoon sortie up to Ravensheugh with man of the match, triple daddy, Rob Fielding (hi Rob!) robs new approach is to fit a weeks worth of climbing into his 1 free afternoon and he's recently been taking up the torch in the inspiring lines department.

check this shid out:

I can confirm, despite the heat flies and midgies which would normally have sent me home, that this is a cracking bloc, it climbs like you want everything to and the hold texture and curves are like a sandstone Nigella Lawson.

Anyhows we busted upto Ravensheugh, the Ceuse of the county, as i had an eye on a line i'd tried months ago with Ned when there were snow drifts on the ground. We arrived to a belting wind and cloud, which provided some poff like conditions. It took me ages to refine 1 move in the roof the rest of the beta coming from my previous brainstorming session with Ned. Which was handy as this move was hard, if i was just a bit taller and stronger and my second name was Adams then i might have been able to stretch off a good foot way back, instead I ended up smearing in the roof and slapping off one vertical sidepull into a slopey dish, the only thing keeping you on being a slopey heel. from here a series of 1 foot slaps between boat keels and letterboxes get you out the underbelly of the 9ft high roof and established on the lip, with 1 arm, a big lock off out left then sees you on a small but ok hold staring the last moves in the face. After tweaking the beta and shifting up a gear i found myself at the end move again and again with a wilting lat and some strange noises coming out my mouth. the sound of weakness. Gaskins just squeeks, no sound is strong enough to fully escape him. I was howling away and back on the ground. The two being correlated. I pushed on and emptied the tank, whilst having the most fun i'd had in yonks, about 3 goes after I shouldn't have been able to pull of the ground i was still getting to the last move and wilting. I'd given it my best shot and it'd won, i worked the end moves, found better beta (as is always the case) and returned on saturday with bullit.

where by i got hot, shutdown and fustrated at not even sticking the dish for a whole hour. I sacked it off cleaned up billy biscuit a cracking E5 (which is now climbable rather than being a gallery of lichen) and it gradually clouded over and rained. This cooled things off just enough for me to be able to stick the dish, 3 goes later i was dragging the last 2 holds swinging out, silent and possessed by pent up expectations. Job done, it was more like a job on saturday than wednesday too, wednesday was fun and frolicks, saturday was pressure and grease. I finished off by ground upping billy biscuit, although after cleaning the holds on the abb that term is a bit loose but i had no other choice the route was unclimably filthy.

The next day we decided to mix things up a bit and remind ourselves why the county is so good. So a long steep walk in was called for and a venue with yawning chasms for landings and rock with the texture which could only be replicated by mixing a tray of concrete and chucking in 2 boxes of assorted screws, smashing 5 champagne bottles into the mix, and about 3kg of rust shavings. Which is a shame because the lines at the Lad stones are stiking and compelling and the situation alone is worth the walk if your eyes appreciate being massaged.

I had a fairly decent day anyway, did groove armada ground up, and had a bit of a "moment" turning the top slab, would have been useful to have the holds chalked and looked at after an ab but instead i ended up crimping bits of fossilised broken glass and embracing the security of searing pain before cutting and getting my foot up, where after all the holds revealed themselves from their hiding places. Tom's new additions are good fun too even if the pockets on smoking guns are proper dog mouthers. I might have added a new line... not sure, it was quite nice though on small pockets (again sharp). I think i'm addicted to the smell of cordite, which certainly helps with patioing :)

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