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August 17, 2009
no facebook in china
that's new, it worked last time I was here. Twitter is blocked too. But my blog isn't.
edit: and lolcats. China doesn't like lolcats.
Posted by yankinoz at 02:21 PM | Comments (1)
August 16, 2009
try try try try again - part 2
Last Sunday in Nowra I set out to better my all time hardest climb. Back in the 1990’s I had climbed as hard as 5.11b (about the equivalent of the Australian grade 22) and in the past year I’ve climbed several 22s and attempted a few 23s. Success on this outing would mean a new personal best while still a 40 year old. I searched the guidebook and settled on a 23 called Still Life (that’s 5.11d or 7a in other grading systems.) I found a few pictures of it on line – it looked technical and balancy and to be honest that suites my style so it seemed a good fit.
The day started with my pulling a hold off of a warm up climb and catching a fair bit of air as a result. (Exfoliator – 18 – um if you are a climber reading this, don’t bother with Exfoliator.) After the warm up I was ready to tackle Still Life. It looked hard in person but doable. My first attempt didn’t get very far – the opening moves were more powerful than I expected with a crux immediately past the first bolt. That was another power move and took a couple of goes to get it. I wasn’t confident I could repeat it. I proceeded to work the climb ‘bolt to bolt’ – that is I would climb a section, clip the rope in and have a rest – this allows me to learn the moves and know where the good and bad holds are. Turns out there’s a second crux at the top… oh great…
I did manage to do all the moves and got to the top with many rests. My next step was to top rope the whole thing – mostly to sort out the chunk between bolt 1 and 2 – but also to give myself some confidence that I can link all the moves together before I tried another lead. Then another climber asked if she could climb it. I pulled our rope and let her have a go – but also meaning that my next attempt would not be top roped.
She was warming up (ugh!) but hey – cool – seeing someone else climb something that is difficult for me makes it look more possible. She had climbed it before and had some tricks.. First was a different way to get from bolt 1 to 2 – she went left through some small but positive holds and it looked a lot easier then the way I was doing it (technical and balancy instead of power.) She used a different hand sequence from bolt 2 until the upper crux – in fact her belayer pointed out a ‘hidden’ hold that made getting to the upper crux a lot easier. As for the upper crux, she pretty much did what I did so that made me feel pretty good - at least I had done some of it right.
Second shot I did on lead – the technical bit from bolt 1 to 2 was not as easy as she made it look! I fell off it probably 3 times, maybe 4 before I figured out what to do with my feet and found a good sequence. As soon as I got through it I managed to keep going into the upper crux but fell off that bit. No worries, it wasn’t a ground up attempt anyway and I took the opportunity to work out the top a bit more (finding another ‘hidden’ hold as well.)
After 30 minutes rest and as much food as my nerves would let me intake I took the third shot: Power start felt weird but I got past the 1st bolt and rather ungracefully managed the technical moves up to the 2nd bolt. Still going strong the powerful moves were coming to me one after another I found myself at the last bolt, trying to catch some sort of rest before the last crux. Heading into it things felt good but Amy tells me I looked pretty ‘desperate’ – I ended up missing the hidden hold I just found – had my feet in the wrong spots for the last move – still managed to grab hold of the last hold and just needed to get my feet right so I could clip the anchors. I’m so close but it doesn’t count if you don’t clip the anchors! I fell off instead. One of those falls where you are falling long enough to think about the fact that you are still falling. My scream changed from the ‘darn I failed’ scream to more of a ‘when am I going to stop’ scream but the rope and gear all kicked in – pulling Amy off the ground a good 1.5 meters. All good and Amy lowered both of us back to the ground.
Amy suggested getting back on it right away – maybe I can use the adrenalin left from the fall – and the fact that I know I can not only do all the moves I can do them all in one go. Forth shot: excellent – the power start felt great and I moved smoothly through the lower crux. Just started to head into the powerful moves past bolt 2 and realised that I was running out of steam fast. Third clip and that was it – I sat on the rope for another rest seriously unsure if I could get back to the top even with rests. I was completely spent. It wasn’t easy but did manage to get to the top again. Tried some different things with my feet in the upper crux and then cleaned the climb. Yeah, I was a bit sad that I wasn’t able to set a new hardest climb but I knew that I gave it everything I had. I also knew that the next time I get on Still Life it I will be fresh - right after a warm up and I will send it. So what if I have to do that while I’m 41.
Posted by yankinoz at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)
August 14, 2009
try try try try again - part 1
or my last climb while aged 40.
After spending the better part of July either with or recovering from the flu we finally got out to some real rock climbing last weekend. Amy and I spent a relaxing Saturday afternoon at the Thompson's Sunrise crag in Nowra - getting used to the rock again. I found the climb Isengard (18/5.10a/6a)a nice re-introduction to Nowra climbing. The start of the climb is very similar to the Blue Mounatains with sharp flakes and positive edges, then around a corner the top 15 meters is slightly overhanging rounded, sloping pumpy climbing - ahh Nowra!
The plan for Sunday was to set a new personal best. more on that later.
Posted by yankinoz at 08:51 AM | Comments (0)
August 13, 2009
wonder if non-climbers think this is as cool as i do
probably not but have a look anyway (it's large)
Posted by yankinoz at 09:41 PM | Comments (1)
