You may recall that last weekend I was not at my best, but that said Rongy and I still had a great session at the Northern Blocks with me following up every route. This week I’ve been a bit up and down, Lisa suggested I may be experiencing a dose of manapause or possibly worse the early warning signs of man-flu. I had popped over to Glen’s for a boulder on Thursday, where we were joined by the elusive Lou. I managed to boulder a bit but like last weekend it felt like I pumped out way to fast. So this weekend I needed something low key and fun:
It was an obvious choice, Castle Rock. The place that offers easy stuff, as well as the absurd which I knew this bandy crew wouldn’t be touching. I was joined today by Glen coming back from his broken foot, cancerous Steve and learning to climb again Mark. So I felt fairly sure that things would be steady as she goes and a bit of a laugh. We didn’t head out till mid-afternoon and while this place can heat up at that time of the day, yesterday there was a stiff wind and the sun dipped in and out of the clouds making for ideal conditions:
Steve was busting to get on the sharp end, he’s set himself a challenge to get to level one UK army fitness level. This was almost immediately after coming off chemo and radiotherapy some four weeks’ish back. He was also keen to see just how well he was going as he has a couple of projects at Wilyabrup that he wants to tick before stage 2 of his treatment, when he will go under the knife. I showed him the new line here and liking the look of it off he went. He had me nervous as he went through the crux sequence, but he pulled through with much relief:
Meanwhile Glen also started on the floppy end, he had already said that he wanted nothing too hard today. His foot is still healing and therefore he has been advised not to overdo it. Indeed when we picked him up, Kathy made the point of saying “don’t break him this time”. What with his recent years of various injuries I think she is a bit over having Glen as a cripple limping round the house. So being sensible and just wanting to get his gear in the rock he played on the cracks to our left, which while great fun and worthy lines never made it into the guide:
Seeing Steve had done such a good job on his lead I could sense that me taking on one of those easier lines to the left was not really going to meet his needs. So I plumped for the crack up the arête. The bottom wall was fine but as I stood ready at the shelf looking at the undercut block self-doubt was creeping in. Despite being able to place great gear above, as I started to layback my way upwards I had that strange sensation creeping back into my arms. I dug deeper than last weekend and polished the job off, although that said the challenges were shorter lived:
For this route for some reason I had always come into this crack from the right looking at the rock, it was as I was doing this that Steve questioned why. This was the first time I had led it direct, and I have to say it is a far better way to climb it. As I was climbing it was also Mark’s turn to tackle the cracks. He was placing great gear and enjoying the feeling of leading on trad. We both set up anchors ready to belay the other two up. Steve gobbled the route up, even stopping at this point to pull his sippy mug off his harness to have a sip of coffee:
We then decided to move over to the dark side, here the sun didn’t shine and the rock had a slightly damp feel. A result of the big downpour on Friday. Mark and Glen were keen to test their ability on the sharp slab, but not keen to lead it, and Steve had his eye on a route he’s battled with several times. With slightly damp rock and a silly (even by my standards) high first bolt he decided to rap in to pre-clip the first bolt. This would not detract from a clean ascent, if he finally managed it, as stick clipping the first bolt is standard sports climbing practise:
Mark had come here during the week with Andrew, and there was mention of how they had tried hard to get this route. It has small sharp holds for the first half, the sort that will eat away the skin on your fingertips. Today with prior knowledge he was keen to hit it again. It’s on from the moment you get both feet off the deck, small finger piercing crimps and equally small footholds. It’s not a place you really want to hang about on too long, but the next moves require smears for feet and full pressure on those finger tips so you have to muster your courage:
While Mark took layers of skin off I set myself up in a comfy position to allow me to watch Steve, and get a better camera angle. With the first bolt clipped he made short work of the bouldery start, he even got into the layback sequence with relative ease. From there he inched his way up the layback. Working out how to clip the bolt he swapped hands a few times and continued to move up until his feet were above the first bolt. Then he fell, his distance above the bolt plus rope stretch allowed him to gently reach the ground and roll onto his back all in slow motion:
Both Steve and I were in fits of laughter, as Mark looked on a little stunned and Glen… well he’s used to these antics. Needless to say I moved closer to the rock for stage two, and I’m pleased to say that Steve clipped the second bolt from lower down reducing the risk of another touchdown. He then battled hard and long and finally topped out with numerous falls along the way. As we hooted and hollered on our line Mark’s fingers admitted defeat and went up the left flake, then Glen surprised himself as scooted up the slab with ease:
Steve and I continued to play on our line. With a rope above us we both had several runs on it. The luxury of the rope also allowed us to try a few new approaches, checking out what is the best stance from which to clip that second bolt. We even went so far as to have a bash at down climbing the line, which while fun felt insanely difficult. Needless to say my arms were feeling ok on this line, more than likely due to having had the rope above me. However, after the third ascent I started to feel them tire and I knew it was time to move onto new ground:
As Steve and I got ourselves sorted for the last line of the day Glen was already getting down to business up the fun leaning flake on the arête right of the sharp slab. He wanted to get that gear back in touch with rock, as it has been gathering dust in his garage way too long. We watched for a while as I got ready to take of the slab, and it was shortly after this that Glen got himself in a bit of a pickle. He got some gear in above but was standing on the rope so couldn’t pull it through, so had to make a move up before clipping the rope, we all held our breathe:
I’m glad to say he held it together moved up and then almost forgot to clip the next piece he had put in. Then looked down and said that he had given himself a fright doing that, but it’s alright Kathy we didn’t break him… this time. I got myself ready and launched up the slab, the holds felt a bit bitey but not too bad as I worked my way up past the first bashed in carrot, past the sling on the ledge and I soon had the second high bashed in carrot clipped. Just in time to take a few snaps of Glen taking his time to top out so he could fiddle with his nuts a bit longer:
I was happy to have felt really good on my route, there is no more man-flu in me! Steve followed up, but not before a false start when he knocked off one of the start footholds. The climb never presented him any great problems, so he declared those projects at Wilyabrup were on and needed to be ticked before October. As we sat atop Glen admitted that his foot was aching now and it was time to stop, so after Mark followed up admiring Glen’s gear, we all wandered down and started to pack up. By the time we were walking out it was getting dark:
Castle Rock gave us the tonic we all needed, thrills and spills with a good dose of banter and laughter… plans are already underway for a trip Wilyabrup.
Sandbagged 