A spot of refurbishment

It's project time here, folks. Not a huge one, but a project nonetheless.

Over the Christmas period my cousin - who is now getting married - was clearing out all of the stuff he'd left at his mothers for the last decade or so. Uncovered were a treasure trove of his (and, interestingly a lot of my father's) childhood toys, books and boxes. One unexpected discovery was a barely-used C.A.M.P Zephyr 25.5" (65cm for those of a metric disposition) walking ice axe that a friend of my cousin's had left at his house forever ago. This was just as I was beginning my current obsession with mountaineering so not knowing a huge amount (and not one to look a gift horse in the mouth) I took it for myself.

When I got it back to my flat having left it at home, I got a better look at it and discovered it was a little bit worse for wear for its decade-long stay in a cold garage. There were several problems:

1. The (overly large) grip was pitted and the rubber perished - if I tried to use it to hack into ice it would probably come away in my hand. It had to go and a replacement sourced.

2. The pick itself whilst mainly in decent shape had patches of rust on them. Whilst not a major issue, it's ugly and some rust leads to more rust so this had to go.

3. The metal shaft isn't the grippiest. Despite the fact I doubt I'll often have to use it holding it by the shaft, if I did I'd want something more comfortable and grippier than plain metal.

So, on a quiet Friday afternoon after university I sourced the bits I needed and set to work. First things first was to strip off the perished rubber grip, which was achieved scarily easily - I was instantly vindicated in my ideas. There was some glue still on there so I washed the entire thing, dried it off and grabbed the electrical tape and started wrapping.

Before, with perished rubber grip, plain shaft and rusty pick

After, re-wrapped in fetching yellow tape with no rust!

After about 3 layers and one and a half rolls of yellow electrical tape I had a decent thick covering on the shaft of the pick, as well as a wrap of green to make sure no one nicks it (not that it looks all that expensive, but hey, it's mine, so...). I also wrapped the pick protector in tape otherwise it's rather difficult to see if the cover is on when you're anything more than an arm's length away.

Next job was to remove the rust spots from the pick and axe head - this required a little more finesse. Or, to put it more accurately, taking a flat-head screwdriver and scraping away the rust spots 'till the thing looked a little less brown and a little more shiny.

It still needs a little bit of work, and possibly a new grip (I'm undecided as to whether I need it yet) but for a relatively old axe, the little bit of love has done it some good and will see it used for a little longer!

Harness and Hands

Excellent news reader(s): today I got my very own climbing harness, and she's a thing of beauty!

I'll add a better photo when I get one of me actually using it...hands were too ruined today 

Isn't she pretty? Although my birthday isn't for a couple of weeks my parents gave me the money to go and get a harness and the assorted bits and bobs, so it's a nice little early birthday present for me. To be specific its a Petzl Corax, and it's a wonderfully clever fusion of an alpine/mountaineering and indoor wall climbing harness. The mountaineering elements are thinner padding, soft rear gear loops (to avoid fouling a pack) and fully detachable leg loops. As such it's not perfect in either environment but it makes a damn fine harness that'll do pretty much everything rather competently. It came with a free chalk bag which was nice, too.

I had the opportunity today to also try out this new harness for the first time; because he'd been trapped in Scotland on Monday having completed a winter skills course over the weekend, Charlie had to work on Tuesday (and therefore we hadn't climbed) so after rowing on Wednesday I popped off to Westway to see him, meet his normal climbing partner Tom and get some decent climbing in myself. This turned out to not be the best idea, as rowing can tire out your hands and forearms - parts of the body essential for climbing. By the time we were finished I could only form a claw and couldn't even begin to contemplate untying my knots.

My poor, claw-like, ruined hands. They still hurt now, hours afterwards.

All in all to be honest it wasn't my greatest day's climbing for me but I learned some valuable lessons and got some really good insight; whilst Charlie is experienced, Tom is the far better climber and a teacher to boot, and so is really good at imparting his accumulated wisdom. As I climbed he identified that I was getting tired far too quickly on the walls because I was essentially doing a series of chin ups up the wall. He took me to a slightly lower grade wall and taught me how to concentrate on technique of avoiding using my arms. It was somewhat confusing to begin with having to re-learn my way of climbing but it worked; I was able to do 3 consecutive walls without untying or pause.

I also got to have a close look at some lead climbing for the first time too - whilst it's not overly complicated as a way of ascending a wall, Charlie doesn't reckon I'm quite ready yet (an assessment I'd fully agree with after attempting the same wall but as a top-roper and falling off halfway up) so I've got a little bit of time to wait before I can lead myself. Although I'll confess I'm quite looking forward to it, because it looks like stupid amounts of fun. The only downside is the fact that generally the lead climbing walls are rated at 5+ and higher - at the moment the best wall I've climbed is a 5+ and that was with the security of a top rope. It could be interesting to push it harder...

As a small aside, whilst we were at the center we saw an ad for someone selling £350 worth of climbing gear for around £95. Charlie and Tom are attempting to build a full climbing rack between them so they want all the quickdraws, karabiners and loops, but have offered me a very lovely Mammut 60m rope for £30. That's around 15% of the price of a brand new rope. Yes please.

A small update

Well...nothing much has really happened since my last post. Which is dull.

It's all a bit quiet really. It's been a week of gathering advice from those with far more knowledge than I and consolidating what I already know.

We got a visit at work from one of the Mammut product instructors, and whilst waiting for everyone else to appear we had a bit of a talk. As you'd probably expect from someone who is employed by a company like that, he's heavily into his outdoors stuff and he recommended me some bits of kit that I could find useful, and also gave me a heads up on things one or two things to avoid taking or doing, like getting an asymetric bar for my crampons (when I get them) to fit the boots I bought more precisely and the value of a 12 point crampon over a 10 pointer. Which reminds me - I've bought my mountain boots! Mammut Monolith GoreTex B2 mountain boots to be exact. Very nice bits of kit indeed. I'll post a photo up when I get one, the sheer size of them (I'm a size 13) is a sight to behold! Absolutely solid bits of kit and I can't wait to unleash them on an unsuspecting mountain!

EDIT 08/02/2013 I got a picture of the boots in all their B2, size 13 goodness!

They are actually terrifying, or so my flatmate says.

I returned to the Westway center today and am now regarded as a 'competent climber', meaning I can climb unsupervised. All I had to do was demonstrate that I could don a harness, tie in with a double figure-eight knot and tie into a belay plate. All simple stuff but now I'm officially qualified to climb, supervise and lead-climb. Not that I consider myself quite ready yet, but nice to know I can when the time comes...

Had some fun with the UWSU climbing club and met some new guys I can train with now - due to a contract with the SU you don't actually have to be a member to climb with the club (but as I also climb with Charlie I am of course a member of Westway) but they only get an hour on the wall at one time. The team captain, Peter, has said he'll register next time so that he can come in other times and climb with me - excellent, someone else to train with!
An advantage of climbing with the SU club is that they have qualified instructors who lead the sessions who are vastly experienced and can offer tons of excellent advice. The guy I had today, whose name escapes me advised me to get as much wall time under my belt as I can before I go mountaineering to prepare me as much as possible for what might happen. Sound advice and I think I'll take it!

Finally, the issue of fitness is starting to rear its head, especially if I want to be ready by the summer. I currently weigh in at around about 112kg empty, and despite the fact I'm 6ft 2, I'm a lot bigger than I'd ideally like to be - the plan is to get to around 100kg by the end of May. It's going to mean a lot more pushing and some serious fitness work, but I think I can get there, and I'd need to do mountain-specific stuff anyway. Anyway, that's a subject for another day and another post when I have a few hours to work everything out.

Might make these small updates a weekly thing - summarise all the little stuff that happens during the week that doesn't need it's own post. Or even just rambling on random subjects if I'm feeling bored.

Stay tuned folks!