The thing about climbing that I love and keeps me going back 3 times a week is that once one hits their natural level the real work of progress begins. I’ve been climbing for about two and a half years. I quickly hit my limit top roping and moved onto leading. After hitting my natural limit of about 6b/6b+ I’ve started really trying to work toward my goal of a 7a on the overhanging comp wall at my local wall (Craggy Island).
For months now (probably about 6) I’ve been climbing harder, thinking about the routes better, polishing my technique, thinking about where to rest a little if possible, working endurance. With the latest routes going up on the comp wall at Craggy about one and a half months ago I started working a red 7a. It consisted of a pretty solid first half that wasn’t anything special but did it’s job of tiring you a bit before hitting you with quite a technical top half.
For a solid month and a week I’d say I gave this climb real effort. I mean lots of blood, sweat and screams. From not being able to get past the gaston hold half way up I managed to work and work it and refine my approach until finally about a week ago now on a Tuesday night I touched got the top hold but didn’t have enough left in me to stick it.
Although gutted of not getting it I was pretty confident that on the next session on Thursday I’d have! It was that sort of deep confidence that can give you real hope. However here’s the thing that prompted this post. I got down on Thursday only to find that the 7a and a 7b (that I was also trying to work with a friend but was struggling on) had been replaced!
The reason was that Craggy was hosting a national youth competition. Now I love to see young people climbing but here’s the thing. Don’t mess with a climb once it’s on the wall and being climbed on until it’s time to take it down. This applies especially to the front wall that only gets set every 4-5 months. This also applies to a climb having holds added/removed after people have been climbing on it. Whether it’s soft or hard for the grade it is what it is!
To without any notice at all just remove two climbs from the comp wall after a mere month and a bit is totally sucky. I don’t think they understand how much work people put into getting there projects. It’s not all about indoor climbing but for me certainly a big part of the allure is that fantastic feeling of getting a route that you’ve poured your heart and soul into clean. When you get that top clip, there’s not much else like it. This is what craggy took from it’s members when they messed with the front wall and I don’t think they even know it. Quite sad really.
I will of course get over this. I’ll sink my teeth into another project and of course now that the summer is coming I’ll be concentrating more and outside but still I’d love to teach the setters a lesson. How about taking whatever route they’re working outside and smash of a few handhold and foot holds. Maybe then they might feel the same as me, that all there blood sweat and screaming was for nothing.
Over the past few years I’ve felt that I’ve frequently been hobbled by injuries, bouldering was tricky with a persistent inner elbow aching, common finger injuries and a few other aches and pains. Lately whilst recovering from a finger injury I felt like I was possibly entering a injury free period in which I could really push to hit my target of cleanly leading my first 7a. Well so much for planning! I recently found a new badminton club and called in for one evening for a hit to see if I’d fit in. The evening was going well, though I got hit with the realisation of how much fitness I had lost over the preceding few years. Yes it was all fine right up until the last point of the last game of the night where upon I dash across the court stretching to reach a smash down the line… and then suddenly over goes the ankle and I get that sinking realisation of what has just happened! Read the rest of this article »
At the beginning of December last year (2011) the point at which I could no longer eek out any more climbing from my Mammut 30m indoor rope finally arrived. It was frayed and spongy in places and it had already been cut to keep it alive and usable. Still it had served me well for a full year of indoor climbing with the majority of that year spent lead climbing on average twice a week for 3-4 hours per night. In that time the rope took some nice falls on it, however that’s what an indoor rope is for, training. as a side note remember your projects at the indoor wall shouldn’t be what you strive for but merely the method by which you push your grade and potential experiences of climbing on real rock.
Still having said that most climbers spend the majority of their time training on an indoor wall. And when you spend a lot of time training indoors for your real rock projects you don’t want to be doing it on your lovely expensive 60m or 70m dry treated rope. Besides the point of it being ridiculous that you would trash such a rope indoors there is the issue of pumping yourself out by having to haul 70 meters of rope back and forth between every lead! Also the people waiting to get on that route may not appreciate you taking so long on it either :)
If one doesn’t want to use their ‘good’ climbing rope then you need to get a workhorse rope. What myself and fellow climbers think of as a workhorse rope I’d say is one that measures 30m so you don’t have to pull unneeded rope through, can take a good number of falls, doesn’t have any fancy dry treatment etc that isn’t needed and finally is relatively cheap. That’s what my Mummut rope was for the past year and that’s what was in my mind as I started searching for my next workhorse rope.
Now when I’m choosing an outdoor rope I tend to be pretty conservative and pick up one from a manufacturer that loads of my climbing mates recommend or to choose one that has a stellar reputation in the sport. However when it comes to indoor ropes I’m far more willing to test out manufacturers that I’ve had no experience with as long as people aren’t slamming it all over the place.
Essentially this was my thinking when I came across the TENDON smart 10mm. It had a few good comments floating around about it and despite it having some external treatments it came in at a quite respectable price. The only thought I had was that I had no experience of TENDON ropes and not one of my climbing partners had ever had one. Despite this I bought it, as I said it’s a good chance to see what a manufacturers ropes are like.
It’s weird isn’t it? You buy a few nice new shiny cams (or tech friends etc) and you can’t wait until you get out on some nice rock to use them and get rid of that never been used look! After a few trips your cams are looking a bit more used and hence you have entered the sweet spot. The sweet spot consists of when your cams are nearly new but don’t look it thus giving you the assurance of climbing with rock solid cams (providing you place them correctly) but not having that new noob look about them.
So you continue to climb with your cams and because you aren’t just a fair weather climber some of these trips are climbing in… absolute sh**t storms! You return from your most recent trip and notice that the action on a cam or two isn’t exactly what you’d call smooth and then you notice one where the units aren’t even snapping back after you pull them.
Now is the time to clean your cams!
This is the scenario I found myself in recently. At the beginning of 2012 I had a check over all my climbing gear and noticed that a few of my older DMM 4CUs weren’t operating as smoothly as I would like and one was even sticking. If a cam is sticking like this do not use it to climb with. I hope it’s obvious why.
I thought I’d put up a quick blog post detailing what I did to get all my cams running smoothly (mostly) once again.
The problem
Here’s a video of a stuck cam before I fixed it. It demonstrates one of the issues where cam lube can help. You certainly wouldn’t want this happening while your hanging from a few finger pumping out on real rock.