font

font was good, felt brief and i came back with tips on my fingers which points to someone not giving it their all. mostly did circuits this time, was torn between the enjoyment of all the little gems and wanting to be climbing hard stuff. hard stuff as being practised by the lads seemed to mostly consist of overhanging lines involving core and finger strength which i knew i wasn't bringing on this trip.

isatis -came dangerously close to finding a line up beurre margot (sp?). in fact a climber/guide book present said it was a 7a line troubadours (rhs) but that seemed like nonsense. did the usual greats in the first area then wandered right down the end of the ridge. came pretty close on a 7a the lads were trying but that was pretty much it for my grade whoring for the trip. good long day.

91.1 - did first half of the red circuit, very enjoyable if a little too marbly at times.
cul de chien - did the latter half of the blues, much nicer rock and provided some almost missed gems.

95.2 - a mish mash, warmed up in the area at the end of the red circuit on some lovely lines. very briefly tried some hard stuff the lads were working then headed to half heartedly work the blue/red circuits not helped by occasional spits of rain. found our zen again in the core of 95 on the big slab and surrounds.

franchard sablons- perhaps not the best destination for a damp morning but inertia kept us there and it mostly dried as day wore on. some lovely lines, a place i'd like to return to dry. the irish mobs descended here and i found it interesting how strong a lot of folk were. the country is obviously getting stronger. meanwhile me and james climbed lots of blue slabs. (though it takes considerable strength of mind to use some of the credit card holds on the slabs.)

things i (re)learned
- generally speaking climbing outdoors regularly in ireland is insufficient preparation for climbing >6c in font.
-sat navs save lives.
-Formula1 is 60% the price of Etap. (Though Etap have very tastefully refurbished and the cute girl still works there.)
-FUN fm is the future of music. Or if the mood takes you, FIP fm is.
-Hertz are shit.
- There's a large population of Andorans in Paris.
-Flying pads over is too stressful. I think the pad rental market in font has to expand but still must book early next time.
- Don't join in halfway through someone else's trip. The wind down mindset can be infectious, so instead of "day 1" it's "3 days left."
- Maintain cell independence.
- Nurofen.
- Leave everything in the car.
- A climbing trip and a climbing holiday are two different things. Increased alcohol/buttered pastry intake & near pointless carrefour trips are the trademarks of the latter.
- Get the Frenchy burger in the Taverna in Font but only on the last night.
- 2-4 day trips can work very well if weather behaves.




a beautiful little line between a red and a blue in cul de chien.

brimful and thor

made the most of the perfect saturday by heading up to the grit again, started fierce early, picking up timmo at 7.45am. between jigs and reels and other pick ups probably actually only got to the brimstone barrier at 11. by fluke or design jimmy and joe joined us before very long and also another local michael, happy again to give us whatever beta we needed. brimstones acted as quite a suntrap, enough to make me climb topless until fear for my nipples made me put that shit away. the rock was as perfect as remembered, unfortunately the sun made it a little less than perfect conditions. still managed the groove after watching joe style his way up it. fantastic problem, one of the most sequencey i've come across, i probably would have spent weeks figuring out the more elegant solution. the top move is a peach. from here we headed around to brims. west, out of the sun and a bit dirtier but with some brilliant features/lines. the headline is another tricksy gem recently fa'ed by duffy which had us all (/john) addled trying to hold the vague slopey holds. very conditionsy, you could sense a few degrees difference would have made it quite doable. one to come back to. finding ourselves in a rush we busted up to tor mountain where we tried a couple of lines on the lower boulder which we'd lost to the rain previously. made progress but scrittle and dirt go the better of us, a rope, harness and a hard bristle brush will work wonders. then we can worry about the slabby top out which could very easily be the main event every time.

from tor to the blanch centre in under 2 hours where traffic snarls had tim practising his sorry face. thanks again to the local lads who were brilliant, very welcoming.

glenmalure

just realised this was 5th day on which explains a lot. headed down to glenmalure with tim to the waterfall boulder. after about 2 tries of the straight forward slab i was groaning with fontesque indigestion of the elbows. i grimaced my way through several efforts at the leftwards line but couldn't move beyond the pistol pinch and crimp. intially i could blame the conditions which were damp and scrittly but as it dried and tim progressed i had to suck it up. tim made it quite far but ultimately ran out of steam so we headed up to fraughan rock. i was quite disappointed with fraughan, the rock is dirty, with specific holds generally well cleaned but everything else green or lichen covered. pity cos there seems to be some lovely lines. the rib line drew us but the top out was too speculative on scrittly rock. also theres a big slab with 2 possible lines up it but its filthy. we quickly lost any mojo for the place and ended up on the sad and lonely boulder to finish ourselves off. tim nearly shit himself in the bulk of the mantle while i nearly popped my shoulder out. all set for font.




possibly a nice little mantle problem on the arse of the fraughan rock.

first lamper

intending only to coop last night bray suggested a trip to glendo to make the most of the clear skies and i found it difficult to say no. drove to kilmac in 40 mins, not used to driving with the rush hour traffic. bray gave me a bike with spd pedals and no saddle which was sweet of him. climbed the usuals, kept up my recent success rate on the rails then got superstars 2 nd time, the flash that got away. mantled grand on egg boulder, but zinged off the starting hold a couple of times on egg ss. could hold the upper section just about. found pathside traverse exhausting and couldn't do the mantle in behind pascals, really bottomed out on it so it points to a general core weakness currently. popped over to big jim, pottered. lamps only needed at this point about 7.15pm. noted that i really can't handle anything approaching a long session, with elbows and arms starting to creak worryingly around the 90 minute mark.

bullocked today, found arms tired very quickly which makes sense. could barely move on the campuses on reardons, which was annoying but in line with yesterday. john sent it after a very few casual efforts.

the weekend

went up to the mac waterfall on saturday in the pissings, should have turned around at loughlinstown but inertia kept me moving forward and i sat in the car park reading the papers until i could summon the energy to ignore the overpowering sense of wasted time. trudged in, dropped a rope down the craglet and bounced down the line i wanted to clean. didn't do a very good job, the brush getting too muddy early on rendering later cleaning efforts useless. the line is still nice but suffers badly from lack of a starting hold, with the first real hold something of a hop off the ground. difficult to really get a sense when everything was so miserable and wet. retreated to heathers for an all day breakfast, always good for what ails ye. can't be wasting petrol money on these trips now that i'm a student.



got up 3 rock on sunday late afternoon in a successful climbing/girlfriend combotrip. stayed on the middle boulder. tried new-to-me vertical line, aim to do 6 pure-ish straight up lines on it, might need spotter.

cooped tonight, felt better for the lack of climbing since thursday.