OFF THE WALL

Feed from OFF THE WALL

Eating Cake

Crazily up before 8am on Saturday. I open reluctant eyes to a blue sky and instantly remember the fantasy of the day ahead. I scrape off the frost on the car and know, with absolute surety, that it’s going to be hot by mid morning. I whirl though the quiet city streets to pick up the equally expectant partner and then chase across the bridge admiring the blue stretched mist all the way to the Gower; to a surfer strewn beach at low tide and the aptly named Box Bay.

We start the day on the sunny side of the crag, which is already knee deep in over- keen deprived climbers and a small snappy dog. Ignoring them we scramble up a couple of short V Diffs and as we warm up so does the main face. We move along and start up the first of 6 Severes disguised as each other. The pattern goes: blankish wall for 2 metres and then a criss-cross of cracks decorated by deep pockets.

We’re having our cake and eating it. We’re gluttons. Immersed in the thorny conundrum of adequate gear placement and belay building I don’t care about quality. They’re just fine for the first fine day of the season: Feeling warm rock again and the sea’s horizon on my back; No great shakes; no pressure. Just renewing old acquaintances and airing dusty routines – and look ... there’s my new green Camalot. Just like I day-dreamed only a month ago – here we are in the sunshine looking at the sea sparkle and it’s sitting tight as a mussel in a shell in a tailor- made crack.

The tide eventually snaps at our heels, roaring to reclaim the rock, and we head back. On the motorway I see hot air balloons rise above the Bristol hills. My toes complain about a day in a tight place, my fingers burn from the sharp limestone and my rope lies damp and swollen with sea salt. But they’re just left over crumbs from the feast.

Posted by fishinwater

The Eternal Hopefulness of the Climber's Mind

I’ve pretended to go climbing twice now. I wake to sunshine and something in my subconscious reacts to the fact the days are longer –a voice tells me with great assuredness: ‘It’s May. It’s warm outside - get out there: quickly.’ By the time I’ve infected someone else with my deluded excitement and got down to the seeping gorge, it’s grey, and cold: very cold. It is, of course, March.

Strange how enthusiasm is like water down a plug hole when faced with chill. I’m eternally hopeful but I’m not that desperate. At Seawalls this weekend there were desperate souls there. They precariously put up top ropes over hard bits and then dangled from them for a long time with their hands in their armpits.

We watched a brave couple on ‘Gronk’ and I was so so glad I wasn’t the second with the big rucksack about to do a badly protected traverse with hands and feet he could no longer feel. I really wasn’t that desperate.

As my own feet and hands started to freeze we looked at the new guide book and tried to work out where ‘Nightmare’ went. ‘Time spend in reconnaissance is seldom wasted’, intoned Baz in his ‘I’m quoting’ voice. He’s not wrong. But it was a waste of time because the words in the book and the hard reality in front of us had less in common than life has to an Xbox game. I may have issues with route finding, but I’m not helped by obtuse and baffling route descriptions. I distinctly remember finding the words ‘quaintly meandering’ somewhere in the book. Route descriptions need to be compact. The writers shouldn’t waste space on unnecessary adjectives - but sometimes even nouns seem to be difficult tool to use effectively.

We gave up and watched the cold danglers struggle with the polish for a while and then picked our way through the trees up a steep slippery path under the Unknown Wall and had a peer at the eponymous route. The words seemed to match the scene a bit better and it was earmarked for a close and thorough investigation later in the year. By this time cafe fug and hot chocolate called.

The forecast for Tuesday is sunny. I have made (deluded) plans already.

Posted by fishinwater