There’s no avoiding it, some weeks life just gets hectic. This was one of those for Howsie. Planting season in the natural resource management sector is very much at the mercy of the weather. As a result of the way the seasons have been this year, it has been hard to prepare sites and now things are really kicking off at his work. Added to that several of his extracurricular activities have chewed up his evenings. With commitments made it was not possible to avoid these. This morning’s climbing session was however questionable in that regard:
As we drove he unravelled his thoughts, which were still a jumbled mess in his head, into speech. It was clear his mind was still in a state of flux over the quandary about heading out today. Still thinking that just maybe he should have stayed home to get some quality family time in. I fully get where he was coming from, and told him it would be absolutely fine if we turned back to allow that to happen. He was a little torn. With each minute we drove, the call of the rock grew stronger and eventually won out:
That said we reached a compromise to ease his conflicting thoughts. Agreeing to make it a short session, which would allow him to get back in a timely manner. His state of indecision was in keeping with ours about where we would climb. The weather has been a bit unsettled, and as we were not sure what we would do I had thrown in my twin ropes, a 60m and 30m single rope, and abseil rope. If it was wet we would have hit the shorter Moses Rocks. If it looked, and we felt, good I had suggested Howsie push himself a bit on a few lines his not been on at the Northern Blocks for which twin ropes are advisable:
We plumped for the good ole main cliffs of Wilyabrup. With nothing too serious in mind, the short single rope was the go. His brain was still a bit all over the place, and mentally would not have been prepared for harder stuff. I took first lead, I very quickly realised that I would have not been physically prepared for tricky routes. We were therefore both happy with our choice. There are several reasons I found the first climb so pumpy. This included being the first climb; the rock being a little greasy; and holding on tighter than required, because I really didn’t want to take a fall and aggravate my steadily improving injuries:
Sam, who has recently headed over east, was also somehow to blame. When he left there was some stuff he did not intend to take, and offered them out. I jumped at the chance to grab his hangboard. Not being able to use my climbing wall at the moment, a hangboard would allow me to maintain my upper body and finger strength. So I have been doing a ten minute hangboard session, after my stretch routine, each morning. It may not sound like a lot, but it certainly works you. I knew it was a gamble, and today I could really feel the cumulative impact of the sessions:
I’m pleased to say that as I warmed up, and we hit a few more lines, things improved. Helped by the fact that neither of us were motivated to jump on stuff too crazy. We did however keep the pace going, enjoying what we picked. Sam had also left a heap of static rope, and we used one of the longer lengths to set up a rap line. Allowing us to use the time we had more efficiently. The only issue being that the rope was a little short for the face we were going down, as you may notice in the second image. We made it work, and it still saved us a heap of time, so thanks Sam:
I’d suggest my knee is probably 90% there and my foot 75%. It’s week four since the fall, and I had been advised six to eight weeks for a full recovery. Certainly a lead fall with a heavy landing on my foot at this stage would set me back considerably. But I couldn’t resist having a lead today. Picking three traditional lines all of which get a little runout, meaning the risk of a setback if I fell was reasonable. I do however need to also work on my mental state, and ensure I don’t lose my nerve as the gear gets further away. I didn’t, and with each lead I could sense I was also shaking the desire to hold on tighter than necessary:
With expediency on our mind we wrapped the session up by scrambling to the top of the cliff. After the last route we even dumped the gear at the top of this scramble, so the packs would be a bit lighter. It all seemed to be working like clockwork, but we had completely forgotten one thing. The rap line was still dangling down the cliff, a little way away at the location we had been climbing. Not realising until I was home. The fuel to go back would cost more than the two thirty year old locking carabiners, a free second hand static rope that is a little too short, and two cordelettes one of which I had got for free as crag booty anyway. Weighing it all up I didn’t go back to retrieve it:
Sandbagged 