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The Cave of Justice, Rollito Espana...
28 March 2012, 10:18 am



There are a few similarities between the Spanish Cave of Justice (Santa Linya) and the British one (Parisella's): they both give you big shoulders, they both have lots of hard stuff, they're both a bit dusty and they both have plenty of kneebars and a nice selection of big holds. The Spanish one does have one major characteristic in its favour however: it's huge...

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td](Photo: Gav Symonds)[/td][/tr]

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Almost as deep as it is tall, standing in the back of the cave and looking out to the lip you can't help but be impressed. That the easiest way to climb from the back to the top is 8c+ should give some idea of the angle and the scale. Fortunately for those of us not blessed with Sharma's guns, there are plenty of intermediate finishes and more amenable route up the wings of the cave (though we're still talking 8b to get to the top!).

I spent a fair bit of time here last year, and was keen for a return visit as I had unfinished business with one of the classic 8cs of the cave, Fabelita. I wont bore you with the details (there's a UKC news report here for those interested) but sufice to say, we went to Santa Linya and I was the best. That might not quite be true, since Tom Bolger, Gaz Parry and Magnus Mitboe (the only man more stacked than Arnie?) were all around, and the girls were all as strong as me, but I managed Fabelita and another 8c called Ingravid Serps within the first week so I was rather chuffed. I spent the next few days falling off the top of the 8c+ extension to Ingravids - a bit gutting but hey, I definitely learnt more about pacing/resting on routes at my limit, I just wish I could've learnt a bit faster! Talking to Tom Bolger (9a machine) he's previously found something very similar to my experience so I thought I'd put it down here...

Resting makes you tired. That's it. The key to climbing hard routes. Be like Ondra - climb fast and skip the shake outs. Unfortunately, resting also makes you less pumped, and this is where it gets confusing, and why it's so easy to mess up the pacing/resting aspect of a redpoint. If the route's not at your limit you can get away with it, but when it's really hard for you it starts to matter a lot. On Ingravids Extension I found (all too late) that the best way to feel fresh at the top crux was to skip as many of the shake-outs as possible on the bottom part. This meant that when I got to the rest at the first chains I was pumped - maybe even more pumped than if I'd taken the shakes - but less fatigued as I'd been on the wall much less time. I've found a similar thing before - on Gemenis - a 40m 8b+ in Rodellar with a crux at the top - the key to success was again to skip all the marginal rests and just use the better ones, sprinting between them as fast as possible (which for me is quite slowly - despite my best efforts I aint no Ondra). It seems obvious - and maybe it is to everybody else? - but I still manage to forget it and get it wrong. The other side of the coin is that sometimes when you get to that final top crux, finding a way to quickly shake each arm before you launch into it - even if the rest is marginal - can sometimes make all the difference. Judging when to rest and when not to (and how long for) is tough, and sometimes I think you can't know until you've tried redpointing the route with a few different resting/pacing strategies, but my general experience so far has been that skipping rests low down (unless they're really good) but making the most of the ones high up seems to pay off.

Some pics...

Fabelita:

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]The rest before the crux(Photo: Robbie Meade)[/td][/tr]

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[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Shaking out after the crux(Photo: Robbie Meade)[/td][/tr]

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[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]The last hard slap (Photo: Robbie Meade)[/td][/tr]

[/table] Ingravid Serps:

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td] (Photo: Robbie Meade)[/td][/tr]

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[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td](Resting at the first chains Photo: Robbie Meade)[/td][/tr]

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[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td](Photo: Robbie Meade)[/td][/tr]

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[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td](Photo: Henning Wang)[/td][/tr]

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[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td](Photo: Henning Wang)[/td][/tr]

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[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td](Photo: Henning Wang)[/td][/tr]

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[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]The one that got away... Ingravids Extension (Photo: Henning Wang)[/td][/tr]

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Source: Alex Barrows Climbing

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Onwards Pilgrim (or 'Why Marigolds make you more of a man')
8 April 2012, 6:24 pm

I've been suffering a bit  from a bout of lastmoveitis recently - first Ingravids Extension, then Halfway House in Parisella's, and last Sunday I managed to blow the top of Mecca Extension at Raven tor. I guess for every time you sketch up a route when you deserve to fall off you have to have a time when you blow a route feeling like you should have done it. I sometimes wonder whether the likes of Ondra have this too, or whether part of their skill is always having that killer instinct to seal the deal? Certainly it's something some are better at than others, and I'm hoping my recent last move failures are just down to not being so sharp early in the routes season.

5 days seems like a long time when you're waiting to get back to a route you feel you're close to doing, so when I arrived back at the tor on Friday I was really excited to get back on it. I'd had a good evening at Anston the day before, knocking off a soft 7C+ quickly (though I still can't do Ebola - 7C my ass) so I was feeling good. Going up putting the clips in the conditions felt pretty poor and I wasn't that hopeful about the chances of a successful redpoint, however setting off things seemed to have improved. Mecca went smoothly, as did most of the harder section of the extension, and before long I found myself at the point where I'd blown it the weekend before - an easy move in isolation but a bit harder when you've climbed 8c to get there! This time I knew what I had to do - don't panic and pull hard. It's amazing how just knowing that you need to try hard on an 'easy' move can be the difference between success and failure. Dealing with these unknown and surprising feelings on a redpoint is definitely something I feel I can improve at, though I'm not sure exactly how to train it other than simply redpointing more. Mawson and Pete Whittaker both dispatched Mecca later that day too - the send train was well and truly in the station!

Never content and always looking for the next route to try it was time to move my clips onto Kaabah, McClure's 8c+ direct version of the extension. This version means a worse rest and a new hard section to deal with compared to Mecca Extension, but heading back there today I made good progress and some encouraging links. The only problem is that my sequence, which climbs slightly left of the sequence used on the 3 ascents to date, is notably easier. Steve says he didn't envision it as being an eliminate, but it'll probably end up either having to have rules or needing a downgrade... we'll see. It's just a pity there are so few inspiring 8c+s in the peak, if only we had a Santa Linya or a Ceuse close by!

On a vaguely related note, these Raven Tor routes often have sharp crimps requiring good skin, and high quality skin care can be vital for sending your project. It's thus with great pleasure that I can announce that I am the newest member of 'Team Marigold's Xtreme Athletes and Manliest Men'. Look out for my signature range coming soon:



For those who didn't understand my 8a.nu comment for Mecca Extension:



Source: Alex Barrows Climbing

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The 're-warm-up'
11 April 2012, 9:27 pm

One thing I've noticed recently is just how many climbers don't do any form of getting warmed up again after resting between harder routes. Maybe I'm weird, but for me it's vital to do a short 're-warm-up' before trying any hard redpoint or onsight, and I know many climbers who feel the same. The rest between attempts might be anything from belaying your friend for 30 minutes to taking half a day off before another big burn on a long route, and the optimum length of any re-warm-up will usually be proportional to the rest. This re-warm-up serves to get the fingers and arms ready for hard moves again, to help avoid injuring yourself by trying hard moves from cold and to get some blood flowing to avoid getting flash-pumped - all the same things your inital warm-up is there to achieve.

If it's been an hour or more, I'll usually start with a short walk or jog to wake my body up, especially if it's a cold day. Ideally the crag will have an area where you can do a bit of traversing and a few boulder problems, if possible on the style of hold that your route involves. Unfortunately most crags wont be as perfect as this (unless you spend a lot of time at raven tor or rubicon!), but you can usually find some holds to hang and do chin-ups on, as if you were warming-up on a fingerboard. If this doesn't work, branches in trees can provide a good alternative, and you can always drop a finger or two off on small branches to replicate pockets. Alternatively, climbing the first couple of bolts worth of your chosen route can work well too, presuming they aren't the crux of the route or on tweaky holds.

Source: Alex Barrows Climbing

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Climbing in Caves
3 May 2012, 4:35 pm

I've been doing a lot of two things recently - fingerboarding and climbing in grotty caves. I've had sore pulleys on both my middle fingers for a long while now - looking back through my training diary it turns out that the first time I tweaked the one in my left hand was back in November. It got better for a while, then got worse again early in the year, seemed to have largely sorted itself out whilst I was in Spain, and then rapidly went downhill when I launched back into training again too quickly. The strange thing was that once I'd warmed up it seemed mainly ok - I did Mecca Extension a week after the pulleys felt at their worst, despite it involving an awful lot of crimping. After talking to other climbers about it I determined it was probably scar tissue related, with a pulley injury on top of that. My initial method of trying to ignore it meant I could get away with climbing (so long as I warmed up carefully), but that the problem wasn't going to get fixed, so it was time to take a bit of a step back. After a fair amount of finger stretching, ice and being a bit stricter with my climbing, my right hand was pretty much back to full strength, but the left was still causing issues. The silver lining to this cloud has been that the shocking weather has meant all the sport crags in the peak and Yorkshire getting soaked again, so although I've only been able to climb on big holds or a fingerboard I've not really been missing out! Fingerboarding does lose its novelty rather quickly though, so I made a little list of things I should be able to try whilst I nurse them back to health.

First on my list of pulley-friendly problems was The Dark Room, an 8A boulder in Odin's Cave near Castleton. On first acquaintance this problem seems pretty poor quality - it climbs from one fairly arbitrary point in the back of a dark, damp cave to another fairly arbitrary point, still in the back of the dark, damp cave. The cave itself is pretty minging and everything in there except for the groove feature you're climbing is wet.... Oh, and tourists wander in to look at cave and come up with the inevitable questions about what the hell you're doing in there and what the hell your bouldering mats are. Luckily, however, the moves just about make up for all this - spinning round on kneebars and going feet-first on big toe hooks, this is 3D roof climbing of a style that we don't have nearly enough of in the UK, and I bloody love it. It has some pretty nice holds on it too, certainly a welcome change from the usual peak lime crimping! It took a couple of sessions to work out good beta, as I was unable to do the crux move in the middle how previous ascentionists have, using an awkward undercut (see Robin's video below of the first ascent). Instead I chose to gaston it (crimping the hell out of it - not so good for rehab, but luckily it was my right hand) and roll over to the next hold, and thus into the awesome final toe hook sequence. I also found a better method at the start, using a knee bar to make the moves into the crux a bit easier. Anyway, despite the slightly depressing venue, the problem comes recommended for those who like this sort of fun roofy stuff, and luckily it seems to stay dry when everything else is soaked (though it does condense very easily).

Next up was a trip over to Llandulas in North Wales to try Chris Doyle's Temple of Gloom, an 8b route though the main cave at the crag, with most of the holds being big enough not cause my finger too many issues. The route is basically a Parisella's style ~20 move power endurance problem in a roof, with a hard section near the start and a redpoint crux turning the lip to easy ground. I had a couple of goes up it and got a good sequence sorted, but was too tired to make much headway with redpointing - working routes in a roof is tiring! One to go back for anyway - although the line isn't the best (mainly due to the proximity of the floor) there's some really cool climbing on it and it deserves more attention. Bob fared somewhat better, getting close but being thwarted by some damp holds. At least that was his excuse, the rest of us put it down to his gargantuan layers of flab and the fact that he clearly doesn't train hard enough.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Low quality phone pic of some fat guy trying Temple[/td][/tr]

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Unfortunately, by the end of the day my finger was feeling pretty aggravated again. Although it hadn't been painful whilst doing moves, it had clearly been taking more abuse than it was ready for. I think it's now finally time to bite the bullet and accept that it's not something I can just fumble my way though and it'll get better; I'm actually going to have to have a few weeks without aggravating it at all. Time to get myself on jugs, easy mileage, running, and enough core to make Tom Randall feel like a wimp. If it means I can climb and train properly again any time soon it'll be well worth it.

Whilst you're here, check out this video of Tom Bolger trying Catxasa in Santa Linya. Rob filmed this last Spring when I was out there but just uploaded it recently. Watching it makes me realise how much I miss that place and even more how much I miss being a full timer!



Source: Alex Barrows Climbing

[r-man]

Brilliant stuff. Pleased The Dark Room is getting some repeats. Gastoning the undercut? Doesn't sound easier! Dawid struggled with the undercut as well, though I found the finish the hardest - difficult to make that toehook dyno after all the upside down. Good blog!

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Lights, Camera, Action
13 May 2012, 5:36 pm

Pulley rehab continues, meaning a rare dose of grit for this lime lover. I've been surprised by how much I've enjoyed it, and it's been nice to climb again at the likes of Stanage and Curbar - places I used to go to a lot when I was at uni but have ignored for the last couple of years in favour of limestone crimping. Getting back to that part of the peak has reminded me how much I like it too, stirring up memories of when I first arrived in Sheffield. Those first few months of impatient excitement, blown away that I could bike to Rivelin for a solo circuit and be back in time for afternoon labs; that I could take a 15 minute bus journey from my halls of residence and find myself at burbage south; that on my way to lectures I would spot the likes of Ben Bransby or Steve McClure walking down the street; that I was finally in England's preeminent climbing city after a year stuck in Oxford. It was all so exciting, a world of climbing opportunity, the promised land. God I love climbing. Nowadays I take it for granted too much, and it's good to be reminded sometimes of just how lucky we Sheffield residents are to have all this on our doorstep.

I've got a camera again for the first time in a while too - just a cheap one, hopefully I wont break it as quickly as I did my previous ones! It means my first entry into the wonderful world of climbing videos, though my framing of shots from a tripod needs some work:

I managed to land right on my tail bone on that fall, a day and a half later and I still can't lie on my back in bed without it hurting!

Source: Alex Barrows Climbing

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Nearly There...
13 June 2012, 12:51 pm

It's been a while since I last posted anything, largely since due to the injured finger's slow (but steady) progress back to health. A quick multimedia round-up of the last month or so, in rough chronological order:

Grit with Guy and Chris:

from Guy Van Greuning on Vimeo.

More gritstone pulley rehab on The Buckstone Dyno:





A few weeks ago Mark 'Danger' Tomlinson and I hit Dorset for 5 days  of sun (and toproping 6cs in my case). Through judicious use of sending  Mark up things first, I managed to flash a couple of 7cs which avoided  left hand crimps and did a 7c+ 2nd go. Despite the lack of hard climbing it was nice to hang out by the sea and potter on easy things for a few days.

[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]Mark abbing into Promenade[/td][/tr]

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[tr][td][/td][/tr][tr][td]DWS active rest[/td][/tr]

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My finger now seems to be improving a lot, and through sticking to pockets and fat pinches indoors I'm back  to training properly. I think I've learnt a lot from this injury, and hopefully this will mean I don't make the same mistakes next time:

- The motherboard at the climbing works should be the venue of choice if you have pulley injury due to the amount of pockets and wide pinches on offer

- Despite being easier climbing, circuits are more dangerous than bouldering as far as aggravating a tweaky finger goes: you use the same holds repeatedly, you use more holds (so it's harder to come up with a whole circuit which doesn't tweak at all), and most of all you get pumped and try hard thus torquing into holds and putting a lot of strange forces through your fingers

- There are actually quite a lot of good problems out there than don't involves crimps for one of your hands. Put the work into thinking of these and try to channel your psyche appropriately, rather than endlessly wondering when you'll be able to get back to your previous objectives. This mindset is much easier mentally and less risky for the injury as you wont be tempted back to what hurt it in the first place so soon.

- Ice, ice baby. Plus stretching the fingers.

This last weekend saw my return to (pockety) limestone bouldering, with an unsuccessful hungover day with Toby at Anston on Saturday and a more successful day with Guy at Nuda's on the Sunday:

from Guy Van Greuning on Vimeo.

This is actually a really good problem, especially if - like me - you're a fan of funky toe hook sequences. Nicely different from the usual peak lime too. Yesterday a few of us headed over to Churnet to check out somewhere different, with the highlight of the session being burning Bob 'tactics' Hickish off on a campus move on a rather tough 7B. Lordy that '8c' of his in Dorset must be easy.



Source: Alex Barrows Climbing

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Back in the Game
20 June 2012, 8:02 pm

With an abysmal forecast for the weekend and temperatures on the up there was only one option for outdoor climbing this week: an early morning session. My alarm went off at 6.45, but unlike when it goes off an hour or two later for me to head into uni, this time there was no snooze button. I had unfinished business with Ebola, and short and basic 7C at Anston Stones. In theory this problem should suit me - big moves between good holds on slightly overhanging ground, just my sort of thing. For some reason, however, it doesn't. I find it nails. If you gave it hard 7C+ I wouldn't feel guilty taking the tick. The problem revolves around a hard move off a 2 or 3 finger pockets to a sharp edge and holding a tricky swing, and it's a move that never feels easy for me, even in isolation.

After a slightly slower than expected journey (since I'd forgotten about morning traffic), I arrived at the crag to thankfully find reasonably cool rock and quickly got warmed up before it got too hot. Trying out the moves again I felt good, and with a slight tweak in grip position on the pocket giving me a much needed boost on the crux move I managed to dispatch the problem unexpectedly quickly.

Next up was Quarantine, a crimpy traverse of the buttress given 8A. Given that my finger has only just recovered from its pulley injury I was just intending to try a few of the moves to work back into crimping again (I'd worked out a sequence during a session on it in winter and tried briefly again on the weekend). The sequences went easier than expected and - as ever - psyche soon forced prudence out of my mind leaving me chalking up for a go at the link. Fortunately I got away with it and the finger held firm, allowing me to scuttle my way across to the finishing holds.

All that was left to do was to down a celebratory protein shake before rushing back to uni to get some work done, followed by the obligatory evening training session on the new Foundry campus board.

I've made a little video of these problems, hope you like it:

from Alex Barrows on Vimeo.



Source: Alex Barrows Climbing

[Richie Crouch]

Nice one Alex. Glad to see it is not just me who found Ebola desperate... Felt a lot harder than all the other 7C's there which is why I logged it as low end 7c+!

[dave]

If you guys know 7c+s that are only as hard as ebola then fuck I must be going to the wrong crags.

[abarro81]

Ebola felt as hard for me as the hulk (and sean's sit and pinch sit) at crag x, though at least 2 people have laughed at me for suggesting that. Also as hard for me as stuff like huffy's or ferrino, and about 2 grades harder than soul crusher at woody's. Harder for me than Quarantine for sure, though hard to compare since that involves lots of moves and thus is my style. I get the impression Ebola doesn't 'fit' me for some reason.

[account_inactive]

Anston suits the lank......not sure how anyone can think this is harder than 7c at 6ft

[Nigel]

Anston suits the lank......not sure how anyone can think this is harder than 7c at 6ft

Must say I have to agree with that, surely the only really hard move is actually getting the pocket = normal person's perspective. That said Ebola is harder than Black Crow. I would say hard 7c vs normal 7c. Brilliant problem.

[abarro81]

The move off the pocket felt like a 7c on its own to me! 

[Three Nine]

I think we're all missing the point here; how crushingly dull Barrows' blog is.

[saltbeef]

Anston suits the lank......not sure how anyone can think this is harder than 7c at 6ft

Must say I have to agree with that, surely the only really hard move is actually getting the pocket = normal person's perspective. That said Ebola is harder than Black Crow. I would say hard 7c vs normal 7c. Brilliant problem.

agreed. as hard as the hulk! WHAT?!

[tim palmer]

I thought ebola was middle of the grade for the uk.  Nowhere near as hard as the hulk, but a much better problem.

[Robbie_Phillips]

Sport climbers don't know how to grade boulder problems as I've found out recently

[T_B]

The move off the pocket felt like a 7c on its own to me! 

I didn't do the move off the pocket as you do in that video. More shouldery, but you can put your right foot inside edge up high and out to the right, pushing off it, rather than left toe on that smear and campussing. Seemed easier to me.

[account_inactive]

I think we're all missing the point here; how crushingly dull Barrows' blog is.

This hasn't gone un-noted.....however after just scanning the blog title I felt into a deep slumber

[willackers]

Ebola is pretty soft compared to other Limestone 7c's, it's especially soft if you posess the lank.

[Richie Crouch]

Must stop climbing things in the wet I guess! Hard to tell how hard it is! It definitely felt harder than black crow, Lou ferrino, cave life from wobbly block, backhand roof, ben's roof..to to name a few off the top of my head 

[a dense loner]

I wish I was tall

[Doylo]

I wish I was tall

at least you've got a big dick...

[tim palmer]

Must stop climbing things in the wet I guess!

I think the pocket is always wet, I climbed it with a dead chalkball stuffed in the back of the pocket (withone arm tied behind my back etc.).

Hard to tell how hard it is! It definitely felt harder than black crow, Lou ferrino, cave life from wobbly block, backhand roof, ben's roof (this is 7c is it not?)..to to name a few off the top of my head 

these problems are just link problems you learn, it isn't really a valid comparison, compared to 7c+ problems of a similar style in the area (I can't comment on black crow) like press crouching, the hulk, the thing (?grade) etc., it is pretty straight forward.