Heading out

Here is an article I wrote for an online magazine recently hope you find it useful (there is a little bit of repetition in there sorry in advance)

Looking through the rain smeared window of your local climbing wall, sipping a latte after another heavy plastic pulling session. You’d be forgiven for putting your aspirations of gracefully gliding over rock on hold for a bit, but don’t put it off all together!

While most of the crags in the UK don’t come with their own coffee shop, stockpiled with back issues of climbing mags, the pro’s for heading out onto real rock are an article in their own right (probably several volumes). Here I hope to give you a few points to make the transition a bit more pleasant.

Tony’s top five tips for climbing outside;

Racking:

1. Orientation of kit on the harness

Now this is a subject that is always close to peoples hart, usually because when it goes wrong you’re probably doing your best Elvis impression, while staring into a crack, holding the wrong piece of gear in your hand with no idea where the bit you need is. Sometimes the soundtrack to this scene is your belayer giving you directions around your harness with your free hand to find what you’re looking for.

I find It useful to put my protection (nut’s, cams ect) on the front loops of the harness, starting with the smallest pieces first getting bigger the further around your hips you go. This means you can usually see what your looking for by glancing down and by putting the smaller stuff at the front the bigger stuff less likely to get in your way when moving about. Also if you have any monster kit (really big cams or hex’s) stick them right around the back out of the way.

Then put your extenders on your back loops, as these are a bit easier to sort through by feel. Ill stick my longest ones furthest back getting down to my smallest at the front, this minimises the chances of any cheeky bits of protection getting tangled around the longer sling style extenders.

Lastly all your bits and pieces like you belay device nut key, and prussic’s right round the back out of the way 

2. Racking Nuts

Heading off in the vertical world is always a gamble of efficiency do you go light and fast and run the risk of not having the crucial bit of kit to see you through the crux, or do you take the kitchen sink and struggle to get of the floor? With the majority of decent length trad pitches, I find it useful to have two sets of nuts (DMM wallnuts are my weapon of choice).

Split the nuts in to four sets, two sets of large and two sets of small. And rack one large and one small set on each side of your harness, this will enable you to do a number of things. If you were to drop a set of crucial sized nuts in to oblivion or can’t get at the set you need then all is not lost simply reach for the set on the other side.

Plus if you clip the nuts in towards yourself and you need to replace a nut on the rack then all you need to do is rotate the crab on your harness, this will put the crab in the best position to re-clip the nut. All this can be done one handed!

3. Helmets:

Now, I know your all big boys and girls, and can think for yourselves weather or not you want to climb with a helmet on, and I wouldn’t have it any other way! However I’ve notice that. When heading out to the crag people often only associate helmet wearing as safety while climbing…. Your helmet is designed to deflect rock fall from above, not to protect you from a reverse penguin dive of the crag at half height. So on arriving at the crag (especially if you walk to the bottom) it’s worth thinking about the following:

·        How loose does the cliff look

·        Can I see the top and how does that look

·        Are there people climbing above me while I gear up, because a number 9 hex from 30m is not best caught with your naked cranium, nor is anything else they may nudge off.

·        Is there a safe area near by where I can sort my stuff out (I don’t mean a police station, just somewhere where the chances of something landing on your is as small as you can make it) sometimes at steep crags this is right at the base.

·        Are there wildlife (sheep ect) wondering the ledges above nonchalantly kick stuff off.

It takes seconds to do and could really make a difference to your day.

4. Harness:

A harness is a harness is a harness right? Sort of, well no not really, sizes and colours aside. There are some things to think about when heading out of the climbing gym:

·        Gear loops obvious one when you think about it, some sport climbing harnesses only have two gear loops which is ideal for carrying the hand full of extenders needed while climbing indoors or at a sports crag, but if your going for the kitchen sink approach to trad climbing then you will need to get more space on your harness. There are trad specific harnesses on the market that have three loops on each hip and one around the back (but just because you have all this space it dose not mean you need to fill it!)

·        Adjustability when and where are you going to be climbing outside? One trip to Gower once a summer, or all year around chasing the snow line on mountain crags? If it’s the latter you may want to invest in a harness with adjustable leg loops, to allow for the change in “leg girth” as a result of putting on all your winter layers (not to mention the insulation gained from the odd Christmas dinner or two).

·        Width of waist and leg loops often seems trivial when stood in the climbing shop trying to match the colour with you belay device, but if you intend on spending hours sitting in it on hanging belays with the ocean angrily nipping at you heels, then getting a harness that has waist and leg loops that are as thin as chickening wire will probably result in you enjoying the day considerably less. Not to mention probably building an impressive hatred of your climbing partner for climbing so slow!

5. Placing protection:

Shaking on your tip toes, dry mouthed, tears in your eyes, trying to stuff your nuts in to any crack within arms reach is a sure fire way to get yourself in trouble!

Take a minute to look up the route before you start and see what’s up there:

·        Are you following a crack line, if so what size nuts or cams does it look like you’re going to need? When you get there make a note of weather you guessed right or were they bigger or smaller than you first thought.

·        Are there trees on the route that you can put slings around? Over time you will become pretty good at spotting gear from the ground.

·        Are there obvious places to stand comfortably where you can get gear in?

When you’re on the route:

·       Are you in the most comfortable place to get gear in, there’s nothing worse than looking like you’ve just come 1^st in the Vegas Elvis impersonation championships while placing a runner only to look and find the hand hold of your dreams is just above your head!

·       How much contact does it make with the rock? When placing protection you want to insure that it’s in as deep as reasonably possible and that the entire surface of the protection is touching the rock. This is a subject in its self and will be covered in a later article.

So there you have it some things I’ve found useful while out climbing, I hope they help get you started.

www.welshadventures.com

The feeling of exposure

As my feet cut loose I know that my technique has left a lot to be desired, I feel the sharp edge of the hold cut into my left hand, I glance down to check on the tumbling chaos that I know is there. Seeing it rules out any thoughts I had of letting go, the expressionless face and panicked eyes of my friend looks up at me while he franticly works with what he has, to put things in place for the expected airborne decent.

Its time to act, I free my right hand of the clumsy wooden handle and now with mind fully consumed by the task, I probe the brail like features of the wall with my feet to push back against the gravity of the situation. With subtle shifts in my weight and optimistic use of my feet and I begin to move right.

I become aware that the situation below has improved but letting go is still not an option, I scrutinize the rail of holds and give myself odds on making it to the platform at its terminus. As I start to make progress in my puzzle, I become aware of a creaking noises above my head. It turns out that I’m not the only one feeling the strain, this structure was designed to collect water not idiots, glancing across to my destination again and the asphalt of the flat roof looks so close but I’m no longer concerned about my problems solving and endurance.

Second ago I was joking about the ladder falling and being more concerned about the paint on the ground than the fall its self now here I am bridged out in a window with the hands of my fellow instructors like cress leaves below fragile and waving. Do I wait for the ladder and rescue or make a brake for the roof and safety?

My minds eye plays back footage of similar traverses undertaken on the limestone hulks of Pembroke, with an anxious sea pacing back and forth, reaching up and protesting, outraged at my presents. I ponder weather others in my position have made the same comparison, is what I’m thinking the correct response, or a sign of a miss spent youth? Either way the cries from the guttering are sounding more urgent by the second and the solution to this problem may well be out of my hands. I observe the angle of the underside of the structure change, as gravity and the masonry fixings work together like Meany of our groups.

Their task; to release pressure. Their solution… well that’s for them to fathom, I wonder weather my part in all this makes me a facilitator? Quietly observing their actions without offering opinion only ensuring they stay focused on the task. Probably not I’ve never really seen myself as a facilitator more a catalyst keen to agitate, enthuse and remain unchanged. There goes the miss spent youth again.

The familiar sensation of weightlessness, it’s the same weather your in the sea on a river or off the rock. It has its own sound but I can’t describe it, it never lasts long enough, do I tense now or relax?

I rejoin my friends on the ground, there is no fuss everyone has a job to do and they are all very good at doing them. They only speak and move when necessity dictates. I watch quietly proud of their efficiency in overcoming the problems I’ve presented them with. Am I a facilitator or catalyst… perhaps now is not the time?
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Diary of an idiot Part 4

30% of the time…. It rains every time!

Our trip was going swimmingly, we had done a load of free climbing including a fantastic day out on royal arches a rather straight forward 19 pitch route (after the 1^st pitch chimney) involving everything from cracks to face climbing and a pendulum thrown in for good measure, all this with the impressive back drop of half dome. It came to pass that blindly assuming everyone from boulder Colorado can move fast on rock, was an error that added a number of hours to the outing and saw us racing a storm of biblical proportions down fourteen 60m abseils. We literally were pulling the ropes through on the last abseil as the cats and dogs began to fall. Deciding that this wasn’t cooking under the stars weather we opted for the all you can eat buffet (and got our moneys worth!). We later found that the storm had buried the entrance to our tent in a foot and a half of debris (my how we laughed in the darkness while digging away the mud with our bear hands in our flip flops)

                                                  the last abseil

Anyway on this particular day we checked the weather forecast which to our delight gave only 30% chance of storms. We had our sights set on a few single pitch aid routes at the base of El cap this was all part of our master plan of getting on a big wall (lurking fear) by the end of the week. Off we trotted like good little school boys up the path to our days education, today’s lesson ….. YOU KNOW NOTHING!

After a few false starts on awkward ground that really we would have freed had it been on a route, we set off up a rather steep thin corner crack/ chimney thing, the aid proved delightfully thought provoking and profanity inducing, two and half sweaty hours later Matt arrived at the belay fixed the ropes for me to clean the pitch. We both flirted with the notion that our preparation for this trip may have had the odd weak spot, if challenged we could have defended this conclusion with a compendium of amusing anecdotes that had taken place over the past few days. Anyway we decide that Andy Kirkpatrick’s approach of “fail… fail again better” was our best course. So I set of up that same pitch after cleaning it with the sole purpose of learning from the difficulties I could see Matt had encountered and to improve on his time even if just by a second.

Things were actually going to plan; I felt that I had dispatched the awkward chimney with relative speed and minimal swearing, and seemed to be making progress on the corner above… than Matt muttered the immortal words “I think you might want to come down mate?” that was my 10 minute warning before Thor himself unlashed his full fury the captain. Later while running like our lives depended on it back the to the car it became evident that we were not the only ones have a bit of an epic time, it began to rain climbing equipment, teams high on the face in the teeth of the storm were clearly in a fight for survival and were dropping all sorts of kit in the process (crabs, nuts, aiders).

We felt morally obliged to collect this kit and to claim it as our own, so that we would remember these warriors and tell their tale! It turns out that earlier in the day Matt had been chatting to a local who had told him if the forecast says 30% chance of storms it means 100% chance of storms!

www.welshadventures.com

Diary of an idiot (Part 2)

Are you drunk sir?

After a sizable American breakfast, we were off just 40 minutes to the Yosemite national park…. Its on!

Thoughs who have been to the park know, that as the road comes out of the trees and you get your first glimpse of El Capitan you instantly turn in to a camera swinging, giggling tourist, and Matt and myself with out world travelled experience…. Were no different. After asking passers by to take our photo and dramatically high fiving each other (and strangers) we settled down and headed in to the park to try and sort out accommodation.

So our luck continued, at the camp reservation hut we were told at 14:30 that the fabled camp 4,( where climbers sleep in a the dirt outside the office to get a space for days) there was availability just head over and book in SWEET!!

Booking in walking around the camp and the valley for the first time was like walking amongst celebrities, there’s El Cap, there’s Half Dome, lost arrow spire.. That is the boulder with mid night lightning on, Andy Kirkpatrick has stayed here, John Baccar, Royal Robbins, Ron Fawcett, Tom Frost, Yvon Chouinard…… Everyone, climbing royalty from every country in the world, this is it we are here we have the kit, I’m feeling fit there is not much that can stop us now! (How wrong was I??).

Camp sorted time to get food, in our hast to get to the valley we had not bought food outside the national park (don’t do this the valley is expensive). Matt was feeling the strain of having driven all the way from san Francisco so I offered to take over for a bit, I was quite excited to get on the rock so I was rather …Hasty? With my driving I figured the quicker we buy food the quicker we would get a route in!! This state of mind was swiftly accompanied with flashing blue lights from behind…..

At this point in the story it’s important to point out, that when renting a car from Budget car hire it will cost £X for one driver to hire the car, to put a seconded driver on the policy the number doubles! So before the trip we talked it trough and decided to save money we would only put one driver on the policy, which was fine except that driver was currently sat in the passenger seat!!!!

After me trying to open the driver’s door to get my drivers licence from the boot, and after the police officer trying to pull out his gun to shoot me for being a terrorist who keeps his driving licence in the boot. We got on ok…. Well he accused me of being drunk, I apologized for my erratic driving style, he then read our insurance documents, at this point Matt and I were trying to work out if driving with no insurance was a fine a prison sentence or both? The officer was still rather excited from my act of terror and did not seem to read the documents properly, handed them back to us and sent us on our way. From here on things got a bit out of hand…..

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The Road to the nose

Myself and Matt Barratt formally of Skye Guides are off to Yosemite for some big wall action this September, we have spent the last year begging borrowing and steeling anything remotely big wall related. We have also been doing a fair bit of fitness training, that and staring at pictures, guide books and YouTube so as you can imagine we are feeling pretty prepped...... I spoke to a hardened big walling friend of mine the other day for some advice on the trip:

He said you’ll be fine just make sure you get lots of mileage in with your partner before hand, so you climb as a tight unit where one knows instinctively what the other is thinking and doing even when you’re out of sight of each other...

I said the last time I rock climbed with Matt was over a year ago we did a route together on Gower?? And the next time will be in Yosemite....

Looking a bit awkward he said Well that’s ok just sort you systems out get ninja good at setting up the poterledge, while hanging in you harness do till you get your times down, do it in the wind do it in the dark.... do it lots.

I said the poterledge is on Skye.... Im living in South Wales

He raised his eyebrows and said well that’s just a small part, its hauling that important; sort your hauling out practice from a ledge, hanging from your harness, practice packing the bag so you know where everything is with your eyes closed

I said the haul bags are waiting for us in Yosemite we had them delivered there

He straightened up, scratched his beard a bit. His eyes glazed  over as if searching through all his big walling experience for another shiny pearl, he looked me strait in the eye and said you better be climbing like a spider monkey son or you’re going to be an article on UKC!

I said... Nothing

Despite this we have got some sponsorship for kit from www.shoothouse.co.uk to which we are eternally grateful, and I for one am feel rather optimistic. So please keep an eye on this blog as i hope to update it with stories and video for the big stone.

Please note: the “big wall” character in this story is entirely fictitious, his likeness was note based on a real life person, if you know someone like this good effort! However my part was based entirely on me and everything I said though probably poorly spelled was entirely true.

I hope you enjoy the blog, and that it maybe helps you in the future

www.welshadventures.com

Book Review: Pembroke Range East Gary Gibson

This is the long awaited comprehensive update by the Climbers Club of possibly the busiest, most diverse and beautiful climbing venue in Wales (or the world). It did not disappoint! “1000 routes between Vdiff to E10”.
It is one of two from the new serise, that have been released and there is another four books set to come in the next year (that is a life times supply of climbing).

This book has fantastic photos and crag descriptions making navigation off the area simple, leaving you more time to climb. The knowledge and experience of its author certainly shines through in its text with very accurate route locations and descriptions (a must if your abseiling blind towards a boiling sea, the last thing you want is to find that the VS you have come to do is actually E5).

All this in an A5 book that fits in your pocket (just like a guide book should) this book is a must no matter where you live in the UK, Pembroke has it all from the Tim Emmett types, to those making their way throught the grades.

so head to pemb's and maybe ill see you there. if your keen but nervouse check out my intro to sea cliff climbing courses Click here

www.welshadventures.com