Here is the trailer for The Pinnacle DVD, ice climbing on Ben Nevis following in the footsteps of Smith and Marshall. Brilliant for the winter psyche!The DVD is in the shop here.
This is an extended clip of Michael making a determined second ascent of my own problem Bone Broke (Font 7c) in the Arisaig Cave last week. The wee fire was great, shame the wind was blowing it into the cave for the full winter cave dwelling experience!
Climbing tough projects that take you a wee while is always a game of balancing stakes. The more work and effort you put in, the more progress you make. The more you drop other things and focus on just that, the faster and more consistent the progress. But at the same time, it gets ever harder not to be become attached to success on it as you sense it getting close. And as you stretch your hand further, the potential for backfire gets ever larger.
In my favour, a fortnight of cold weather, an lb of body mass trimmed and an uninterrupted series of work sessions. But a broken hold, the urgency of impending warm weather and the monotonous hard physical work re-awakening just about every injury niggle I’ve ever had was making the end of the game imminent.
What to do? Ignore it and keep making hard won baby steps. Just as I was feeling like I’d have no chance of maintaining finger and toe strength through that section of little crimps just before the bat-hang, I found myself puffing and panting through them and hanging from the jug before the final V8+ section.
I initially felt this was V14 for sure, but a couple of last minute sequence tweaks was enough to keep the flow of moves going and the anaerobic countdown just inside my capacity. Who knows though, F8c+ might be a more appropriate rating than V13 seeing as it’s 60 moves long!
I’ll get a topo up for the cave soon as I can. Meanwhile, In a fatigued state I dragged my sore arms around another hillside near Arisaig with Donald and found this:
The little lean-to roof was so innocuous we almost walked past, but inside lucked a 50 degree overhanging wall covered in little positive edges like something straight out of a Swiss granite valley. 4 mini-classics between V7 and V9 later, could only sit and watch the snow showers drifting over Skye and the small isles for the rest of the afternoon.
Tomorrow, the trad season starts for me, although there’s a chance the lingering winter might make it a false start. We’ll see...
Right now I’m where climbing is best - in the middle of two or three hard projects all getting serious attention from me. It’s great and I’m feeling 90% rock fit after the winter at last.
First up I’ve been in the big cave over at Arisaig. I’ve done the big link of the entire cave in two halves now and it’s still feeling like at least an 8c+ route, if a horizontal one! It’s one of those lines that I’m certain would feel like 9a if it was on a big cliff. But it’s very easy to work as it’s a roof boulder problem. We’ll have to see how it feels when I can get to the crux from the start. Yesterday, I returned to a brilliant project I bolted in 2007. I couldn’t get near the crux moves at that time and sacked it off, feeling it was 9a+ at least and too nasty and sharp on the fingers to justify. But it niggled. So I went back with fresh eyes. After a couple of hours on the shunt a new sequence emerged - fantastic technical but aggressive moves. It went at about V10, but you have to do an 8c/+ route to get there.
Also I am watching the weather and hovering over the prospect of returning to a big project from last year. With more snow forecast in the mountains, it might be a bit chilly just yet, but I’m feeling in shape for it and have the impatience to get through a hard lead right now.
A lot going on…
I lost my camera, otherwise I’d have some more pics of these to show you. But I should be more organised now the weight of the big site redesign is (just about ) done.
Good session in the cave today in spring sunshine. I was feeling totally wasted from working far too late for a couple of days (&nights). But seemed to pull this out of the bag despite wobbly arms and sketchy concentration. Maybe it was just too good to slip by…
Actually it was the killer toe hook that sealed the deal. I think I have seen the missing link to extent the big traverse right back into the second half of the cave.
Perfect spring day today. PS the problem is called Triangulation and it's in the Font 8a ballpark (if not then easier, I lose track).
