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comPiler:
Solace??

 
So. I lost my confidence, I lost my motivation for organising away trips, I got depressed.
I came up with a cunning plan to deal with this: 
I delayed the climbing that I was struggling with, I put on hold the more complex trad challenges, relinquished them to next spring, and started to think about preparing for that in advance.
I gave myself a focus for training, taking a slightly longer term view to try to address my genuine need to have a bit more in reserve physically to tackle those challenges, and anticipating winter to be a good time for that.
I dialled my climbing back to something that was manageable but enjoyable and could contribute to progression: Logistically easy but physically challenging, mostly bouldering, often starting exploring Welsh limestone.
In short I sought solace in enjoying the physical aspect of climbing, whilst relaxing a bit and being patient and preparative.
...
Then I went bouldering on the top of the Little Orme on a bitterly windy day. One of the craglets had the cold wind raking along it and I had to wear a duvet jacket just to try to start climbing.  That was the sheltered crag - at the exposed one I could barely stand up to look at the lines and had to walk back at a 30' angle so I didn't get blown back to Manc. Back at the former I was looking for an autumn project to push myself on, and decided the best course of action was to warm up by vigorously brushing some holds (this did deceptively raise my core temperature), not tape my niggling elbow, and start working a 45' overhanging beyond-my-limit project move-by-move... 
Maybe I didn't notice how badly I'd aggravated my golfer's elbow because everything had gone numb?? Whichever way, I am a fucking idiot.
Solace - gone. Training plans - gone. Relaxation - gone.
Depression - back, with reinforcements and heavier anti-Fiend weapons.
The overall plan for this time had been: Get fitter, get stronger, get more powerful, get more confident physically, get better prepared for next trad season.
Now the imminent future is: Get less fit (and heavier?), get weaker, get less powerful, get more timid and much less confident physically, feel increasingly distant from any trad season.
...
What I'm doing of course is rehab (with good advice from Process), gentle climbing (at least gritstone bumblecircuits are quite pleasant, and indoor walls have plenty of slabs and non-pulling nonsense on them these days), keeping active by going out exploring, going to the gym, and focusing on the minimal things I can train: core, and especially flexibility. Interestingly since I've been doing less proper climbing and more of the latter, I've got all sorts of pains around my hips, buttocks, groin, knees etc. Nothing too inhibitive but extra physical niggles that actually I don't really need.
I still have the same cunning Plan B mentioned at the start of this post, but it's all pretty much delayed until I've healed my elbow to a manageable state. Thus any updates around here are going to be pretty sporadic, unless I find any ethics to rant about. Anyone seen any peg-bolted lower-offs recently??
Anyway here's a couple of things from the recent but very distant-seeming time when I only had mental inhibitions:
A nice little boulder problem.

A fairly mediocre video mostly due to the light and angles and forgetting my camera and using my phone fingertaped to a tripod, but it was only a few days before I properly aggravated my elbow and it does show I was pretty confident with both cranking up things and jumping off things (even though some of those drop-off landings felt as hard as the climber is heavy!!).


Source: Solace??

comPiler:
Solace Part 2


Maybe a post about actually climbing for a change??
(Edit, and warning: there now are a lot of words about climbing in this post, I got carried away)
It's still a struggle. I want to push myself. I want to be climbing at over 50% capacity. I want to train. I want to bivvy beneath the 30' board in the new Depot training room. I want to feel the cranking. Sigh.
But there's a little bit of stuff I can do, apart from easy circuits indoors and trying to work out why the fuck my pelvis and left leg are constantly aching and tweaky despite exercise and stretching. Mostly easy grit, slabs, and easy grit slabs. Thankfully all of those things are rather good so there's some pleasure to be had in the usual luck-based scrittle malarkey of sliding off smears, pinging off pebbles, being unable to reach holds, and moaning about skin / conditions. So here's a little tale about most of those...

M20 and I went questing off to Standing Stones. He promised me a Bonjoy 6C slab, and the chance to heckle him on a downsloping lip traverse just above the pads and then a large drop-off so if the climber fell and the precariously bridged spotter fumbled, you'd both end up plunging headfirst into a likely bottomless pit in the boulders below. I promised myself to get a decent walk, fresh air, and not aggravate my elbow, which is sometimes all I aim for these days.
I'd actually been for a recce last autumn (previous golfer's elbow AND tweaked MCL rehab...) and spotted a few things including this slab that featured one of the two defining characteristics of the extensive SS boulderfield: boulders that either don't have a landing, or are so wedged and jumbled that they don't form problems at all. Since this only featured the former, I decided to investigate further whilst M20 was brushing scrittle or looking lustily at grouse or something. 
The slab was indeed attractive, the terrain beneath it less so, consisting of an artisanal blend of holey bits and jaggy bits and finely seasoned by a suitcase-sized block jutting right out over it. It turns out that the latter was in a fairly relaxed state about it's current position and decided it's ultimate destiny in life was to roll down into one of the afore-mentioned holes in a position which initially seemed equally jutting and inconvenient but actually provided a useful centerpiece around which other unstable blocks could migrate towards and cuddle up next to. An hour or so later there was, miraculously, a landing. And it seemed that no mosses, lichens, ferns nor rodent nests were disturbed in the transition, indeed scarcely a displaced woodlouse was spotted.
...
After some stones had partaken in downwards motion, it was incumbent for the climber to attempt upwards motion. A lone excellent sidepull provided both the solution and conundrum, and it quickly became apparently that it's more obvious orientation naturally led the climber off onto the left arete rather abruptly, albeit after a very pleasant smear-stepping start (Solexit 6A). A more direct line didn't seem to work and I started to lose interest, and, somewhat prematurely, left Gritstone Jesus to take over. He worked out an extended smearing sequence that used the Hold to gaston back right and up, leaving a final smear and stretch to a particularly enticing pebble, at which point the gritstone decided to take revenge for all the downwards motion earlier on, and the pebble and climber joined the downward motion...
At this point the Gritstone Gentleman, after a half-hearted attempt discovering the remaining hole was a pale shadow of the pebble it once embraced, confessed that he was feeling a bit reluctant to fully go for it, as I'd put all the effort into fixing the landing and really I should be giving it a fair go. Gulp. So I did, and the climbing started to feel pretty damn interesting - a different extended sequence of smears led back to the same position, and a worse, higher pebble showed potential to reach the top. After a few tentative dismounts, I pulled on the pebble, bridged a foot onto a ripple and reached.... ....the bloody left arete, albeit a lot higher. 
This was something I hadn't intended nor desired. The problem was already a bit eliminate in that you had to move back right to avoid easier ground, and I wanted it to be a logical eliminate with a simple "avoid the left arete" description. I checked if I could reach the top directly (not really), tried a few more times, skidded off a higher smear, ran out of time and shuffled away. 
But it kept nagging at me, and inspiring me, and it's been a while since I've been able to feel inspiration or anything that motivational. I didn't think there was much to improve to do that last move more directly, just having more time to persist with it and hope the luck part of the luck based scrittle appeared out of somewhere. I bade my time, cleaned off an excellent project to tempt M20 back, and thought about smears. 
...
Eventually M20, MG and I went back - the closest Standing Stones has got to an actual send train! We downgraded the Bonjoy 6B+, did a new one move wonder undercut arete I found - Careless Pork - and I got back on the slab. And exactly the same thing happened, the best position I got into, the way for me to progress was rolling onto the arete. Again I tested the stretch to the top, this time with more diligence, to discover I'd have to be on tip-toes on the crucial ankle-down smear to reach it. Again I passed the baton on, and M20 stretched the very top of the arete and slab apex to match. With the team's support, the assessment was that where you reach from the final position wasn't the main thrust of the problem, and effectively I'd already done it last time. This was quite weird for me, closure of the inspiration not by success but by changing the goalposts.
Post-match analysis however revealed some logic, in which I was inspired by writings of the ex-Newcastle now Cymru captain Pantontino. It's nice for new things to make clear-cut sense: Follow the line from the bottom to the top. But sometimes they don't. Bits of rock impinge, easier ground impinges, features lead away from the best climbing. Guidance from a well-written guide nudges the climber to make the best use out of the rock, even if it means guidelines on what to do. In this case, matching the Hold and rocking back right locks you into the sequence of smears and pebbles until you're bridged higher and either slap the upper arete or the top. Yes you go back to the arete if you can't reach the top, but only after 6 tricky and delicate moves away from the much easier start-sidepull-arete problem.
So it's a flawed result, but there's now a feasible problem with good climbing. It's about 6C/+-ish maybe.
And the name??
Solace.


Source: Solace Part 2

Fiend:
COMPILER GET A FUCKING GRIP.

comPiler:
A Very Secret Slab


Seek and ye shall find....maybe....or just get lost in the woods. 

Paul's Peach Slab, Honley Old Woods - update.
Main problems thoroughly cleaned November 2021

Approach:

The old parking at the end of Hassocks Lane is no longer viable as it's now a public bridleway and even if you park very discreetly and sensibly you'll likely get some self-important twat in the last house / building site blocking you in and waffling on about road traffic act blah blah whatever shut up already you tedious bellend.
Instead, park carefully on the verge next to a gate on the south side of Meltham Road, halfway between Honley Livery Stables and the edge of Honley Village, 50m west of the footpath / farm track leading to Hassocks Lane. Walk north down this track to the woodland, go into the woods and diagonally left for 30m until a carved block points a path leading rightwards, i.e. directly away from the main road. Follow this path for 200m until it reaches the valley edge, and drops down beneath Old Honley Wood Quarry. Turn left onto the path above the edge and follow this for 300m or so until it intertwines with a path on the left, next to the fence on the left. At this point you should be directly opposite a strange silo in a clearing to the left, turn right and the top of the slab should be 20m down the valley slope.

Problems:

The description on the Kirklees climbing site isn't very clear and the update on UKC doesn't help much either! So maybe this will show the potential.... Apart from miscellaneous pebbles and smears, the centre of the slab has few features, but the two main ones naturally lead to distinct and good quality variants. The main holds are a head-height diagonal edge left of centre (with a good starting smear low down), and a very shallow flaky scoop high up with a useful rail at it's bottom.
? - A possible one move wonder up the left edge.
PL - Peach Lefthand 6C?Shorter but still tricky and good. Right hand gaston the diagonal edge, right foot low smear, and climb straight up on pebbles, with or without the scoop rail to finish.
PP - Paul's Peach 6B+The original and best linking of the features. Left hand sidepull the diagonal edge, left foot low smear, and reach and rock up right to the scoop rail before finishing slightly leftwards.
PSD - Peach Superdirect 7A?Fierce pebble pulling to get the most slab value. Just right climb direct on pebbles to the scoop rail, match it and finish slightly rightwards. 
TS - Tentative Steps 4+Link the lower diagonal runnel and a good flat hold above to gain the right crest of the slab.
Low Traverse - It would also be possible to do a rather fun traverse from the good footholds on the left edge all the way into Tentative Steps to finish.


Source: A Very Secret Slab

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