Upwards...but mainly downwards

I got some climbing in today. It wasn't the best climbing I've ever done, in fact it was one of my worse days - I didn't actually finish any walls. Not even the relatively easy wall we used to kick the day off. I don't know quite why, but lets just chalk it up to an off day.

However, I'm not that put down because I didn't do a single route rated under 5+, and spent most of the day doing leads. After coming off our warm-up wall about 3/4 of the way up, we decided to have a go at 'Nemesis', the wall with a large overhang that we had both failed to top the previous week.
I had first shot at it and climbed well for the first section, and onto the first clip of the overhang. I made it up to the second clip, had the rope in hand, halfway through clipping in my grip slipped off the hold I had and I fell, and fell hard. I tried again, using the existing clips as a top-roper but my hand forearms were absolutely shot.

This sort of set the tone for the rest of the day's climbing.

Me attempting a 5+ lead climb. Small holds and jutting features
ensured I didn't get far

We tried a variety of routes, and ironically my best climb was on a 6 top-roper where I nailed my use of features as balance points when moving on the wall, but slowly my arm strength and ability to use crimpy holds really started to drag.

Bailey turned up a couple of hours into things and had a try on a couple of routes, which was good as it offered me and Charlie a chance to rest and coach her (she hasn't climbed for a few weeks). I'm still hoping she catches the bug and is able to do it more frequently but I'm letting her do it in her own time.

Charlie showing me how it's done. He only got 2
clips higher than me, though...

So all in all, not the best of days climbing, but we all have our off time. At least I got photos though.

Leading the way

NB: I haven't got any photos of today, but I should do next time I lead so I'll upload some then.

All has been pretty quiet on the vertical side of things recently, hence the lack of posts. Due to constraints with rowing and uni and work, I haven't really had time to do anything, so until today I hadn't done anything for almost two weeks! However, today training was cancelled and uni finished early so I gave Charlie a bell and we decided to climb, and make a day of it. So with my harness and my new rope (which is one of the most awkward things to carry on the Tube ever...) I made my way down to Westway.

Unfortunately I was somewhat held up by an annoying american tennis-playing couple who were trying to book 3 different courts on about 12 different days (lots of 'ooh, not the 24th, we have a thing that day...maybe the 26th?) but we got in, got harnessed up and tried a couple of top-roped routes to get my eye in and refresh un-used skills. One positive note of the time off: I've been doing a lot of weights, and climbing has gotten a lot easier in terms of the effort involved - I can now almost pull myself up one-handed, which makes life a little more fun and a little less painful, especially helpful when lead climbing when all my weight can be on a single hand hold.

After warming up, we decided to tackle my first ever lead wall. First thing we did was Charlie gave me a brief on the intricacies of belaying in lead climbing. It's quite a lot different to normal - the rope isn't kept taut constantly and it requires a whole load more attention and forward thinking to plan when the climber will need more slack, more space, where they may slip or fall and need arresting and how much rope they'll need to clip in. He had a quick shoot up to show me how its done - I didn't belay perfectly, causing him a little trouble a couple of times but he didn't die so I'll take that as a positive step. After he touched back down and we got me tied into the rope (which is my new 10.5mm, 60m behemoth, which Charlie says suits 'suits its owner as it's thick and unwieldy'. Always a charmer...) it was my turn to lead up the wall.

The route itself was a relatively simple 4+, but with the added challenge of thinking about constantly having to clip in made it a much more interesting climb. You don't just have to think about where you're going to put your hands and feet, but also where you're going to set yourself up to clip in, which hand you'll need free etc. The first few quickdraws I clipped in I did twisted, but once I had it cracked the rest went in clean, no problems. I did have one interesting section where I had to clip into a right-handed quickdraw whilst hanging off my right hand. Apparently I made some really odd shapes and Charlie panicked that I was going to fall, but all was well.

First climb went well, the second not quite so hot. It was a slightly more technical route involving two overhangs (one small, one larger) with some really awkward, crimpy holds. There were some nice big ones afterwards, almost like a reward for making it, but the last hold, the one I had to hang on to clip into the top pair of karabiners was an odd shape and my hand was sweating. I couldin't get my hand to my chalk bag as there was no left-hand hold, and as I hefted the rope to clip in I could feel myself slipping. Desperately I clung to the last hold, clipping in to one, then the second (reversed) karabiner. The instant I clipped into number two I lost my hold and fell, but thankfully not too far or too drastic and was brought down safe but a little shaken - if I'd missed the holds there would have been an extra two or three meters of fall to arrest!

The rest of the day was spent practising on easy-grade lead climbs, before eventually calling it off after two and a half hours of constant climbing, with aching forearms and painful fingertips but a sense of achievement from me at least.

I'll say this - it feels great having broken my duck of leading, I finally feel like I've actually accomplished something in my climbing, something tangible that I can measure my progress by  The challenge is a new one and it keeps everything fresh, both belaying on the ground and up on the wall. Leading is what I'll be having to do when I eventually get up onto a mountain, so learning the basics here is a really good stepping stone on to the technical stuff, when we start to introduce pitons, hammers and clipping in my own quickdraws.

All in all a good day!

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.