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!