It's a wrap.

Classic route Valkyrie - no excuse with cameras everywhere!

Phew, well that's been a busy week! After the miracle of sunshine in North Wales we all headed over to the Peak and the Don Whillans Memorial Hut at the Roaches became our base for the second half of the shoot. The Whillans Hut is a curious place, built into a huge boulder/rock face, the kitchen area is rather damp with the rock making the walls, in fact there was an indoor water feature for most of the first evening! The rest of the house is more conventional and we all had a comfortable stay - although we would like to suggest to the BMC (who lease and look after the hut) that some comfy sofas would be a massive improvement - the wooden pew type benches in the lounge area are very difficult to lounge on!!

Trev and I had permission for a morning off on Wednesday, so I did a quick lap of the Llanberis Pass - Gwynant circuit (well, Ok not that quick!) before we headed over. We arrived at the Roaches and the rain had already begun, it continued to turn into a complete downpour which meant we weren't able to get any filming of climbing nice routes done. The rest of the crew arrived that evening and we suffered a few midges and a BOILING night of not much sleep before waking to the sunshine and wind - what a result! Midges were kept down and the rock dried out.
With loads of different things to film we were razzing around and filming things in a somewhat random sequence - luckily Ben and Rich know what order things are supposed to be edited in, and Jon and Dave kept a good track on what we needed to do.

Cameras everywhere!

Trev powering up through the roof on The Sloth

Managed to get quite a bit of actual climbing done over the course of the day, Valkyrie, Sloth, some bouldering, and all with a bit of sun. How good is the Sloth - unbelievable territory, and luckily HUGE holds. I've never done it before so that's another route off my ticklist T-Rex and The Sloth in one week - pretty good going, suppose I ought to lead Sloth next time.....

So, this is how you place a cam!

I'm slightly concerned about how this film is going to turn out, especially as Rich and Ben were filming some of the more random things I was doing, they were gleefully saying that they'd got great footage of my trying to warm up at the bottom of T-Rex - Rich said he couldn't believe how long I was jumping up and down and dancing around! It was really cold!!

Jonny G cranking on Mushin'

Even Ben Pritchard managed to take a  little break from filming to get on Mushin' 

Andy and Mac came out to hang out with us so there are more photos from this part of the week - thanks Andy!

Film star!!

About 2 months ago I had a somewhat bizarre phone call from Jon Garside (BMC person and friend, and one of Andy's regular climbing partners). He wanted to know whether I would be interested in becoming a film star! The next in the series of the BMC "Essentials" series was due to be filmed and this time it was Rock Climbing. For some reason Jon thought I'd be perfect for the job alongside Trev Messiah as "the experts"!!
So obviously I decided that hanging out with Trev and Jon and Rich and Ben from Slackjaw didn't sound like too much of a hardship so said yes.

The week had been getting closer and my climbing rate didn't seem to be getting much higher but I figured I'd manage to still mostly look vaguely competent, and as the lovely people at Mountain Equipment had said I could have some shiny new kit, at least I'd be looking smart!!Thank you - loving my new Cabrera Hood jacket, been climbing in it both days and the Bastion is AMAZING - I've been jealous of Andy's for months so very happy with that! Bastion's not out in the shops yet but keep your eyes peeled. Also a thank you to Lyon Equipment for sorting me out with a new helmet and harness.
Half the film is being shot in North Wales which is where I'm writing this and then we are heading over to the Peak for some more action for the second half of the week. I must confess I was somewhat concerned that the monsoon had fully set in and we were going to be really struggling to get things done, but by some miracle - I think Jon must have sold his soul to the devil, we have been blessed with sunshine and dryness. Yesterday we headed into the Pass for some old favourites, Shadow Wall and Cemetery Gates.
Filming does involve an inordinate amount of time not moving all that quickly, and that's with Rich and Ben who are basically amazing and the help of Jn and Dave Rudkin to keep things running smoothly.

Today's mission was a wee bit more exciting - Jon had decided that it would be amazing if we could go and climb T-Rex down in Wen Zawn. A route which meant there was loads of stuff to show and discuss and film for the DVD. Now T-Rex is a route I've always kind of wanted to do, but been rather intimidated by the horror stories of slimy, greasy, off width crack climbing on the first pitch, so whilst I was happy to go and climb it there was ABSOLUTELY no way I was going first!! Over to you Trev! Luckily it was in perfect dry conditions today. After an almighty battle of squirming, thrutching, getting your helmet stuck, swearing and then laybacking at warp speed so as not to fall off I managed to arrive at the first belay, just about warm after being almost made of ice from belaying. The tides and film schedule meant no sun for us until leaving the second belay - brrrrrrr! I think Ben was highly entertained by the swearing and grunting that was coming through from my mic during the pitch but I suspect it won't make it into the film unless they get one of those bleeping things!!
Pitch 2 - also Trev's, was altogether more pleasant, lots of traversing and the crux is a kind of down step so the gear is below your feet when you make it as a second, but generally pretty nice.
Then it's a romp along the last pitch of Dream of White Horses and off to the pub for a nice dinner!!
I can safely say that I won't be doing the first pitch again anytime soon, but the other two - happily!

Off to the Roaches tomorrow, fingers crossed for some more sunshine.
DVD - out in time for Christmas apparently!
Signed copies will be available ;-)

Lynx in the Lynx's

Yesterday before the monsoon season kicked off again I went climbing with Keen Youth. We went to Wildcat in Matlock Bath. A crag I have never visited and neither of us had ever climbed at, Dan had visited before to take photos.
The approach is geriatric dog friendly - well theoretically unless said geriatric dog decides to wander off the obvious path and then go rolling down the slope! Luckily he seemed to avoid any injury and spent the rest of the day hanging out with rucksacks and helping Dan and I finish off our cold pizza lunches.
Unsurprisingly many of the route names at Wildcat have a catty theme, we decided to go for the Rockfax Top 50 routes on our first visit. Finding them is no easy task with the trees in full leaf, but we managed to navigate our way to the base of the right bit of crag and started on Lynx (HS 4b,4a). Luckily once in the right place some kind soul has scratched the route name on a boulder at the base! This was also the first outing for a new pair of Boreal shoes I managed to acquire after a lot of trouble - it's impossible to find small Boreal shoes to try on, I ended up making a bit of a wild guess based on a completely different model! Anyway, they arrived and I have now worn them for their first and very aptly named route, I think once they've stretched  a little bit they'll be fine but the left foot was pretty sore, which doesn't make for using the feet too well!

Lynx climbed we continued on to Golden Yardstick a pleasant VS and finished off with Cataclysm - a better HVS. All very enjoyable especially once I retreated to worn in shoes!! Thanks Dan for a good day.

Today as the monsoon has arrived and I'm a bit weak and feeble I didn't go out on my planned bike ride......it's not looking good for a stunning performance in the Etape Eryri in a couple of weeks time!
Whilst I'm on a bike theme -  did my first couple of 10 mile time trials over the last 2 weeks. Good time the first week, not so good the second, but it was definitely windier, tomorrow I'm on marshalling duty instead which earns me a bucket load of points for the Club Points table, way more than I'll ever manage otherwise!! Then back to Ashton for some more circuiting on tuesday - again I'm hoping I'll be better than last week which was frankly pretty poor even by my standards!!

Here's a bit of film from a few weeks ago - don't think the guy behind is gaining much drafting advantage!!!