[fried]

Easy: nothing

M-Fr - Nothing except shoulder exercises, too hot to go indoors.
Sa - Finally finshed painting the mother-in-law's apartment, the most exercise I did all week.

Su - Overnight rain puts paid to my planned day of easy circuiting. Indoors, relatively cool (23°), but sweaty and humid, had a good fun session doing easy stuff and greasing off stuff with some other tired looking punters.

[36chambers]

STG: Jess's Roof 7C
MTG: 8A (zoo york)
LTG: 8B

M: Back and forearm massages
T: Almscliff. Sussed the moves for Jess's Roof 7C, just need to go back fresh
W: Lunch run. Legs. 2 x 8 one legged squats, 2 x 10 lunges, 2 x 20 calves. Literally all I did because it was cut short. It felt piss, but my legs have ached all week and I can still feel it now...
T: Almscliff. easy milage, didn't touch anything hard
F:
S: Anston, sent Bullet 7C first go (of the day) . Got shut down on hard stuff. Good session.   
S: Week 4 conditioning routine, interlaced with 1 min x 8 foot on fingerboarding.

LH ring finger is feeling a bit tweaky, so no real climbing training. Next week I think I'll just stick to conditioning and antagonist training.

[nai]

STG - have a finger healthy enough to train on come 1/8/15 - this could be a fail
MTG - Autumn crushage and if it is so is this
LTG Forearms, Forearms, Forearms


M - Mini works with kid - volume - about 70 problems 4-6b

T - Weights AM, Run PM

w rest

Th - board 5x10 easy problems (about 55 moves), 5 mins rest

F rest

S - Cornice, scrubbed Snails of The Riverbank but didn't manage it, a bit of a bumble with one nails (but good) move.

S - fairly second hand but decided to go out again as Monday became unlikely. Warmed up by doing Snails but pulling on a draw at the hard bit, piss, felt confident, but 3 redpoint attempts came and went until I eventually managed it in last chance saloon.

Felt like I was doing ok until I tried actual climbing on Saturday then reality hit home, time to take my head out of the sand.
 

[JackAus]

STG: V8 Properly done!. Consistent sub 75kg. More V8s <-- New.
MTG: V9. Fear Factory List. 6/10 done.
LTG: V11.

M: Rest
T: St Leonards. New stuff. Decent session, every prob bar the hardest, just last 2 moves on it. Campus board and finger board after. Doing middle 2 hangs and something went pop in my left wrist from my ring finger. Instant pain and stopped doing anything else. No pain on pulleys or tendons. Had a good chat about it with a mate who is studying anatomy atm and most likely inflamed tendon sheath in wrist causing friction. So a lot of shoulder physio after.
W: Rest! Wrist/finger not too bad, just no open hand-ing on left.
T: Sissy & 9 Degrees. Wrist/finger ok, still no extended open hand. Short session at Sissy, warmed up, lapped shouldery Our Man From Havana V7 and worked Silent Bob V9/10. Burly. Slapping for the 2nd last hold from start but couldn't even try last move because of the body position.
New boulder gym 9 Degrees afterwards. Big step forward for Australian gyms, finally catching up to UK/European walls. They've had one of the guys from Stuntwerk out to do a lot of the setting for the opening and it shows. Setting is much more comp style than usual Aus setting. A lot of this stuff suits me well so did a load of the harder problems there. Enjoyed it.
F: Rest
S: Jessica's & Frontline. Jessica's did a V5, worked a V8/9 and tried a crimpy as fuck V11. Frontline, got back on Rocket Man. Zero commitment. Only 2 of us there and climbing partner is tiny... Don't know that I'd want to fall on her.
S: Frontline. Rocket Man while a mate is close on the sit start: L'Homme Obu V11. He's falling out of the same move as me but from the V8 linking into the stand. I'm just hitting the edge of the slot, is a blind lunge around a bulge to a letterbox slot. It takes a lot of skin on my left hand... Moved on to Sloper-Dan Milosevic wall. Did a quick lap on Boogie Knights V7 then jumped on the low start. Had never managed to do the bottom link before and did it first go, getting to the crux press right near the top. Fell off the bottom the next 2 goes then did it 4th today! Low Down Boogie, first V8! Alot of people still take V9 for it too... Then straight after I did the low start into Sloper-dan which gets V7 aswell. Then straight into night shift....

Silent Bob



Rocket Man

[the_dom]

Nice one Jack. Good progression.

Another slightly heavy week, finishing up the meat of my deadlift programme..

Mon: 30 mins on the treadmill
Tues: Lunchtime weights - deadlift and benchpress; PM hangboard
Wed: Morning hangboard, PM bouldering. Decent session.
Thurs: Lunchtime weights - more deadlifts (5 x 2 x 150kgs felt pretty steady YYFY) and benchpress; PM hangboard. Much bouncing around at Gogol Bordello gig in the evening.
Fri: 30 mins on the treadmill
Sat: Sneaky morning bouldering session. Finally linked my power endurance eliminate project - powerful 6 move 6C into 10 move 7B+. Pretty happy with that. Celebrated with a hangboard session and then lots of wine and good food.
Sun: Sportclimbing - first time on a rope in 2 years. Unsurprisingly felt awful on first two attempted redpoints (aborted attempts at that), then casually ticked mates 7a project first go and felt far more comfortable from then on. Did get massively pumped on short routes though. Sneaky hangboard session after I got home. Of course.

[Muenchener]

STG:      get some decent alpine routes done on DAV trip to Gesäuse at start of August Barely. but worthwhile recce of a fantastic area
                Get a couple of days climbing in on UK family visit mid August
MTG (2015): redpoint two more 7a’s and a 7a+
LTG (2016/2017): Redpoint 7b (Sautanz)
 
M: Gesäuse. Attempted a VI+ on the Buchstein south face. See  comments on the local grading in my area write-up. And eight bolts on a forty metre pitch looks like plenty on the topo, until you realise it means there are on average eight places where you're looking at a ten metre fall. By the time we had shaken our way up the circa 6b crux pitches it was mid afternoon and time to ab off. Some great climbing in there though.
T: Gesäuse. Finally did a route, hurrah. Lindbliatn, a 12 pitch VI-, turned out to be more like our level. Flogging back down the 1,600 metres to the road and driving the 200 miles home was tiring though. More Training For The New Alpinism.
W: Rest day. 40 mins yoga/mobility
T: Drive to Calais for UK family visit; plan was to stop en route to work on my Frankenjura 7A+ traverse project, but in the face of appalling traffic and temperatures approaching 40 I gave up, stopped for a coffee in Nuremberg and headed west.
F: Calais to Manchester with brief stop en route at Churnet. Sans guidebook, wandered up the hill behind the Rambler's Retreat until I found what the local yoof told me was Wright's Rocks. Pottered on some easy looking things, tried a couple of harder things. Very short visit, but a pleasant area.
S: uk family visit
S: uk family visit

[tomtom]

Morning y'all...

M: Felt crap - tried to do a BM session but gave up half way through...

T: Woodwell. Had 'Screaming Slave' earmarked for the session - and... managed it. Well, it turns out there are more variations on how to do SS than there are combinations of pizza topping.. and I probably did it the 'using everything' method (which to me seemed perfectly sensible..). Felt like v hard 7A+ to me that way - maybe 7B (I've certainly done easier feeling 7B's).. but is apparently 7A.. Pah. ANyway, facebook discussions seemed to agree with my assessment. But to get off the grading stuff (I got there fast didn't I!) its a great problem... using a left footlock made me feel sick through using my core muscles (for a second week running) ~ and it went with the last shaking, hand uncurling on the final holds ~ last go of the day... which always feels very satisfying.. Time for more Woodwell eliminates, I mean problems next

W: >> drive to Norfolk. Whilst there:
Swimming in the sea (bastard cold) x 3
Pruning large tree x 2
Fish and Chips x 1
Other forms of sea food x 4
Bottles of wine x 2
Su: << Norfolk to Manchester

Manage to have not put on any weight whilst away - and though I've not trained/climbed since Tuesday feeling pretty good.

[cheque]

Nice one Jack.

STG- 7a+ or (ideally) 7b on lime before September 18th.

MTG- 100 routes at 24HHH and The Show Me State in September, Wall of Horrors in October.

LTG- 2nd ascent of Sasquatch's project.

This week I've started training volume for 24HHH. I've decided the only practical way to do this (considering my partner for it lives in the states) is on autobelays at climbing walls, starting with lots of pitches in a session and progressing to ridiculous amounts of picthes in a session. I'm going to try and combine this with my current limestone campaign and hopefully not get injured.

M- Rest.

Tu- Awesome Walls. 25 pitches on the autobelay, in two blocks of ten and one of five. Awesome Walls has 3 autobelays, each with three routes on 15m walls with a bit of variety in the angles, features for feet, good setting and nice non-tweaky modern holds.

The grades are a bit harder than I'd like for my purpose, starting at 5+ and rapidly moving towards 7a (Horseshoe Canyon Ranch, the venue for 24HHH, has a multitude of easy routes so it's very likely I won't be doing many over 6a+) but I decided that harder routes would be more fun and even better training and that I'd count attempts reaching more than 2/3rds height as pitches as there are lots of sub-15m routes at HCR too.

Needless to say, this was sweaty and hard, but I surprised myself by never reaching a debilitating level of pump and by making it most of the way up the 7a, onsight, as my last pitch!

W- Rest.

Th- Cheedale Cornice. Back on Martial music. I'd told myself that I'd get on lead today but I was climbing as part of a three and the route was busy so my planned redpoint burn was in the dark when virtually everyone had gone home so I toproped it again  . Did it twice with one hang though.

Driving home I decided that I'm going to quit my habit of aways working routes on toprope- it's a hangover from when I was scared of taking falls and out of my depth on the easier routes at the crags I was climbing at. Neither of those factors apply now (YYFY) and it's just making me take longer than needed to get routes done.

F- Rest.

Sa- W-c-J. Did Afloat in the Moat (for anyone who hasn't been reading the Peak Limestone North guide obsessively since it came out, this is the decent 6c+ on Moat Buttress) second go  . Flashed a 6c and a 6b on Majorca Buttress after. Felt like I had loads left but mates had to go home. 

Su- Nottingham Climbing Centre. 40 pitches on the autobelays, in four sets of ten. This sounds like a lot but the walls are only 9m high here so it's not much more than Tuesday.

Notts' principle apppeal is that it's five minutes drive from my house- there are two autobelays and while each has four routes they're on short blank walls with an uninspiring collection of holds. The convention is for the setters to provide two easy (~4-5+) pitches, one moderately hard one (6bish) and a nails bouldery project for themselves with either rat crimps, very long reaches or both, per line. I could barely touch either hard route and they made my fingers hurt ("great" memories of starting climbing here and thinking this was what all hard climbing was like...) and consequently only had 6 routes to work with, none of which I had to really try on.

All (sweaty) pennies in the (sweaty) bank though!

[Muenchener]

Su: << Norfolk to Manchester

You missed out big time on Donkey Day, including M jnr's triumph in the Bursting Balloons With An Excavator challenge. First placed child, fourth overall. The Adam Ondra of digger driving.
[/proud dad]

[T_B]

M -
T - X. Seemed like decent conditions warming up but felt smeggy on the Pinch so sacked it and went to the Tor. Amazing cons and with new beta for start of S/band did Kristians got stamina. Same detail with R&H hard way - did stand with Daves foot beta.
W -
T - School lunch. Did two separate 21 move sections of 60 move pink circuit. Nearly did start. Great sess.
F -
S - Drove to Gower.
S - rain

Writing this from the 'Play Zone' in Swansea as it continues to piss it down. Camping with a 2 and 4 year old is 

[duncan]

STG: OS E3. Rabada-Navarro, Naranjo de Bulnes.
MTG: E5 by end of September. 7b by end of year.
LTG: Long hard (for me) rock routes in the Alps, Dolomites, Picos and Scotland. 7b+ RP.

285
M - S: tweaked elbow, so just general fitness and specific shoulder and hip exercises.
S - Fly to Santander, drive to Sotres, hiked the 1000m ascent to the Uriellu hut beneath the imposing west face of Naranjo de Bulnes. It looked great.

286
M - High winds shaking the hut, procrastination, attempted Rabada-Navarro, admitted defeat after 5 pitches, far too windy. Multiple teams bailing off routes and storm clearly on the way. Poor forecast, so walked back down to the valley.

T - Cloudy and showery.  Went to Las cabadas, super family-friendly venue. Warmed up and tried a crimpy, technical 7a that H had just done. Got through the crux on the flash but punted off the very last move. No mistakes on the next go. Satisfying to get a 7a off the back of little climbing this year but the route was totally my style, like a Pembroke E4 on bolts.

W - The amazing Rumenes, best tufa climbing in Asturias according to the guide. Good enough to attract a friendly group from Aix away from their usual summer venues Ceuse and the Tarn. "The first time the imposing routes on the upper sector are encountered it can be a little startling" says Roca Verde. I found the leaning zebra-striped walls very intimidating, as were the bronzed Adonises, insouciantly on-sighting 7c+s. I felt out of place with my pasty skin, comfy shoes, trad. draws, and an 8.2mm rope ("la corde ...eeez a leetle thin?"). I'd not encountered proper tufa-wrestling before. I tried a 7a+, getting completely shut down 4 bolts up. This wasn't real climbing, the holds were far too big! I was like someone who couldn't jam on a Yosemite crack, I had a whole new set of moment skills to learn. I had a mental block about the climbing, the scene, and I have a ongoing block about working routes. My mood wasn't helped by the arrival of the locals, one of whom attempted to muscle in on a 7a I was waiting to try, Los cojones de Satan. The meat of the route was 10m of 35 degree leaning wall to the eponymous dangling bits. Once tucked between the balls and scrotum, a rest of sorts was possible. The charming local started up a parallel route using the last few bolts of cojones. He didn't cruise it, meaning I was stuck behind the bollocks for half an hour.  Once the route was free again I had to revive my numb legs and try hard to avoid fluffing the final section. I wouldn't normally award myself a YYFY for on-sighting 7a but this felt like a battle won in several respects.



T - Fly back to UK.
F - Easy session on autobelay at the Westway.
S - Fly to Munich, drive to Frankenjura (37C temps.).
S - Gods behaving badly at Bayreuth festival.

Disappointing not to be able to give the Rabada-Navarro a good go, but a three day trip was always going to be risky.  Asturias climbing can be strongly recommend. The crags allow climbing from spring all through to autumn. It would make an excellent venue for a family trip, many crags are very child-friendly. There is good cycling and excellent mountain walking in the Picos. Apparently there are good beaches 30 mins away on the coast. The Roca Verde guide is an excellent introduction to the area. 

Plan: a week of high culture at Bayreuth festival (is there any bouldering near Gößweinstein?) and various other family trips in August. Sneak out for some real rock and see what 7a translate to on trad. Hone fitness for Swiss multipitch rock routes in September

[fatneck]

Some good sounding weeks chaps! Realised I didn't post last week, this was mainly due to super busy week of work and prepping for an interview on the Friday. Managed one shit session at the Hangar at some stage... Went on holiday to the wonderful Lleyn after interview (which went well) and enjoyed beach stuff and swimming in the sea with the family Sat, Sun..

Mon - swimming in the sea, pretty stressed until I found out I got the job at 5pm! YYFY!! Good food and wine beer
Tue - more swimming/beach games etc ditto on the good food and wine/beer!
Wed - Wife's b'day, monster crabbing session more good food and beer..
Thur - Marched/ran into Talfarach to fish, lots of mackerel, met up with Sack Off Sam, Owen, Rich and Laura, left them to it. Stormed back up the hill drove to Aberdaron to meet family on the beach and spent a good hour in great waves belly boarding, great fun! Met up with aforementioned helms and wives/partners at pub for evening meal - lovely
Fri - pack up holiday home, hit beaches at Towyn, Lots of swimming and beach games, drive home
Sat - Tal Y Fan with Sack Off Sam and Crouchy. Great circuit on good rock in a brilliant setting! Didn't manage to do anything hard but did lots of quality 6's.
Sun - nowt

Great holiday and only put on 2lbs Back on the diet this week!

[Muenchener]

is there any bouldering near Gößweinstein?

Oh yes, very much so. Much of it is secret/undocumented/locals only for access & environmental reasons. I'm not a local, insider or boulderer but here are a few of the documented bits I'm aware of; you might need to look at a copy of the routes guide - or the invaluable frankenjura.com - to locate some of them:

Left of / below Devil Wall at the Hexenküche
Plecher Klippen on frankenjura.com
Low traverse of the Isolation buttress at Grüne Hölle
Klagemauer - old school, polished. The Minus Ten of the 'jura
Vergessene Welt - there's some bouldering in an old edition of the routes guide but not any more.

(Aso, define "near". The above are all within 20-30 km; I'm not at all familiar with the crags in Gößweinstein itself)

[petejh]

Nice one Duncan! I bought the roca verde guide from a bookstore in San Sebastian whilst on a short visit earlier this year after injuring my knee and bailing from Rodellar. I was blown away by how distinctly different the north coast of Spain is from the more typical spanish climbing areas; really psyched to do some trips to explore the Cantabria/Asturia/Leon sport climbing as well as some of the long routes on the Naranjo de Bulnes - have been watching your posts with interest! (along with tradding in Ordesa canyon, have been salivating over that guidebook too).

[Schnell]

Great trip report Duncan. It sounds like a well deserved YYFY.

[Nibile]

Easier week. Hit again by monster heatwave, very hard to train seriously. Very rewarding also.
M/LTG - board projects.

Mon - rest.
Tue - shoulder rehab; one foot bouldering +7 kg 1 problem; barbell walk, glute bridge, 2 min barbell weights complex x2.
Wed - rest.
Thu - shoulder rehab; BM max hangs; kettlebell, barbell weights complex x2.
Fri - shoulder rehab; dumbbells complex, jumps, abs x2.
Sat - rest.
Sun - shoulder rehab; ab rolls x2; power cleans 20-16-12-8-4 and back.

Very happy about the one foot bouldering, now super solid even with 1 kg more and 29 degrees at the board. Happy also about the BM, good session despite my dodgy shoulder, that is on the mend anyway, super high intensity. I still had forearm pain yesterday...
I am shocked by how I always manage to find new ways to thrash myself with the weights or finishers. Endless combinations, so painful.
Ate and drank too much.

[petejh]

STG: The Brute (by 6th Sept); Diamond new route proj; Detritus Wall trad proj; G.Orme trad proj.
MTG: Onsight attempts on The Hurting, Cathedral, Banana Wall, Anubis (next winter)
LTG: 8c (within 2.5 years)


PE phase and route'ing.

M. Massage.
T. Core and mobility workout.
W. Diamond. Crap conditions as expected - unclimbable for mortals. Bolt-to-bolted up proj to the top crux and looked at the moves for first time since last October. Ticked the holds, got a sequence and left all the draws in. Worthwhile sesh in retrospect.
T. Diamond. Good conditions. Warmed up by bolt-to-bolting to two-thirds height on proj. 1st redders - sent! yyfy my first grade 8 new route and it's one of the best of it's grade around, a real classic! 35 metres, no hard moves jsut loads of great climbing and an out-there final crux. 'Shine On'. It'd be a classic on any crag in the world. Go and do it!! (in good evening condtions). Fitties will lap it up.
F.
S. Diamond. Poor smeggy conditons, as expected. Got on The Brute for the first time to look at the moves. Amazing climb with brilliant moves, very inspiring. Can't wait to try it in good connies. Tides too early and it was obviously getting mint as we were leaving, pity.
S. Foot-on campus sesh. 2min45secs on, 5min30 off. x 5. Good sesh, totally beasted, failed on 4th rep at 2.15 and 5th rep at 30 secs.

As predicted the proj went down as soon as I got a little fitter. Now switching to get fit for the Brute and try to knock off the two trad projs in-between redpointing.

[cheque]

yyfy my first grade 8 new route and it's one of the best of it's grade around, a real classic! 35 metres, no hard moves jsut loads of great climbing and an out-there final crux. 'Shine On'. It'd be a classic on any crag in the world.

Nice one, sounds amazing!

[tomtom]

Su: << Norfolk to Manchester

You missed out big time on Donkey Day, including M jnr's triumph in the Bursting Balloons With An Excavator challenge. First placed child, fourth overall. The Adam Ondra of digger driving.
[/proud dad]

:D

[rodma]

M: speedy post-work weights foliowed by dynamic campussing (open handed) session
T: post-work campussing, half-crimped and two finger-dragged (not very god at this)
W: wall session, ok but seriously low grip strength which means I'm doing something right.
T: Resty
F: get the van back post MOT success :D which is a YYFY on its own since we're off to font in three weeks' time
S: Nothing, the wee man is poorly so we take it easy
S: just a wall session, since wee man still not ok. climb reasonably strongly but don't feel strong

[Neil F]

S - Gods behaving badly at Bayreuth festival.

Much as I'd like to climb on Naranjo de Bulnes, this is the really big news!

How long ago did you buy your tickets?  How was Das Rheingold?  Only 3h to go to Walküre...

Envious doesn't really begin to describe how I feel...

Neil

[Sasquatch]

Sounds like many have had an excellent week! 

STG - Work Byron Glacier Project and 8a project next to it.
MTG - Tahoe trip in October, Byron Glacier Project / training over the winter, hang BM2K 45's
LTG - Byron Glacier Project

After low motivation weeks, I decided I needed to pull my head out of my ass and just get on with training.  Surely something would appear to inspire motivation.  Two things did this week that left me on a high.

M - FB working small crimps and bm2k 45's.  body strength stuff-core, shoulders, legs

T - Bouldering - shoe testing. I had several pairs of boreals sent to me by the regional boreal rep, so spent some time in the gym testing. 

W -  FB working small crimps and bm2k 45's.  body strength stuff-core, shoulders, legs

Th - Outside session at old wall developed in early 90's.  Warmup flashing a 5.11a, and OS'ing a 5.11c, then got on a "12b" which was nowhere close to 12b, and is now my new long term project.  VERY Stoked by it.  I mentioned it on two different threads, but it's an 85 foot just less than vertical line with a shockingly blank section in the middle 40 feet.  25 feet of 12b/c to the 3rd bolt and a good rest. Then 4 back to back boulder problems through the next 4 bolts, each ending with a stance that allows clipping and a poor shake/rest.  Then 20 feet of glory 5.11 climbing to the anchor.  No idea how hard it'll be in the end, but the moves are delicate, hard, and amazingly all there. 

F - 30min bike, then dinner and drinks 

S - FB, sm crimps and 45's, then 20th high school re-union activities. 

S - 20th high school re-union activities, followed by hosting a going away party for a friend.  Too much food and drink. 

Heading back out on Tuesday to the project, and we'll see how day 2 feels now that I know most of the major beta.  Hoping it still feels completely nails, but doable.  I'm hoping for high 8, but we'll have to see. 

[kelvin]

Bloomin' 'eck - good stuff going down here. Waddage added when I'm back home but reading this has the psyche high! I managed to tick Salbit Sudgrat from the valley in 7hrs, 2000m in total and even been bagging 2nd ascents on Rene's newly bolted granite crag in Gosherenalp.
Full report to come.

Sent from my XT1039 using Tapatalk

[shurt]

well done all. much psyche.

m - knackered from work on wend
t - worked from home
w - more work at home then got motivated and did a few sets on the fingerboard for the first time in ages as well as a couple of sets of press ups. felt pretty weak and back hurt
t - see tues
f - enjoyed weather worked in evening
s - more line painting in car park (hot day). had shiatsu in evening.
s - more line painting got all spaces marked out (170) and nearly all the numbers. Should have it nailed next weekend.

Hoping to go climbing this week or do some more training. Feel like some motivation is beginning to return.

[shark]

11.5-6

M. Freeway. Squamish's answer to Astroman - kind of. Unfortunately I fell off on the crux and dogged it then took a proper leader fall off one of the pitches of the Express finish. Toby however did it all clean, the bastard
T. Eve Bouldering with Ben and Tom. Did thre popular V4's - Superfly, Superfly Lunge and Sloppy Poppy. Started working Superdaddy Long Limbs V6 whilst boys were stuck in on Sloppy Poppy. Found a kneepad method to do the start to a hueco but fell off slopey rightwards exit.
W. Raining. Went to Chek Canyon the wet weather go-to crag but good routes already taken so went and held Toby's ropes at Rogues Gallery whilst he cleaned and bolted a new route.
T. Embarked on a mini camping road trip. Stopped off at the esoteric and beautiful sea cliff - Stillwater Bluffs at Powell River and did some easy soloing top roping and bouldering
F.
S. Late soggy return from camping / road trip
S. Eve Soggyish bouldering. Dried the holds and worked the exit of Daddy Long Limbs.

Back to UK today 

Its been a great trip.