Font 1

For a range of pitiful reasons (laziness), I'd never been to Fontainbleau. So when my office buddy/climbing friend Arran asked if I wanted to go with him John and another Inverness Mike, I needed a bit of persuading. Particularly with a danger of having to share a double bed with Arran, I eventually agreed.

People say, "Font is the best". As I really like other places, I didn't want these to suddenly seem crap compared to Font. Better to stay at home? It took me a while (years), but I realise that whatever Font is is irrelevant, what matters is one's relationship with place. With this in mind, I could fearlessly travel to Le Bleau knowing my cherished memories of Duntelchaig were safe. Also there are no good photos of Font as cameras can't capture the light and dark at all well compared to the eye.

The team:

I was the youngest, with 3 of our year of births following the 11 times table 66, 77, 88. John having fantastic knowledge of the forest which saved so much faff and probably doubled the amount of climbing we did. Mike had an excellent vocabulary which turned bumps in to crenulations and others things which I've sadly forgotten. Arran brought an SLR so I'll ask him for some pics which are better than mine above. I brought "business" jokes; here's examples:

-I'm in business

-Oh really, what business you in?

-The magic business

-Nice, hows it going?

-Tricky

-I'm in business

-Oh really, what business you in?

-The see saw business

-Nice, hows it going?

-has it's ups and downs

-I'm in business

-Oh really, what business you in?

-We sell sea shells by the sea shore

-Nice, hows it going?

-Hard to say

The highlight had to be finding a board game in the gite, Peak Experience, tag line: "you don't need to be an expert climber to play Peak Experience!". Sure, you could in principle play; answer multiple choice questions to make it to the summit of K2. I arrived at base camp a good while behind the others (slowed by my sampling too much of the local food and trying to burn animal dung) only for bad weather to push me back 2 places. Mike battled for a number of turns to get off the summit, at one point forced down climbing the top pitch of his chosen route. John eventually glissaded down the descent to victory. The next night we got a 5l barrel of wine.

Real climbing wise, I adopted the adage, "a 7a a day keeps the doctor away". It worked; none of us needed medical attention. Most of the time was spent amongst the mushrooms, lost in the woods, cleaning sand off from everywhere. I got scared on some highballs, learnt a bit more about slabs, the difference between dry and clean shoes and how not to mantel. Sabbot, Elephant/Cuvier, Apermont - just three days climbing; my appetite whetted for Font 2.

Looking back/forward

So, since last time. Well, the climbing flat, my home for the past four years, has ended. That is the occupants have moved out rather than the flat has burned down... although that nearly happened at the end of year one there. There were certainly plenty of good times there.

For those were around, I'm thinking of Murdoch being a Christmas tree, Murdoch and Ben's climbing debates, building a woodie, learning to juggle, the day King Lines arrived, putting up the finger board, drinking a bottle of Jameson with Danny, Boost buying a red light bulb for the bathroom, Boost putting his lecture notes in the bin, the man downstairs complaining about my dancing shaking a picture off his wall, Stew throwing a Mars bar at the guy downstair's window, going round to the girl next door's flat party and not fitting in.... ooo we had a blast! The three of us (Nic, Murdoch and I) have moved on to new things. For me, I've moved in with my girlfriend which I think was very brave. I've only slept on the couch once and that was because Cath was away and I was drunk. Anyway, my new flat is dead close to Hynland Railway station which is great for getting out to Dumby (I'm still waiting for some good weather to get there though), or to the Kilpatricks, where I've done some running.

On the climbing front, well my skateboarding injury is pretty much mended... I have a good bit of keenness to get out climbing after a year of basically nothing. The first year of PhD-ing has been good fun, but on reflection I could've done more climbing. In recognition of this, a couple of weeks ago I bunked off work at short notice and headed to the peak with Cath. This was the first trip where there was no rain the entire time. What a lot of blue sky! As such, the tempo of the days was slow and peaceful, I meandered up a few easy solos and took Cath up some of the Diff's.

Next up is trying to get as much into my days as possible. Getting a few things done this year of my PhD will set things up for an good final year, hard work now will certainly pay off. Also, I'd like to work on my music skills, and chess skills, and get in shape for climbing hard projects. Optimism... It might happen!

Kennedy Boulder

The Kennedy boulder is the big one in the middle. 2 howff boulders to the left of it are big, left again this boulder has easy slab, good arete and crimpy wall. In front are 2 boulders with easier stuff though mossy. Out of shot on the left is a roof problem which looks good (desperate) and further downhill is another large boulder. Up hill from here looks like boulder jumble choas.

Impressed is how I'd describe myself when I first looked at the Kennedy boulder. That was yesterday, when I paid a visit to the Glen Croe giant. Firstly, the walk is fine. I've been on much more epic walks to bouldering and the stuff here is not bad at all. What else is there are more boulders here than the Kennedy boulder, and not in as much of a "despora" as the north side of the glen. Add to that mostly flat grassy landing around most of the blocks, range of grades (beginners welcome), open hillside for midge beating breezes, good rock if a bit mossy in places, and it's what an hours drive from Glasgow? Sounds to me like a great venue.

Also, I broke a hold on The Nuclear Button, the second crimp which used to be in-cut is now slopey. I couldn't pull off the floor so how much it's changed, I don't know.

P.S. If you enjoyed the music in that video, it's probably because the backing guitar is played by Nic Duboust...

I need to climb more

My mum bought me a second hand book; "The New Encylopedia of Knots". Written by Derek E. Avery in 1988, it's a 1998 reprint. One useful knot found in there was the French bowline, basically a bowline with two loops. After that, I spent a while this evening trying to remember how to tie a double loop figure 8. I've made it now, and I'm thinking about what other handy S.P.A. things I've forgotten. The reason being that past few times I've been climbing, I've been out with people from work. I had 7 folk out top roping it up at craigmore last week, putting my S.P.A. skills to the test. I never got round to doing to S.P.A. assessment, and my two year time window is just about up.

Yesterday, I had a top evening on the Cobbler, where it was NOT windy. We did incubator into Wither Wether. And we ran back to the car on the backside of the hill. Evening climbing is so nice, and runnning down the hill in the gloaming reminded me of evening sessions at Ceuse.

Water will cleanse your skin

Charles Dickens. That is probably the most useful thing I'll take away from last weeks trip into the north and west. We walked from Poolewe to Carnmore in rain then walked from Carnmore to Poolewe in more rain. It's about a 5 hour walk so quite depressing really.

Uncharacteristically, the complaining will get cut short there and here are the good bits. One, Charles Dickens is a good writer isn't he? In the Carnmore barn I found a copy of his "Hard Times". As the roof has some clear-ish panels to let light in, and as they and the other corrugated roofing materials were put-put-putting to the rain, I read a couple of chapters. Very good, I must pay a visit to Waterstones.

Two, and interestingly to readers of this blog perhaps, is the existence of a boulder jumble half way to the bothy, so about 2 hours from Poolewe. Mythology and bouldering in Scotland go hand in hand. Everyone's heard of the boulders at the Shelterstone, maybe even slept under them, seen pictures of the masses of boulders under Ben Allign, have a mate who's been to Coire Lagan, or the Lost Valley, is waiting for Dave Macloed to reveal the location of a new world class venue, got some wee venue of their own, is planning a trip to Torridon, and such. Well, here's my attempt to add "the Boulders on the path into Carnmore" to the list. On account of the pouring rain, I didn't climb or spent much time looking around. Lot's of roofs dry though (with holds), there was a Dumby esque feel to it, but it's in the middle of nowhere. Couple of good Howffs with sheep poo on the floor. Overhangs, caves, some things look more like sport routes. Worth a visit really. If it was in the peak...

Three, singing Randolph's Leap songs can cheer you up.

I wish there were more bad times

That was sarcastic. Everything's gone wrong. My ankle is the size of a melon and the colour of plum following a football tackle. My thumb's too sore to hold a pencil after trying to look cool on a skateboard, and incident that also bruised my elbow so badly I can only now do a pull up after two weeks of pain.

In the enforced rest, I look to the future and think what would I like to do in climbing. Sport 8b, E5 onsight (shamefully not done this yet), boulder something good.

El tiempo es terrible!

That's what I heard on Spanish T.V. whilst out visiting Danny out in Huesca. "Tiempo" means "time" but in this context it meant "weather", which explains why I was watching Spanish T.V. in the first place.

In fairness, the Spanish definition of terrible is not quite the same as ours; it didn't rain all the time, it was mostly sunny. But Danny told that the past month has been blue skies non stop, which made me think my trip was badly timed.

We had three days at Los Mallos at Riglos, which are mega conglomerate towers. The climbing style here is interesting - The massive holds look very much detached from the wall, and a bit of rain would wash the place away. So you over grip every hold so that if it were to come loose, you'd probably still hold up in place. Mostly the holds were good, but I remember doing one looser pitch - 20m, one bolt! Very scary stuff. It turned out that I'd actually climbed past a bolt on that bit, which was because of another feature of the style at Riglos - there are too many holds. On that occasion they lead me well off route. But having so many holds, footwork seems to get neglected or harder. A typical route is bulge to ledge to bulge to ledge.... So a lot of the time you can't see your feet, and it seems really clunky climbing. I think I got into it a bit more by the end of the trip in a "I know what's coming here" way.

On rest days we played football in the park. This was pretty good, managing a record 26 header rally and defeating some Spanish 15 year olds easily. Other interesting things were the Easter celebration which looked like the Klu Klux Klan, the egg and potato combination, and learning un poco espanol. For good pics see Danny's Flickr

Back in Scotland and the weather is great, though cloudy today. However, I can't enjoy it in the way I'd like, thanks to a skateboarding accident which I'm still taking pain killers for! I've hurt my thumbs so I can't grip, my elbow so I can't pull and my hip so I can't walk without hobbling. The good weather is passing me by, but hopefully May will work out well and I'll get to my favourite climbing places around here, up north and down south.

Craigmore

Just like the music of Noah and the Whale, Craigmore has been missing from my life until recently.

Some in my situation would be saddened by the amount of time spent not at Craigmore, and not listening to noah and the whale. But the sun is shining, the clocks have changed to summer time, I've had my haircut and done some laundry. I can live with it.

Muons, Dynos, Snow and a Plan

Testament to the waned interest in climbing blogs in Scotland (or perhaps my blog in particular), not one person wanted the guidebooks offered in a previous blog post. That's ok, luckily I have contacts outside the so-called "blogosphere", meaning I could relieve my slightly suspect bookshelves (let's just say they wouldn't have survived the past few days in Japan) of their presence by leaving them at the door of a climbing particle physist (yes, I was just as surprised at their existence as they were at the existence of the muon - the "Who ordered that?" particle) rather like an unwanted child in a wicker basket.

Anyway, here's a video of the dyno I blogged about last time.

Even as I wrote that last blog, optimistically calling an end to hiberation, I suspected winter wasn't through. Today, my hunch has been proved right, with disgusting wet slugs of sleet being blown into people faces as they walk by my window. I braved the weather briefly to pick up some dry cleaning, and I'm reasonably sure it's time to begin hibernating once again. Lamentably, I never actually wrote that winter would be back so can't technically say I told you so.

One final thing, stirring optimism once again (but this time I'm including the suspicion that it'll rain the whole time), is that I've booked a weeks trip to Huesca, Spain to visit Danny over Easter. Should be excellent; I really hope it is!

Hibernation Ends

Like a lot of people, today was the first touch of the Dumby rocks for the year for me. Loads of people there. At first the holds were cold and glassy, and the chalkless Railings was the living end. As the sun slid around the castle, genuine warmth was felt for the first time since what seems like a very long winter began - I think the last time I visited Dumby was September. I never quite managed slap happy, to be expected, however, I succeeded on doing something new. Too eliminate to be a problem on its own, basically right of Home Rule, from chest height crimps, dyno to the good ledge. Same line as Bob's Problem really without the slopey right hand hold by the arete. It's around 180cm, 7A+ ish. New-ness was a theme for the day with Steve Richardson on abseil inspection of a new line, Henners attempting another link up on the sufferance wall. I tried High Flyer for the first time, a crazy jump off a boulder to an out of reach jug. Sadly, I was wearing trainers at the time so never topped out, I should've put my climbing shoes on.

Free guides!!

Not exactly a competition, but I've been given these two books recently and, well, I've got the new versions so don't need them. So I'm looking to pass them on to someone who would use them. If you think your such a person drop me a line...

Fundamentals

It's a strange thing, when I was in 2nd year undergrad, a course text book was "Advanced Calculus" by Dr Ian Murphy, a superb lecturer whose most iconic moment was in a lecture full of lethargic and drowsy students. He stopped mid way, turned, and did a handstand, his feet against the chalk boards! So the rumour goes anyway... The point I was going to make was that now, as a post grad, the textbook titles are Fundamentals of Light Microscopy... Which is isn't the best for morale but I guess only because of the synonym with beginner.

Dr Murphy

For the first time in some years, I've bought a wall pass. One month of climbing paid for in advance, and I hope to make the most of it. I even went as far as looking up some sport science although my flatmate Murdoch laughed at me and my sources.

If I was to write a book about climbing fundamentals, chapter one would be on free body diagrams, climbing statics and climbing dynamics. Chapter two on muscles, which I don't understand and would get Murdoch to write. That'd be it I think. I wouldn't have a chapter telling people what to do psychologically, other than you need to be able to do handstands. That could be in prologue.

December

Look, the point of this blog is to tell the story no one else is going to tell if I don't. So here are the things I got up in December, of which very little was climbing, but that's O.K. because climbing is boring to read most of the time.

I've been learning new stuff. In order of difficulty, Physics is the hardest. My Ph.D. has taken up more time than anything over the past 3 months and I'm pretty useless at it compared to other people in the group, so very difficult. So what is my Ph.D. on? Imagine it's a hot sunny day, bare with me, and you go to the park. There are people sunbathing. Are they standing up whilst doing it? No, of course, they're lying down. Why are they lying down? If I told you it's because photons from the sun are hitting them strongly enough to make them weak at the knees, you wouldn't believe me (hopefully). Obviously people don't get really pushed around by light, but it's true that light does have a small pressure, which is more obvious on small objects (one fiftyth a human hair, visible under microscope.) So my Ph.D. is on pushing tiny things around with a laser in a basement with no windows.

The second hardest thing has been learning the violin. It's verryy hard. I've needed to be much more rigorous with my learning of this than with anything I can remember. One mistake and you've had it, start again. I've found I can't just wing it as I would playing chords on the guitar, my guesses are always wrong. A moments hesitation is costly, as I learnt whilst trying to play Auld Lang Syne at the bells to my embarrassment. My knowledge of musical theory is minimum but I am learning, and trying to read music leaves me feeling a feeling of hopelessness which will take a lot of will power to overcome. I think I'll get lessons soon.

The third hardest thing I was learning in December was unicycling. Sounds a bit weird, but there's a unicclcing fraternity in the optics group with I feel I must join in order to be fully engaged with the world around me. And because it's really cool. I reckon it took me two weeks of concentrated effort (30mins at the end of each day) to get a good grasp of the Unicycle, I can go the length of corridor about one time in two with no falls and turn the corner one in four. I've still a long way to go, but getting up to a reasonable standard is not too far away.

The fourth thing, and the easiest thing I learnt was how to ski. Skiing was very easy in comparison to unicycling where I only had 2 days in Glen Shee. I think also Skiing was the most fun I had, being completely new to me, and fast and dangerous. However, I did find the poma tows particularly boring and I wonder, if in a different life were I spent most of my time skiing, I'd get bored quite quickly. Different scenery can only do so much, and competition has never been a long term motivation for me. Keeping skiing as something which is fun for a change seems the way to go.

The fifth thing, which is just about impossible was bouldering in the snow at about minus 10 in Torridon. None the less my hands are tingling as I write this thinking about the prospect of sessions there in May when the weather is jaw dropping and I have NO EXAMS!

Happy new year to you all.