It would seem that despite having thought about the way I would approach training on my wall, or maybe it was the back to back harder routes at Welly Dam and then The Terrace, my old shoulder injury has managed to rear the first ugly signs of reappearing. Any sensible person would back right off and not climb. But I instead went for a different approach and laid off my wall, but still went out this morning for a relaxed paced top rope session on the easy classics at the main cliffs of Wilyabrup. This was in part driven by the fact that I am still on leave. I therefore have the ability to pop out whenever a weather “window of opportunity” comes by, such as today:
I really love seeing rainbows and saw a double rainbow on the drive down. Now something I didn’t realise is that a double rainbow is created when the light is reflected (and I mean reflected not refracted) twice within the raindrops, and while I have never noticed it before the upper rainbow has the colours in reverse. The sky really was a bit of a mixed bag today, and any conditions may have hit. As you’ll see above I started with blue skies, but darker clouds loomed out to sea. A gentle westerly was bring them towards me. In fact it is hard to believe all the images in this post are from the same day, but they are. Walking down to the crag I could hear the thunderous sea, it was going to be another atmospheric day:
I’d decided to start the session at the Fat Chance Area, with not even a suggestion in my mind to try Fat Chance or any of the other gnarly routes along that wall. Instead I played on Setting Sun, Tom Thumb Direct and Tom Thumb. In that order and as such getting the hardest routes of the day, at a lofty grade 15, out of the way early on. Having the bolts above this area made it nice and easy to set up , a quick adjustment of the double figure of eight allowing the rope to be redirect to the next line. True to say that if I had fallen from the left or right route the rope may have been dragged across the lip, but I felt comfortable that the chances were pretty slim and it didn’t happen:
The last route on this set-up, which was also the easiest of the day, was Tom Thumb. A more traditional style trad climb, unlike the first two that were more akin to face climbing. The off-width crack splitting into two cracks separated by a huge wedged boulder. This requires a much more traditional style of climbing, more three dimensional than the previous face climbs. As such despite being the easiest of the three routes, I also had to be more careful on this one. Avoiding going for high right hand holds that would require shoulder rotations. It made me use holds between my shoulder and waist more, as well as using down palms. Being careful not to then compensate by overloading my left shoulder:
After these three lines it was clear that the bank of clouds would pass me by, heading landwards to the north. When I eventually drove out the roads north of the area were wet and had lots of puddles and I was glad that I hadn’t been hit by the rain. With the next bank of sun coming in I shifted position moving across to the Hope Buttress. The locals won’t be surprised to hear that Hope and Glory were both on the hit list for today. As I set up the ropes I had an idea to get an image of me getting ready, carefully balancing the camera on a ledge and putting it on timer. The photo didn’t come out that great, as the scramble back to where the ropes were took a little too long. So you only get this image to prove I tried:
Hope was great, despite having been up the route countless times it is never dull. The middle provides and crux, and there are so many ways to get through it. You’d think, in view that I had climbed it so many times, I would have it wired and go straight for the same holds every time. But no, each time I seem to do something just a bit different and at times I might even purposely miss out a hold or two to see what would happen. Even though I have used so many variations over the years, the grade never changes. On my second lap I could feel the wind picking up and looking across the bay the salt spray drifting landwards was becoming more prominent:
The rock still felt good, and so I soldiered on. Glory was next, I knew there was no chance of it, but something inside me still hoped that I would come across a Carpet Python. On the first lap I was being extra careful on the low roof, choosing my path wisely and focusing on which muscles to engage. After the roof it is easier ground and therefore easier to avoid shoulder loading moves. I kept an eye out looking in all the usual places I have seen them but failed to see anything. It wasn’t till the second lap that I saw a short length of an old snake skin wedged deep in a crack. Better than nothing and just had to include this image:
One more move this time just right of the Stormcock Area, where I managed to get a better image of me getting ready at the base of the last climb. A climb that if I didn’t point so many people towards probably wouldn’t get much attention. Verbosity, does however get some attention in the comments on my post about Wiggins. Like Tom Thumb the first half is a true trad style classic with a great stemming corner, it is also one of the longest routes at Wilyabrup. A route to take your time on, enjoy the positions and savour every move, which I did twice! Better still not one twinge in my shoulder, but I could feel my calves as I maybe savoured those positions up the corner a little too long:
Now I did have in mind to two more pitches in, by jumping on Sirius. Still within the grade range and offering two great pitches, that using as top rope could be linked into one. The first pitch includes a long traverse across the entire width of Steel Wall, so rope work would prove interesting but I had that figured out. It was hard to fight the temptation, but I managed to be uncharacteristically sensible. At the back of my mind I wanted to end on a high, with no twinges and then I might get away with one more trip out while I’m on holiday. So I packed up leaving the rock in peace, no one else was in sight. However, as I walked out I came across four separate couples all just out for a stroll, and possibly having a romantic escape from the world as we currently know it:
Sandbagged 