Bouldering again

It's been about a year since I've done any bouldering outside, the last time being the trip to font which I made a video about. To my surprise it has almost 10k views on youtube now! Yesterday we went to Dinas rock, we being myself, Rory and Kelly. It was the first time for Kelly my second time there after a cheeky session there for the first time last week. The weather was drizzly and wet, the day before had been torrential rain too.. but according to Rory Dinas is *northern accent* "An all weather crag". We arrived and everything on the walk in was soaked.. but the man was right, Kennelgarth wall was completely dry, other than some slightly seeping holds. The waterfall was blasting and much more vicious than the last week after all the rain.

Flashing Mongrel Mob V7

We warmed up on some V1's/3's and quickly moved onto some V6's. Rory did 'The mongrel mob' V7 and I managed to flash it, with it being the first flash of that grade for me. Good start! Then me and Kelly moved onto 'launch pad' V6, taking a fair few more goes than I'd hoped! I had a play on 'Fat cat roof' V9, a line i'd like to try and project. I did all the moves, but struggling to string it together. It was a lot more slippery than the week before. Rory was doing well on his projects, making tracks on 'The Carpenters apprentice' V12 and 'Fat Cat into Taylor made' V10. He was also on 'Saluki' a V8+ which has a bit of an awkward cross under move to finish on to the undercut of 'Launch Pad' V6.

Kelly on the crux of 'The Groove' V7

Next up was 'The Groove' a painful V7 which requires you to take two limestone teeth, like a pocket, jamming your fingers together and making a strong move from this. I went for the flash, and almost did it, tearing some skin on the teeth! I wrapped up the fingers and did it second go, just! Rory then dispatched it and Kelly came up with some technical beta and managed to do it all, but somehow fell off going from the jug after the crux, the the slot finishing jug! Too much skin had been eaten, so this one will have to be next time, first go, no doubt!

The sun came out for a bit, and it seemed like the luscious light that you get in font! We finished on 'Paper Boy' V6, which was proving to be a bit of a pumpathon after a days worth of climbing. Both me and Rory did the hard climbing, only to fail matching the last hold!!  It was a good day, a nice reminder as to why bouldering is also a legitimate form of climbing for me.

Rory holding the teeth on 'The groove' V7

Here Rory battles with the biting fingerlock on 'The Groove' V7. Have a look at my Flickr for more photos from the day. So for me this is the start of a season of bouldering. Having made a topo for Dinas, similar in style to 'The mothership' topo at TCA. I have plenty of problems to work through, and a lot of psyche to ride on. I've done a lot of sport climbing this year and feel like a change. The feeling of trying 100% and the non committed fun feeling of bouldering has caught up with me once again. Especially as were building a woody in our spare room at the house. I can see a lot of training, or perhaps just a lot of tendons popping over the next few months! I'm keeping weekends free for trips up to the peaks over the next few months. I've only been up there once, and need to discover much of the classic grit boulders. Having seen everyone com back from Rocklands in South Africa, I'm starting to feel the psyche to plan a trip there for next year!

Finally back into blogging, like I said before I'll be keeping up with it, I'm always too slack with it all! It's quite easy to sit down and write when the weather is so bad.

Rory and Kelly having a banana break at Kennelgarth Wall

Dinas Rock

Another Timelapse

Woow It's been ages since I updated my blog. Why? Because I've been completely slack and lost the blogging flow. It's been an unproductive summer for climbing, due to working a lot and consistently bad weather (I know it's not an excuse!). I've started editing my main timelapse of Bristol, although it didn't snow last year, and I still need to gather a couple more shots to bring it all together. I don't think i'll wait for it to snow though..

This is a warm up to the main timelapse, although the exposure and angles are a bit off. I wasn't so savvy with the settings when I filmed it (early last year). Anyway here's a cheeky edit of the houses behind our house getting demolished!


More frequent updates soon, I have lots to talk about but need to get used to splurging it all over my blog!

Escape to Kalymnos!

I've just got back from hiding away on the greek island of kalymnos for 3 weeks. It appears that half of the Bristol climbing scene had also been hiding on the same island to my surprise! After having an exciting time getting to the airport and nearly missing my flight, I managed to make it to the island with David Collom, who recently messaged me on climbkalymnos.com for a climbing partner. Luckily he turned out to be a sound chap and we got to the crushing right away. I had a good first day, onsighting 3 7b's at kasteli. The next day we went to Irox at telendos with a large group with the seronade of Fat Freddy's drop under the sun on a sweet boat ride. I managed to almost flash Cuobo 7c, and got it second go.

 After the a good start, the weather decided to crap out with hurricane style winds and the heaviest rain I've ever seen! The pond between Kalymnos and Telendos turned into a Hawaii style big wave scene and we took refuge inside for a few days, running to the crags between the storms whenever possible. After the first week and a half, the weather started warming up and drying out. At first it was a decent 24C or so but everyday it was getting a lot hotter. By the last two weeks of the trip the temp was usually a minimum of 26 with the highest temp recorded at Babis bar of 33C!! Not exactly prime conditions. Despite this being a good excuse for me, Naomi had managed to have more success. She had been travelling for two months, with a month in Antalya, Turkey and then a month in Kalymnos. Before her trip she had only climbed 6c, and I knew she could climb much harder routes. I got her to try Dafni, 7b which she redpointed in two sessions! I then recommended Spartacus 7b+ which only took a couple of sessions as well. In all really impressive stuff, and great to see her motivation and determination! She's one to watch out for people! I've already pointed her in the direction of some good 7c's that she can easily do ;)

Not a snorkeling day..

For a few days I had been working on Daniboy 8a, after doing it in two links from the ground to the half way knee bar, and from there to the top I thought it was on! The knee bar is a no hands rest but as I started finding out on redpoints, it didnt fit my leg properly. Requiring me to cam my arm in to keep the leg in, which didn't help me recover at all! As a French climber pointed out, it's only a no hands rest if your leg is long enough. After getting frustrated climbing past the knee bar with no rest, I decided the route was going to have to wait until another trip when I'm fit enough to push on without it.

 I moved my focus onto Marci Marc, a beautiful 7c+ coming right out of the heart of the main cave at Odyssey. The route is 35m long, probably 25 degrees overhanging and pure endurance! It starts with a v4/5 boulder which doesn't add much to the grade as there is a good hands off rest straight after. It then continues up the heart of the cave as a 7c route on reasonable holds until you get to the last set of 3 moves, probably around v4 again, with little rest before it, with big slappy moves off soapy small crimps with massively pumped forearms. (mine were anyway!) In the end I spent a few days on the route, but no cigar. On my last attempt I held the last sloper, and my heel popped a moment later just after I thought I had done it. A lesson learnt to keep concentration! This is one I'll have to finish next time as well!

Not the most productive trip for hard routes for me, but the conditions were really bad which is a good excuse right?! With redpoints usually being made in 28C (shade) heat and tufa blobs having similar consistency to butter! The last few days were good, onsighting some 7a+ and 7b's which for me is an achievement as my onsighting usually isn't that good relatively. Before the trip I had a phobia of 7a+ as I usually fall off them, but I tend to onsight every 7a and most 7b's. Luckly I managed a lot of 7a+ onsights too which is a good mental thing for myself. Tomar did well redpointing a handful of 7b/+'s and Jay did really well onsighting 7b and climbing many more mid 7's very quickly.

A lot of the trip was spent at Babis' bar, with lots of swimming pool antics. It was lush getting a load of sun, and I've now changed colour to a glowing orange with most people probably thinking I've spent a month on a tanning bed in Bristol no doubt. It was a great trip, with loads of fun memories thanks to the entire Bristol crew, Seb, Jochen our german friend, Zach/Sean/Shelby the Americans, Jay and David etc!

Lobbing Steve 

Shelby doing her silk trapeze

For more photos from the trip, have a look on my FLICKR. Luckly I pulled my finger out this trip with the photo's so there are actually some gems in there.

I might return later in the year to clean up some routes, and as always there was so much left to try, I don't think any amount of time is long enough on the Island. It's a really enticing place to climb. The weather is usually really good, the beach is right there, the crags are mostly very near by, the food is cheap, the people are friendly and the climbing is ridiculous in nature with huge holds, which often turn into caving more than climbing!

I'll post more blog posts soon, as always I become out of touch with blogging. I hope theres some people out there reading this stuff! I'll leave a video of Marci Marc, by Robbie Phillips. The move I came off  3 times was literally the last move in the video before it fades out...

How can 3 and a half weeks go so fast..
I'll be back!!
Time for some fun in the English sun????! I'll be around all summer now for bolt clipping. Give me a call people!

Route setting time lapse

Heres a new time lapse route setting at the climbing academy (bristol).

I've wanted to do this for 6 months but kept missing the opportunity. It came out pretty well, although I might have made it 4 second intervals instead of 6 seconds next time.

El camino del rey, El chorro, close calls

A video of El camino del rey from my recent get away to El Chorro. The trip stretd with the plan of meeting Brad at 5am at bristol airport (with our flight at 6). I got there and called him for him to tell me "Fuck, I overslept. I'll be there in a bit" and hung up on me! He had to come from Taunton and I didnt think he'd make it. Luckly he was only a minute too late so running through security we made the flight! We only had 4 days away, and as our pickup from the airport got the time wrong, we ended up getting to the olive branch with effectively 3 days. The first night we met a lot of new faces at the olive branch, many faces we new already knew like top british climber, James Mchaffe and a few familiar Britolians!. The first day we decided to walk the famous camino del rey through the gorge. The path was built in 1905 and is an 'observation walkway'. There were people dressed as santa walking it too that day but I didn't manage to document that! :( With some very dodgy makeshift via ferrata kit we set off with our solo heads on. In all honesty the path wasn't too bad, much of it had fallen away leaving big gaps where you had to walk on thin train track beams with 100's of metres of exposure each side of your feet. The holes in path made me feel a little uneasy though, as if any step could push through the floor any moment!

Brad pushing it 

After the kings walk we hiked another 40 minutes towards El Makinodromo, a crag where there is one of the most famous routes in spain: 'Lourdes' (8a). I realised after 8 clips in, I wasn't up for it as the sun was setting, we only had two days left and more places to see. So ill have to be back next year with a weeks more time to have a good go at it! Apparently there can be as many as 14 no hands rest on this stalactite obstacle course.. although I think I only found about 2!

Lourdes, (the featured overhang)

The next couple of days, we went to the big cave at 'frontalis'. I managed to onsight Poema De Roca (7a) which reminded me much of DNA at kalymnos. Brad who has climbed his maximum RP of 7a set to work but fell near the end a few times. He ended up sun bathing for a couple of days which he seemed pretty happy about anyway! I was trying 'Veijo Traidor' a hard pumpy continental style 7b+ a few routes to the right. It was a brilliant line taking on 30 metres of overhanging rock with only one semi rest near the end before some hard clips and long moves through 2 finger pockets. I put in the draws and fell near the end on the first redpoint, the sun was setting again so we came back the next day before we had to drive to Malaga and jump on the plane. I had about 3 more redpoints at Vaijo Traidor, falling off one move from the end every go. You can imagine my frustration! I guess my endurance wasn't up to it from lots of bouldering, then a few weeks off before the trip.

On Vaijo Traidor

Off Vaijo Traidor

After a lot of misinformation at the airport, we ended up running to the plane with last calls for 'Tris West and "Bradley cox" even though we had been told we couldn't go through security until 40 minutes before the flight was set to leave! We had been waiting at a cafe for 3 hours just next to security! We got to the gate, I got through but they held Brad up, as the check in assistant didn't stamp his NON EU ticket. " You have to go back and get it stamped! " .. we both knew there was no time, and I made the tricky and probably selfish decision to go ahead on the plane "Brad call me if you get stuck in spain!". A few minutes later after he had managed to plead with the gate staff he made it onto the plane to my surprise! Even then the air steward was a bit suspicious why he didnt have half of his ticket (As the gate staff had torn it off). They let him on and he got sat on the plane with me taking the piss that we were going to start moving, then there would be a call for Bradley cox and the flight would turn round and he would be escorted off again! He wasn't amused.

Great trip in all, got lots of sun and unless I decide to go to Thailand next year, we'll be back for more ;)

More photos to be found on my FLICKR

A few more from anstey's

Heres another video from the summer climbing at Anstey's with Sash, Brad, Laurent, Andy etc. I had to edit this thing twice due to it crashing the other day!

Queens Sq Exhibitioon

Last night was the opening of our exhibition 'Depreciated skill' at the Bath literary and science institute on queens square. This for all of us but Astrid, is our first showing of work post-graduation. Joe Rawlingson took on the role of curator organising the space and gathering the troops, so a big thanks to Joe! It's almost entirely painting and much of the work shown is portraiture and still life with some of my abstract works mixed in there. 


There was a great turn out and the exhibition continues for two, possibly 3 more weeks from the 21st of November, so do the maths and if you think you have time, or you happen to be in Bath go and have a look as it's a really strong exhibition! I've started painting a series of pieces for the next exhibition, It's been good to keep the ball rolling since finishing the BA and to keep it going with some momentum!

Click here for directions

For a few more photos of the night check out my FLICKR

Artists showing:

Sara-Jane Swettenham- http://sarajaneswettenham.wordpress.com/

Anna Robson- www.annarobsongartell.com

Astrid Foreman- www.astridforeman.com 

Jo Rawlingson- http://pureagainstthegrain.blogspot.com/ 

Patrick Houghton