glendo burn

without having thought about it much i sort of hoped my glendo muscle memory would get me through my outdoor rustiness but this turned out to be fanciful in extremis. got in there after a rainswept walk in and found the rock to be fine, twas windy as fuck. james and dave headed off up to the crag with their hemp rope and joss's hand-me-down helmets, if you squinted they turned sepia, while i thought i'd get some money in the bank bouldering the usuals. my warm up was fine, though i felt clunky and i clung onto holds far tighter than i needed. after that i couldn't touch anything. the pathside traverse i couldn't hold the swing. the egg mantle i exploded off the sit start 3 times. etc. headed up to the fin and found myself stumped on the fin arete for a worryingly long time. so once i'd done the pair of aretes i decided i'd try and regain some dignity up on the crag. after a long ped-like space out scree scramble i found the lads just finishing up, as the wind had apparently been too much. back down to the bloody boulders where we found the lads trying superstars. i tried a few times and got nowhere. we sniggered at the secret ingredient in trishes banana bread then they continued up valley and we headed out via the tripod boulder. managed the snatchy side pull line which causes me trouble at the best of times, a good project for someone just getting into the 6s. then out to zef's other boulder to try the straightforward looking little line, absolutely stunning granite. couldn't manage the burly beached whale mantle but really enjoyed the efforts, a good end to the day.

monday we headed to the infamous gravity and tried to ignore the fact that the weather was actually fit for outdoor climbing. gravity is big and there's a lot to do even before you consider that every problem is high and involves one or two more moves than one might be used to. i really think they've missed a trick by not putting in proper steep training facilities. it currently seems to provide something very different from the cooperatives, which is good but i think a wasted opportunity. you could fit the entire coop climbing space in a small corner and have all your training needs met under one membership. my own feeling is if you want to climb harder you're better off in a cooperative. gravity really succeeds in those bits the coop can't replicate, the thuggishly subtle full body moves like bridging or using volumes, and its high slabs. there was one particularly fantastic heel hook rock-over problem that we unfortunately only found at the end. i'd go back for that alone.

Gravitational pull

Have been vaguely following gravity wall's development despite myself and having now frequented a lesser version of a dedicated bouldering centre over here I'd actually be pretty excited about it. It's impressive how a bit of space and multiple angled/volumed walls can change the indoor climbing thing back closer to the playground spirit that climbing should always involve. I currently have to make a determined effort to climb on the 45' steep training wall as otherwise I'm just distracted by all the bright colours and weird shapes of the sparsely-holded other sections (though the steep wall also doesn't have very many woodies, which i have an unlikely fondness for.) And they seem to rejig a section of the wall practically every week which means there's always something new to go at. Time wise they open here early enough that people go before work and stay open until half ten every night. And i assume gravity will have equivalent hard training facilities alongside all the fun sections like the works.

I'm curious to see where all this leaves the cooperatives which need a minimum membership before the price just gets exorbitant. Will there be cooperative loyalty? should there be? Who will be the tipping point? Also what happens if gravity doesn't find the broader market its looking for? 120 ( who knows) boulderers is not a market.

Mightily looking forward to getting outdoors when i get home, might even get Sparkle out climbing, all the dads.

have settled into a rough routine of day on day off in the arch. unlike back in the coop, sessions tend to be at least 2 hours and my body complains if i go multiple days on. realised today i haven't got up anything harder than V4 which makes me think i am a lot weaker than i was. Then again i never used any grades in the coop and equally i suspect i always punched above my indoor weight when i was outdoors, or under-punched indoors or whatever. I'm getting used to using the volumes on the wall here, the range of possibilities in approaching a problem are both intriguing and mildly frustrating. I initially was leaving them out of problems thinking they weren't "in".

I had forgotten that the coop naturally contained a sample of people who were into bouldering, and interested in the coop on some level as a means to an outdoors end. The arch is a sort of UCD of bouldering, with a lot of people climbing at lower grades (V1/2) and just there for the climbing gym element. This isn't an elitist observation more that in my billy-no-mates state I'm often quietly looking to other people's efforts on problems to help figure my way up them and i have found myself in weird ability gap with few people making repeated attempts on the problems i'm trying.

Also people keep referring to problems as routes. I'm not sure if this is cultural or just people who have never been into routes proper so don't distinguish, but it jars with me in a grammar nazi kind of way.

There are many more girls climbing here, which seems to increase the number of lads with no tops on, shivering stoically.

southern sandstone

got down to the closest proper bouldering to london, the sandstone around tunbridge wells. a handy free online guide had photos of effectively every line but no topo. went to eridge green (high rocks apparently charge £10 to park). was initially very excited by the rock which seemed pretty much a corner of font. unfortunately the rock was a generally softer version of font, with some seriously sandy holds. despite this there seemed plenty to do if i had had a pad, which i probably won't get to bring over here until christmas. i'm now a member of a bouldering wall in the middle of town which i've been using quite a bit. have to had to lower my expectations of what i can currently get up, but now that i have, i have started enjoying it all again.

branson's back garden

got up to the art blocs today and was pleasantly surprised at their size and quality. it would have been better if both boulders were in the same field and not 3 miles apart but such are the complexities of modern art. as quarried granite there were occasional hints of dalkey shit friction but it was very sunny, other times it was a pretty sharp crimpfest closer to the scalp. the boulders were both high enough that you only want to top out if you're sure there's a feasible way down and the larger boreholes lower down had been filled in, i assume to stop kids getting out of their depth. One line caught my imagination on each boulder, both having foot faggotry as key. On the shoreditch boulder it was an arete/face line using a toe hook to stop a barn door from which you reach to the heinously smooth sloping rail of a bisected borehole. on the mabley boulder it was an overhanging corner involving more boreholes and a heelhook. i failed to top out either line which is a result really, considering its the only outdoor bouldering within cycling distance. skin pinked up very quickly.

both pics of mabley boulder. didn't want to leave my camera down at the shoreditch boulder, a couple of toothless drunks on bikes seemed far too keen on me getting to the top.

Mostly indoors

Fresh off the boat and currently contentedly unemployed, I've already visited the Arch, similar to dublin's own under a railway arch. Better though, obviously. Well organised with clear circuits to try. Found i could do most of the "hard" circuit when they were vertical or slab-like, with some lovely feature use that appealed to the contortionist in me. Anything steeper left me totally mat-bound reflecting my quiet/cave-less summer. Nice to know there is some baseline ability in there somewhere which does not fade with expanding waistline. Going to visit these http://www.peeruk.org/projects/frankland/john-frankland.html so i don't become a total wall rat.

so i have climbed since my grand announcement that I was back on the horse, but not much. various wanderings during the thesis but little enough climbing, getting out was the order of the day. did my first proper multi-pitches over in italy, 5 -6 pitches on lovely granite slabs, with some nice exposure near the top of one to keep me honest. this was mostly bolted so also served as my introduction to sport climbing. on other days did some single pitch stuff which was harder technically but the bolts tended to be generously spread. managed a 6b steep ( ie. between slab and vertical) crack on the last day which was a hard as I could do in my current dough boy state. really enjoyed the alpine stuff, found my headspace generally came very easily and enjoyed the sense of prolonged movement over rock which ireland can rarely offer. gina kept offering to go bouldering but i had no interest in going out and feeling weak as shit on 5s. also had an echo of how we felt at the fairhead meet pissing around on the boulders at the foot of such impressive cliffs. london offers neither cliffs nor boulders, so i'll see where my eyes go when i get there.