Psyche(d a)Gain!

Tonight I met Richie Betts and he was truely buzzing with psyche. We quickly dismissed an indoor sesh on Andys wall in favour of the Scatwell Boulder, bravely risking the threat of rain and a midge-fest in search of hard projects!!

The boulder is another find by Richie, and its a good 'un, as my grannie sometimes says, though she's not into bouldering. She has climbed Sydney Harbour bridge, however.

Anyway the psyche did the business. I managed to almost tick the boulder but it's intense! The first problem i tried was the weird but wonderful "The Alcove" - V3, which took numberous attempts to get my head around, then my arms and body and finally my legs. Next was a burly V5 - "Scatwell Masacre" which I was psyched to try and flash but my feet came off and campusing, surpisingly, did not provide the send. A couple of tries later, it was ticked!

Next problem to suffer the psyche was The Project up the center of the face. It involved using opposing crimps to make a hard hard move to small incut. A heel hook and rock over provided the solution, though from here it was by no means over, on account of I couldnt reach the next hold. The tension required to keep the heel hook in place failed, resulting in an impossible to hold outward swing and graceful landing on the pads. Eventually though, I managed to link it to a sit start giving the boulder its hardest problem - The Catch V8 (V7 from standing).

Crux rock over of The Catch

Richie then got very psyched for another new line, previously dismissed. But with surplus psyche he manged to pull over the bulgde. At the final moment his foot spat off in a moment of sheer disbelief and landed flat on his back... A thinking and a suss out of a better finish and the psyche was back on, and the problem was sent to hell!

Richie setting up for the crux throw on his new problem, around V6/7

I then tried the Flytip Lip, V6, but my arms were wasted and couldn't stay composed on the strenuous moves. A good sesh nonetheless! The boulder is well worth is visit if your travelling out west - its 2mins from the road, skin friendly and, in my opinion, as good as Ardmair beach. Drop me an email if your psyched for this place!