Stanton Delivers

Two years ago when i was just beginning to feel out the more esoteric peak venues, i came across Spare Rib and its accompanying boulder, and whilst this is undoubtedly one of the best problems in the UK it had no other straight up problems on it at the time, the other arete on the opposite side of the block was a prime example of a sitting duck project and on a return visit i mopped it up at 7b+, I then turned my attention to the arete to the Right of Jon in the above pic, i battled up the lower section and found that it leads you into the groove. with the top section of the arete being nigh on impossible and the groove being a stunning feature (albeit visually near spare rib.) I set about this. A session later i was tickling the hanging crack and i thought it wouldn't be to bad. So i left it for 2 years, which seem to have flown by. And after mopping up several other personal projects in the peak this season this rose back up the list. Heading back with Ryan the other day i managed to stick the crack but fully stretched and with no idea where to go, next session i abbed the top moves and sussed out the sequence. Which looks like a wholly undramatic affair when observed but from within a gossamer tension can be felt which is about as comforting as running across a newly frozen lake. the last foot of height takes alot of reeling in and my mind and body repeatedly crumbled on the foot moves. My mind wasn't crumbling from fear, just demand overload, too many minute movements were needing to be monitored at once. Bit by bit i pigheadedly pushed my kinasthetic dullardness up the problem learning more and more micro beta, which other people just do naturally or won't need. And after a little break a brew and a flapjack i jerkily overpowered my way to the top, 3rd session this year.

Stanton Deliver 8A+?

It gets hard from here... (pics are stills from a film shot by Nick Brown)

The problem starts from standing at the foot of the arete with LH on fairly obvious slopey crimp and RH on a pinch on the arete.

click here for a bigger res pic.

Between this, Pink Lady- Dave Mason's new 7c+ stand/ 8a sit. Golden egg- Jon Boys new 7c+ (and Ned's 7c+ variation - Furry Egg)

There are alot of good things going up in this area and i bet it's not long until an 8b is sniffed out.

To Celebrate i whipped over to cratcliffe and RHS with Nick and did Musclin' man (bransbys way) and my prune (stunning) My prune was a bit interesting as it was getting dark and i was getting tired and the last bit heading leftwards strayed a little too close to the bone.

more cloud formations

Another blue sky day warranted a roaches trip again yesterday. This time to Nth cloud and skyline. We warmed up at nth cloud and i had a couple of meek attempts at a project i'd tried last year. In fact upon returning to try again it last year i'd been sunned off it and that's when i stumbled upon the prow which is now The Darkest Cloud. Today was looking pretty similar, blue skies are lovely but bad news for small grips. And with Caff and Neil running out of eliminate warm ups to do on the 6a's we went and did art nouveau. It was baltic up there and after Neil'd seen off a swift onsight of Entropys jaw. The clouds had returned to save the nth cloud from the November sun. A big fat cumulo stratus infact, so the sun had no chance. After getting going again it was apparent that conditions were way better, So atleast i'm finally old enough for a tiny bit of wisdom to have crept in. Neil and Caff quickly got stuck into the LH project Which looks nice but climbs pretty thrutchily and with no distinct line compared to its looks. I'd come back for the RH line, whilst this is marred a tiny bit by the swivel finger arete visually it is a far better line climbing and hold quality wise. But then again these projects have been known about since atleast 2004 if not earlier, which speaks for itself, basically they're good but remote enough for no one else but a loony cumbrian to bother walking up there (marras were in the crag majority yesterday!).

The Rh Project has no footholds, just naughty smears. Which have a habit of ripping off and i think they are pretty boot dependent (i went for a good worn in pair of Sazi velcros) You basically pull on and undercut the only usable hold, which rags your pinky, Use a half pad mono to stretch upto the Gaston of fury, I'm so stretched when i get this that i can only creep 3 fingers on and my feet often blow. If they dont you snap some lock in your arm then fire through an amazing move to a lovely 3 finger slopey dish (top photo) then a large juggy LH crimp leads to a final lunge upwards for a good drag. From the last good edge it is possible to match and skulk left into the corner via a big but easy move, but this is not the line nor the problem.

Yesterday i had the rarest of bouldering moments. A perfect go. I'd had several shit attempts at getting the initial gaston and foot poppage was bugging me. I decided to just pull really F-ing hard and see what happened, luckily everyhting clicked, i really yarded down on the mono and undercling and finally got the gaston nicely with 3 fingers, a full on emergency crimp and gutteral growl got me through to the dish and still on i lunged for the top move, which is still droppable but a bit easier, i caught it in a good drag and kept over gripping to get the top. Brilliant. I could barely repeat the crux for video which adds a dilemma to the grade. As it felt fine when it went but hard. Then it just felt sharp and hard after. But then doing something this fast means it cant be too hard. For me i think its 8a+ but i can see taller people getting the gaston with 4 fingers and being much better set up (my 6'2" reach was pretty maxed out), so maybe 8a/+ is more accurate. I couldn't be on much better form board wise and this project is pretty basic, which also adds complexity. Thats more than enough space for grade talk anyway.

I decided the Nth Power would be a nice name for obvious pun reasons. And i am fully made up at flooking such a nice project. There are 4 more projects on my little whiteboard list that i'd like to get done before the new guide comes out, it's a nice incentive anyway to make more work for Cofe and Ru.

The Darkest Cloud

Pic courtesy of Nick Brown

I managed to see off a mini project on tuesday with the help of Ben and Nick. Its on the Arete on the back of the 5th cloud. Lovely moves straight up a blunt prow. SS from double undercuts and quest upwards to glory. This supercedes a random route called Ride the Lightning E2 6b which pulled on near the top of the arete off the hill behind. Its called The Darkest Cloud and creeps in at soft 8a at the mo i reckon.

Its north facing so is a good escape from sun and sweat when other problems are out of good nick. The landing is a bit technical with it being a grassy hill, decent sized tent pegs are recommended to prevent pad slippage and erosion.

There is a 7c+ to the left too ( which is worth doing, details on peakbouldering.info to follow.

Ivan dobsky & lupino lane pics

A fortnight or so ago I was fortunate enough to manage to slap my way up a nice new problem up at Ravensheugh and Mark Savage was at hand to capture it, he's compiling a book of county climbs and blocs and is really going to some effort to do the area justice. Often climbers keep busting a gut well after the good light has gone, so nowadays Mark simply busts out a special array of light emitting gubbins to be able to keep shooting unique pics, where most photographers would be forced to pack up or plunder a stupidly high iso (these pics were shot between 9 and 10.30 at night).

I reckon the problem comes in at soft 8a+ish as an initial guestimate, and it is utterly enjoyable. In a time when boulderers are beginning to settle for doing new link ups at old crags i cannot recommend enough going to that bit more effort to find proud independent new lines. With lines like Hispaniola (infact this is just 1 of many great looking problems Mark has put up in the 8's this year), Preperation H, Ironhide, Groove is in the Heart, and The Tracks all being excellent examples from the past 8 months. Its pretty hard to stay positive if the future of british bouldering lies in people driving for hours to link limestone problems up, or for me it is anyway, it's nothing other than chasing points outdoors. Boudering is almost beginning to seperate into traditional bouldering, and what used to be called training outdoors, but is now the art of writing up every single new addition/alteration to a problem without them ever being superceded. Not that any of this is a great crime, but it never hurts to check priorities once in a while.

If you don't know who Ivan Dobsky is then a bit of youtubleing should amend the fact that you missed one of the greatest cartoon series to have been on tv in previous years. Very poignant with the recent affairs near rothbury!

I also managed the 2nd (ttbomk) ascent of Nick Dixons Lupino lane which bizarrely gets 8a or E2 7b but is probably best celebrated as just how varied "climbing" can be with this one lending itself more to parkour than bouldering. you basically leg it down the hill jump on top of the 2 boulders in the picture then kick up the lower smear in the pic and onto the higher one (which has some dubious chipped texture on!!!!!) then double dyno sideways about 2m and catch opposing sidepulls, which is then the start of an E2 arete. I've mentioned it in a previous post but this pic of the go i did it from Mark does it a fair bit more justice:

english 7b in daescents!

voll kraft voraus

first off lets smooth things over with a wideo off wimeo.

mehr aus Deutschland from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.

Since we've been back we've been trying to organise ourselves, and we're beginning to get on top of things, hopefully we can stock some shops in coming weeks as well as get some good R&D done on a few things which are still stuck in the virtual CAD domain. Ned's been in Leicester helping out and pratting about with bits of aluminium. As well as project scouting etc.

Holidaymakers

Oh guten tag, hope you all like the slightly awkward self service website, unfortunately this has made myself and Ned a tad redundant for now, honest, so we are searching for new customers in the DENSE forest of Der Frankishe Sweiz, aside from having an incredibly Horse-killable land lady, our nice German basement accommodation is purely belter, waking up each morning to miniature deer skulls on every wall along with Doris bending over outside picking her veg from her bushy garden. We've been getting shown round by Fabian Chrishof and his girlfriend Mona, whom win the nicest people in Germany award, and the other night in the pub was golden memory central, with our friend Ben arguing with Marcus windisch ( the quiet 8c crusher whom was sat next to us for half the night, of which we were unaware, as we thought he was just a jolly local villager) about the german music scene, apparently techno is dead and metal core is where it is at for hard Jura sends. Nevertheless times are good and some good boulders have been discovered, a few of them have even been climbed, like V2, Billiard, Some huge highball 8a, Knochenmuller, and the worlds hardest 7cs (harder than the 8a's round here).

The Jura is no place for vegetarians and everything contains meat and sausage, and if it ain't then it's pickled. which pretty much sums up how our fingers and backs feel right about now. The G rectification process has begun but is only in its fledgling stages, by the time we leave things will be straighter than an ironed metal rule.

apologies if your boards take a day or so longer to come than normal, we're working Dave to the bone honest, he's pretty big boned though so can take it

auf wiedersein