Me and Iron Mike

I think that dreams have a dramatic effect on the outcome of certain waking scenarios.  Now, I'm no superstitious hippy, but I do tend to salute the odd Magpie if I'm in need of a bit of positiveness, and I do tend to try and rack up my Karma points for those occasions when determination is not enough.  But dreams...

I remember having a conversation with Nick Dixon a fair few years back about visualization, and both put forward that we had used the same techniques when coming close to projects on the rock.  If you couldn't get the ascent (from start to finish), in your head without it being absolutely perfect, then you where not ready mentally to drive it forward to a send.  If you could take this to the next level, and subconsciously succeed in a dream, then man - your going to do it next session!

I had a really strange dream a couple of nights ago, when I got a visit from Iron Mike.  Man - he knows his shit when it comes to pushing yourself to the limits during training.  Basically, me and Mike spent a couple of hours in the gym (one armers, lat pulls, bench etc) and by the end of the session I was cruising one arm press ups, feeling light a feather, whilst Mike (who was a proper nice bloke), gave me loads of positive psyche and support.

The following day, armed with new found drive, I took the long and winding path, through rain hale and snow, to my project.  I seemed to have lost the ability to get the first move after some awesome success a few weeks back, and was concerned about my mental ability to carry this one any further.  Baring in mind I have never given up on anything, this was quite a dramatic change of head space for me.  Towards the end of the session, after waiting in the damp, cold atmosphere and warming up three times due to temperatures, I got the move!!  I really had to change my mental state to do this, and reflected on all of the above for motivation.


The subconscious plays a huge part in success, when something shifts and you cant pinpoint the transition between failure and success.  What I do know is that it has now turned around, and conditions being favorable, its on.

Thanks Mike, buddy.

A Touch to Much.

So, it's been a while.  My writing hand has been quite busy recently, mostly having been put to use pulling on small holds which it may have recently transpired, are potentially too small for me.

I say potentially, because in the optimistic bubble (within which I exist), they never stay too small for too long.   I'll ignore the last hours worth of trashing the hotel rooms' door frames (which I have yet to maintain for another couple of weeks), and do my usual; which is to pretend that all good things come easy.  Wow - Rock 'n' Roll.  Trashing the door frames.  Obviously, this was after I threw the TV out of the window.


My main objective this year still hasn't come about.  It's difficult this particular line.  I wasn't sure at first, and so played the whole thing down in my head.  After continued and protracted efforts, it has become apparent that indeed the holds are utterly rubbish, the rock is steep and the last move is a long way - a 6 ft move off a less than 1/4 inch pad with minimal in-cut, to a very large swing.

I am now hanging off a slightly loose, although highly glossed door frame in Towcester.  If it pulls off, I have some blue tack.  That should be enough to adhere the wood back onto the plaster until the cleaning lady has been in, assessed the room to ensure that it is damage free and has left again.  I'm guessing that either a roofer on contract or a travelling PC salesman will get the shit tomorrow, just before checking out.  At least my fingers will get closer to the 10% they need.

I'm still enjoying the process though, as ever.  Although I do wish that I was slightly more progressive on this one, as opposed to doing a 'Michael Jackson' on it.  I've always been a bit crap at moon-walking, but it does feel a like I'm quite an authority at the minute. It would be nice to get this done before the conditions come and go, and according to Bubbles, its forecast to be the coldest May EVER!  It would be good and I do feel as though, having been so close only three weeks ago, that I may have earned the privilege of topping out this side of my 39th birthday.

The last couple of months haven't been a complete loss however, and a couple of bits came and went whilst still fun. I think that these last two are very worthwhile, so if your waiting for new Welsh difficulties, maybe go and try these for a bit.  Don't rush and get them done to quickly though, the pressure might just get to much to bare.

                                        Terror Twilight 7c+, Nant Peris, North Wales

New Noise 8a+, Tan y Grisiau, North Wales

Climbing Mountains, and all that.

I've always thought that climbing mountains in this country was a bit of an odd thing to do.

And so... Deadhangs and Fingers

Example No. 1:  Dead-hang the 'Unbreakable'.  A one arm pull up would be nice at some point.

Well, the weather didn't really do what it should have done, but did do what I expected it to. Optimism does not work every time, but I'm still hoping that things will change pretty soon - I'm pretty excited about rocks at the moment, and am still managing to move towards my target weight to maximise efficiency this season (if it ever arrives!).

I was on the road yesterday, and still am. I ended up having to stay in Harrogate due to a meeting over running and low and behold - it was pretty damn wet. I was supposed to session with Posh Dave [Jones], but due to travel time had to blow this off. I don't think young Master Jones was to impressed. I'm guessing he was looking forward to kicking my butt all over the place in his local - Durham Wall. I'm pretty sure I could have held my own, after all, he is only about 16 or something (sorry Dave - ha!!). This does mean I'm a session down now this week, so I'll have to hit The Mill to train tomorrow to make up for it.

Bringing me on to The Mill - its a Love/Hate relationship at the minute, as I really do have an overwhelming desire to pull hard on the blocs right now, but the British weather is not helping me to achieve here. Indoors is soooo not where I want to be right now! So, you have to make the most of what you do have. So - I've decided to get a bit more inventive/proactive on the finger front. Before travelling to Austria, I thought I was doing the right thing by my digits, but it transpired that although they there doing quite well, they needed way more working out.

Extreme dead hangs are now the way forward in my mind. I feel that I can get power, loose weight and rely on wizardry quite easily but to get the fingers up - I think they are pretty good right now, so improvements will not come quickly, thus the new siege of 'Extreme Finger Training'. I think I'm looking at a month of this for good gains, over two sessions a week. The exercises are all pretty static, which should ensure (touch wood (ahem...)) minimal risk of injury and hopefully a distinct rise in finger prowess. There is always the power that comes alongside this inadvertently: you can't hang off your tips to the max without using your arms, lats and obliques to stabilise, so the whole thing should lead to a vast improvement of standard stability. I think this comes into play when you need to feel solid and fresh in a mid problem, otherwise strenuous position (I always chant 'you've just pulled on, your fresh, you've just pulled on, you're fresh...').

Anyhow, another wood based ramble - hopefully this will trancend into ascent style news pretty soon as I am slowley loosing the plot here.

Its getting colder...

Its getting colder...  Hopefully this is it - the late beginnings to the season.  So far, there's been a few forays into the mountains, checking out this years projects.  Despite a pretty poor partnership between skin and rock, things where getting close.  Maybe with the change in the wind, we could be cooking on charcoal.

I think retaining psyche when your mad keen and the weather is not good, or when its mint and your spending days on end on the road, three weeks down, and one hour of pulling for your efforts.  I think all you can do is to keep the weight off.  I had a stomach bug this week, so that helped.

I'm hoping that this weekend, despite turning into a hunchback from all of the driving, I should be ready to pull - I'm reckoning that either the rocks have 'drip-over' from the melting snow, or we'll be lucky enough to see a freeze in the Welsh mountains.  I need to get this latest one sent as the walk is only interesting for a while, then becomes a chore (over an hours walk up into the hills is a fair pop to me at my age).  Still, its keeps you fit and once there, each and every time it blows my mind!!  I am feeling the urge to move on though, as there are various pieces of unfinished business right now, and powers are good.





So, I guess on Sunday there may be something worth reading about on this page of mine.  Stranger things have happened, and either way, I'm feeling sparky.

Emotional Landscapes - so amazing.

The Crossover - I love this move! To match the crimp for the jump is nuts.

This move is a stunner - 8b from a stand 

There is always something that gets in the way of a well thought out plan.  I carried out the planning and the training schedule as well as I could.  On arrival the weather was looking conducive to pulling on the rocks.  And then the inevitable - humidity and rain…

On Monday, I awoke to pristine skies, a cold wind from the north and reasonably cold temperatures (around 5 degrees).   This was by no means perfect, but at least I could session the moves properly for the first time in seven days.  It was amazing, the friction on the otherwise sugary smooth granite had become apparent, and the moves now seemed possible.  At last – the jump move was really close now, and the swing seemed to be slowing down.  So, very close indeed to the two crux moves, which link all of this together.  The top out campus crossover was still pretty tricky though - Klem had made this look pretty easy!

I’m pretty optimistic as a person, and in my mind had already now convinced myself that the climb was potentially on.  Sat in the tent on the mountainside later on that evening, running through the moves and the possibilities, I was pretty psyched as if the trip turned out to be successful, I would have indeed climbed one of the worlds hardest problems in a single trip;  and then the rain…

I’ve never been on such a trip where the weather has played such a bad hand.  The clouds and the mist had rolled in (you are normally above all of this at 1500m here), and the temp’ was now at an all time high of 12 degrees – impossible now.  The usual colour of the rock here is an off white/light gray.  It had now all blacked out.  I went for a walk up into forest to have as look at the damage, and as expected the boulder problem was totally blown out.  Myself and Dave session-ed the moves just incase, but where there had been friction enough to function well earlier there was now no chance at all that this was going to go.

Last time I visited this area, to try another boulder (The Power of Goodbye, V13) it was -9 during the day and -26 at night.  I was successful here, and got the first British ascent of this one (one if just six in total over 10 years including Slovenian, American and Austrian ascents).  At the end of the trip, I tried Emotional Landscapes briefly and was amazed by how possible it all felt.  Unfortunately when you add around 20 degrees, the probability drops off in spades.  I waited for another day and a half for the weather to turn around, contemplating the success and the failure of the trip.  During this time, I had a conversation with a team of Italians and a local guy (Andy) within which it emerged that a certain strong American (Daniel Woods), had arrived last year in perfect conditions, and had failed on the crux moves also.  Daniel has climbed the same grade in other countries in one day, and put forward that in his estimation, that Emotional Landscapes was by far the hardest.

Looking at failing is a difficult thing.  I chose to be a slightly more adjective, and look at how close I was to succeeding.  Basically, in one decent session I had achieved a level higher than my standard current form.  I climbed better and harder.  If I could have had the same conditions that I had on the one day it all came together (or even colder), then my chances of success where very high.  I was pleased that I hadn't unconvinced myself of my own capabilities and I will travel back next February when I know it will be cold enough to send the thing.  It is very apparent why Klem Loskot named the climb as he did:  the rollercoaster experiences when you are pushing yourself to your physical limits day in and day out is unreal, and to keep going back when everything is against you takes determination and patience.  Driving back home, a 25 hour, 1200 mile journey.  To keep the chain of thought, to keep the drive and maintain psyche is very difficult, but I will go back and I will succeed.

I had the same issue with a problem in Cresciano some years back, and travelled back and forth in my trusty Volvo V40 four times.  That’s over 8000 miles to climb four moves on a piece of granite.  I knew I could do it and I did.  So the moral of the story: 

Don’t give up – ever.  If you want to do something, just do it – you can.  


A huge thanks to Mabel from Boreal and Matt Wells from Outlook Expeditions for helping me out to get here, and hopefully I can do you justice in 2012.  Also, big ups to Lee, Stuart and Rich at Prana and Metolius.  Next time guys, next time!!