The risk with long weekends is that it can get pretty busy at the crag. But being the last day before I go back to work, after a few weeks off the idea of heading out was just too tempting. And much to Howsie and my surprise we ended up with the cliffs all to ourselves, although as the morning wore on we did spot a few people who were out for a wander. It started off a bit gloomy and overcast, which could have resulted in the humidity being up. This could have hampered the primary goal of today, but luckily it cleared up nicely:
We had come here specifically to allow Howsie to progress is on again off again 2023 challenge. The difficulty of climbing for this year is entirely achievable although like so many other activities, it is of course relative to someone’s ability. And for us grade 23, while not a ridiculous target, is a level of difficulty that we do not often extend ourselves too. The other thing I considered for today was the way Howsie’s mind can work against him when a climb gets a little testy. So I decided to encourage him to start at a reasonable grade so as to get into the right headspace:
On the “warm-up” lead at grade 19 he got up to his usual antics of letting his mind play games. It was a good prompt to have a little chat about it and make sure he could shake it off for his next lead. Before that he had a slightly more relaxed second following me up a grade 17. Then we headed across to Steel Wall for the main dish of the day, a dish that Howsie has never sampled. The lower section is shared with climbs he has been on numerous times before, but once past the horizontal break every hold and position would need to be figured out on-sight and I was not going to give anything away:
The tactics for the first route seemed to be working, and he tackled this much harder line with a completely different attitude. Not so afraid to go for it and being that bit bolder when the going got tough, and there are plenty of places on this climb where that happens. I do not think there were any expectations from either of us that it would be a clean lead or that he would necessarily top out. But it was good to see him focus on working out each move one step at a time, and then be prepared to accept the airtime when his fingers couldn’t cling onto the small crimps or his feet couldn’t stick the awkward holds:
After an hour on the wall and quite a few big falls he finally conceded that his body was physically exhausted and he had reached the high point on this particular route for the day. To give you an idea of how long that would have felt like for him, both of us had romped up the first two climbs in the same time he had worked just the first two thirds of this climb. This meant the gear was still hanging on the wall above us, and to retrieve it there were two options. The first being for me to head up and finish the route, and then Howsie could follow up with the safety of having a rope above him:
This would have however given him intel on the holds, moves, and positions that he had, as yet, not encountered. After a bit of discussion it was agreed to go for option two, which was for me to run up a different line on the same wall to allow us to rap down to clean the gear of his route. The climb we picked was still no walk in the park at grade 20, with a steep fingery crux section that spat him off. It was a battle but eventually he got up, after which I rapped down to clean his line while he wandered down the path. That way he was still none-the-wiser of what the rest of his climb had instore for him. Back at the base it was clear Howsie didn’t have much left to offer, so it was a gentle climb out on a grade 13 with packs of course:
He had just enough left to get up the last climb of the morning. Made extra special when we spotted two Southwestern Carpet Pythons (Morelia imbricata) on route, a Bark-mimicking Grasshopper (Coryphistes ruricola) that waited patiently in position so we both got to see it, and then as we sat atop looking out to sea we got to watch a whale breaching. And while there were no crustacean in sight, Howsie confessed he was feeling a little shellfish for not wanting me to finish off the grade 23. I was however not crabby about it, as I wanted him to enjoy stepping into the unknown above his high point on his next attempt:
Sandbagged 