Dry-tooling maestro!

Who'd have thought it, me coming home with a prize for dry tooling and Andy coming home with nothing??!! Ok, ok I admit he wasn't in the same category as me, being male and he didn't compete in the round on saturday because he'd just had his neck and shoulder pummelled by a massage person, and yes he'd have been able to complete all 5 problems with barely breaking into a sweat but the fact remains I won and he didn't!!

Yes, on Saturday we headed over to Rock Over Climbing in Manchester for the final round of their Great Winter Rock Over League, which is a bouldering competition all afternoon followed by a dry tooling competition for those daft enough to have a go and waving the pointy sharp things around. There were 4 rounds but Andy and I only managed to get to 2 of them due to being away and stuff, but we were keen to get along to this last round as the previous one we went to was really good, nice problems, friendly atmosphere, daft climb-off final and lots of prizes - winner!
Unfortunately someone decided to shut a pretty key road on our journey so we spent nearly 2 hours in the car getting to the wall so only had about 1hour 20mins to get out bouldering scores - wasn't the best either of us has ever done, but I still got chucked into the climb-off by default as I think some other women refused!! The climb-off involves 1 problem and being timed. I neither finished the problem or was the fastest - hey ho, good to keep the side up for the older folks - the other girls were teenagers!

Ok, not indoor dry tooling but the only photo I can find of me wielding tools!

Anyway bouldering over, Andy went to have a chat with the free physio folks from Global Therapies about his lumpy neck, they gleefully inserted their thumbs and left Andy feeling a little bit like his arms didn't work anymore and with the advice that he shouldn't do anything for the rest of the day. So this meant that although I hadn't brought any pointy things with me Andy gave me his and pretty much demanded that I get involved. He'd brought along his super shiny and super curved Ergo's so I had a go with them. The format is that there are 3 top-rope short routes and then a couple of long traverses on the bouldering wall. I managed 2 top-ropes first go, and then had a go on the traverses - one of them involved having to climb through a hula-hoop halfway along, which I managed and then fell off getting out of a rest stop a little further along. Not too bad and having then seen most other folk fail to get through the hoop I felt quite chuffed! The next traverse all went pretty well until it came to going across the underside of a roof - holds were a long way apart and I haven't quite got the figure of four thing to try that so off again. The final top-rope was steep and got pretty tricky in the middle as you went up to the top of the panels and then launched out into a chain and a hanging board. I blame the hopeless inability to deal with leashes for not getting up that so well, but I did have a go at the whole thing after a brief sit on the rope.

So, climbing over and with scores in it turned out that I had won the round for the girls class (think I was about 3rd overall including the boys) and the series........ the prize.......... a pair of Boreal shoes when I decide which ones I want and a 12 session pass for Rock Over - awesome!! Oh and a bottle of wine too.
Pretty glad Andy persuaded me to get involved in this round and the earlier one, shame he wasn't fit to climb as I think we might have managed a clean sweep for the round at least!

Winter......ah yes I remember now!

It's been quite some time since I wrote anything on this blog. When I started it it was a winter blog...... last year I missed out on winter so it changed a bit. Well this year I am mostly missing out on winter by living in the Peak District but I have just had my hit to Scotland so thought I'd share what I've been up to.

My main reason for heading north of the border was actually work, I had a week hanging out with the University of Derby students. We had a great week of mixed weather and pretty lean conditions but managed a day on Aonach Mor, a lap of Dorsal Arete, some Ice Factor action and then I got nasty snotty germs so sent Andy out for an extra day whilst I stayed snuggled up under a duvet.

Team photography - pointing their big lenses at Andy

Next on the list was Andy working for Mountain Equipment over at Alltshellach on the winter skills courses for Cotswold staff, and boy did they have some good kit testing conditions - a whole lot of damp and windy days out.

Then we headed east for Lukasz's Photography Workshop, Andy was the model and I was the safety/chef/logistics/anything else person. Luckily the sun shone and the crags were white so all turned out perfectly.......a bit more snow would have been good but can't have everything.

Enjoying some scottish spindrift.

Work over, Andy and I decided that it was high time to get me back on a proper winter route. Now Andy has a slightly over inflated view of my ability to mixed climb - I know I'm incompetent and have not the faintest idea what I'm doing, Andy just thinks I'll be fine!! That's the trouble with these people that are too talented for their own good! So he decided that we should head into Coire an-t Schnechda and get on The Message. All sounded fairly feasible, but after a weekend of beautiful cold and super calm conditions it had of course, decided to start being quite breezy and snow, so the route was somewhat buried by fresh snow. This does not make it easy to spot the placements for your axes and crampons especially when you have no idea what you are really looking for either! I think I'll gloss over the crux pitch.......I suspect it was good there wasn't anyone else close to us on the crag to hear the wailing that was going on. More than once I heard myself say "I just don't know how to do this. I don't understand how to get up here" and other phrases along the same lines, some might not have been quite so polite either!
It's a very strange feeling to be standing on a crag looking all around at the various holds and just not knowing what to do.......I know it would be super easy if it wasn't covered in snow and I was wearing rockshoes, but I wasn't!

Anyhow, I survived and managed not to drop any axes although it was a pretty close thing at one point with me catching the axe between my thigh and the crag! Phew, I don't think I'd have been too popular if I'd chucked a Nomic off the crag.

The look of confusion.....

The next day we were back west and heading out with Dave Macleod for a blast on his project which became Castle in the Sky - check out M.E. blog and Dave's blog for more on that.

Now back home and happy to have done a route but think I'd have preferred something a little easier in hindsight......or maybe just less buried in snow would have been better, that's what Andy tells me anyway.
Good PINK jacket though - thanks Gus.