Nice one Chris - that's good news. I also like the idea of just replacing the situ gear, as hanging on for grim death fiddling in wires was always part of the experience on these routes as well.
Do you know if Rio Verde has had the same treatment? That was good fun too.
Interestingly, on looking back in my old log for when I did these, it seems I didn't flash any of them. And I used to try pretty hard in those days!
Some funny comments from my log of the time, which I thought I would share:-
25/5/83 - Mandrake, with Tim Freeman. "Excellent, steep and sustained pitch. V pleased. First limestone 6b. 1 yo-yo. Tim, as usual, eliminated all my lunges but fortunately not the yo-yo."
(Mandrake was given E4 6b at the time, and though I had definitely done routes on limestone which get 6b now, they obviously all got 6a then. Indeed some of the Yorkshire ones got HVS).
20/7/86 - Money for Nothing (on Ivy Buttress to the left of Rubicon - it got E4 6a at the time) with Rab. "Desperate. 3 yo-yos (as had Rab). Maybe 6b? Hard buttress." (It was the first - and indeed the last! - time we'd been there). "Tried Deception, but too knackered from MFN. Followed Mandrake - desp."
13/9/86 - Deception, with Phil Burke. (on a day when we did Armed with an Empty Gun, Tiger by The Tail, Deception and Rio Verde). "Tidying up loose ends day. Flashed this time, but hard crux and hard leaving the break. Phil quickly disputed my "on sight" claims as I reched perfect nuts into totally blind placements."
13/9/86 - Rio Verde. "A Rouse classsic. Phil made a thorough pig's ear of it, so I had to have a go. Bold clipping the peg and very hard slap past it. Arranging gearwhilst hanging on the top break, pumped as anything and with no footholds (Phil stood on the peg – probably a good idea!) is something I will remember for a long time. One lower off the peg.”
I might have thought I would remember it for a long time then, but of course now I have hardly any recollection of that day (though I can remember siegeing Money for Nothing with Rab).
These notes – all direct, word for word quotes from what I wrote at the time, come from a brief period where I wrote a detailed log. Sadly, when that exercise book was full (September 87), I never got around to replacing it. I kept lists in diaries for several years after that, and then even let that lapse for much of the late nineties / early noughties.
I know which routes I’ve done, because I’ve always been a pretty meticulous guidebook ticker (!), but sadly I have now forgotten who I did many of the routes with, and when I did them.
I really wish I had kept my climbing logs up to date, as it is very interesting to look back – especially if you bothered to write a bit of a story, like I happened to do with these Water-cum-Jolly routes.
If you are just starting out on a climbing life, and wondering if you should keep a log, in the words of JBT – “just do it”!
Neil
