The Past two months I have been very busy getting out in the good weather for climbing. Most of my climbing happening in Dorset but also getting away for a weekend twice, first to Cheddar and Avon and the second to Cornwall for Lands End and Sennen. The majority of my climbing has been based in clocking up the mileage on routes that I can get within one or two tries. But lately I have been trying to push into the 7’s by working routes. My confidence has improved somewhat in trad but there is a still a long way to go.
With the great weather we have been having over the past month or so my training has become less important. I am averaging two trips outside a week so my indoor training sessions have been reduced to about 1 a week. I am finding the outdoor climbing is helping me improve a lot more, this is most likely from improving my technique, route reading and outdoor leading confidence.
My SPA training course has really helped me with my technical, rope and group skills. Along with the SPA course I also had a chance do two days of my own climbing. The first was in cheddar where I mainly did mileage but also got PB’s in both sport and trad with a flash of and E1 5b and a flash of a 7a. In total I did 12 routes through the day. Then I had a two day kind of break where I did the course, and then it was time to hit up Avon. I really proved to myself that when I put my mind to it I can dominate my head game with a head point of an E6 6a Smoove Groove. Then finished the trip off with a multi-pitch VS 4c which gave me a chance to utilise some of the rope work skills I learned over the weekend.
Back in Dorset I have been getting a few more High 6’s and 2 more 7a’s ticked with the routes Things That Make You Go Hmmm 6c, Silver Bream Machine 6c, Insanely Yours 7a and Peppercorn Rate 7a. All of these routes except Insanely Yours went with only a few goes to work the moves. Insanely yours took me 5 days of work to do. This is the first route that I have properly worked. On the first day I had to dog up to the third bolt and could not get through the crux, but as time went on through the days I started to piece it all together. By the fifth of working on it I had the start dialled so much that I was at pretty much full strength for the crux. My first go on the fifth day I blew because I second guessed my grip on the small crimp and tried to re adjust and then did the same mistake on the following attempts. It went on my fifth go. One thing that helped me was that I was working on this project with a climbing partner climbing the same grade as me. This meant that we could bounce beta off one another and get the most effective way of doing the moves.
The last thing I want to talk about is my trip to Sennen. This was a chance to experience climbing on a new type of rock (granite) and practise my trad skills. We only had two days of climbing so we had to make the most of the time. The first day the weather was not on our side, we had light patchy rain throughout the day. So we decide to do some easy climbing. The first climb we did was Lands End Long Climb which consists of 8 pitches and is graded VDiff. It was a really good fun climb and a chance for me to have a play with gear placement on the new rock type. Also a nice chance to practise my rope skills for setting up be-lays. To finish the day we two more climbs at Sennen both of which were sopping wet. The next day it rained in the morning but became brighter in the afternoon and the rock was dry. We did an HS and a VS 2 pitch routes and I had a go on an E2 6A called Samson Arête but had to give up on. This route taught me that I need to improve my confidence on trad and to trust good gear. Before leaving this climb I made sure that I took my first controlled fall on trad gear. I am aim to consolidate a bit more on trad routes before pushing myself again.
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