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Killing two Predators with one Acorn
21 August 2011, 6:05 pm

19/8/11

Today got off to a rather inauspicious start, I was lethargic after yesterday’s rest day and even the 7a warm up on “Consenting Adults” didn’t quite seem to do the trick off re-activating my energy stores. On the previous climbing day I had had a wee play on “Predator” (8b) but couldn’t decide whether or not to try that or another route today. After deciding with myself that the top of “Predator” still looked wet as it was the previous day, I decided to try something different, perhaps “Mid-ledge Spread” (8b) another one of Malhams classics I have yet to try.

After warming up a bit, one of my friends Adam Lincoln showed his face at the crag. It was good to meet up with him as I hadn’t seen him in quite a while and it was good to catch up. He was here to film Jordan Buys on “Cry Freedom” (8b+ or 8c). When Adam abseiled from the top of the cove to film Jordan, he could see that the top of “Austrian Oak” was dry and thus my mind was made up. “The Oak” has been something on my tick list for a very long time, indeed as long as I’ve been visiting Malham for that matter. It’s an awesome power endurance style route with lots of powerful moves from undercuts, a style that I’m not very good at.

I had one go on “Austrian Oak”, scouting out the sequence, scoping for potential rests (all of which at first glance appeared totally crap) and trying to link in sections (always helps for telling your mind that it’s possible). I managed to split the route into two sections on my first try the day before -

1) Bottom Boulder Crux – Half way jug rest

2) Jug rest – Top

Today it felt even harder! I had one attempt at doing the boulder problem and slipped off, from there, I just continued to work the route in sections again, fiddling about with the sequences whilst getting a bit of beta from Adam. I had a good rest after that with my mind set on getting through the start boulder with a view to potentially having a blast at getting through the middle crux afterwards.

Amazingly on my third attempt, it was as if the Malham gods were  blessing me with the invisible power of sticky pads, I climbed through the boulder crux without any difficulty straight into the good rest! I shook out out a couple of times, fully recovered then flowed through the middle traverse and into the red point crux (even managed to recover on the undercuts that felt so horrible before). I set off into the red point crux with no pump or loss of power and breezed through into the final jugs only for my foot to silently slip as I was re-adjusting on a jug! D’OH!!!!! It wasn’t so bad, I suddenly knew the route was possible, not only that, but I knew i could do it easily without a fight which doesn’t often happen on 8b’s! I went for one more go an hour later only for my foot to slip again quite low down, then in a haste of excitement and anticipation (possibly also a hint of stupidity) I got on within a few minutes and sent the route on my 5th try!

20/8/11

After some good sends the day before, I was eager for more! My fingertips where red raw but sometimes polished Malham limestone can be forgiving (can’t it?). I was again unsure of what I should try today and in the end, opted for “Predator” since it looked a bit drier at the top than on previous days. I had one blast for it after my warm up, amazingly despite my fingers feeling pretty painful and the full heat of the sun brining down on the route I managed to get straight up into the crux and only fluffed it a bit due to the anticipation of reaching a good hold too early. I sat down on the rope, re- adjusted my sequence for the crux (mainly footholds – typical Malham) and went to the to the top (I couldn’t on my first go the other day as it was too wet).

A couple of years ago I had fallen off right at the top of this route, I was determined not to repeat mistakes of previous attempts here and fluff it again. I figured out a good new sequence at the top and returned back to the ground.

Nat had a wee play on “Predator”, she struggled quite a bit at the crux mainly due to reach on some of the moves but I’m positive she can find a sequence that will suit her.

When Nat got back down, I decided I might as well have a good blast before Will (our cameraman : p) got down, so I just went for it! The first section felt really easy (f7b-ish), I managed to recover really well at the crux and knew that if I just maintained myself instead of popping too early for a crucial hold then I would be fine. I set out onto the crux, it felt quite greasy as the sun was in full strength on it now but the moves didn’t feel hard (V5/6ish). I pulled through into a good rest at the top of the crux un-pumped but wary that I had fluffed it two years before on the final bulge of this route. After a few minutes of shaking out, I headed up into the final section. A tricky rock over established me on some small but positive edges and from there I clipped, I then did some tricky foot movements and locked out left onto a weird mono undercut and crossed through into a jug tufa! Thank god that was over, after resting a bit more on the tufa I pulled through the bulge and tip-toed (the foot holds are really small) to victory at the chains!

It was nice to tick my second 8b at Malham in as many days and of course the 8a+ “Overnite Sensation” on the day before, not bad for a few days at Britain’s top sport crag (many might argue with this but right now I’m content with it).

Nat has started work on “Overnite Sensation” and is looking strong on it. She is struggling a little with the boulder but crushes the top section despite the powerful last move. I had one go on “Unjustified” (8b+) and it felt really do-able! I did every move which is always a good sign although it did take a wee bit to figure out the crux – thanks to Alan for shouting up the beta. I reckon it felt like a Font 7B boulder problem to pull through the bulge followed by a French 7c to the top. Of course you also have to start up “Something Stupid” (7b) to get to the crux which is probably one of Malham’s filthiest 7b’s! I would almost prefer to start up “Raindogs” than do “Something Stupid” at least just to save some skin for the crux!

Oh well… Our next coaching group starts in 4 days, looking forward to it! A new bunch of psyched climbers to help achieve their Sport climbing goals!

PEACE

ROBZ OUT

from Robbie Phillips on Vimeo.

Source: Robbie's Blog

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There’s no “Justice”… Or is there?
27 August 2011, 11:27 pm

22/08/11

Today has been an enlightening day for both myself and Nat. First of all, we headed to the crag early on, with no Will to slow us down we were off at 10am, eager to get our renewed fingertips shredded on some Malham razor blade crimps. My plan for the day was more attempts on “Unjustified” (8b+), the previous day having had one attempt working out the moves. Nat was psyched to get stuck back into “Overnite Sensation” (8a+), finally something that has at least provided her with a bit of a challenge.

Scoping out "Totally Free" (8b) and looking for signs of HARRY POTTER!!!! After warming up on “Rose Coronary” (7a), I decided that any more warming up might reduce my fingertips to bleeding stumps, so I got straight on the project. I was so psyched, despite being in the full blast of the sun I managed to work my way up straight into the bulging overhang and fell on the last move of the crux! Psyched for more, I worked the rest of the route and managed to dial the moves a bit better than previously, figuring out a cool new way of back 3 stacking the right hand flatty jug for optimum resting capabilities (sounds very technical… It’s not).

In the period between my next attempt, Nat had an go on “Overnite Sensation”. It was horrendously hot now and the sun was beating down causing all the tiny crimpy edges to practically sizzle with skin contact. Not only does the polish become even worse in the sun, but also thanks to Malham’s gleaming White colour, all the footholds become beacons of reflection to the suns rays and blind climbers all over the crag – basically the footholds are impossible to see! Nat got on with it anyway and did a bit more work on the upper section of the route, practicing the moves and gaining valuable sending knowledge.

First contact with Malham Tarn locals I decided climbing in the sun today wasn’t as good an idea as previously thought and so I opted out of trying my route until a little later in the day. It wasn’t so bad as we were visited now by Adam Jeewooth and friends. It was cool to hang with them at the crag for the day, I learned a few bits and bobs from Adam (namely that he didn’t bother with my poncy drop knee after the crux and instead just threw for the slopey crimp, not much help to me and my weak fingers) on “Unjustified” as he had climbed it the year before. He apparently also campussed the crux of “Predator” because his feet couldnt reach the footholds… BEAST!!!

Nat crushing on "Predator" (8b) When the sun passed over Malham, I got off my butt and went for my third attempt on the project. It’s amazing what a bit of shade can do, the 7b “Something Stupid” (start of “Unjustified”) didn’t feel nearly as hard as it did earlier! I managed to get all the way up to the crux, I was a little nervous heading into it and was feeling the dampness of the undercuts (they seem to maintain a horrible goopyness within them). Before I knew it I was past the crux and dropping my knee about to pop into the slopey crimp! Unfortunately my foot blew of the foothold as i slapped for the crimp and I was off… Still I was well chuffed that I managed to get that far. After a brief rest, I got back on the rope and linked it straight to the top… I’m going to hope for a bit of cloud cover tomorrow and hopefully some skin growth overnight, perhaps I can sneak a cheeky 8b+ in before Verdon : P

After my best attempt yet, Nat obviously inspired (joke) blasted through the crux of her project and got a new highpoint, only slipping after resting at the halfway point. Both of us are psyched for what tomorrow may bring. On the walk out of Malham tonight we were stunned to see a saltire shaped cloud in the sky, perhaps this is a sign?

from Robbie Phillips on Vimeo.

27/08/11

So we haven’t managed to get to Malham since the start of our latest coaching group. We have been catering to the climbing demands of our new team of psyched up climbers, Stewart, Andrew and Nina. For the last couple of days we’ve been hitting Robin Proctors Scar, a crag favourite of ours as it’s scenic, tends to stay dry and has a good selection of quality routes in the f5-6c region.

Behind every sponsored climber, there's a cameraman : P We have seen some brilliant climbing done by thoses three. Stewart managed his first 6b+ onsight (lead), Andrew did the same 6b+ 2nd go and Nina has been making brilliant progress trying to overcome her fears. It’s been certainly challenging work with Nina, as she has a real phobia of the climbing at Robin Proctors. The crag isn’t very hard in difficulty but it tends to be committing at places with very exposed sections of wall. Amazingly, Nina found climbing at Malham Cove way more pleasant and had no worries here with the exposed nature of the climbs. Perhaps because it feels more like a climbing wall? Tomorrow we are going to head to Giggleswick in the morning to get a bit more mileage before heading back to Robin’s. Andrew and Stewart have a 6c+ project on the go whilst Nina has to overcome her fears on the dreaded exposed 6a! We also have to make a trip back to Malham at some point as Andrew and Stewart have made excellent progress on “Rose Coronary” (7a) and are determined to finish it!

Today was a good day for me and Nat. At the end of the coaching day, despite being incredibly nackered, I thought I might as well have a blast on “Unjustified” (8b+) since the shade has come in. Nat had a blast on “Zoolook” (8a) just before and got really high up and almost through the final crux, hopefully this shouldn’t take her too much more to get ticked. I had one attempt on “Unjustified” got into the crux but my foot slipped just as I was moving through the bulge. To my horror, I had smudged a massive bit of slime over the foothold (I must have kicked some off the wet streak) and this caused my foot to slip off. A bit pissed off since I was feeling so good, I decided to have a rest and try again after cleaning the foothold. I spoke to the coaching group about the pressure of Redpointing, this helped me to free things up in my mind. I think I have been getting a little too pressured with this route since I got through the crux on my third go. Ever since them I’ve been feeling the pressure, especially when I did the route from the end of the 7b to the top. Talking to everyone about it really helped me realise that I was taking the route too seriously and relieved a lot of the pressure. On my last attempt of the day (9th overall), just as the very last glimpses of light were leaving the crag, I went for it. The 7b section went smoothly, I got into the roof, had a quick shake out on the undercuts and breezed through the crux. I managed to shake out a little on every move, every hold after the crux i was solid and didn’t feel at all like I was pushing it too much. The last hard move to the two mini jugs (rest point before the last clip to the chain) was a but of a lock, but i felt steady up to reaching it, a nice feeling when climbing on 8b+/c ground. I got full recovery at the rest and went straight to the top!

Frustrated on rest days! Back 3 Table Boarding @ Ye Olde Naked Man Cafe - Settle I think this is one of my biggest accomplishments to date. Although it didn’t take too much time, I did feel the stress of Redpointing. This was mainly due to conditions being available only at the very last hours of the day and me being the impatient guy that I am, can never be bothered waiting, always seeming to get on it when it’s in the sun, ruining my skin and then sacking it off until another day, hoping for cloud cover (that never comes unless we are at another crag coaching).

Resting @ the top of "Predator" (8b) The route didn’t feel anywhere near as hard as “Dures Limites” (8c), a route I was close to in Ceuse. This was at least a grade easier, but I think “Dures Limites” is considered a hard 8c so that would make sense. I reckon “Unjustified” is 8b+ and probably steady at the grade. Definitely harder than other 8b’s at Malham, but I’ve done 8b’s in Europe that I thought weren’t too far off the mark. Despite the grade debate, an amazing route, amazing line and I’m psyched to have done it! Thanks to Nat for holding the rope and apologies to those that heard my profanities… Namely Toby : )

Also, big up to rudeboi Ed Hamer, 2nd in the World!!!

ROBZ OUT

Source: Robbie's Blog

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“Zoolook” – The 1/4 Life Crisis
2 September 2011, 9:24 pm

Since our last coaching trip, Nat and I have been pretty much knackered! All our energy, all our skin and all our motivation has dwindled and fallen away, we are empty shells of our former selves… I think a mixture of camping, cooking, climbing and coaching has drained us, without a car we can’t get much new food, of which we’ve been running a little low recently (thanks to Dalvinder for the groceries) and sleeping in a tent has definitely taken it’s wear on us.

Anyway, enough moaning… I decided next to face a route that has looked good ever since I’ve arrived, “Zoolook” (8a). Not wanting to sound like an arrogant prat, I figured, just another 8a, I’ll do this as a bit of mileage before looking at something harder… I want to slap my past self for thinking this! Although the route isn’t physically hard, nor is it technically that hard, it’s bloody awkward and polished to HELL!!!!! Nat went up on it first, I figured I might go for the flash. Unfortunately Nat didn’t manage to get up past last crux due to sore skin, tiredness and probably a lack of sleep. So anyway, I went for it, the starting crux wasn’t that hard for me, I think a mixture of being a bit taller and having good hip flexibility allowed me to make the first crux without any bother. I walked my way up to the second crux (pulling the bulge), getting a good shakeout below was handy as it didn’t seem like there was much rest after this. I headed through the overlap and where I had seen others struggle, I seemed to be ok. Still not pumped, I looked around for the next hold… A few moves later and I was totally blind, people shouting different things from below I was totally scuppered, I threw for a side pull that turned out to be an intermediate undercut and I fell. After a brief rest, I pulled back on and went to the top! After a quick glance through the crux, I figured it wasn’t that hard and I put it off until next go.

A day later, my confidence took another beating as I fell moving through the crux on my second attempt. A third attempt saw me slip again at the same point moving to a crimp off a good undercut.

Another day later I fell again at this same point on my fourth go! My feet feel like rollerblades on these damn footholds. I’m not remotely tired, pumped or in any way struggling with anything but keeping my feet on the footholds moving through the crux.

Today I was determined to do this route, out of a want never to give up, because I felt like a spanner falling off it so many times, but mostly out of spite! Two more falls due to foot slippage and I was tearing my hair out… Before my final burn on the route that day (if you can call it a “burn”, more like a stroll until someone trips you up and you fall flat on your face), another climber at the crag, Stu Littlefair suggested spitting on my shoes for a bit extra stickiness for the polished footholds. Like magic sticky spit from heaven, they stuck to the polished smears like glue and as I crossed over to the final hold off the crux, I had enough time to do a quick chalk and blow (my impression of flipping off a route whilst climbing)… That’s what I call an EPIC!!!!

Nat, also having similar difficulties with the route rocked up after me and despatched the route with similarly solid climbing (I think she may have actually swore at the footholds from the resting jugs : P).

At the end of the day I got on “GBH” (8a+), a left hand variant to “Zoolook”, starting at the same point and finishing on the same chains with only a 4-5 clips of difference verging out left instead of going out right (Zoolook). Amazingly, although not surprising, “GBH” felt quite a bit easier for me. The moves are more athletic but without the polished smears and uncertainty that “Zoolook” has. Hopefully I will despatch this tomorrow if I can grow some skin back before then.

Also, my two young padawans from Edinburgh, Angus and William are joining us tomorrow. We have a few routes lined up for them to try including:

“Free and even easier” (7a+)

“Bongo Fury” (7b)

“Something Stupid” (7b)

“Space Race” (7b+)

from Robbie Phillips on Vimeo.

ROBZ OUT

Source: Robbie's Blog

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Team GB-H @ Malham
5 September 2011, 12:39 am

This weekend was our last in plum jam lovers country. After a whole month of camping, I can tell you we are both looking forward to getting home for a bit of rest (even If it’s only a day for me). After my successful ascent on “Zoolook” (8a), I turned my attention to another popular Malham classic, “GBH” (8a+).

After having a bit of an epic on “Zoolook”, I was a little worried as to how “GBH” would feel. I think though that our previous rest day did us some good as we weren’t nearly as tired as when we where on “Zoolook”. “GBH” felt a whole lot easier and went down 3rd go (2nd go I fluffed a foot position at the end of the crux). I thought both routes where absolutely awesome, top quality routes at the grade! I know a lot of people say that “Zoolook” is harder than “GBH”, and some think the opposite. In my opinion, they are probably around the same grade, the former being high in the grade, the latter low. The fact is that “GBH” is not very technical, it’s a burl fest and as long as you can pull between good holds for long enough you will do it. “Zoolook” however requires a bit of tech finesse and is definitely harder now than it was years ago due to the foot polish at the top. If it wasn’t for the polish, i think standard 8a, but I do believe that because it feels so uneasy (on your feet) moving through the final crux, this does add a bit to the grade and like I found out, requires a bit of luck. A funny thing for me to think about was whether or not I would prefer to climb “GBH” or “Zoolook” for the extension at the same anchor “Well Dunne Finish” (8b). The extension is originally for “Zoolook” but I have heard of people doing “GBH” as an alternative start, but does this count? Well, I can say that I would much prefer to do “GBH” as a start to “Well Dunne Finish” because I reckon I wouldn’t fall off before the start of the extension, but the sustained technicality of “Zoolook” through the crux adds that extra bit of spice. That definitely solidifies in my mind what type of climber I am, a thug! A more intelligent, technical climber would probably prefer “Zoolook”.

The last couple of days where spent mostly with Angus Davidson (12) and William Bosi (12), two boys whom I coach back in Edinburgh. They came down to meet us at Malham as part of the MCofS Scottish Team Training Meet. Unfortunately more couldn’t make it, but that didn’t stop us having a totally awesome time. 

A later start on the Saturday (due to the boys driving down with Williams parents on the morning) didn’t slow them down! Both boys warmed up on the classic “Rose Coronoary” (7a) and William after a bit more of a forearm pump also ticked off “Consenting Adults” (7a) with ease. 

I then pointed them towards a grizzly, gnarl fest 7b called “Something Stupid”. After route reading and discussing the sequence with them they both gave it a good flash burn. Angus was unfortunately a little too short for the conventional sequence and fell (not after a lot of stretching and pasting his feet higher) at the crux move. William also fell at the same move, in my opinion a hard one for those height challenged. After working out the moves for a bit and figuring out a new sequence (both of them different), the boys went for their second go redpoint attempt and ticked it off without too much effort. I half expected for them to continue climbing into the extension, “Unjustified” (8b+) : P

After a bit of lunch, both the boys got stuck into “Space Race”, one of my first 7b+’s and what I thought would be a good one for them to get on. After a lot of route reading and discussing sequences, they went for the flash! Both of them struggled on a big reach just before the mid-way rest and came off. No worries though, they pulled up and worked out the rest of the route. “Space Race” incorporates a lot of different styles of climbing, from slabby crimp filth, to burly undercuts, no hands rests then battling through roofs and finally a techy headwall! Not only this but there are also quite a few sketchy run outs that require a good head rather than just the brawn. After some more rest, William stepped up to the challenge! With an awesome battle (not without a few hesitations), William fought his way up the wall in what I can only describe as a typically “William” performance. All those who know him (or who where at the crag that day) can vouch for me in saying that he can certainly hang on – a trait I find quite useful in climbing. William got his first 7b+ outdoors that day, 2nd go and just after doing two 7a’s and a 7b, not too bad for a 12 year old. Angus, wisely decided to leave it until the Sunday as he was knackered from an already trying day. 

On the Sunday, both boys warmed up on “Free and even easier” (7a+). Angus rested at the crux (not wanting to burn himself out for “Space Race” whilst William made a cool flash – another one in the bag!). Angus psyched oot his mind for his race in space went over for some pre-red point attempt sequence reading. After yet another blindingly good performance up the wall, Angus was inches from victory, a fingertip away from reaching a no hands rest which would more or less secure it for him, unfortunately he lost his balance as he rocked over on a small edge and came hurtling towards the ground. A valiant effort for the young beast – despite this he isn’t happy (are any of us when we fall?). A lesson is learned for him in dealing with failure (something I am still educating myself on), probably the most important lesson but the hardest to learn. Angus tired from his efforts leaves it for the day and focusses on some other routes before he goes home – next time. 

Angus

“Rose Coronary” (7a) – Flash

“Something Stupid” (7b) – 2nd go

William

“Consenting Adults” (7a) – Onsight

“Free and even easier” (7a+) – Flash

“Something Stupid” (7b) – 2nd go

“Space Race” (7b+) – 2nd go

Both the boys had a great time at Malham this weekend and hopefully they will be getting outside more over the next year. A big part of being a coach is making sure that the kids you work with experience all that climbing has to offer – not just indoors, competitions, etc… But also sport, trad, boldering, winter and beyond! Hopefully Angus will be joining me in Kalymnos in October whilst William is heading to a comp in Arco, Italy (plenty of cragging to be done there though). They also have a potential Spanish trip to look forward to next year as well as more fun on British rock!

BIG UP TO THE KIDS!!!

Source: Robbie's Blog

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Verdon – So this is what it feels like to be terrified!
11 September 2011, 2:37 pm

Hey Guys

So we’ve been in Verdon now for two days. Alex (Barrows) and I had a crazy drive down filled with hours of endless motorway, lots of winding country roads and one very unfortunate encounter with French 16 year old chavs!

I left on a train from Edinburgh one day after Me and Nats Yorkshire trip. I travelled down to meet up with Alex in Sheffield before driving down to France the next day. I have never driven such a long distance before, of course I did none ofnthe actual driving, but sitting in the passenger seat took a lot more out of me than I ever would have expected. A whole day of driving left us both pretty exhausted, we where keen for a rest, so decided to stop of, have dinner and sleep in a service station.

Sometime during the night, I heard a few noises, bumps and shakes. I put it out of my mind as other drivers from cars parked nearby. A couple of minutes later I heard some more noises, this time whispers and a faint feeling of cold air across my face… The door was open? I sat up turned round and was staring straight into the face of some French 16 yearbold boy in a hoodie with his mates! He had opened up the back of the car and was helping himself to our stuff! The Boy attempted to shut the door on me of which I pressed back open. After waking up Alex we got out the car to find my iPhone gone, his iPod gone, €60 disappeared from his wallet and my Credit card and a £10 note gone from my wallet. Amazingly, they had the decency to leave most of my change including the wallet which they could have nicked as a whole… What nice young fellows (or should I say – Garcons).

After a morning in the police station, we continued our journey towards Verdon. We arrived fairly late at night and so settled on checking out the crag the next day. Our big goal for this trip is to climb the amazing tufa line, “Tom et je ris” (8b+). One issue we never thought we’d have with this route was being able to find the damn thing! The guidebook is crap, all the web explanations are pretty bad and it’s an ab route, which means we are trying to find the top of the cliff rather than an obvious feature. It took us at least a couple of hours to find the route (not that bad since I heard it took Nina Caprez a lot longer on her first days search for the route).

After finding it, we had to ab in (very scary from around 150m off the ground). Well, I was crapping myself! Actually, I am super psyched for this route, it’s challenging me in a new way that no other route before has done – it scares me! I don’t remember the last time I was scared on a sport route? Maybe when I first started climbing sport outdoors, but I’ve done so much since then, so why is this different. I think simply, as well as being super high, it’s mega exposed! You are out flying on a hanging belay amongst falcons and vultures – they can smell fear you see! As well as exposure, the run outs are humungous and the tufas and footholds all break really easily! This is such a great experience and I’m loving every minute of it!

We’ve had a couple of days on the route so far, mostly learning how to climb in such an exposed position. It’s certainly a hard route and I think if I do it, then it will be my biggest accomplishment to date. It may not be as hard as other routes I’ve climbed, but the whole nature of the route encompasses any physical aspect. We will see… All I can say for now is that im PSYCHED OOT MA MIND!!!!

PEACE

ROBZ OUT

Source: Robbie's Blog

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Verdon – A bit less terrified now : )
14 September 2011, 5:14 pm

I am finally getting my head sorted! No, I’m not getting my brain surgically removed – I know that a lot of people would prefer that – I’m finally getting my head into gear with all this climbing really high stuff. Alex and I did a classic 7a+ the other day called “Surveiller et Punir” which I think pretty much did the trick. It was awesomely technical and fairly exposed – it got me into a better place with regards climbing 120m off the ground and today I certainly felt the difference on “Tom et je Ris” (8b+). 

We’ve had two days on the route so far, owing to the impracticality of lowering to the start of the route every time we want to try it we have been mainly climbing on top rope. It’s far easier for working this style of route than on lead (and it’s less scary too). Alex is a big wimp and insists extending all the draws, you should see him blubbering about taking run-outs, honestly, he calls himself a rock climber… PFFFFFFFT! Today we decided to go for a big link – it’s really awkward to work the lower 10m of route on top rope so we just started from there. Alex went first – I lowered him to as far as I could still here his screams, them stopped fearing that if I lowered him any further he might just get stranded in space without any way of getting back to the wall. This would require some serious rope skills on my part to save him and trust me, that’s not a good idea! 45 minutes later he was mantling over the top of the cliff having climbed from 10m above the starting position. 

I was up next – after working some individual sections a bit, i decided to also go for a link. I managed to match Alex in linking from 10m to the top – and might I add, with a lot less puffing and sweating at the belay : P

Alex on his second linking go managed to go from a bolt and a half lower to the top and I repeated this afterwards also. It’s certainly looking good for a serious redpoint go soon – we are going to go to the bottom tomorrow on lead, if we can grow some skin back tonight we might just sketch are way to the top? If not then we will have another rest day after tomorrow and hopefully tick it after that… Hopefully!!!

If we do this soon, then we hope to avert our attention towards some classic multipitch madness – VERDON ROCKS!!!

Will be home soon and getting back to some serious training, mega psyched! I can’t climb 60m tufas forever, I think some serious boulder bashing down at A2 is needed – PSYCHED!!!

ROBZ OUT

Source: Robbie's Blog

[Three Nine]

dunno if anyone reads this nonsense, but got a txt from abarro81 today saying they'd both done it. i conclude from this that it must be soft 8b.

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“Tom et je ris” (8b+) – The Legendary Tufa
16 September 2011, 10:43 am

Yesterday morning, Alex and I awoke cursing at the 6:30am alarm. We groaned a bit, made some breakfast (muesli w skimmed milk – cause that’s what athletes eat!), brushed our teeth, then drive to the Verdon Gorge (Rivière Gauche – left side). We drove through a huge damp cloud (a typical early morning occurrence in Verdon) before reaching the car park at the start of the walk. 

We packed up all our gear and headed off into the forest, on our way to do battle with the legendary tufa, “Tom et je Ris”. An hour and a quarter of walking up hill (worse than Ceuse), a bit of scrambling and lots of moaning about not having had enough cake for breakfast from Alex and we where at the top, looking over the vast Verdon Gorge, a huge dense cloud floating through the valley like from that movie with the Chinese ninjas flying about the place with swords – well cool!!!

We get all our kit out at the tip of the crag, Alex sets up a static line for abseil and I sit an eat rice cakes whilst pretending to look busy. In 15 minutes we are ready to go – Alex heads down first as I will be the first one to climb today. He gets to the bottom of the route, 60m below the top of the crag and sets up a hanging belay. I follow him soon afterwards – as I’m abbing in my fingertips burn just from looking at the spiky, sharp tufa. I lower past the least overhanging section of the wall and into the main overhang… I’m flying out from the wall, super exposed, tufas everywhere and hanging out with the vultures circling us on the wall : P

When I’m finally with Alex, he’s set up the belay and 5 minutes later it’s all mine. So we’d only had one previous day on the lower section of the wall. We where intending on having this day spent working the lower section since we where still pretty rusty with it (myself more than Alex, he’s a beta learning machine). On my first go, I just went bolt to bolt, reminding myself of the moves and trying to do some small links, unfortunately my fingers where so worn through from the day before, I was having a nightmare trying to warm up and it felt as though nothing was going to happen today. I did my best, learned where my feet had to go for every hand movement and where the shakeouts where. The lower section of wall is like a power endurance 8a with quite bad shakeouts (for me). I went to the jug rest, above from where I had linked to the top the previous day. 

I lowered and then it was Alex’s go. Alex did the same as me, bolt to bolt, working bits and bobs out, except he looked much better than me on it. He actually made a really good link from around the second clip to the jug rest (the start of the next 40m section – 8a+). Alex was well chuffed with this link, we both knew that if we got through the first 8a section, all we had to do was the endurance 8a+ to get to the top and we were both really confident with that section. 

It was now my go! I felt pretty crap, my fingers hurt and my body ached, but this would be my first proper redpoint attempt on the route and I figured that I might as well give it everything if we’re going to have a rest day tomorrow…

I started up the first section, I was quick and decisive with all my moves. I was  surprised at how previously my skin had been really sore, now it actually felt quite good? I sometimes get this if i haven’t warmed up properly, my skin will hurt initially, but after a while of climbing it gets better again. I managed to get a good link in from the bottom all the way to the first bad rest before heading into the second half of the 8a section. I shook out, confident and psyched that my skin didn’t hurt and I wasn’t really pumped or tired anymore. I started off again straight into a long, pumpy single tufa. Hand over hand, feet compressing the tufa and a burning desire to just get to that jug at the 20m mark which would set me up well for the next 8a+ section of wall that I knew really well. 

Before I knew what was happening, i was eyeing the jug, I locked off hard on my left hand and I was on it! I took both my feet of and replaced the left on a higher part of the tufa and slapped up to the better left hand jug! I heard Alex shouting encouragement below, I knew I could do it now, but I still had 40m left of potentially harder climbing… How was I going to pull this off? I shut my eyes and focussed, I need to just fight, never let go, pretend I’m linking sections to relieve some pressure. I headed into the next single tufa – it felt easy, I had never felt so good on this section. I continued into a further double tufa section, cruising for another 15m taking the run outs as they came, I even accidentally missed one of the clips and inadvertently took an even bigger runout, but I was psyched and in the zone, nothing mattered! 

I got to the end of the double tufa section and managed to rest with a bad knee scum. The next section was the first crux of the 8a+ section, I looked up, assessed the sequence and went for it! I climbed quickly yet again, not worrying about the foot smears I was bridging up on and just giving it all I could. I mantled out on top of a bulging tufa successful on the first crux. I rested a bit more here… My feet were really starting to ache now. This route has more to do with your feet than any overhanging route I’ve ever done. I shook out my feet on the bulge before heading into yet more tufa – this time two bigger tufas that you lay back up. I climbed this section without too much trouble and was into a short traverse out right on some tufa blobs, smears for feet and into yet another layback tufa leading you to the best rest on the whole route since the hanging belay (a good right hand jug, a left hand finger slot above and some small ledge smears for feet). The next section is probably the scariest, although not physically the hardest by a long way, it’s incredibly technical and involves too much smearing that no self-confessed jug puller can deal with. 

I de-pumped on the rest and went for it, the last few moves of the sequence where the scariest – right hand pocket, left foot sloppy pocket, left hand pockety crimp, right foot horrible smear, left foot horrible smear and reach for all mighty and hope that neither smear slips! I reached the jug and pulled up into a small cave where you can rest for as long as you need. All that’s left now is a small bulge with not really any hard climbing. I went through the bulge, pulled over the lip and was on top of the world!!!

I had climbed the legendary 8b+ of Verdon, “Tom et je Ris”! This is probably my greatest achievement to date. I’ve definitely climbed physically harder routes, but the whole aspect of this climb with it’s limited time to be climbed (between 7am – 2pm), massive walk in, ab in approach to start of route, hanging belay, mega long run-outs, technical nature of the climb and difficulty of working the route on dog made this my greatest accomplishment. It has opened my eyes to a new style of climbing and I’m psyched for more epic adventures like this one!

After completing the route however, the day was not over! Alex still had one go left before we headed back to the van, so I abbed back in and secured my hanging belay. Alex went for it and in similar style (maybe a bit more shabby : P), sent the route!!! TEAM ASCENT!!!! We think our ascents may be the first British Ascents, but we are unsure. It’s been a great adventure on this legendary route and our trip is still not over! We are psyched for more epicness, so we are looking towards something hard with more exposure and more pitches. We have eyed up a sick looking 8a multipitch in a huge cave somewhere in the gorge – stay tuned for more of our adventures if we’re still alive to write about them : P

PSYCHED

ROBZ OUT

par worklessclimbmore

Source: Robbie's Blog

[Doylo]

Effort lads!

[grimer]

What a beautiful looking route. We used to look across at that wall from the Carelle. It was banned but you always said how amazing it would be to climb on it. In the way you do, just because you can't.

What's the story with the route? Whose is it, Edlinger?

And what Doylo said.

[SA Chris]

Good Effort Boys!

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This is why you don’t anger French guides!!!
25 September 2011, 1:46 am

Hey Guys

I am finally home from my 2 week stint climbing in southern France. If you’ve been keeping up with the blog, you will know that I spent quite a bit of time climbing in the multipitch mad crag of Verdon. I ticked “The” classic of the gorge, none other than the famous tufa, “Tom et je ris” (8b+). It was an amazing experience to climb such an aesthetic line in such an exposed position and it’s not a route that I will forget in a hurry. 

Anyway, things moved on a bit after ticking this epic route. First of all, Alex and I had some serious chats about what we wanted to do with our remaining time. In the end we came up with the conclusion that being in Verdon, what else would we do but multipitch!?!?!? So we headed to the guides office on the way to the other side of the valley were we where intending to get on the famous 8a+ “Demence Senil”. Whilst in the guides office we met a very pleasant French guide… we spoke for the best part of an hour about our experiences of Verdon, climbing “Tom et je ris” (of which he claimed to be the bolter) and of what we where planning to do. It turns out that he had a mutual friend in common, Tom Randall! This wasn’t that shocking, climbing being a small community anyway. Turns out Tom and Pete (Whittaker) met him during their trip to Annot last year whilst they where crushing all the local french climbers projects. The guide joked a bit about this, apparently Tom and Pete mopped up all their hardest trad crack projects with ease. So anyway, we figured we’d ask him a bit about the route we where planning to do since he was the experienced local… By the end of the conversation he had convinced us that the crag we wanted to go to was a bit hard to get to and the climbing was a bit poor, I believe the words, “dirty”, “chipped” and “upside-down-roof-crack” where mentioned which kind of put me and Alex off a bit. Anyway, he showed us what seemed to be an awe inspiring monolithic wall not far from where we were going with a classic 8a going straight up the middle. He did mention that the 8a pitch had only recently been freed but that it was definitely possible. The rest of the route comprised of:

1) 7c

2) 7b

3) 6b

4) 8a (or A0 but freed early in year)

5) 7a+

6) 7b

So, Alex and I uber keen for this adventurous route set of the next day in search for it. When we arrived, the wall looked stunning! It was massive, steep and heavily bolted!!! After warming up on a slopey handrail below the crag we set of on our adventure!

The 7c was HARD! Holy crap, it had some spice involved in it for sure! Alex fell on the onsight, worked the moves and came down. I blew the flash and opted for a different less strenuous more flexy way of doing the crux. We both did it second go and where soon at the belay of the next pitch. I headed off on lead up the 7b… On the first move I tore a massive hold off the wall! In all honesty, the pitch was a teetering pile of choss! Every hold felt like it was going to snap under the slightest pressure not to mention most of the route involved flaky crack climbing, balancy traverses with scary run outs on suspect rock and disgusting corners with smeary bridging! I DIDN’T COME TO SOUTHERN FRANCE FOR THIS!!! I COULD DO THIS AT HOME OUTSIDE IN RATHO QUARRY!?!?!? Anyway… I sketched my way to the hanging belay around 40m past the 7c. Alex seconded me, he looked almost as terrified as me despite being on top rope – it was comforting to watch him sketch up as well, it solidified in my mind that maybe I’m not as big a punter after all… Well at least not as big as Alex : D

The third pitch was glorious… Gloriously chossy that is! At 6b you get a loose traverse ledge over a tree and round a bush, where every inch stepped you are in fleeting terror of the ledge disappearing below your feet. After the travers of doom, you come to a hideous mantle move onto a slopey shelf, THANK GOD FOR THE MANTLE BOULDER AT RATHO!!! I doubt I’ve ever done a climbing move that made me feel like I’d actually become worse of a climber having performed it… It was the single most retched, disgusting, totally un-elegant move in the world, no one could make it look good! 

After the 6b, it was my turn to lead for the 8a! The prize pitch, surely this couldn’t include more of the same choss as before? Oh wait… What a surprise! I doubt anyone has climbed this route, I don’t think it’s possible for any creature heavier than a slater to weight the rock without the whole collection of grouped sediment sliding of like caked mud! No… This route has never been climbed by a living creature with less than 6 legs and that weighs more than 1/8th of a gram. 

The final two pitches were actually quite good, with decent rock despite muddy pockets on the 7a+ and a horrible funnel of muddy choss and tree infested banking to finish the 7b – not to mention as I reached the top I found that I had to anchor myself on two bushes and lodge myself against a massive rotting tree trunk as the rain came pouring down, drenching us both! Oh I forgot to mention the ton of rock that came loose as I scrambled up the 15m gulley finale of the 8a pitch – that was a pleasant surprise for Alex!

After this experience, Alex and I came to a few conclusions…

1) The guides in Verdon clearly smoke way too much!!!

2) When a guide talks enthusiastically about soloing sandstone off widths amongst perfect bolted limestone, think twice before asking for recommendations! Or at least ask for recommendations so as to avoid all mentioned like the plague!

3) and finally that we think Tom and Pete may have inadvertently pissed of the local french climbers by being way too good at cracks and ticking off all their projects and the locals have then turned their heads towards killing off all British visitors by recommending suitable death trap choss fests!

Can’t deny though it was absolutely hilarious!!!

A re-jogging of the pitches I think is in order also. Here is my opinion:

1) 7c (7c – but hard for the grade)

2) 7b (7b+ – I’ve done easier 7c’s)

3) 6b (CHOSS)

4) 8a (probably 8c now seeing as I tore of all the remaining holds – have you ever attempted to climb a giant sand castle? If not then I recommend this route!)

5) 7a+ (7b+ – I’ve done easier 7c’s)

6) 7b (7c/+ – I’ve done easier 7c+’s, a good example being “Makach Walou” in Ceuse)

After our loss in the choss, Alex and I decided to finish the trip with something a little more down to earth, some nice, healthy single pitch cragging! We evacuated Verdon and headed towards the nearest sport crag we could find. The choices where:

1) Buoux – La Rose et le Vampire (8b)

2) St Leger – Mur de Six Clopes (8b/+)

3) Durby – Some other stuff

In the end, we opted for some steep, single pitch fun in St Leger!!! I must admit, I was very impressed with this crag. I only went to one sector, but the quality of routes I did was very high! Alex and I focussed our attention this time on another classic route, this one called “Mur de Six Clopes” (8b/+). Interestingly, this route is given 8b+ in one guide and 8b/+ in another. On inspection of 8a.nu (the source of all knowledge), most took 8b+ for it. Alex and I both did it pretty quick, both of us on our 4th go I think? I fell on the last move on my second go and then again on my third go! Oh yeah, and technically I had a warm up to the 3rd clip on my 4th actual time on the route, but lowered and then did it to the top from then. Alex beat me to the send on his attempt just before mine (cheeky bugger) – pay back for “Tom et je ris” I think? Our thoughts on the route where that it felt like a standard 8b, not harder, not easier. 

The next climbing day I did another classic 8b in the area called “Abregnief”. This is the popular 8b to do. It comprises of 5m of f5 climbing on a slab to a ledge, then 15m of non-stop power endurance climbing to a juggy rest and a f6c to the top. This was a really good route and man I would love to have this back home, it would be the perfect circuit! It was definitely a soft touch for 8b but not worthy of 8a+ as I’ve heard being mentioned by a few on the web. This was my 17th 8b in the last year, I feel I really have the 8b’s down to a tea now. This was my goal at the beginning of the year, to consolidate climbing 8b’s in every style… I think I’ve achieved this now : P

Alex continued on his run of good form after “Mur de six Clopes” by ticking a hard 8b in the same cave also! I opted for more mileage and did an 8a, 7c+ and a 7b+ on our last day (also got spanked on a 7c+ which I think is 9a). 

So after 2 and a bit days driving, 3 trains, one drunk and several slightly deranged Neds on the carriage and one final car journey from the station, I am now home, tucked up in bed, sipping a nice warm cup of green tea and dreading the train im getting tomorrow to Kendal for route setting (man! I hate public transport!). I am looking forward however to unleashing my creativity on the awesome new Walls at “The Lakeland Climbing Centre” of which I have yet to see fully built. If anyone is up for it, pop down over the next couple of days and say hi, I’ll be keen to go over the new routes I’ve set on the Walls! Maybe I can convince them to let me set a mega tufa creation in memory of “Tom et je ris”?

So that’s that, I have a month until Kalymnos more or less, im gonna be putting in the hours training at A2 and EICA: Ratho over the coming weeks and am keen as ever to push it out there for the next level! 

8c here I come!!!

PSYCHED

ROBZ OUT!!!

Source: Robbie's Blog

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Kendal Wall: New Circuits + Routes
28 September 2011, 1:43 pm

Only a day after I am back from France and I’m rushed straight into another job : P A fun one though and I was super psyched for it! I’ve been down in Kendal for the past couple of days route setting for the new and improved Lakeland Climbing Centre (AKA Kendal Wall).

Kendal Wall has to be one of my all time favorite climbing centres. The sheer size of it allows for any climber no matter what level to enjoy themselves, theres now epic amounts of bouldering thanks to the new build just completed and they have some crazy high walls up to 24.5m! Tom Hull (Head Route Setter) has been working hard to get the new additions to the centre open as soon as possible, so he drafted in myself and James Garden to set some new routes on the old main wall and to add new circuits to the brand new bouldering wall. They have certainly made use of the space available, its an excellent new facility offering all kinds of possibilities for setting, James and I had a great time creating crazy problems on them for all you keen bean Lakes climbers to get your hands on : )

As well as new circuits, a special addition to the new bouldering wall is the new “Routing Roof”. For those that dont know what that is, its basically a 10-15m long board with a rising mat below it meaning theres no need for ropes! Its super steep at around 70 degrees i reckon and not only are there some awesome routes set on it up to 7b, but also, the circuit board situated right next to it has some awesome circuits graded up to 7c (soon to be an 8a/b) that can be linked easily into the routing roof creating potentially the best endurance training board i’ve ever seen! I set a figure of eight circuit graded at around f6b+ (30 moves) and if you link that into the easiest line on the routing roof, i reckon you’ll get a nice 6c+/7a at 60+ moves!!! Also, the way I designed all my  circuits and routes on the routing roof, they can be climbed in any direction, meaning unlimited potential for endurance training!

Down stairs in the main arena, I’ve set four new routes between f6b and f8a+. The 8a+ i did climb at the end of the day when i was nackered so if its way easier i apologise, i’m basically a big fat weakling at the moment (too many pain au chocolats in France). I am particularly happy with my Blue 6c, a true piece of roof genius : P

ENJOY!

ROBZ OUT

Source: Robbie's Blog

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Coaching, Climbing, Comps + Crack!!!
5 October 2011, 9:46 pm

Coaching GCRS: Aberdeen Rock Stars!

The weekend has been a busy one. I’ve been coaching both days and have managed to squeeze in a bit of climbing alongside. Since I’ve been back from France I’ve been trying my best to get back into a steady training routine, however it’s always hard balancing work alongside training. It’s easier for me since I’m working at the wall anyway, but still, it can be hard fitting all the training into the rest of the day. 

On Saturday I got up early and headed to Ratho for 08:00. My first BRYCS club of the new season was on today and I was meeting up with Andrew and Stewart Robertson later in the day (two local climbers i coached down in Yorkshire). BRYCS club doesn’t start until 10:00, so getting in early gives me plenty of time for a cheeky strength training session. I am so psyched to get back into my strength training routine, I’ve missed feeling strong and fed up feeling “just fit”! 

The beastmaker on it’s hanging pedestal in the Ratho arena appeared to welcome me like an old friend…

This was only my second strength session since I got back, it felt ok if I’m honest… Not as bad as I was coming back from Ceuse, but nowhere near as good as I was before Malham. I did 8 x sets of full crimp and 3 finger open hand max deadhangs, accompanied with sets of raised L-Hang reps and hanging L-Body twists. It doesn’t sound like much but it felt a lot after my warm up and short bouldering session.

A rather annoying occurrence over the last week is that my skin has decided to contract it’s own strain of Zombie mutation! All my skin is peeling off : ( I think it’s caused by a mixture of unfortunately humid conditions and an excess use of antihydral two weeks previously. It feels horrible, when I crimp up on small holds, I can actually feel my skin rolling off the pads!

Disregarding my skin complaints, after my short training session, I took the first session of BRYCS with Pamela and Buz. It was great to be back and even better to see how the kids have improved in my absence. Everyone of them are looking strong on the walls including one boy in particular (Matthew) who smashed his personal bests on the day by on sighting 6b+, 6c and coming close to 7a at only 9 years old! BEAST!!!

After coaching BRYCS, I did a bit of training myself. I figured that I better get on and do some proper training for BLCC’s in 2 weeks time, so a power endurance session was on the cards. It’s funny how you can feel strong for climbing outdoors but weak at indoors, they are just so different! I think for outdoor sport (Redpointing), it helps to have strong fingers and a good base endurance level. For indoors and comps, I reckon power endurance, power and strength are the most important and you can’t get away without them! For outdoor on sighting I guess good power endurance also is a necessity, probably the reason why I have been lacking in the onsight department of late, because of my abysmal power endurance (man if only I had Ed Hamers power endurance – his fingers would be nice too). I must admit, I was a little hesitant to enter the BLCC’s this year… If I’m honest with myself, it’s because I’m scared… Terrified even! This is worse than the fear from climbing “Tom et je ris”, that was rational fear and I can deal with that, but comp fear, well, that is something entirely different, ego enters the equation now…

With under 2 weeks left I’ve not got enough time to get really fit for it, but I’m not bothered by that too much, it will be interesting to see how my outdoor fitness fares in a comp : P besides, I will be travelling to Kalymnos the day after so I can’t complain. 

On Saturday night I travelled through to Aberdeen with Euan And Rory Cargill who where very generous in giving me a place for the night (thanks guys). On Sunday I was coaching the GCRS (Granite City Rock Stars), four groups of kids split into ability levels. This session was the first of 6, the aim of which is to help the kids prepare for YCS comps and get a better grounding in climbing technique and training. On top of this, I am also doing 1:1 sessions with several of them. I was pleasantly surprised by the high level of these kids, very impressive. Having not had much to do with the club before, I wasnt sure of the standard. Now having spent the first day bouldering, learning each of the kids techniques, strengths and weaknesses, i feel I have a good understanding of all the individuals now and am motivated to help them push themselves to the next level! 

The one thing that was evident with the GCRS is the high motivation and sheer psyche of all the kids involved… The quality I prize higher than any other and they all had heaps of it! Great to see in the next gen of Scottish climbers. 

After a successful day of coaching and seeing some inspirational talent I headed back through to Edinburgh on the train for a days route setting the next day. Unfortunately I didn’t get back until midnight and after driving home and having dinner, didn’t get to sleep until 1:30am. Knocking aside the 8hour rule, I woke up at 6:30 for my morning training session before work.  A keen campus board session in the early hours is a favourite activity of mine – no distractions, no other climbers, just me, my music, the stop watch and the 9 wooden rungs – what more could I ask for?!?! I’m beginning to feel strength returning even if it is just recruitment – I love the feeling of not finding 146 “the end of the world”!

After training, i got stuck into setting! I set a couple of sweet new routes at 6c and 6c+, perfect for endurance training. I also set up the 45 board with a few new problems ideal for circuits. Since the setting, I’ve tested them out and found them to be perfect, ideal for circuits and act as quality problems also. My current circuits up and down that board weigh in at around 8b+ I think and have been good for comp training these past few days. The circuits on the board basically link V7′s together whilst down climbing V5′s. There’s no real rest on any of them and the cruxes are always the last few moves, I can tell you that it’s frustrating falling at the last move of them over and over again, but in a way, it’s great because it means I’m pushing it to the limit!

I’m psyched oot my mind for next years trips and I’m going tom push it harder than ever to make my goals! I want 8c to feel easy, to be something I can tick quickly and not have to project… 9a is the ultimate goal in the next few years but I want to get there solidly having banked lots of 8c’s and 8c+’s beforehand. I know I can do this, it’s all in the mind whether or not you push yourself enough to succeed and whether your clever enough in the way you train not to get injured. I know I can pull it off and I’m psyched more than ever to push myself to the brink to see my goals accomplished!

First Scottish sport trip of the year is on Monday also, heading to Orchestra cave to check oot “Dangleberries” (8a+) with my main man Phil Jack whose gonna try the 7c+ start. 

Bring it on!

ROBZ OUT

Source: Robbie's Blog

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East Side Innit Blood!?!?
11 October 2011, 9:46 pm

Another week goes by and I’m back on the east coast city of Aberdeen. This weekends work involved 1:1 sessions with four talented up and coming crushers at Transition Extreme (Aberdeen Wall) and a circuit building/setting session with one of my coaching clients and friend, Phil Jack. I also snuck in a cheeky session at Orchestra Cave with Phil on the Monday. 

This week despite the weekend has been fairly busy… I’ve had some work at Ratho, a Ceilidh, a night out with two of my best friends (Geek and Buz) and a heck of a lot of training! I’ve been training so much recently, I’m feeling pretty strong at the moment especially on the circuits! The circuits I set at Ratho have just been getting harder as the week goes on e.g. One of them started as:

V7->V5->V6

And has since turned into:

V8->V5->V7->V5->V6->V5

I think this bad boy might be 8c? The others are at least 8b or 8b+. I’ve also been hitting the Beastmaker pretty hard and making good progress on max hangs. My one Armers skills are also getting better, I’ve been aiming for max 3 Armers and I’m hitting that with only 6kg off when I’m fresh : )

Anyway, the 1:1 sessions I’ve just started went really well! I’m coaching five young beasts from Aberdeen, four of which I had on Sunday – Rosie, Ben, Rory and Sam (Thomas couldn’t make it as he’s in Font – fare enough : P). 

I had all of the kids last week as part of a separate group session with “Granite City Rock Stars” club. It was better to have these 1:1 sessions with them though as I learned far more about them as individuals and can better provide for them coaching help and additional training advice. Thanks again to the Cargill family for keeping me for the second time running in a week! 

On the Sunday night I got to check out my mate Phil’s new training board in his garage. The job for Sunday night was to re-set this for circuits and bouldering training (more so for circuits). As Phil works mostly off-shore, it is absolutely imperative that his training whilst at home is perfect! He needs the best circuits and problems to train on and shouldn’t have to worry that they aren’t good enough or not doing the right thing. We spoke a lot about training that weekend (i never get tired of it) and between chats I set up Phils board (40 degrees) up. On Monday evening we had a session on it, building the perfect problems for reps, circuits and strength/power training. I even added my own project problem for when I return next time so I can gauge my own progress : P a cheeky V9/10 maybe? I could do it in two halves after a days climbing at Orchestra Cave and the circuit building session, so next time we will see if I can actually finish it!

On the Monday afternoon, we headed to the famed East coast sport crag… Orchestra cave! I’ve been psyched to go here for a while, a brief chat with  one of Orchestra Caves main bolters (Tim Rankin) last week settled it for me. We abbed into the cave after a bit of difficulty finding the damn place : P I stupidly didn’t clip the static line into the quickdraws on the way down and found myself a good few metres short of the ledge and only metres above the raging sea! I had to jumar back out and correct my error, oh well, it was at least a good warm up. Eyeing up the crag, there was a few obvious lines bolted, a chalked up face on fat sloper jugs and edges going through very steep terrain (Crescendo 8a+ – Tim Rankin’s recent FA), another blocky granite overhang (Blobstopper? 8a or 7c+?) and a cool looking arête which is apparently around 7c+ yet awaits an ascent. I was really keen for the mega 8a+ that tops out the crag “Dangleberries”, however was unsure of which one it was. It definitely wasn’t the most obvious line and certainly wasn’t chalked up at all, in fact, it almost looked slightly wet if I was correct in assuming the line it took… I had a look up at the awesome looking “Crescendo” (8a+) that Tim had recently crushed – chalked up and looking real good I felt I had to have a burn. I went for the Flash (having seen a video of Tim on it already) – Upon first pulling on the holds it felt really greasy, the problem with Orchestra Cave apparently. Despite this, I went for it and managed to pull myself up through the first crux. I tried to get a rest higher up but the jug was damp and just made my hands more greasy, instead I pressed on into the meat of the route, some filthy crimps before a big move to a jug. I got here not really knowing what to do and greasing off everything just decided to take (punter!). I worked out the moves and climbed it to the top from there. I lowered some more and ran over the sequences a bit before returning back to the ground to rest. The climb itself is very nice – it has a very basic sequence and suits a strong board climber who likes circuits (lucky me). On my second go I decided not to bother resting and just went straight through the two cruxes pretending I was on one of my circuits back home (resting is cheating of course). Turns out that bad tactics such as not resting works on greasy, scottish sport climbs. 

This was my first 8a+ in Scotland, interesting as I’ve climbed a lot harder everywhere else : P  In all honesty, it felt fine when I climbed it… I wasn’t pumped or remotely tired and felt as though I could have gone for the crux at least one more time before the easier ground. As I’m not acquainted on this rock type and have basically zilch experience with the local area I can’t really judge grades. I know that I’ve done a lot harder 8a+’s, but I’ve also done easier ones. It probably is 8a+, but it needs more ascents to confirm, especially from the locals who know the local grading. An awesome climb in a stunning cave that has to be the best sport crag I’ve visited in Scotland so far (not a lot to choose from though). I recommend this route for every keen Scottish sport climber and especially for those wanting a power endurance 8a+ that might be a bit greasy, but no doubt is quality three stars : P

I’m currently travelling in the train on my way home, psyched for another week of training that will take me ever closer to my dreams of 9a!

PSYCHED!!!

ROBZ OUT

Source: Robbie's Blog

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BLCC’s – Competitor/Coach
20 October 2011, 10:39 pm

A bit late in writing a report on it as nearly every other UK climbing website has done so already, but I thought I’d report a bit on my experiences from both a competitor, coach and spectator.

I’ve been competing for quite a number of years now and in the past have found great satisfaction from it. I must admit that over the last two years I haven’t been focussed for competing and have been swaying towards sport climbing outdoors more and more. l train indoors a lot, but it’s with the lingering thoughts of rock that motivates me. I guess it’s just part of getting older, your focusses change as does what motivates you in life.

Nat on the final route of the Womans Seniors With the BLCC’s approaching so soon after my trip to Verdon, I was finding myself less psyched to compete and more so to just continue training for Kalymnos later in the month. This was of course my ego getting the better of me here – its easy to dingy off competing for just another stress free days training. If I had done this, it would have been a massive mistake and shown a huge weakness in my own strength of character. Competitions are an amazing way to train your mind to deal with pressure in a number of forms, whether it’s the fear of failing (either against a certain route or competitor) or performing in front of a crowd/peers? Even being forced to warm up properly within a time limit, then climb a route with all the pressure of getting to the top on this one attempt (I’ve had days at the crag like this). Regardless of any training benefit, competitions like this one only come round once a year and I think it’s a shame not to participate – I recommend anyone to enter them as they really are good fun, social events.

Day 1 – “The Coach” (Junior/Veteran BLCC’s)

On the Saturday was the Junior and Veteran Category of the BLCC’s. My two young padawans, Angus (Davidson) and William (Bosi) where competing for the title of Youth C Male Champion. Angus had won last years event and William was second. Both of them are in the form of their lives climbing at a level that I don’t think has been seen in British Climbers at such a young age. William had won the Scottish Bouldering Championships and Scottish Nationals earlier in the year ahead of Angus, but Angus has always had a flare for winning British Nationals, could he keep his track record in tact?

Me and Angus looking over the qualifiers Both of their training over the past few months has been focussed almost entirely on bouldering – the idea behind this is more to prepare them for internationals next year (their training for that involves lots of different cycles). After seeing them for a session a couple of weeks before the event (after returning from Verdon) it was clear that the training had been paying off. William was going about flashing V7′s at the wall, something he has never been capable of doing before. Not only this, but both of them where tanking the circuits i made for them on the Ratho circuit board – circuits that probably weigh up at around f8a-8a+! 12/13 year olds climbing this hard blows my mind!

It was not a surprise during the comp when both of them walked the qualifying routes. When the final came round, William climbed phenomenally, outperforming all previous competitors by a massive margin and failing only slapping for the last hold to clip the chain from! Angus was last up – with an equally impressive performance as William before him, he tore his way up through the final route (f7c+)! Eyeing up the final sequence from the last rest, i could sense Angus’s determination and will to succeed on this – he blasted on through the final crux, snatched the same final hold that William had failed to make the move from, pulled hard and latched the final hold! He clipped and it was over… Angus was once again the unbeaten British Youth C Champion!

Angus Wins!!! It’s great to see hard training and motivation pay off for Angus and William, but it was also evident from watching young Jim Pope that he’s someone we need to watch out for : ) Jim was looking stronger than I’ve ever seen before and I’m guessing that that’s not from just popping into the wall a few days a week. He looks like he’s been training hard this last year and I’m eager to see his continued progression in next years comps. It’s great to have a strong field of young climbers in each category, it certainly keeps everyone on their feet (or should i say fingers?).

Day 2 “The Competitor/Spectator” (Senior Lead and Senior/Junior Speed)

It was my time to compete now! Two years since my last lead event, it was great to be back in the competitive arena, I can’t deny though I was nervous… After seeing the demonstration, I found out I was second up after Ross Kirkland. Ross fought hard on the climb, sustaining his efforts all the way into the start of the final section (the roof) before he fell.

I hadn’t had much to go on for the roof sequence as I had only seen the demonstration by Gary Vincent. On my attempt I managed to climb into the roof fairly easily. As I climbed through it I remember placing my foot on an odd part of the handhold shared with my left hand that I had seen Gary emulate on the demonstration. As I pulled through the next move my foot popped and I was hanging on with one hand, the next moment I was off! I was disappointed with this as I know I could have topped it if only I had gone with gut instinct instead of replicating the demonstration, but that’s just another side to competing I guess. This set me back quite a bit as around 6 other competitors topped the route and at least one got further than me, others on the same hold.

Jim Pope and William looking over the final route just out from isolaton The second route was Neil Mcgeachy’s creation. A lot of the competition dreaded this as it looked (from the ground) like utter filth! After watching Geek demonstrate the route, most where of the opinion that it was going to be a technical nightmare but in actual fact, I thought the route climbed really well and wasn’t actually that hard. I felt that I had loads left, I wasn’t remotely pumped or tired upon reaching the section many had peeled of. I pinched the large sloping hold by the arête and attempted to cross through into the good pocket, nothing happened, the pinch was so greasy, It was practically wet – I just couldn’t hold onto it. I touched the next hand hold to confirm to judges that I get the points for holding it despite having it with the wrong hand. I then re-adjusted my hands, still fresh as daisy, and attempted to cross through… It was over in a heartbeat… My hand greased off the pinch on the cross through and there was nothing I could do about it… This was such a disappointing climb for me as I felt way too good to be falling. After coming off I looked up and noticed a foothold round the corner that I could have potentially lanked my way to, but until I get back on it, I won’t know for sure.

In the end of the day, I placed 8th overall. The most important thing for me was beating Eddie Barbour (9th), my main goal for the day – with that accomplished, I was happy : P

The finals where great to watch! The final route was set by Neill Busby and Gary Vincent and weighed in at a healthy f8b. All the competitors fought hard on it. It was noticeable at the beginning a rather reachy move that caught out the two smallest competitors, Jonathan Stocking and Nick Moulden. After that, the route seemed to even itself out becoming a lot more sustained. James Garden climbed well until he failed to hold a sideways dyno, Luke Tilley managed to hang it gaining him 3rd place. The shocker was when Ed Hamer totally missed a hold around the arête which would have settled him nicely for a fight for 1st place if he had but noticed it. Which left Dave Barrans with a dominating performance in 1st place, the new British Champion!

Speed Climbing!

Well… I was forced to compete in this against my will : P I have never had any inclination to partake in the speed, in all honesty, I think it’s a bit crap. However I must admit that I’m glad I participated (thanks Ryan for convincing me), it was good fun if only a novelty event. At Ratho we have a proper dedicated speed wall and there is a good number of the kids such as Rachel Carr, Callum Forsyth and Alex Bosi that do train on the wall regularly , eager to beat personal bests as well as unofficial centre records. The only time before the comp that I had climbed the speed wall was about a year ago when I did 3 second locks on it in a mock comp event… It goes without saying that my time wasnt very impressive. Calum and Alex had earlier in the week made an impressive 14 seconds, but I was eager to see how they would transfer their times outside the event to their performance on the day.

Dave Barrans dominates the final Well… Alex was probably the most impressive Junior I saw on the day, breaking his old record at 14.something-high to 14.something-low. He won male juniors of course. As did Rachel Carr in the female juniors with very quick times

In the senior event I didnt expect to do very well, however was pleasantly surprised when I nabbed a cheeky 4th place overall! By the time I was competing for 3rd place with Dave Barrans I was mentally and physically destroyed, despite beating Dave on previous runs of the speed comp I was obliterated by him in the knockout : P

The best part of the comp though was watching Calum and Jonny (Stocking) head to head for 1st. Calum missed out narrowly with a time of 15s against Jonny’s new GB record of 13s!

All in all the weekend was a great success. Everyone had a lot of fun, there where no tears (although maybe a small one from Nick Moulden when he realised he would have to jump to catch the first hold on our second qualifier) and Scotland contributed a large number of podium places to the rankings – well done everybody!

Im currently on a plane flying to Amsterdam from which I will be hitting another to Athens, then again to Kos and then a ferry to Kalymnos!!!

PSYCHED!!!

ROBZ OUT!!!

Source: Robbie's Blog

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Kalymnos: Coaching Week 1 and some climbing
31 October 2011, 3:35 pm

Hey Guys!

I haven’t updated the blog since arriving for a a few reasons:  1) I’ve been so busy working! 2) I’ve been having too much fun : P  It was am epic adventure first of all to actually get to Kalymnos. My flights where delayed by two days meaning an extra wee while at home waiting around. When my flights scheduled for departure finally came through, I had to make three connecting flights just to get to Kos (from which I had to take two taxis and a ferry to reach my final destination). I then spent the good part of three hours scouring the main town of Massouri for a place to sleep since the apartments run by one Nikki Pizania (remember that name) sent me this email after having booked the accommodation and flights the week before:

“HELLO AGAIN! WE DON HAVE FREE ROOMS ANY LONGER, BYE!”

This is after booking the room and the flights literally the day before I left to travel – not very good…  Anyway, onto bigger and better things – I am now coaching on the island and have been for the last week. I am working beside two of the top coaches in the country, Simon Rawlinson (Welsh Team Coach) and Adrien Berry (Avid Kalymnos Bolter and UK renowned coach and author). It’s been a great experience working beside these guys and seeing how they both work as individual coaches. Every coach has his or her own ideas on what works best, it’s been educational to say the least chatting about climbing/coaching/training with these two.

Telendos: The neighbouring island of Kalymnos - Lots of climbing here too Also, just flown in from the UK, the big cheese himself, Neil Gresham has just arrived. He’s super keen to take me to a new crag he’s developed on the island that apparently has some of the best lines Kalymnos has to offer. I’m eager to get the second ascent of his new 8b there through which I can hopefully help in confirming the grade.

The coaching i have been doing over the last week has solely been involved with a nice Welsh couple, Jackie and Sam. It’s been great to just focus on them for the week, they’ve had a wondeful time out here and have definitely improved a lot in the short time. We’ve worked hard and identified key weaknesses in their climbing – this they have taken on board and through the help of myself and a training program I will be building for when they get home, they should hopefully weed these out and improve more consistently over the next year.   Jackie’s hardest climb before the trip was 6a+ – on this trip she has onsighted 6a+ as well as numerous 6a’s and has been looking strong on 6b’s and even a 6c she got on. Sam on the other hand, his personal best before the trip was 6c (after a couple of days redpoint). This trip he has succesfully red pointed two 6c’s 2nd go as well as on sighting many 6a’s and 6a+’s, even coming close on a few 6b’s.

Sam and Jackie Route Reading Me on the other hand, I have not had much climbing. One day at the beginning and the occasional cheeky belay at the end of the day. Even so, I’ve managed to sneak in a couple of hard routes despite a lack of climbing for myself. The first day I had a look at the classic crimpy test piece of Kalymnos, “Nadir” (8b+). The crux is pretty heinous climbing on micro edges and undercuts, the moves themselves weighing in at around V6 probably. Until the crux it’s probably only f7a+ and theirs a really good rest before the crux, but the holds are just so damn small and sharp that you really only have a couple of good goes in you. After the crux, you have a very sustained section of climbing that on it’s own would probably be a bouldery f7b. Because of the sustained nature of the crux and final section, it definitely feels 8b+, maybe a tiny bit soft but it’s also not my style so maybe I’m just weak : P  After one of my coaching days with Sam and Jackie, I had a a play on the famous 8b+, “O’Draconian Devil” as seen on King Lines with Sharma and JB Tribout. I had had a go on it a years previous but hadn’t even bothered to go to the top as the crux was too hard for me then (also I had no idea what I was doing). On my first go with Sam and Jackie, I still had no idea, however I managed to climb into the crux from the ground first time which was definitely a good sign. A day later and after watching the Welsh crimp machine Ash Wolsey-Heard on a video, I returned to the devil to try out some proper beta. Amazingly after using the beta, the crux actually felt easy as opposed to impossible.

Sam warming up on a 6a The next day, I headed up to the crag for a shot at it whilst Sam and Jackie had a rest day. Hopefully with a session of dedicated practice on the route I could maybe tick it that day? Low and behold, I nabbed a belay of my Irish friend John and sent it first go! It actually felt easy – see below for a video of both me and Ash climbing it.

After climbing “O’Draconian Devil”, we headed to another sector called Kalydna. It was here that I came face to face with my next big route, “Trous dans l’air” (8b+). I had heard that it used to be graded 8c which initially scared me, however, after trying it only once I felt it was well within my limit and could in fact be another quick tick. In the guide the route is described as being a 7c+ into another 7c+ into a F7B+ boulder right at the top! In reality, the route is probably a soft 8a into a F6C. It felt easier than 8b’s I’ve done in the past and is probably the softest 8b+ I’ve done, but I was still super psyched to tick it on my 3rd go (almost 2nd go!).   Now that the coaching is over, I can concentrate more on my own climbing. Im psyched to go finish of “Nadir” (8b+), that would bring my year total of 8b+’s to 9, a nice consolidation number if you ask me and then maybe I can buckle down to trying an 8c? Today i tried one called “Lucky Luca” in Odyssey Sector. It’s an awesome line, quite steep, but has a sick move which involves a very powerful move off a single pad mono with smears for feet on the steepest section of the climb. As much as I’m psyched to do it, i do find myself tempted to do easier routes instead, however, I am going to give it a chance, at least as a side option whilst trying “Nadir” (as they are right next to each other).

The annoying thing with Kalymnos is once you get to 8b+/c, all then routes seem to disappear. There is very little in this grade range, in fact, 8c+ is a better grade if you ask me, they seem more inspiring lines and probably more suited to my style of climbing. All the 8c’s are horrible boulder problems which scare me lots : P I need to go home an train methinks!

What I am psyched about this trip though is just how easy 8b+ has felt to the relative difficulty 8b’s were feeling last year. This is definitely a step in the right direction and I’m thinking of hopefully stepping my Kalymnos grade up a notch next October as well when I return with Simon for our next Kalymnos Coaching trips. There are two 8c+ on the island that inspire me massively, Nico Favresse’s “Inshallah” and the crimpy gnarl fest “Guta Gutarak”. I think I’m going to have to really step it up a notch to achieve this, but im not looking down anytime soon, there’s only one way, and it’s up!

ROBZ OUT!!!

Source: Robbie's Blog

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Kalymnos: “Nadir” (8b+)
3 November 2011, 6:59 pm

Hey guys

I’m still out here in Kalymnos, now enjoying climbing for myself as opposed to coaching. Don’t get me wrong, I love coaching, but its also good to have a lie in in the morning and head up to the crag with no pressures or responsibilities (other than project pressure of course). If you read my last blog post, I mentioned that I had tried a route called “Nadir” on the first day of the trip. Well, I hadn’t been back since then and because my draws where in it still as well as being one of the last remaining f8b-8b+ routes I haven’t done on the island, I figured I might as well return to finish it off.

Simon Rawlinson crushing a 7b+ in Kalymnos “Nadir” consists of a sustained f7a+/b start to a good rest before the crux. This section doesn’t add much to the route as a whole, it doesn’t get you pumped at least and with the rest, even if it did get you a little pumped you’d recover quite easily, however, what it does do is build up nerves and anticipation of the crux as you approach ever closer. The crux is a gnarly fingery boulder problem, probably weighing in at around V5/6 (F6C/+)? This is how it felt for me anyway, it’s definitely one of these problems that if you had it on the ground you wouldn’t want to go repeating it regularly, which makes Redpointing this route a bit grim. The holds through the crux are all at best, flat half pad crimps and the two worst holds being a sloping non-hold you use as an intermediate and a razor blade disc you crimp the hell out of to get to the good holds.

Once through the crux, your into an ok rest on some slopey pinches before a very sustained section of f7b+ climbing until a tufa knee bar rest. To the top from there it’s not over, there is still a slightly awkward finish, not hard really but a little dodgy when you’ve just climbed through some very techy/filthy terrain that you don’t want to have to repeat.

Yesterday, I had two blasts on the route… The first failing at the crux move once again (the same move I fell on my onsight burn and all the goes previously). I then discovered something amazing, so subtle and seemingly pointless that made the crux move so easy it would not have taken another try to do after employing it. All I had to do was drop my pinky of the undercut crimp and simply use three fingers for a stronger front 3 full crimp… Sounds like it would make little change, however, it made all the difference in the world! Not only was I now doing the crux solidly every time, I could practically chalk and blow on the move! Psyched on my progress, I did it from below the crux to the top just to further build my confidence and on my next go (7th overall), I ticked it! YAAASSSSSSS!!! “Nadir” has now been added to my tick list as my 9th 8b+ this year.

Today I headed to the crag with a couple of new friends of mine, Lee and Sam Cujes. Lee and Sam are from Queensland, Australia. Lee is also a climbing coach and has been coaching out here for the last two weeks, check out his website and blog here. We headed up to Iannis sector so that Lee could try “O’Draconian Devil” (8b+) and so that I could try the 8c in the left-hand sector of Kalydna called “Fake Friends”. Lee had been on “O’Draconian Devil” on his trip last year and had been very close but with no cigar. Sam and I egged him to get back on it and from what i saw today, I think he could definitely finish it off before heading back to Oz. Check out a video of Lee and Sam coaching trip below – theres also a guest appearance of me on “O’Draconian Devil” : P

from Upskill Climbing on Vimeo.

Meanhwile, I had a bash on the 8c “Fake Friends” around the corner. On my first go I dogged it more or less just to figure out the sequence. The final crux through the bulge at the top was hard but not desperate, maybe V4-ish at the end of a very sustained sequence 33m from the ground. The hardest moves are lower, after a shortish f7c section you do a

bouldery sequence, maybe again around V4 but only around 4 moves of it. After this you get a rest on some 2 finger pockets before doing the final sustained sequence before the end crux.

After figuring out what to do I came down and rested for an hour whilst Sam and Lee did a 6c. This gave me time to reflect on my sequence, even giving me some more ideas for the lower crux (I hadn’t quite got that dialled). On my second go I was feeling really good, despite being my third day on I was fairly fresh and was flowing through the lower sequence. I made my way to the rest before the first crux and eyed it up from the steep knee bar… I gathered my beta from the ground that I had thought through and employed it, this seemed to work well and despite being hard I managed to scrape my way through. Before I knew it I was eyeing up the final run from the last rest… I visualised the sequence in my head as I had remembered from my first go, and off I went! I moved quickly and decisively, I wasn’t really pumped, just quite tired. I was heading into the bulge, I could see the chains… I made the first hard move of the crux, the second, the third… I had done the crux moves and was only two metres from the chain! I saw it but I was tired, I made a bit of a flail for the wrong hold and was soon rushing past each QuickDraw not really knowing what had happened but also enthralled that my first 8c could have been second go!

Well… That’s just it isn’t it… Second go? 8c? It just didn’t add up, the moves felt way too easy, I wasn’t really pumped on it and even by comparison to a route like “Unjustified”, I would say this is easier. The sensation reminded me of what Alan Cassidy had once wrote about after on sighting his first 8b in France. The glory is there, you want it, you can take it, but you know in your heart that it’s not real. Alan took 8a+ for his 8b, and I guess If I do this really amazing route, then perhaps its probably more like a soft touch 8b+? Still a really cool route though! Flying about skipping bolts literally with the ground 40-50m below you (the route starts on a ledge above a cliff, so your already about 20m off the ground when you start).

I will have to decide what to do tomorrow now, either rest or climb again. I’m inclined to do the latter as that will put me in a better state to tick “Fake Friends”, but whether or not I can find someone to belay me on it is something else entirely… I am running out of people to follow me to crazy crags with sky high 8b’s and 8b+’s.

Anyway, I’m sure it will all work out. I’m looking forward to coming home now, I’ve had my time in the sun and it’s time to train hard for Spring. The day I get back I’m going to be heading up to Aberdeen to coach the awesome little dudes from the GCRS climbing team and meet up with my mate Phil Jack to help him re-set his new and improved 45 board and hopefully head back to Orchestra Cave as well, maybe I can sneak a cheeky dangle berry ; P

That’s all for now folks – 8c is still a dream : )

ROBZ OUT

Source: Robbie's Blog

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Kalymnos: Kalydna Sector
8 November 2011, 11:22 am

Hey Guys

So I’ve only got a few days of climbing left before I return to the UK. I can’t say I’m not looking forward to coming home – I’ll be seeing all my family and friends again as well as checking out the awesome new TCA wall in Glasgow : P.

Climbing the last week has been pretty hilarious. I’ve been spending my time mostly at a sector called Kalydna. Here there is a heavier concentration of high f8 routes compared with other sectors and since I’ve exhausted most of the other areas, it makes sense to come here. The interesting thing with Kalydna is the unique style and rock type. When you think of Kalymnos, thoughts of tufas and stalactites come to mind, however in Kalydna it is mostly pockets, edges and Slopers.

My new friend Danny on "Marci Marc" (7c+) The first route I did here called “Trous dans L’air” (8b+) takes one of the steepest lines of the crag. The climbing is varied and sustained for the first half until a burly bulge (the first crux) then an easier section on huge traversing pockets which takes you to the hard crux through the final bulge. It suited my style and felt more like 8b than 8b+, but the climbing was awesome nonetheless.

The second route I did is called “Fake Friends” (8b+). This is a left hand variation on the last route with a more sustained (but not as cruxy) finish. Initially graded 8c (don’t ask me how), this I felt was similar in grade to “Trous dans L’air” but perhaps a little harder with it’s sustained finish.

I also did another route today currently graded 8c called “Keep Going”. The climbing on this was the weirdest climbing I’ve done in Kalymnos. On orangey Australian style rock, it has three distinct cruxes:

1) Bouldery on Pockets

2) Bouldery on Slopers

3) Techy Bridging

The climbing wasn’t that hard, just really sequency and balancy at points. The upper section of the route felt like the climbing on “Zoolook” (8a) at Malham, smeary bridging on edges. Compared to the other routes, the climbing wasn’t as hard physically and it felt more like a soft touch 8b or hard 8a+. Amazingly, this route was confirmed by some really strong climbers as 8c, but I’m now starting to think that they might all have been on 8a.nu crack at the time.

All these routes have had relatively few ascents, so there is still time for the grades to even themselves out. Kalymnos has a massive reputation for soft touches, however, I have found that in general the grading is pretty standard and could be compared with any other European sport crag (even the UK). Just like everywhere you go, there are your soft touches and your sandbags. The former tends to be more popular and that is why you hear about them more often.

The main routes in Kalymnos you always hear about being soft are the ones at the Grande Grotte sector. There are literally around 12 routes in the grotte and they are all mega long stamina pitches on stalactites – grading these is much like grading cracks – an issue that Tom and Pete are dealing with right now in the U.S.

Me sending "O'Draconian Devil" (8b+) My point is that there are soft routes in Kalymnos, but there are also some sandbags and a lot of quite rightly graded routes, and because there is a lot of new routing being done now, there is also going to be a lot of routes needing confirmed by the masses and not simply slagged for being too soft.

Anyway, I’ve had such an amazing trip this year. I am too lazy to bolt routes, but this is something I am going to have to amend for the future as I’ve simply been a consumer in Kalymnos this far, I guess it would be good to give something back to the island too. Spending time with Neil Gresham, Simon Rawlinson and Lee Cujes this trip has inspired me to take my hand to the drill in the future. These guys have endless enthusiasm for bolting and looking for new lines, it seems they love the adventure of finding a line, cleaning it and bolting it almost as much as the climbing (Freaks!?!?!?).

So I have 2 days climbing left, today I will rest and tomorrow I’ll finish of an 8a+ I put my quick draws on. Hopefully I have one or two climbs left in me before I’m homeward bound, however I’m definitely feeling the exhaustion of the trip setting in now. Psyched for getting home and back into the training regime, winter is coming on fast and there’s only 4 months until Spring/Spain next year : )

See you all soon : D

ROBZ OUT

Robz

Source: Robbie's Blog

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Back Home: Edinburgh -> Aberdeen -> Glasgow
19 November 2011, 12:14 am

Hey guys

I have finally returned from Kalymnos (Greece) and am back in the motherland of haggis, fish suppers and indoor climbing : P So for those not friends with me on Facebook/Twitter, I missed my flight from Schipol (Amsterdam) airport to Glasgow… What a dunce! I decided that 13 hours in an airport would be better spent watching films than sleeping as I was paranoid about missing my flight… Turns out that a few hours sleep in a 48 hour period isn’t that good for you and drowsiness and a chance of uncontrollably falling asleep are side-effects… Who knew? Long story short, I fell asleep with only an hour to go, half way through Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (great movie). Despite being asleep in front of the flight gate, the helpful KLM staff didn’t think it necessary to awake the sleeping boy in front of them when a mister Robert Phillips hadn’t shown up to the flight desk… It’s not their fault, I’m an idiot for not setting my alarm, but hey, at least they could have woken me up : P

Anyway, another 2 hours skimming through the wooden clogs outfitter store and I was away back home. As soon as I touched down in Glasgow, I was off to EICA: Ratho (home) to have my first bouldering session in 3 weeks and to meet up with Rory Cargill and his dad Ewan. The Cargills where once again providing a place to stay for the night before my Group coaching sessions with the GCRS crew the following day. I love staying with the Cargills, it’s lots of fun being in a household with loads of kids, they’re always making pancakes in the morning… YUM!

This weeks coaching with the GCRS crew was focussed on helping them get to grips with their first block of training. The first block comprises largely of endurance based training to help them build their fitness before the start of the YCS rounds in January. The larger program is geared towards finals, so those that have made it through will be on top form for then.

At the start of each group we did a short warm up comprising partly of running to an HRT Alien head hold and poking it in the eye then back to the traverse wall and doing a short traverse.  After this, we started training doing some 2×4′s on routes (2 sets of a lap of 4 routes). The aim was to reach a level 3/4 pump (max 85%) on the first route and then sustain it through each consecutive route. It was hard work and some of the kids got the level wrong initially, but by the end, everyone was happy with it (at least I think they where, maybe they where too exhausted to say anything else). After 2×4′s, we did a couple of sets of 3 second locks aiming for level 4/5 (basically max intensity) and then to finish off, a set of stick game circuits aiming again for level 4/5 – they will all sleep for a week : P

The funniest part of the day was when I saw little Max Milnes new t-shirt. In a previous session, we had been giving each other nicknames, Max’s was “Future” on account of how strong he is… His t-shirt was blue with a picture of a ninja monkey on it with “I am the Future” written on it – AWESOME!!!

The end of the day came quicker than expected (coaching these kids is just too much fun). I was picked up at 8pm by Phil Jack, my sole Aberdeen based adult coaching client. A month ago I had set his board up for training, but since then he had acquired lots of new holds and I was up to help him re-set his circuits and boulder problems. We had a really good day on the Monday, a full on session that involved lots of boulder setting and  circuit setting. We made up a good lot of problems between V4 and V7+ for Phil to work on and circuits around the f7b+/c range for him to get fit on. He’ll be cranking out 8a’s in no time at all.

I am now back in Edinburgh, but not relaxing just yet, this last week has been a tiring one. I went to TCA for the first time on Wednesday night with some friends of mine, Ian Paterson, Neil Glover and Neil’s wife Katie Glover. We had an excellent time playing around on the boulders. It wasn’t exactly a training session, more just climbing until failure : P by the end of the session I was destroyed, so much that I’m still feeling it two days later! The last time I was this knackered was after 2 days climbing a 70m hanging belay start 8b+, certainly not at an indoor wall. I must admit, my strategy during the climbing session wasn’t the best, but we all have our little weaknesses, mine is excitement on seeing all the brand new awesome looking boulder problems just waiting to be climbed : P

As I said, after two days I am still exhausted! I haven’t been climbing well at all this week and I must say that I’m looking forward to a bit of rest next week. I still have a weekend of coaching in Ratho (Saturday) and Aberdeen (Sunday) ahead of me, but after that, hopefully I’ll get some rest : )

I’m going to try and get to the TCA twice a week for my bouldering sessions. It’s going to be expensive going through, but I see it as a worthy expense for the world class facility and training benefits I’ll see from it.

Here’s to a winter of dedicated training for Spain…

ROBZ OUT

Source: Robbie's Blog

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Angus Davidson: Sports Aid Awards 2011 Winner
28 November 2011, 9:14 pm

Angus Davidson is one of the UK’s top youth climbers. He has been 1st place in the last two British Championships, placed consistently top 10 in U12 International events over the last year and is looking forward to his first year at internationals in the Youth B category in 2012. He has also just won a very prestigious sporting award – The OCS Sports Aid Young Star Award. For those that don’t know, the award is for up and coming athletes that show amazing talent, dedication and success in their chosen sport. The award isn’t only an honour for the athletes, there is also a grant for the winner to help fund their training and travel for competitions. Angus received £750 from the OCS which is going straight towards next years season of international competitions.

Its also fantastic that climbing has been singled out amongst other more popular and well known sports such as football, rugby and tennis, all of which had representatives in his category for the award. The fact that Angus and his climbing was singled out shows us that competition climbing is being recognised by the wider audience of non-climbers as a serious sport…

One small step for climbing and one giant leap towards the Olympics!

Angus even made the Evening News!

Source: Robbie's Blog

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TCA Inaugural Bouldering Competition
16 December 2011, 12:39 am

Hey Guys

I haven’t had any real reason to blog the last few weeks, however, last week I attended the TCA Inaugural bouldering competition, an event I had been looking forward to going to since I first heard about it. Since the TCA opened, I have been through at least once a week (after returning from Kalymnos). The centre is absolutely awesome and I’ve been enjoying climbing all the quality steep lines the centre offers. The general style of setting at TCA is different to our EICA setters which provides a unique selling point towards my interest in a training venue. Although there is nothing there much harder than V10 apart from one badass V12, there is always plenty to go at and I have yet to be in a situation where I have done everything and have nothing left to challenge me on the bouldering wall without setting my own problems. It’s definitely much nicer to have problems set by others and I have been greatly enjoying my trips through so far.

Robin was a little too attached to that microphone during the event ; ) Anyway, I travelled through with two young boys I coach in Edinburgh, Sam (10), Leo (7) and their Dad, Fabrice. Sam and Leo where really looking forward to the comp as it was their first trip to TCA. When we arrived, I set about showing Sam and Leo the whole centre and we immediately got to work reading all the problems from No. 1 to No. 20 before they had even registered : P. The most important thing in competitions is getting the right warm up. The boys know their warm up at EICA but TCA was very different, so I took them to the circuit board wall and we discussed what was the best way to warm up before trying any of the problems.

Sam and Leo started the comp earlier than me, so I helped them with a few of their problems until my category (senior men) began. I wanted to wait until I saw the best senior guys arriving so that I could catch a sneaky bit of beta on some of the problems before I went. Roddy Mackenzie and his wife Anna Trybis arrived fairly early on and got warmed up. Soon after, Eddie Barbour arrived with Mike Mullins and Nat. There were a couple of other strong boys knocking around the place, guys like Alli Rob and some lads from Aberdeen. I was watching as everyone arrived and once I was satisfied enough of the strong guys had started, I began also.

It turned out a bit different to how I had imagined it. In most comps you do get to watch others trying the problems, but because everything was flash, there where no repeats after someone had attempted or climbed something, so everything went pretty quickly. In the end, I didn’t actually get any beta on any problems and was actually among the first on most of the harder ones (more out of anticipation and boredom than anything else).

Scott Keirr, a future bouldering champion looking strong in the Junior Finals I flashed 18/20 problems altogether, mucking up only on one due to my foot getting caught on a different coloured hold as I moved to the final jug (annoying). When that happened, initially I was really annoyed as it was nothing I could have avoided, I certainly felt very cheated out of the problem and was worried that everyone else had done so much better than me.

Amazingly, it turned out that I qualified in first place! Roddy hadn’t made it as far as me on two problems (more due to fitness and a debilitated shoulder than anything else), Eddie had screwed up on some other problems and Ali just dropped one move before me on the hardest problem (No.20). It ended up with me in 1st, Ali in 2nd and Roddy in 3rd.

I couldn’t really believe that I had made it into the finals never mind in first place! Not only that, but I found out soon after that Sam had won his category (Junior Boys) and another boy I now coach, Scott, had qualified in 2nd for the finals! So far, a really successful event, anything that happens afterwards is nothing, I was happy with making the finals.

We all watched in awe at the Junior event as Scott, Fraser (A2 Wad) and Hamish (Bristol Wad) battled out in Junior boys. In the end, Hamish won by two points, Scott in 2nd and Fraser in 3rd. In the Junior girls it was equally impressive as Christie Macleod snatched a 1st, followed closely by EICA regular Megan Saunders and then another girl from Bristol.

Anna almost topped this on her flash attempt failing on the last move missing the crucial heel hook Meanwhile, I started to warm up again for the men’s category. The guys routes looked pretty hard, but we discussed the sequences during viewing time which helped a lot building confidence. It was good discussing with Roddy mainly, I knew since he was a really experienced comp boulderer that he would see most of the tricks. I was convinced the middle problem was flashable, the leftward one looked really hard but do-able and the rightwards one looked solid.

When it was time to climb, I stepped up to try the first problem (left), however, there had been a mix up regarding which climber was on which problem and i had to swap all of a sudden with Ali. This shook me a little as I had been focussing on doing the leftwards one and had to suddenly re-focus on a different one. It didn’t matter anyway, it was the middle one that I had fancied my best chances on so I was quite happy to go do this. I actually had an amazing flash burn, falling just moving to the final hold! This confidence boost set me really well for the rest of the event. I managed to do good on the furthest left problem and not so good on the further right one. Regardless of position on those two, it was the first (middle) problem that made the difference. I took first place overall in the Men’s Senior Category with £75 of Ellis Brigham Vouchers! WHOOOPEEEE!!!

Nat crushed the female seniors in style flashing every problem as if it was her warm up. Anna came in second and Holly Rees in third. Roddy and I joked that it was battle of the couples : P

Nat cruising to un-desputable victory with 3 tops out of 3 in the Finals±! It was a great comp regardless of me and Nats success and we are both eagerly looking forward to the next one in February. I am training hard at the moment, mainly focussing on the Siurana trip in spring, but most of my training revolves around bouldering anyway which is good prep for the comps also. EICA has just built a new 45 board in the bouldering room and we’ve bought a load of new holds (Moon and Beastmaker) so there’s no excuses for not doing well next time round too : P I’m also getting through to TCA fairly often so I’m getting really familiar with the walls and style of setting.

Psyched!

ROBZ OUT

P.s. All photos courtesy of Will Carroll. Jen Randall also took lots of good shots, so check out her site for them, I just don’t want to pay for them for my blog : P

Me doing what I do best, finding a way around pulling hard and skipping all the bad holds : P

Source: Robbie's Blog

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Christmas Break-Down
31 December 2011, 1:01 am

Christmas is by far my favourite time of the year. I have a fairly big family in Edinburgh (mothers side) and we always have a big get together at Christmas, with lots of the usual eating, drinking, present opening/giving plus extra eating and drinking. This year however was a bit different however. A part of my family that lives in Nassau (Bahamas) were coming over to spend the holidays in Scotland. This being the case, we all decided to rent a big house in the borders and spend Christmas down there together (a big family needs a big house). We had a great time down there. All my younger cousins where going crazy together (with help from me) and we even had our own game of Murder Mystery (I was the murderer, no one guessed!). As much as it was great fun, the big downside was it was a week of no climbing, not to mention a very difficult situation involving endless trays of food/confectionary flying about in front of my eyes with only my will power to control me (not the best situation to be in for someone one strict diet). I’d like to say I was strong and didn’t resist temptation, I’d like to say that I’m not half a stone heavier than I was on the 23rd of December (my last day in Edinburgh), but if I said that I would be lying…



One of the hardest things for me over Christmas has been the break of climbing/training. I know it was only a week, but if you’ve trained solidly for a whole year (breaking only for climbing trips), you’d know how I feel. Its really hard practicing what you preach. I tell everyone I coach to rest up when it comes to Christmas and that a week off here and there can be a good thing, but right now it feels like the worst thing I could have done. My body seems to have gone into some sort of hibernation mode and I feel utterly exhausted. It seems that the year has really caught up on me and my body has chosen to simply shut down. Only 7 days ago I achieved something that I had never done before, a personal best in my training over the years, 1-4-7 on the small rungs of the campus board. To many that may seem weak and pitiful, but honestly, to me this is somewhat of a milestone. Now, I feel like doing 1-3-5 is hard enough work never mind even bothering attempting 1-4-7.



I know in my mind that this feeling will pass and that my stregnth and power will return (probably in the next few days). Its a natural response to get depressed and talk yourself down when your having an off day/week and it’s something that everyone will experience at sometime or another. The key to this is not giving up and realising that it’s only a short phase that will pass eventually. You have to maintain focus, stay your course and keep following your plan to wherever it will take you.

It’s almost the New Year… 2012! It’s quite scary really, 2011 was a huge year for me, a hard one to beat actually. I have accomplished so much more in 2011 than I ever could have wished for. It is indeed very scary approaching this new year, a lot lies ahead, ambition, anticipation and eagerness for it all to come quick… but I need to be patient (my biggest weakness to date).

ROBZ OUT

Patiently anticipating 2012

Source: Robbie's Blog

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Christmas blues-ing has turned into New Year cruising!!
6 January 2012, 1:22 am

Hey Guys

I know what a bad title… well its half one and my brain is mush so don’t be too hard on me : )

If you read my last post from just after Christmas you will know that I, like most others, have had a bit of a rude awakening coming back after the holidays. To be frank, I felt like I was dragging a sac of tatties every-time I pulled of the ground. Its funny just how quickly this can all change though. Only a week later and I’m back to my previous best, hitting out 1-4-7 on the campus board (something I had been trying to achieve for a very long time). Not only that, but I seem to be quite consistent at it now which is thrilling seeing as I’m only 6 weeks of my trip to Spain. Comparing last years strength levels to right now, its evident that I’m a lot physically stronger in my fingers and in all-round power. 

This is exactly what I have been training for and its delighting to see the efforts of training pay off with such good results. I have 1 week left of the focussed power block and then I’ll be in power endurance mode!!! I apologise beforehand to the regular Ratho boulderers as I’m going to be spending more time on the 45 board doing circuits – SO YOU ALL BETTER STAY OUT OF MY WAY!!!

As well as training going well, work is also plentiful at the moment. I have taken on three new recruits to my 1:1 squad! First on the list is Amanda Lyons from Aberdeen. Amanda was previously being coached by Mark McGowan, however since he has moved to Espana, she’s now having to put up with my moaning and groaning. Amanda has previously climbed 7c and she is now working her way to 7c+ on some gnarly local projects that sound more like 8b than 7c+!!!

Next up is Ian Phillips. He’s relatively new to climbing but has seen probably the fastest progress out of any climber I’ve ever known. He’s bouldering about V5/6 flash and working V6/7 within a session and he’s been climbing for under 2 years!

Finally, my newest recruit is a member of the BRYCS club at Ratho. I’ve been coaching David for a while now as part of the team but not individually. He’s incredibly talented and has some amazing potential. Over the last 6 months he’s been getting into Ratho more and more with his mum and brother and i’ve been watching intently from the sidelines as i’ve seen him go from strength to strength. Now I get to take an active part in helping his development more than simply our weekly group sessions – I WILL MAKE HIM A BEAST!!!!!

Tomorrow I am going to Glasgow for some TCA action, unfortunately not my own : ( Instead, 13 of the top Scottish youth climbers will descend for the first MCofS GB Team Meet of 2012! This also marks my official entry into the position of Team Regional Coach and Scottish Team Coach (theres a really long-winded and cooler title but i forgot it – I’ll settle for “Robbie the Awesome, King of the Beasts”).

Saturday I am away coaching the super mutants in Aberdeen and Sunday I will be doing my CWA Assessment with my mate Euan Whittaker. I’ve heard he’s really tough on the assessment though : ( I’m scared…

So psyched for Spain now, its getting closer and closer and I’m starting to get nervous. Its a similar feeling to  the build up for a comp… PRESSURE!!!! It doesn’t matter though, I know I’ll climb well if I just go and give it my all like I always do. This time round its going to be even better because my mate Andy is coming. Me and Andy have been on loads of trips together and we always end up falling out and hating each other for half the trip… this probably won’t be any different : ) PSYCHED!

KEEP IT REAL FOLKS

ROBZ OUT

Source: Robbie's Blog

[willackers]

What about "Robbie the Choad, King of the Choads" sounds much better.