Visited Round Crag with Noaks, Oli and Miles. After a shower or two, really good conditions prevailed - overcast, cool and breezy. Warmed up a bit on the boulder then, after a quick top rope refamiliarisation and a few false starts on Pippi Longstocking, I got to the top. Great little solo. Though there's no gear (couldn't get anything reliably placed in the slot) I thought it was worth having a tied down belayer to stop you careering all the way down into the bottom of the dale in the event of a crash. The vid makes it all look fairly tame really but I found it quite exciting - messing up after you've got the slot would probably hurt a bit.
Next up, flashed Time Out (e3 6a) which I thought was a really good route. Quite hard too.
And so onto the steep arete line just to the right. I'd shunted it a bit but not fully managed the crux last visit. Found a better way to do said crux this time and 20 mins or so later, bagged it up on the lead. Used runners in Time out - seemed logical/sensible. Nice little slappy route. Was struggling to come up with a name so went with 'Fresh Arete' because of the nice conditions/weather and the moves are pretty fresh in the jive talking sense of the word. Definitely easier than Pippi, gone for E5 6b.
Another good day all round really!
Round Headpointing from Ram Man on Vimeo.
03/08/10
Familiar ground - Raven's Scar with Noaks this time. I tried a couple of things on a rope and found out a couple of things. The Arete is definitely in need of a direct solution. I found a feasible sequence climbing it on the steep left hand side. Couldn't manage the moves but certainly 'felt' them and I reckon it's more likely doable (for me anyway) than the arete direct on the right hand side. Really good cold conditions, good skin and Font8A (+?) boulder ability required.
Also checked the moves on an epic link-up route I thought might be worthwhile on this butress. As for ADKOB but go straight across horizontally right into stratagem from jug on arete to join it below its second peg. Clip that sucker then continue at the same level to reach collateral's holds/jugs above the roof and finish up that. Decent amount of new climbing! Perhaps a bit ridiculous but I think it's worthwhile anyway and would like to do it - maybe next year when I've hopefully regained some route fitness.
Finished the day bouldering at Wainstones, enjoying really nice cool conditions again. Showed Noaks the Prow which he got up in no time then I got shut down on Psycho Syndicate - don't get that thing, may have to top rope as jumping off onto the slope was hurting ankles! Checked out For Liechtenstein last thing to test Dave Warb's beta for the move using the broken foothold out right. Felt about the same trickiness to me either way but think I like the move more with my original method. Just pull on and swoop for the top - sometimes doesn't take much to get a decent and satisfying problem really does it? It seems I totally overgraded this too as it felt piss. Condtions? move memory? hold friction improved with use? Who knows but it felt no harder than font7A this time.
3 holds, 1 move from Ram Man on Vimeo.
Man! another FA gone! I've got to get my act together. Good effort on the new route at round crag. I've had my eye on that for a while, but would never have thought of using side runners. Good vision- I might try it ground up with the side runners and then have a look without. Good luck on the ravenscar stuff as well like- i'm really stoked for trying Stratagem right-had ground up if you're about? -Climbing to the first peg and then out right and up the groove left of Colateral? At least you haven't descovered Stoupe Brow yet...
ReplyDeleteFrankie
cheers. the runners in time out make sense really; it's that having a big ledge syndrome again - it doesn't feel like you're going off route to get them and feels contrived not to step up and put them in since the crack's right there.... The climbing itslef's totally independent/inescapeable though which is cool. It'd be a good candidate for the flash/ground up for sure - I thought it was going to have a really hard (6c) move on it but eventually found a fairly steady way; might even be overgraded at e5 6b by round crag standards!
ReplyDeleteCollateral uses that groove for the left hand so I don't think you'll squeeze in any independent climbing left of Collateral. I reckon the epic link I was on about is the most logical thing to do here as it combines the most new climbing.... but I guess it could be done in stages!