We got there… And… RAIN! Not just a little bit, but a downpour. We decided to start heading back into town, and then Dion suggested we check out Samsun Narrows which is near Genoa Bay which is near Duncan. I’ve never been there before, so I figured sure why not! I love checking out new rock climbing areas! We got there, and it was still dry and sort of sunny and cloudy. We decided to go for it. The hike in was about a 45min hike. So we lugged all our gear (30+ lbs packs) and off we went. We finally got there, and wow was the view beautiful!!

It was a pretty interesting hike to the bottom of the crag because there were some steep sketchy wooden stairs. Luckily there were rope to hang on to while going down. By the time we got climbing, it was already in the afternoon, and we left around just after 10:00am! Since Nanaimo River was a bust (I was planning on making my summer goal by lead climbing a 5.11a), we decided we had to do something epic. So why not try out a multi-pitch (because I’ve never done one before)! So we had to fly up a few routes and get warmed up quickly before it got dark.

This is Dion rappelling down the route, Wasp Buckets (5.8). It’s pretty hard to take pictures when there’s just the two of us…

After a few climbs we decided it was time to tackle the multi-pitch because it was going to start getting dark soon. So we had to fly up this 2 pitch multi-pitch route (The Roof Is On Fire, 5.10a).

Dion finishing the first pitch. Thanks for leading the hard overhang!

Met up with Dion at the top of the first pitch!

Not a bad view….

Our beautiful setup… Wow that’s a lot of stuff.

Yay! Halfway there!

Ok enough with the picture taking! It was getting dark quickly, so it was my turn to lead the second pitch. Luckily it was a pretty easy lead. Phew! This is the view from the top of the second pitch.

We made it!! Time to rappel down and get out of here! What an epic first multi-pitch! And this definitely won’t be the last!

By the time we got to the bottom, it was pitch black. Good thing we had headlamps and flashlights! So we had to pack up all our gear and hike back to the car HOPING we would remember our way back. I think we did alright… Found our way pretty quickly, thank goodness! By the time we got to the car it was around midnight? Or 1:00am? I can’t remember. Anyways, it was a loooong day, but SO worth it! Can’t wait to do more crazy trips!!

The world turns, creaking slowly, just in time – before I turn into the spoilt child at the party who hasn’t won the prize (actually I think I did for a short while there). Anyway, the sun comes out, agendas mesh and we go to the Avon Gorge to play.

I like traverses. My first climbing experience was traversing so the traverse on ‘Gronk’ (VS 4c) has started to goad me on. I decide to give it a close looking-at so we scurry up to the belay stance on ‘Morpheus’, cunningly avoiding the polish and run-out-ness of the first pitches of ‘Gronk’.

I do the usual thing of avoiding looking at it in the eye for a while and then stare rudely. It stares back implacably. ‘You could always take a look and come back. You don’t have to do it’, says Baz. They are just the sort of words to pander to my fear. Part of my head wants an excuse not to do this. I know it’s a climb above my grade. I need someone to say ‘do it’, not to give me an option. But I know that the words have to come from me. So I decide commitment is necessary- a difficult thing at the best of times.  I take a deep breath and step out onto the face…

It was a breeze – a strong breeze with some blustery bits – but it was a pleasure. There may have been great amounts of air beneath my feet but I had a grinning crack for cams and hands, and enough ledges to tip toe easily across. It was nowhere in the same league of subtlety as ‘Clan Union’ (E1 5b) – the route just down the road that I did last year on the other end of the rope. ‘Where were the difficult bits?’ I had the temerity to ask later when Baz appeared around the corner.

And then the sun shone some more and we go to the Dewerstone – so I can repeat the April success on ‘Central Groove’ (HS 4b). But it’s not that simple – the buoyant confidence of the VS day eludes me. It has escaped somewhere out of the van window on the drive down perhaps. Where before I had felt in control and relaxed, now I have the classic head battle; ‘I don’t like this. I can’t do this. I want it to stop.’  Disco-leg and pumped arms ensue. I fumble with the wrong gear and mutter and moan, and only calm down when I reach the traverse across the tiles. I approach the VS top pitch feeling faintly sick- but then find it the breeze that ‘Gronk’ had been.

How does this happen? How can it all be so possible one day, with a quiet head dealing with the exposure calmly, and then so noisy and so difficult the next? There’s a thin line between fun and fear – a thread it seems, and the thread is in my head: sometimes as tangled as the wires on my MP3 player and sometimes rolled up neatly.  I’d really like to know how to stop it from getting tangled.

2 years ago I was careering happily up ‘Mucky Gully’ at The Dewerstone steadfastly ignoring the most obvious gear placements in the southwest and ineffectually trying to work out which way up the ropes should go. The route took me and the other 2 novices about 2 hours to do and it was a milestone. The previous year I had my first lead on a foggy Sheeps Tor. Dartmoor seems to be a place of milestones – this weekend I led a classic three star HS route: the two pitch ‘Central Groove’. A slow journey perhaps, but perfectly timed.

I’m not a list ticker but CG had fallen from the lips of a good few. I’d been a second on it last year and I could see how it could be part of my progress up the grades – loads of gear, nice bit of exposure to deal with and climbing to make me think hard but not out of my comfort zone.

When Baz and I got to the Dewerstone I flirted with the route at first – I looked at it out of the corner of my eye and pretended to ignore it. I climbed a couple of easier routes to ‘warm up’ and then sat under its gaze for lunch. ‘You going to do it?’ asked Baz. I made a noise that could mean yes or no. A couple of blokes nearby started to gear up and I seized on the rumour they were going to do my route. ‘Oh well. I can do it another day’….but no, they went and started on ‘Leviathan’ instead. ‘Ok’ I said lightly, feeling the fear rising. ‘I’ll gear up’.

It was only when I was touching the rock that I looked it directly in the eye. The bottom section was still in the dappled shade but the new bolt pinning the midway block was shining in the sun. ‘It feels a bit greasy’. ‘Do you want chalk?’ My chalk free principles were disregarded as superstition took over – if I didn’t have it I’d regret it. ‘Have you got the right shoes?’ These weren’t words I wanted to hear: ‘You’ll cream it’, would be my chosen ones. I couldn’t stand the tension any more so I started, feeling like I had to get an unpleasant task over with.

Time then changed its shape as I became entirely focussed on the moment. The waterfall of decision-making started – when and where to place the gear, what, which way, what length quick draw, what colour rope…never mind the climbing.

At first I forgot to breathe but when I was up above the messy groove and well established in the sunny corner the disco-leg stopped and I started to relax and enjoy it. The traverse across the strange black tiles wasn’t scary but soothing. I swung around the corner up over the now solid block and made a belay above it. Belaying Baz up, I congratulated myself on avoiding the gear indecision trap – the ‘putting in and taking out and turning round before putting back on the harness waste of time and energy’ scenario. I also realised that it was this level of climbing that makes me really understand the need for gear – good gear.

So far so good. And I accepted the challenge of the last crux pitch…which is when it went a bit wrong – Route-finding ineptitude again. I went off around the corner. I’d been here last year. I should remember what to do. I was looking for a sentry box. ‘There are two sentry boxes’, I called out. ‘I can’t help you as I can’t see what you’re looking at’, came the reasonable response. I stared at the rock angrily, trying to make it confess. It kept quiet. So I gave in and whipped up an instant solid belay (when you have to do something you find you can), and brought up the man who knew.

The last pitch didn’t look friendly – a crack running between a fairly featureless corner – but the adrenaline was still flowing. It took 4 pieces of gear within a metre to make me feel happy and I wasn’t an elegant sight. But I did it.

2 years may seem a long time but I was ready on Friday for it. I had the strength and ability to do it comfortably- there was only my head to deal with. Any earlier in my climbing career and I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of its airy traverse, just an armpit full of sweat, which would have stopped all flirtation.

Learning to lead at Loch Tollaidh Crag, near Gairloch.

One of my friends made his first outdoor lead this evening.  We chose the fantastic V. Diff ‘Assault Slab’ at Loch Tollaidh Crags.

This is another of the many good, teaching crags between Shieldaig, Torridon and Gairloch.  Get in touch with nineonesix-guiding if you’d like to learn to lead with one of our three Mountaineering Instructors.

www.nineonesix.co.uk

Love his philosophy / training schedule 2 days on 1 day off.

The first wall we got to was the Far Far Left Wall. That’s me leading a 5.10c

Rhiannon rappelling down a route

The second wall we went to was the Far Left Wall. That’s me leading the 5.10b? I believe…

Dion leading the 5.10b

http://www.climbingtechniques.org/sport-leading-basics.html

Damn fine images in this collection

Check em out

If felt amazing getting my first lead climb of the season under my belt. It’s definitely been WAY too long…

Rhiannon’s first outdoor climbing experience!

I ended up hanging out at the top of the route. Taking pictures and teaching people how to rappel. The legs sure go numb quickly from sitting in the harness for too long. But it was still pretty awesome.

Peter’s first outdoor rock climbing experience and rappelling!

More lead climbing!

For more shots, check out my set on Flickr: click here

In my mind, summer has begun… Soo keep checking back for more awesome trips!

Slings: love them; hate them.

I love slings when I can drape them around a pointy rock like lights on a Christmas tree, or drop them through a welcoming hole and see it emerge at the other end – they make gut-reassuring protection.

I love them when I can wrap them around a sturdy tree trunk or a bog-off big boulder that I know won’t be going anywhere for the next decade – they make such idiot-proof belays.

I love them for creating safe abseil stations and for cleverly becoming foot loops to use when prussiking up a rope.

They have so many other uses and come in so many sizes and colours. One for every soft shell jacket I own.

I hate them when they’re so confused by twists and turns that they refuse to open up. I hate them when the wind blows so hard that they miss the welcoming opening of a thread high above my head, no matter how carefully I poke.

I hate them (especially the big ones) when somehow in the unravelling of them they become wrapped around my neck and leg, preventing me from taking any other better behaved slings off my body.

I hate them when they become knotted as soon as I turn my back because they think it’s funny.

I have a similar love/hate relationship with difficult starts to climbs.  ‘The first 3 moves are nails’, are words that strike dread into my heart. A dread that’s magnified doubly when it’s a requirement to do them at 10am on a Sunday morning after a heavy night in front of an audience waiting at the bottom of ‘East Ridge’ in the Gower (S). My body and mind hate it but something is awake enough to summon enough pride to want to do it.

Such a cruel fate of nature though –a polished wall with awkward moves above mangling barnacle-strewn rock. Any available gear placements are all a bit pointless – the rope stretch would deposit me next to my belayer, and probably not very gently.

But some things have to be done – begging the question that I often ask myself: ‘why am I doing this?’ As usual the question and polish have to be ignored and I try to hide the anxiety by gracefully moving up and over the nastiness and continuing on to what turns into a rather lovely sunny ridge.

I love it whethe nastiness is over… but of course I love it all.

Funny how books get into our heads and take us to places we think we can touch.  Inspirational? Maybe, or perhaps just plain misleading.

I read Gwen Moffat’s book ‘Space below my feet’ and I had an ethereal vision of competence, independence and adventure in the mountains. Gwen was an early hippie. She didn’t know it at the time but she was a ‘drop out’. In the 1950’s she hung around with a group of hairy people, lived in barns, hitched around the country and went AWOL from the army to get out into the mountains and to climb. She made a determined and successful effort to fit her life around climbing.

For once I let myself plan 2 Snowdonia mountain days – simple routes but, under the influence of her words, they were going to leave me feeling free and strong and capable.  ‘Amphitheatre Buttress’ and ‘Gashed Crag’ were classic routes perfect for fulfilling the dream.

Of course the reality wasn’t like Gwen’s words – it couldn’t be: the world has changed too much. In Gwen’s world she turned up at a quiet campsite in Snowdonia and picked up with some hardcore mountaineer who took her up pristine and empty routes.  In my world  there are a lot of wannabes-  all the gear and no idea -  and there’s no way I’d just disappear into the nearest (or furthest) Cwm with someone I haven’t climbed with before. And nowadays there are a lot of people fitting climbing around their life so on a Bank Holiday the campsite is crammed and the crag is rammed. When Gwen did the Sub Cneifion Rib (not being blown off by a cold and strong east wind seemed a good reason to change plans), there wouldn’t have been 2 parties ahead of her and 4 behind her.  It wouldn’t have taken her 6 hours. The rock would have had some friction left in it. Her plimsolls would have been fine for the job. I followed the polish in my stickies stopping here and there for an hour or so to watch and wait while those ahead coped with being too far out of their comfort zone. I’ve had less frustrating experiences dealing with a group of 7 year old boys.

After this come-down, plans and expectations had to be reviewed over a bottle of wine. But the next day brought a surprise. Leaving behind the pretenders I escaped with another deluded yet hopeful soul to the East face of Tryfan – and it wasn’t laced with weekenders. Maybe the incessant wind had put them off. 2 rucksacks lay below the start of Pinnacle Rib Route so we went up it – quietly, quickly, and efficiently. And I touched that place I’d wanted to find. The only evidence of the twenty-first century was the expected polish – but at least that absolved us of the need for any route finding skills.

Yes there are great things about climbing today compared to 60 years ago– Gwen climbed either barefoot, in big boots or in plimsolls. Rock shoes hadn’t’ been invented.  I have lots of bits of shiny gear I can pop into cracks for protection. I have cams. She mostly had slings. But I can’t help feeling I’ve missed out on something.

One difference neither of us could have foretold made itself apparent this weekend.  North Wales in a 1950’s spring would have been green and wet. Waterfall and rivers would be flowing fast and bogs would be avoided. In my North Wales the bogs are dry and the new grass scorched brown by a fierce unrelenting east wind and a harsh hot sun: a significant sign of the times.

All climbing, and also involve falling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWzQt6qPBBQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_50pHrs_so&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRPmHLemppw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_VWap0LZnw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aybyT6MZtwE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NruP6KbkWu0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPscB1WSgWk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu1l5CNJ5-8&feature=related

I’ve never lead outside before, I’ve top roped outside, much safer to say the least, and after watching these videos I think I will be getting more comfortable inside before taking the big leap outside.

I can say one thing, I will be wearing a helmet. Guaranteed. Some of these people are not even wearing helmets, which blows my mind. I hear people say it’s a personal preference, just like people not wearing helmets on motorcycles. They give me the reasoning that it won’t do anything if you have a fall/accident.

As I stand there in shock as they reassure me they are fine without a one, I will always have a helmet on. No matter what.

My brother and I started out top roping but felt it was limiting us from climbing some really sweet climbs. So we did what any teen would that doesnt want to pay for a class on how to do it properly. We watched people asked questions and practiced on bits of rope that we had to do the correct clipping and belaying techniques.  After a couple of weeks and some directions form friends we felt like we were ready to take the test. Keep in mind we haven’t caught each other falling in real life and we want to make sure we pass the first time so that they don’t ask if we took the course or not ( I for one like avoiding the little awkward moments that seem to find there way into my life).

We end up getting on the wall scaring each other a little but over all we pass the test and the trust between each other grows because of this  struggle and danger.

This was a while ago and we have been climbing lead for a while. Yesterday my bro  caught me after i fell on a lead route and I didnt feel scared at all. i had confidence that he was going to get me and the thought of being unsafe never entered my mind.

I did not have this same feeling as i was asked to help someone else with their own lead test. The friend started climbing and i had control over the situation. They took there fall and all was good. then is was my turn to be belayed, so that their skills could be tested. I started to climb and felt pretty tiered as i was going up. As i got to the third shelf, the area i am supposed to take my fall, i started to freak out a little . not so much at the height but more so at the fact this person my not catch me. the next couple of seconds were hard cause i was putting a lot of trust into someone and when it came to really proving that i trusted the skills, i was not as confident. long story short i took the fall and it was longer then i was used to, i almost wet myself but made it down safely.

christian connection time!

if i say that i have the trust and confidence in God to do anything and i gave my life to him then why do i feel so scared and shaken when its time for m trust to be tested. i should be having the connection and relationship with God that would look more like my bros and i’s team work with the climbing, trust and freedom to live and enjoy the excitement of the climb without freaking out if hes got me or not. it may be a hard point but i know if i fall i will not die, i may even be helped to where i was and i can work part the difficulty. Same deal with Christ, if i can lean  into him and have trust in him to a level that shows the reality of that confidence, thats when i can start living really climbing with Christ. The more i take my said trust and put it into practiced trust thats when i will really be reaping the benefits and the real living relationship with Christ. I just need to let go, and trust the fall because in reality i am an beginner  being secured by a master.