Froggart - Fun in high places!

I've finally become a proper climber. Having climbed a fair amount indoors since I started this lark back in January, I can now lay claim to having climbed a real rock face. And by god strike me down if it isn't shit-tons more fun.

The oppourtunity was through work and involved me and Charlie meeting some of the senior buying team and giving them an insight into exactly what we can do. There's been talk of getting more staff from the shop floor involved in testing new kit, which is fun and would be good for business, I suppose. To be honest this side of the weekend was of minimal importance to me, and they were gone by lunchtime on Saturday - I was there to climb things, and anything that took time away from that was very low on the ol' priority list.

The weekend started badly with me having my phone stolen in Baker Street station, which in turn caused me to be rather late to meeting Charlie as I'd forgotten exactly where he lived and was forced to wander around Royal Oak for about 45 minutes desperately trying to find something I recognised. Soon after I found him and gave my heartfelt apologies we were on the road towards Sheffield, the soft tones of Radio 4 driving us on our way. Despite leaving late we were in the village of Froggart by about 10am and after parking up the car and donning our kit, we headed for the rock.

The walk in itself was simple but somewhat dull - half an hour took us to the edge of Sunset Slab and the really meaty walls in Froggarts Edge. We'd decided to start the day off with some simple top-roping before cracking on with lead/follow climbing. We had already discussed what I'd be doing this weekend and had both decided that it was probably a little early to get me leading on my first time on the rock - placing protection

Our first top-rope, built and awaiting conquering heroes.
Or me and Charlie. Either.

The first thing we did was, as I mentioned, to set up a top rope. Froggart's Edge isn't a sport-climbing area and therefore there is no protection built into the walls - everything has to be done using nuts, hexes, cams and ropes - and that includes setting up a top-rope. I won't bore you with an in-depth description of the process (partly because I know this blog is going to ramble on quite a bit...) but it involves placing two or more items of protection, equalising the load of a rope between them, tying a bight and throwing the actual climbing rope (attached to the top-rope) off the top with surprising violence and much yelling.


My first climb on the rock was...interesting. It takes a lot of trust to put your faith in climbing shoes on rock that isn't totally 100% dry and warm - my background is partly motor racing, where the best grip is achieved when rubber is hot and sticky. This definately was not what was going on in Forggart in May. Despite this, the gritstone in the Peak District is extremely grippy, even when damp, and I made it up and down no dramas. Charlie did likewise and as the sun began to sneak through the clouds, we decided it was time to start with the lead climbing. But first we had to take apart our top-rope and - crucially - me to try my first ever solo abseil.

Now abseiling is a key technique, especially for mountaineers - the quickest way down a mountain is to set up a series of abseils and shoot down 30 meters at a time. Descending this way means a mountain that might have taken 2 days to climb can be descended in maybe 6 hours. But I'd never done it before - at least not properly. I'd done guided abseils, but now I had to learn how to do it the ropes-and-harness way - with nothing but a belay plat and prussik loop keeping me alive. It turned out absolutely fine, and indeed is now my favourite method to get down things. Charlie took a video of my first attempt, and I'll try to get it up here as soon as I can!

Charlie leading a route on the first day. Lacking a guide book
we christened it 'Charlie's Crack'. Many guffaws ensued.

To be very honest, with the rest of the weekend we climbed so many walls so many different ways that it's a struggle to pick them apart. We did maybe 10-15 routes over the weekend, in weather from the beautiful and sunny to the downright depressing. Some, like Terra's Edge were physically and technically challenging whereas some started easy and ended up as glorified walks. To sum up, the way we went about things this weekend was that charlie would lead the climb, placing protection and guiding the route and generally doing the majority of the hard work in a climb. He would then build a belay at the top and I would follow up on a top-rope, removing protection and following him up, what's known as 'clearing up the route'. The only time I led was on the last climb of the weekend, using a top-rope as a safety line so that Charlie could guide me and check my gear placement without any danger to myself. Thankfully all my gear placement was right on - next time out he won't have to be such a lead-hog, and I can get some practice with my own gear - I need to justify the money I'm spending on it all!

Our night was spent in a conveniently placed, yet somewhat exposed cave. I'll confess I didn't get the greatest night's sleep ever, with a frozen face and the nagging fear of being caught and told to trek back to the car but well enjoyable. Especially the bacon butties in the morning. A proper little outdoor excursion.

What became obvious as the weekend went on was how my confidence and ability shot up - no longer was I beaten as soon as I failed a move - I've found in me a strength of determination to always beat the route. I've found my competitive spirit in climbing, and to be extremely cheesy, the only way from here is up.

Also, enjoy some more pictures, courtesy of Charlie's pretty DSLR. Sorry the formatting is a little off, Blogger is rather restrictive. But the photos are pretty!

On the top rope, practicing with nuts,
cams and slings.

Our cave for the night - not especially sheltered from wind,
but absolutely bone dry. Kit ended up everywhere though,
somehow.

Me placing protection with the safety line of
the top-rope to keep me from doing myself a
 mischief.

Charlie getting his cook on in thecave that would later be my
bedroom. Spicy tomato pasta was the order of the day. It
 would win no awards.

See you all soon, I hope - and stay tuned. I'm hoping to run a little competition on here soon, so stay tuned and pay attention!

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.

Rope Work

Hey everyone, good things happened today: I finally started training!

Although I was really meant to start last week with my University climbing club, today I finally got around to getting to a climbing wall and learning the basics of rock climbing which are core to everything else I will ever need to learn to do with ropes, be it in ice climbing, bouldering or even on a building site. I've done a little bit of rope stuff before, abseiling on adventure camps with the Army or a little rock climbing with Scouts, but that was all at least 4 years ago and if I'd paid attention and learned anything (which in itself is unlikely), it was all long forgotten.

So, with my trusty girlfriend Bailey in tow we headed off to the Westway Sports Center in Shepard's Bush to re-acquaint myself with the finer points of rock climbing, and hopefull have some fun at the same time. After paying for membership, renting a harness and a pair of climbing shoes each we headed out onto the climbing walls for my first lesson.

Charlie reminds me to trust him and the equipment.
I find a man wearing lycra indoors difficult to believe.

First up was simply how to climb; a quick introduction to the double-figure-eight knot that underpins all climbing (which I'm still struggling with) and a lightning ascent of an easy-grade wall to get me confident in myself, what I'm doing and the equipment. The familiar rush hits me as I get further up the wall and as I abseil down I've got a massive smile on my face - even if I never end up on a mountain I know I'll be here as much as I can. Although it's somewhat difficult to put my faith in the equipment and Charlie's belay skills at first, after a couple of slips and arrests and an abseil down I'm feeling more confident in what I'm doing.

Bailey gets a turn and although slightly less confident than me (with a bit less of a head for heights) she's soon rocketing up the walls and doing what Charlie describes as 'throwing the right shapes'. He looks on enviously and mentions something about us 'larger' people never being really good at rock climbing. Not that I especially mind; it's fun but I'd never take it to a high level. When she comes down, Charlie takes his first ascent with me belaying, and I quickly get to grip with maintaining a constant vigil. I'm very aware that to a certain degree his life is in my hands and do my best, although my abseil is a little fast and leaves him nursing a crushed crotch when I keep the rope too tense on descent. But otherwise all is well.

Charlie showing off that he's better than me, whilst I dutifully belay below.

After Bailey is down we walk around and past the self-lead walls, where climbers are attaching their belay rope to karabiners set into the wall or using their own quickdraws to secure themselves to the wall. This is what I'll have to eventually learn how to do, except on a mountain I'd be hammering anchors into ice or rock and leading in that way. But for now, we concentrate on simply learning the ropes. We have a go on a series of other walls until eventually my fingers start to give out. I try one final ascent of a Grade 4+ wall, but even with a healthy dose of chalk my fingers are shot and I can't grip, and I fall less than ten feet off the ground. My forearms are on fire, my fingers are aching and my feet are asking me why I've squeezed them into such uncomfortable shoes but I've competently completed my first proper ropes session.

All I need now is a few months more and I'll be sorted. That is if I can learn all the knots that I need; it really would sruprise you that I was a scout sometimes. Although I certainly know what my next kit purchases will be. Anyone want to give me a lovely new harness?