June

Like most people, I find two things having the same name confusing. The observant amongst you will have notice the neglecting of June in this year of monthly blog posts. To rectify the situation, this month's edition will be named slightly misleadingly as events about to be described have all actually happened in the month of July, but in my opinion this is better than having two July's.

2 main things happened in... the past month. 1) a trip to the Cornice and 2) building a woodie.

1) There are two "Cornices" in the Peak district, obviously the Peak Lime pioneers didn't have the same foresight as I do. We just went to the Chee Dale Cornice.

This is us after a sweaty walk back to Dave's van, seen on the right. I'm tensing my abs but the other two aren't (supposedly). On my first time down into the gorge, I was getting quite depressed - waste high vegetation, ankle deep mud, humidity collecting in the trees, closed in, no sun - even if the crag was brilliant, spending a day down here was going to be shit.

Well, it wasn't as bad as I expected, and as soon as I'd done a route I realised it was quite good. It's more open than I'd expected around the crag, and there was a patch of grass where I could lie down. I basically did a 7a or two each day to warm up (or more like redpoint), then spent the rest of the time failing on Cry of Despair, Powerplant or Nemisis. One particular highlight was falling off a 7a+ having skipped the last clip and ending up most of the way down the crag... Another good moment of the trip was at Raven Tor where I tried a route called In Brine or Sardine or something, around 7B. It was an excellent battle and I fought through so much pump but fell just below the top.

So I feel I've had a good Peak Lime experience, complete with a night's sleep under Ben's Roof. The main things I liked about Limestone were getting pumped, taking falls, onsighting and Malc's one armer. As someone who loves bouldering, I get disillusioned by doing easy moves and I think I did ok avoiding that on this trip.

2) Woodies... I tried to write this bit as a series woodie/penis jokes, in keeping with the entries theme of things with the same name, but I'd just embarrass myself. Anyway, the woodie has been erected ... in my room, and I'm making more holds for it now. It's made me realise something which is climbing is a really dynamic object, which can flow into so many places. All we've done is get some timber from a wood recycling place, applied some ideas, built a wall - it's still the same wood, but it now has the essence of climbing. I used to think climbing walls were shit, but now I realise they're just pieces of plastic (ie quite cool).

The woodie was named Dumbuck II.