Yesterday though was amazing!!! Richie, Ben and I headed out to Rieff in the Woods with a car stuffed full of boulder pads! On the way the psyche built up with talk of repeating of the Main Issue, font 7b, a Richie Betts classic...
We arrived and it was freezing... Many of the boulders had frost covered top out so we brushed it off and did a wee warm up circuit. There's some really funky problems here!
A forsty morning (pics from Betts)
Still quite cold but even more psyched we went to try the Main Issue. There's a bit of stigma around such a great line - It was unrepeated (as far as we knew), it's high and scary, we all know Richie is the king of the dyno and it took him a few trips to stick the jump! But the friction was excellent... It took a few goes to be able to fully commit to the dyno because there's a tree and a boulder to land on. Soon, I stuck the move but had a bit of an Ethan Pringle moment topping out - my excuse was the small sloper you use to pull over was covered in ice!! I think the frost had melted a wee bit when we brushed it off then turned to ice... Luckily, I had my hold brushing bitch (sorry Rich!) on hand to clean the hold and topped out rather shaken. Ben did it soon after, topping out in a far more manly fashion!
Dunno if that works so here's a link: http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=5707079817429080123
We then tried a new problem by Lawrence just left of the Main Issue which seemed pretty tough! After working out the top part I came so close to sending it falling off holding the last jug! doh!
We moved round to try a V6 arete called Clach mheallian where I fell off the last move again and was thinking this just wasn't my day for topping out! Worst of all I started bleeding from my finger tip which made me sooo upset, but gave it another shot and sent it to hell!!!
I decided to give up for the rest of today and take photos. We went across to see the Crack, font 7a+. Rich managed it and I got psyched to flash it and with that and good beta and encouragement, I topped out first try.
It was very dark and spooky, especially when Richie told us there may or may not have been a massacre here...
The friction was mint. Ben and I were psyched to repeat 2 unrepeated Betts classic in a day and set to work on The Road to Domestos.
The camera flash makes it look like day time here...
3 comments:
Another fantastic post Mike! Loving the videos. Hope Murdo is ok, what happened?
Yeah I went to see Murdoch today in hospital. He broke his back falling off a Severe in Torridon. He said he pulled off a loose block the size of himself and fell bouncing off ledges about 15m. He seemed cheery enough though, he's pissed off obviously... No climbing for 6 months! But he should be in a back brace in a few days.
I didn't expect to read that! Bloody hell. Lucky to be alive by the sounds of things. Get well soon Murdo :(
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