Photographic catch-up

I’m currently broken; the left-side of my body seems to have given up the ghost.

Ankle, knee, ring finger, wrist & shoulder are all at some level injured. Most of these were just minor tweaks or reoccurance of tweaks, but the shoulder is the latest and most significant injury after making a horrid tearing/crunching sound last weekend.

Fingers crossed the noise originated from the belly of one of my shoulder muscles and wasn’t a proper rotator cuff or SLAP tear? Only time will tell…

To pass the time I’ve collated some photos from the last 8 months;

January:

Simon half-way up the French Pillar, Jebel Mischt, Oman - scorchio!

New Years Eve 2014/15 - Me and Simon on the summit of Jebel Mischt, Oman, having climbed the 1100m high French Pillar, f6b+/E3 5c.

February:

In the Summit shelter of Ben Nevis having climbed the "most famous ice gully in the world" - a 0430 wake-up call meant we got first dibs on the route :-)  

March:

Oliana – less said the better - Fisheye handed me my arse on a plate for the second year running. John had a stonking trip though, climbing Fisheye, 8c, Humildes Pas Casa, 8b+ and Gorilla’s en la Nuebla, 8b/+ during our 2 week trip. He’s John enjoying his first glass of wine since Christmas to celebrate his ascent of Fisheye (on the right).

April:

Old and new cars: i then proceeded to fill the boot of the new car with bouldering mats for multiple lamplight sessions in Parisellas cave; a highlight of which was getting up Trigger Cut (avec la knee).

Trigger Cut from Kingy on Vimeo.

May:

I supplemented a work trip to Detroit and Houston with a long weekend in the Red River Gorge. The climbing highlights were doing Angry Birds, 13c 2nd go and getting spanked by the brilliant Paradise Lost, 13a on a warm day (below). The bourbon is pretty good too! I really want to go back to the RRG this Autumn, but manky shoulder might have different ideas? Upon returning from the USA I took a nasty tumble off my mountain bike whilst in a jet lagged fugue, and this was the start of a month off any serious climbing; first from the resulting 2 week concussion, and then another fortnight of chest infection and anti-biotics.

June:
I injured my fingerwhilst trying the crux of Mecca when it was a bit damp, so had to resort to other forms of climbing, including limestone roof crack masochism

The dodgy gaffer tape jamming glove I improvised to get up Licking tarmac (AKA Fisting Katy) f8a at Cheddar.

July:

Much of the month was spent hanging off bits of wood with varying weight dangling off my waist whilst rehab’ing my finger; i.e. avoiding all crimping what so ever.

I made some great progress upping my max hang from 27 to 43 kg over a 6 week training cycle and deployed this new finger strength back at the Tor on the only route that doesn’t have a crimp in sight.

Mecca Traverse from Ally Smith on Vimeo.

However, after succeeding on Mecca Traverse and Mandela at Kilnsey, I set to working Guns in the Sky, 8b+ at Kilnsey and started to experience some knee pain from repeated heel/toe cams with my left foot, so it was a refreshing break to go down to Dorset for some time off from projects.

 Something completely different! (Indoor rifle range in an old road tunnel at Lyme Regis).

Crazy Notion, f7b DWS at a sunkissed Lulworth Cove. 24 hours before my shoulder self-imploded.

Catch Up blog 2: Costa Blanca weekend jolly

I'm currently enjoying a rest-day in our little apartment in Organya; a break from the stress of trying to redpoint Fisheye, 8c at Oliana - more on this later...

After returning from the sunny Greek island of Kalymnos in early November, normal service was resumed with steep indoor bouldering being the favoured medium of training this winter. However, barely seeing daylight from one week to the next was failing to keep the training psyche up, so a last minute trip was booked to the Orange House in Costa Blanca.

Day 1: Arrived in Alicante at midday and collected our hire car and drove straight to The Peñón de Ifach, where we kicked off proceedings with a quick ascent of "Costa Blanca" - a classic 6c+ multi-pitch sport route. This was a route I'd aspired to climb when I first visited the Costa Blanca in 2000 and had never gotten round to doing - suffice to say, it was great fun and the mega up-draft on the headwall made for some exciting climbing!

Day 2: The next day we went back to the Peñón to attempt our main objective - New Dimensions, a 7b multi-pitch. The day didn't start well when we tried following the "black bolts" as indicated in the guidebook and quested off up some distinctly serious terrain. Back on the floor after some nervous down-climbing, we found the right line 40ft to our left and set off again. However, the combination of sea grease and direct sun made for some super slippery conditions and after 10 metres or so I slumped on the rope. Dogging my way to the belay it became apparent I wouldn't have gotten much further as conditions deteriorated to the point I had to chalk up just to pull on a quick-draw!

We bailed! Reconsidered our options, and settled for sector Wildside where the earlier frustrations boiled over. Throwing myself at La Putita de Millau, 7c+/8a, on-sight. The initial tufa groove was awkward and slowed progress somewhat, but then I flowed up the headwall, reading the rock really well and having a thoroughly rewarding experience - a great compensation for the earlier disappointment. 

Ken got his bouldery 7c done second go; setting a new personal best, so we headed to "WOK" and stuffed ourselves on the all you can eat Chinese buffet. There was some weird clientele; the fat white man with young Asian “companion”, the bi-lingual couple arguing loudly in both English and Dutch and of course, the bodybuilders there for a cheap protein hit!

Day 3; Back to Wildside for another 8a OS attempt - this time coming up short one bolt short of the chains on Mediterrano. I dispatched this quickly and Ken got hideously pumped on the 7b+ start.

Before too long it was time to rush to the airport, sink a quick beer and fly home; rock starvation sated, and ready to face some more indoor training.

Catch-up blog 1 - Kalymnos, Nov '14

Hi internet, it's been a while!

I'd hoped to have written a blog celebrating my success on a gnarly sport route over the Autumn, but a finger injury put paid to that. My first trip to the Greek island of Kalymnos was fine compensation though; with steep juggy tufas replacing massively outnumbering any finger stressing, single joint holds.

The logistics of getting to Kalymnos had been booked by friends on a budget, and entailed Ryanair flights departing Stanstead (3 hours drive from home), 9 hours attempting to sleep in Athens airport before a seat of the pants, thunderstorm enhanced turbo-prop flight to arrive on Kalymnos.

The Team:

Will - prawn star

Ken - looking quite chuffed with his final day 7b+ flash 

Another Ali

Ali K flashing a steep 7b+ "The beginning at the end"

Early on in the trip I got stupidly pumped, barely on-sighting Paleolithic Line at Jurassic Park, and it took my battered left forearm a couple of easy days to recover. After that, it was full guns blazing, with the highlights being:

- Grande Grotte double; Priapos and Aegealis on-sight double - doing Aegialis in the direct sun was particularly memorable!

Ken taking the ride off of Priapos

- On-sighting my fiorst 8a - Super Lolita in the Sikati Cave - some very well timed shouts of encouragement got me though the crux when I started to flounder, but the vertical headwall was much less difficult than I expected, and before I knew it, was lowering off with a stupidly large grin on my face!

Ken's photo of me on the top bulge of Super Lolita - I'm the tiny red spec, top centre - 45m route!

- Finally, dining like kings for pittance every night!

Mythos - beer of champions

Kalymnos is great - go there - you won't regret it!

Unjustified downgrade?

Now then, I’m all for soft-touches; my logbook is littered with them, but the current UK media focus of down grading routes because a woman has climbed them as got a bit silly!

Central to this has been a UKC article downgrading the most recent efforts of UK women through the use of slash grades. Though the text has now disappeared from their website, the google search result reveals the old text...

Kalea Borroka and Mecca both get 8b/+ and Emma Twyford's most recent effort on Unjustified, 8b+/c. No doubt on this scale, Mecca Extension will get a downgrade to 8b+/c if Mina’s current efforts are successful?

So to summarise, in my opinion the UK sport climbing grade scale is out of kilter with the continental system; not by much, but by enough that the boundaries between each grade aren't the same. Here are some examples where a re-grade is needed to align the two systems:

Around the 7c+/8a level, we plainly can’t have Dead Calm and Zoolook being the same grade, but who’s right? Steve McClure has said that Zoolook would be 8a+ at any French crag, meaning we could leave Dead Calm at 8a; something that would cheer the aging Yorkshire crowd. Keep the former at 8a, and the latter has to come down to 7c+.

Similarly at 8b+/c, it is my personal opinion is that Fisheye and Unjustified are the same grade. I’ve had multiple days on both this year, and made similar progress; Fisheye in three sections, and Unjustified in two. Does this mean that the race is still on for a UK FFA of an 8c route? Or do both the stunning efforts by Hazel Findlay and Emma Twyford count at this magic grade?

However, if we compare these two routes with Cry Freedom at 8b+, then we get in a pickle. If the 8b+ grade sticks, then Unjustified and Fisheye need pegging down a notch, but if Cry Freedom gets nudged up to 8c, then the other two can stay in the same bracket.

In the higher echelons, top climbers including Adam Ondra have said that Hubble is 9a; aligning the grade of Hubble with Action Direct in the Frankenjura, the current bench-mark 9a, would allow things like Liquid Ambar and Sea of Tranquility at LPT to be upgraded to 8c+. Stick with the historical 8c grade for these routes and we’ll just have to acknowledge that the UK and European interpretations of the “French” grading scale aren’t aligned.

I’m not saying which system I think is correct – that requires some consensus, not just my bank holiday ramblings brought on by a snotty summer cold...

	Current Guidebook Grade	Aligned “Harsh” UK Grades	Aligned “Soft” Euro Grades
Unjustified	8c	8b+	8c
Fisheye	8c	8b+	8c
Cry Freedom	8b+	8b+	8c
Liquid Ambar	8c	8c	8c+
Sea of Tranquility	8c	8c	8c+
Evolution	8c	8c	8c+
Hubble	8c+	8c+	9a
Action Direct	9a	8c+	9a

Long overdue - a couple of newbies

Do you want to overcome apathy, feel less busy, have successful relationships and achieve your sporting goals?

Simple! Just follow Dr. Smith's patented formula and give up on life's periphery activities like cleaning the house, washing the car and writing a blog. Instead, get stuck in with the hard graft of training properly!

Since visiting the RRG back last Autumn I've been busy to say the least, the low-lights being;

• moving office from Chester to Manchester meaning an extra hour of commuting each day - this is crap
• been to Germany twice with work - this is also crap
• worked in our London office far too much - not sure which of these is the crappiest?

Despite the crap, I've built a home campus board, trained aero-cap with endless laps of the Stockport wall over the winter, and gotten some just rewards;

• my first flash of a f8a sport route - El Capataz Incapaz in Chulilla at New year, 2013/14. A big dose of last day psyche and some lucky slaps got me up this.
• my first Font 8A - Hatch Life/Left Wall High link in Parisella's cave. Kneepad trickery and heaps of stamina training got me up this!
• a cool new f8a+ at Dinbren
• a quick ascent (3 sessions) of Aspid, f8b/+ at Figols this Easter (locals seemed to take a strange out right, up & back left approach to the crux, but we went direct, and subsequently I've seen this as 8b+ on 8a.poo)

The Dinbren new route is called "No Kneed" and takes the roof direct below the lip traverse of "out of body experience". Gaining the obvious kneebar on the lip of the roof looked very unlikely before trying the moves, but turned out not to be the hardest section, though two snapping holds on the day of the FA did make it a bit harder than planned. The main difficulty is gaining enough height out the kneebar so that a good sidepull can be taken before gently extracting your knee from the slot. Dodgy beta video here.

The other newbie was completed last week and is a link-up of two of the existing traverse problems to create a crag long, reverse traverse at Devil's Gorge, Pantymwyn (opposite direction to the established "Pantymwyn Traverse"). I've called it "Innuendo Bingo" and hopefully this video is better than the first!
It's about french 8b, maybe Font 8A, but 40 odd moves aren't well described with boulder grades!

Ciao for now!

RRG - extra photos (not necessarily about climbing)

So, the masses (Mark, John and Eddie) have spoken and they want less climbing in my blog; so here it is, a photographic essay of the non-climbing days in Kentucky.

Why is it that every trip has a catch-phrase? It's the one-liner uttered near the start of a trip that becomes a catch-all smile inducer, and red-point stress dissipator.

Kranko-the-klown came up with the perfect catch-phrase this time 
"I like Turtles!"
(say it with a squeaky American twang to get the right "Pooch" effect).

Steak - umm, steak....

Steak was cheaper and more widely available than beer in Red River Gorge.
$13/£9 for these 5 Fillet Mignon. Tasty too - must be all the growth hormone the feed the cows in the US?

Guns!

What hick US town would be complete without a love of all things firearm? On a rest day visit to WalMart John sought out the hunting and fishing counter to buy some more lubes lures and stumbled across a man buying his 8 year old daughter her first shotgun! Strange people; perhaps you shouldn't mock them...

Don't mock the hick hunting headware - it's a legal requirement to wear hi-vis when you go hunting in the US so that your fellow hunter doesn't accidentally shoot you!

Locals truck outside the sole source of beer in RRG - I guess he's packing heat then?

The magazine shelf in the local supermarket says a lot about the local population.

Puzzles!

We meant to immerse ourselves in the gun culture and go to a shooting range on a rest day, but we got distracted by all the high quality puzzling available at Lago Linda's campsite!

This 1000 piece epic took 3 rest days to complete - look at all those similar textures and colours - a puzzling nightmare.

[As it took the combined forces of four seasoned sport climbers 3 days to complete, we figured it was probably about 8b+ equivalent? ;-) ]. 

(Actually, it was only 998 pieces; you can see the two that missing above)

"Pray out the gay!"

The little corner of Kentucky we were in has a god bothering problem; below is a quick montage of just a small selection of the dozen or so churches/missions/bible school etc that we drove past each day between our campsite and the Motherlode parking.

A novelty phrase pinned up outside one of the churches read "Just because the state says it's legal, doesn't stop it being sin!". Howver, it wasn't clear if this referred to gay love, or the issuing of liquor licenses in Lee County?

Chocolate covered crack? AKA Milk Duds - the most addictive confectionery known to man!

RRG - Rad River Gorge

Well, work has been fairly manic since I got home so time to write bloggage has been limited – running to stand still would be an appropriate analogy for the first 10 days after i got home, but becoming single last week has given me some more free time...

Alex “kranko-the-klown” Barrows and I flew out to Kentucky and met Eddie and John there. I was full of chesty cough and recently prescribed antibiotics; not the most auspicious start to the trip, but after 5 hours of driving in our “Snoop-dawg” style white SUV we found our accommodation and crashed out. 

The home for a fortnight - Lago Linda's bunk-house - recommended

Kranko the klown

Our first day took us to Drive-By crag; temperatures were surprisingly warm for what the local climbers call the normally cooler month of “Send-tober” with 28° C and 90% humidity. After a 3 month lay-off John struggled with 12a/7a+’s and I got on the supposed soft touch 13b/8a “Dirty Smelly Hippies”.  A slopey, greasy crux felt far from soft in the sweaty conditions, but it was heartening to finish it off on my second go; things weren’t looking too shabby for the first day. (Naturally Alex and Eddie casually flashed where John and I had failed and flailed).

Thus begun a run of nearly-but-not-quite on-sight efforts, and skin-of-the-teeth 2^nd go 13a/7c+ redpoints.  After a week of this, a double rest day was had to coincide with the Roctober festival and the busiest crags any of us had ever seen.

Feeling fresher from all the sitting around and playing basketball I had my closest encounter with a 13a/7c+ on-sight at The Darkside. “The Force” is slightly more bouldery than a typical RRG stamina fest, having a few tough moves low down on pockets before a more typical keep-on-trucking finish. My own effort ended oh so close to the chains, with a sting-in-the-tail (English 5c!?!) move spitting me off with forearm stamina gauge pointing at empty.

John low down on The Force, The Darkside.

Me on Elephant Man 13b/8a at The Darkside. I was too tired to finish off either of them that day - perfect excuse for a return trip!

In the dying days of the trip, a cold front came through and suddenly we started to appreciate why the RRG was known for its soft-touches. Come-back king John had gone from failing on 12a/7a+’s to doing Dirty Smelly Hippies second go in the crisper conditions. Alex and Eddie had both on-sighted 13c/8a+ and redpointed 8b+/14a in the massive amphitheatre of The Madness Cave, and I’d gotten stuck into a classic over-hanging arête called Kaleidoscope.

The day before we flew home I embarked on my first redpoint effort, only to be thwarted by a rogue patch of sunlight peaking through the trees and greasing up the crux scoop handhold. Last day jitters weren't helped by the free RedBull that had been given out during the Roctober fest; I had to go for a walk and give myself a stern talking to before trying again two hours later once the sun had finally relented.

Kaleidoscope - good line, eh?! (Errant patch of sunlight marks the crux - d'oh!)

Tired from the earlier effort and working the route the day before, I was now slapping where I should have been static, body sagging where the moves demanded body tension. Extra heel hooks and a dose of adrenaline from skipping a clip saw me through the crux and up to the chains to tick my third overseas 8a+.

Kranko-the-klown kranking the krux of Kaleidoscope (on-sight, 20min after my redpoint  for his 2^nd 8a+ that day – lanky twat).