Yet Another Indian Summer.

I have a hankering for grit. I want to feel its rasping grains exfoliate the callus built up on my tips over a summer of crimping.  I want to slap slopes, hang off my bones rather than pull with my muscles.  Most importantly I want to return home from a day's bouldering with the skin of my forearms and torso on fire- abraded by the silica grains that coalesce into gargoyle-like shapes on the tops of the Pennine moors, however it's too hot! August and its faint wet whiff of a coming winter lulled me into a belief system founded upon the central theory that the Grit would come early this year, Alas, just like the follower of many a modern-day cult, I was simply wrong- I was lucky to escape with both my skin and my long-held faith in this wonderful, luck-based, rocky medium intact!

So, just as in July, Limestone has been the order of the day.  Pulling rather than palming, standing on distinct edges rather than knowing that my foot will stick to any part of my boulder problem of desire.  On the other hand it's dry and not going out on a sunny day would only allow deep, chronic injuries to heal - and what boulderer in their right mind would want to entertain such nonsense?

It has been hard to stay motivated when indulging in one rock type exclusively.  Many venues have been visited to engender some sense of variety in my climbing life: Ogmore, Dinas, Ruthin, Waton, Woodwell, Fairy Steps, the Pill box and The Cave have all taken a turn and all are still on the radar as the sun continues to shine.

If you feel jaded on your own personal limestone journey of projects and pulling here are some videos from Sam to keep you going.  Don't worry, the grit will be here soon and we will all be able to complain in chorus about bloody technical sequences........ and all will be good with the world.

The first video features Ruthin, a crag close to my own heart; a brilliant after-work venue with a good spread of grades from V2 to V8.  The video itself features a real 'misery of clowns', and the legend which is Fatneck. You can read more about Ruthin here and here.



Ruthin Escarpment Bouldering - North Wales from Climbing Beta on Vimeo.

The second video is from Woodwell, one of the finest Limestone craglets in the country; famed for its steepness, marred slightly by its rules.  The video has a slight caveat attached: one of the problems featured, "Kiss of the Dragon", was not ascended as per regulation, so please don't think this is the beta needed for an easy V8 tick.  The problem starts to the right of the crack and involves a long, stiff pull to get to the small crimps used in the vid.



Woodwell Bouldering from Climbing Beta on Vimeo.

So go and grunt your way across all the crimps limestone has to offer.  You'll be dragging your skin across something friction-full soon enough.

Shady Slimestone.

My fingers have not danced across the keys of a keyboard for quite some time.  The reason for this is simple; the weather has been good and the Limestone crags that generally lurk in our deep river valleys, dripping, dank are actually dry!  So dry in fact, that any thought of typing or training have been wiped from my consciousness by an insatiable need to climb. 

As the summer sun has heated our landscapes and bathed the hill tops, all rock with a high silica content has been rendered un-climbable, radiating  heat and causing  skin to roll off finger tips at an alarming rate. The sanctuary afforded by shady limestone has become hard to resist and crags from the North East of Wales to the South of the Lake District have been plundered for their potential and their protection from the sun.

If the climbing wall is getting too hot, and you need to escape into this summer wonderland of dry rock and long days I hope the following videos will inspire you to get out and leave that campus board alone.  Both short films feature Devils Gorge, a favourite of us Scouse climbers, and a particularly good spot to find good conditions in the morning in a hot sunny summer.  Both films come from Sam, visit here to see more of what he has been up to.

Lists and That.

There is some bouldering in those hills.

Lists and order seem to be an integral part of the western cultural cannon. We crave order. Categories are created and the intangible is indexed in an attempt to understand the fuzzy complexity of a reality that constantly evolves around us. This process of comparmentalising the unquantifiable seems to be a necesssary action, something we do to passify ourselves so that we may get on with our lives. Many groups round the world use different devices to do this: mysticism, myth and even magic, our obsession with 'measurement' to map reality robs us of the wonder of looking at the world in different ways. There is a large part of me that feels this is a shame, but then again befuddlement is my default state.

Lists play an important role in Bouldering: tick lists in guides, lists of personal projects, lists of grades and grading systems, lists of problems completed so far this season etc etc. Lists give climbing a faint wiff of competitive conformity; grades and the aroma of quantification open the door to the influence of Sports Science, training regimes, resistance, reps and rests. It's an intoxicating scent; one that promotes motivation, knuckling down and progress. Steps up the ladder of your grading system of choice can be hastened by applying a little logic. There's no magic here, the equation is simple:

                                 Perspiration = Gratification (if grade-based progress is what you seek)
                                                                           Time

Lists have played an important role in my efforts to scratch a path up steeper and steeper sweeps of rock over the years. Lists have informed my training. Wish lists have been written and re-written in an attempt to motivate; lists of desert island climbs or boulders I would like to have in my garden have been seriously discussed, at length, deep into the early hours, thus rendering the chance of climbing a problem that features on a list in the cold morning light next to impossible.  Lists have also been used to entertain.  My favourite climbing lists were the ones that Showtime Farley would create on the twilight drives back from The Peak in autumns past.  On these long drives the excitement of the day would fade to browns, oranges and yellows as our overworked adrenal glands stemmed their flow, the car's collective blood sugar bottomed out and strange shadows were cast by Tom "Fat-hand" Sugden lolling deep in slumber, held up by the tension of his seatbelt alone.  A hush would descend despite the million decibels of bass shaking  the fatigued bones of those incarcerated in the car. At this point Ben would banish the twilight chill of early winter by demanding the 'Best' from us all: best problem, best move, best hold.  Excitment, enthusiasm, and in Tom's case basic motor functions, would return.  In the pantheon of climbing lists, "Best" lists are definitely the best.

Why does climbing seem better when there's snow on the horizon

How can we quantify 'best'?  Well that's the beauty of the concept, you can't, it's just something you like the most at a fixed point we will call 'now'. As the sands of time inevitably shift it will change to something completely different.  Just like the grading systems we use to measure our progress in climbing, 'best' is subjectively constructed around the experience of the individual.  I can't really tell what 'best' is in the same way I can't definitively define what 7b+ is. What I can do though is tell you what my 'bests' have been so far this year: best problem, best move, best venue, best area.  Yes this is a futile exercise and yes these 'bests' will probably change as soon as I experience something else, however, as proved by Showtime Farley in the car on the way back from a kaleidoscope of venues, best lists are a good game. Best gets the adrenalin flowing, Best enlivens leaden limbs and injects colour into the climbing experience washed out by seemingly endless, wet winter.  So let's play Best, get your answers ready, and be ready to shout at mine.

Best Move - above Pwllglass near Ruthin sits Butterfly Buttress.  The steep front-face of this crag is adorned with a myriad of positive holds that make this an ideal link-up venue.  One link moves from left to right through the steepness, it's called "Lead Rain" and my best move sits halfway along its sinuous path.  The move involves kicking up a high heel onto a shelf in front of you allowing you to bump from a tiny hold to a thank-god sidepull.  This slight of heel gets you through the steepest part of the problem efficiently saving energy for the brutal moves ahead.

Best Problem - I had been to Rhiw Coch before and done a circuit of easy problems.  I had a look at Poppy's Move and the other problems in that particular cluster and discounted them as being too hard for my skinny arms. I went back this year with the test pages of the new North Wales Bouldering Guide, and I noticed the problem Moria. A 7b with two stars, I gave it a go and the rewards were exponentially greater than the grade given to the problem.  The line may not be the most asthetic but the moves are stellar- you just can't quantify this quality; go try this problem it really is magic.

Moria in all of its glory

Best Venue - seriously just go with this one.  My best venue so far this year is Pex Hill!!  Yes this hole in the ground, steeped in dog muck and decorated with broken glass is my favourite venue at the moment.  Climbing here this winter, doing eliminates on Pisa Wall, writing about them and spreading the love has saved my climbing from the monotony of training and the inevitable injuries that being serious and scientific brings.  I have visited Pex a lot this year and every time I have left with a smile on my face; if we could grade enjoyment Pex for me would be cutting-edge.

Best Area - without doubt it's North Wales. Words can not capture the feeling of moving across rough, dolerite slopers with a chill in the air and a dusting of snow on the mountains. It feels such a privilege to be climbing in this environment when the conditions are good and the sky is powder blue. When you're high up on the pass, away from the sound of the traffic, looking across at Dinas Cromlech, clouds casting shadows on the valley bottom as they drift lazily by, you feel like you're sitting in an alternate reality, a simpler one, one that makes sense, one that's almost - well mystical.

Moves like these help to generate Bests for everyones lists.

Well there's my Bests, how did yours measure up?  We could negotiate our various Bests, and come  up with a consensus. We could make our Bests definitive, fix them in time and share them with others! To be honest what would be the point, we would simply kill fun.  Sometimes it is better to relax, sit back and enjoy the randomness of things.  I have no idea why I chose Moria as my favourite problem of the year, or why I think Bouldering is better when framed by snowy mountains.  I do know that in a culture obsessed with quantification, and a sport that is quickly being seduced by science, that the game of Bests doesn't really have a place.  For me though that's the point; we should stop trying to quantify fun- let the game of Bests take over, let excitement and enthusiasm flood into climbing. Have your best-ever training session, campus because it puts a smile on your face, give into the magic, get out there and experience more! I reckon that would probably be best for everyone.

Ruthin Reloaded - Pwllglas Project Finally Falls.

Skinny Dogs always look miserable when humans are trying to link problems.



Projecting power endurance lines is always a soul destroying activity: You train, you get strong, you travel to the crag, you warm up, you fail on the crux and realise that you will need to make another twenty hand movements before you have even a chance of a send that day; a few more attempts and you have made a hundred moves and yet come away with nothing.  This has the been the cycle of things for me at Pwllglass for the last year or so, continually trying my object of desire, and always returning home with my tail between my legs.

Angry Jones showing the way on one of the easier problems at Pwllglas.

Today was different, I can't put my finger on what changed: Angry Jones was with me and possibly his unique brand of life coaching had a positive effect, alternatively four days of failure in Font may have forced me to finally get things sorted.  One fact that I am certain of is that the weather did not help. It was baltic, and my fingers burned with the cold as I hit the final jug, but hit the jug I did and thus my pilgrimages of failure to Ruthin can finally stop.

The problem starts sitting on a prominent chalky jug down and left of the big flatty that marks the start of the problem Another Million.  Moves on slots and small holds allow you to trace the lip of the overhang rightwards until you reach a rest on the flatty.  From here long moves on small crimps and a choice of flatties lead to Fritillary Flake and the finish. The back wall is in for feet, obviously the big detached block under the flatty of Another Million is not.   I've called the problem Lead Rain after an autumnal incident at this very same crag which involved some men with guns, a cross wind and some very worried boulderers.  I think its comes in around the 7b mark and is well worth the walk up the hill.  If that description is too vague a video of the first ascent can be seen below.


Lead Rain 7B from Owen McShane on Vimeo.

Ruthin Escarpment - Pwllglas Bouldering

Butterfly buttress in all of its glory.

My pilgrimages north from Pembrokeshire to Liverpool began at the age of 14.  My sister had, without the guidance of a magician, performed a complex vanishing trick which led to her reappearance on Merseyside.  I would regularly visit her, hitching lifts with family, friends or even strangers, traversing Wales by a myriad of different paths, with all roads leading me to Bala, funnelling me to Ruthin, Mold and the industrial wastes of Ellesmere Port. One of my regular travelling companions loved the chemical complexes of Cheshire with their cancerous chimneys.  As a former urbanite, exiled to a rural existence, he said that the scenes from "Blade runner" that flowed out in front of us polluting eyes, ears, and lungs in equal measure helped to construct his concept of home and sense of belonging.  Suffice to say we don't speak anymore.

It is around this time I became aware of the escarpment of limestone that crowns the valley above Pwllglas.  As a fourteen year old it was simply a curiosity that interested the eye as we meandered past. However as Liverpool drew me in, firstly as a student and then as a climber, this scarp morphed into a place that needed investigation, somewhere where some sport may lie. However as I settled down in the North West my journeys through the Cambrian Mountains, up and down the Welsh backbone, dwindled and the limestone edge up at Pwllglas melted away as my attention was drawn by grit, rhyolite and sandstone.  Over the next fourteen years I would occasionally pass through Pwllglas and rediscover a need to explore its potential only to ignore this impulse again and again.

Linking one of the sit starts into Flatillary flake.

A rumour pulled me back.  Loose words and tall tales got me fired up, potential lines in Clwyd! How could I resist?  I hadn't made the connection between the crag spotted in my youth with these stories of unclimbed lines; whispers wafted like seeds on a breeze, passed imprudently from person to person until they took root in the ever-fertile depths of my psyche. All things being equal I wouldn’t have trudged up that Cambrian brow and laid siege to Pwllglas' potential had it not been for Angry Jones.  Angry is a complex character misjudged by others. He's not actually angry; he just likes to paint his pictures of the world with a mallet rather than a soft delicate brush! His verbal pallet is wide but he likes the brashness of primary colours, short words with harsh syllables and big meanings. You know where you are with Angry, and if you don't he’ll make you aware of where you've ended up with the minimum of fuss. 

We set out for Pwllglas on a wet day with little hope and a scrap of worn paper to guide us. I had the briney goat-punctuated scent of the cave in my nostrils and dreams of projects in Llandudno's upside-down world in my mind's eye. I felt that Clwyd's undulations were no place for a sane climber on a grotty day, Angry had other ideas.  He explained in four letters or less why we should commit to the walk in, and I had nothing to counter his rather eloquent explanation. His motivational speech got us there and for this I am eternally grateful.  As we trudged through the damp undergrowth and walked along the crags the rumours of potential seemed to morph into wet empty promises; but the overwhelming feeling of a walk wasted disappeared when Butterfly Buttress opened up in front of us.

Tuffa pulling on the start tothe best of the linkups

Butterfly Buttress is the reason to visit Pwllglas; it sits high above the valley like a Welsh Woodwell with vistas.  The buttress is made of a compact, steep, sweeping limestone wall with an  undercut base.  Sit down starts and link up lines are the beasts you’ll discover here, lurking amongst Lee Proctors sport routes.  Just like Woodwell roof climbs inhabit the same space as highballs, however the super-hard lines that set Woodwell apart are hard to find here.  What you will find is quality on holds that will keep you coming back for more.

Mark streched out on Andy's start to Flatilary flake

We went back! We went back several times and we took Manchessie Si with us. He’s a man-mountain made of biceps and beta, with the uncanny knack of unlocking the sequences that would eventually coax this crag out of its obscurity. Two lines existed before we got there, Flatillary Flake and the Butterfly Collector- by the time our activities had waned ten new sit-downs and link-ups had appeared. The best of the bunch would be Si's start to the Butterfly Collector, Andy's start to Flatilary Flake, and the not so eliminate Cassius Clay.  All three of these problems weigh in around the 7a or 7a+ mark and are worth the journey up the hill. Details of our exploits can be found here:

http://www.northwalesbouldering.com/newsitem.asp?nsid=550

Topos can be found here:

http://www.northwalesbouldering.com/upload/members/Ruthin%20topo%20V6.jpg  

One word of warning- ignore the grades we gave to these problems, they were ball park figures that, with subsequent ascents proved to be slightly inflated. Others visited Butterfly buttress, left their mark, lifting the crag from its once esoteric status to a venue worth visiting in its own right.  Even the legendary Ben Showtime Farley graced the crag with a visitation, displaying his silky skills and flawless technique on more than one occasion; this fact alone must conclusively confirm Pwllglas to be a limestone crag of some merit.

Alec pulling shapes on the Butterfly collector.

Many things of little significance to most have occurred on that hill on the edge of the Clwyidian range. Angry fell in love, a love that could not transcend the duel barriers of species and gender! Fletcher the Lurcher, all legs and affection, was rescued by Andy and introduced to the outside world on that limestone hill. Manchessie became a hero, rescuing me from certain breaks and embarrassment as I plummeted from the top of the crag whilst topping out on a jug that just wouldn't stay put.  I had enough air time to plan which limb I would sacrifice, I also yelped like a little puppy as the ground approached (why be manly about it?).  I think if you’re going to hospital its best to display your vulnerability before anything major happens, it helps the professionals know what they are dealing with. There is no point being brave, your frailties will only be exposed later on. I escaped unscathed, Manchessie however was bruised, battered, and out of climbing for a week after his instinctive intervention.  The scouse crowd also adopted a new member under the shadow of the Butterfly Collector, however I’m sure Alec would sprint for his VW camper if he knew he was now considered one of us.  Smooth Pete almost lost his thumb when he decided that this extremity would be the most elastic, forgiving thing to land on from height. Manchessie, in the quest for new lines, regularly removed rocks from the buttress like the quarrymen of old looking for building materials and again injuring himself in the process.  It has to be said that days at Pwllglas are never boring. It's worth the effort to walk up to that last gasp of the Cambrian Hills and sample the climbing; believe me it will draw you in.