2009 in brief..

Has it been this long? Oops!

In short.. I've had a few amazing trips to the Peak, my first day on sandstone - top-roping on Harrison's Rocks in Kent - and I went to beautiful Lulworth Cove to try my hand at Deep Water Soloing - excellent! I spent the winter getting strong and the summer getting weak.. so now I'm trying to get strong again..



There's too many photos to put up, but this quality video courtesy of award-winning trailer maker Ben Knapp explains the vibe of this year's climbing so far:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NzgYEkzCsk

I'll try to keep updates more regular!!

In the mean time.. ROCK ON!



P.S. It is with great sadness that I had to say goodbye to Tanya Coles - the good lady in the above video - who has emigrated to Australia to take on bigger and better rocks! Tanya - we shall climb together again! Miss you xx)

The ONLY way to start 2009!

2009 started off in the best possible way - by heading up to the Peak District. At the very kind hospitality of James Berman and all his family - including his grand-parents! I was treated to the best start of a year I've ever had. A couple of days bouldering in the Peaks! : ) Thank you family Berman! (Check out their lovely house!)

It was ridiculously cold so I packed my thermals & I was very glad to have them. The days actually warmed a little and we were graced with some pretty beautiful weather, but as the sun went down it got properly cold!

The first day we went to a rock called Trackside - a beautiful boulder with loads of great problems. We didn't rock particularly hard - it has to be said, but we did have a lot of fun and managed to avoid most of the patches of ice!

Trackside boulder. Me failing to climb Strawberries (lame!).

After a good lunch of leftovers from the night before and a bit of soaking up the beautiful view, we went on to Birchens edge, where the bouldering wasn't great - but we did find a rock called Victory to climb - what could be better! : )

James rocking my new Christmas bouldering mat, with Victory & Nelson's column in the background (left hand one of the 3 boulders).

James taking command of Victory!

The next day we went to try our hands at some traversing on limestone. This time the location was not quite so beautiful - somewhere just South of Mansfield - but it was great to try some other sort of rock and the traverse was a good challenge (for us, at least!).

James nearly at the end. I got hot & manned up... ...but still failed!

HAPPY NEW YEAR ONE & ALL!

I like the Buck Stone

After the adventures of yesterday, I decided to return to more familiar ground - The Buck Stone on the Welsh/Forest of Dean border.

Got extremely hot & sweaty cycling up the Staunton Road, but within in no time I was freezing to death on the rock. Was seriously cold today! Bbbrrrr!

But, I did manage to have quite a good climb - and survived for just over an hour before thinking I might die and heading back to the warmth of the house - and a long hot bath!

I did the route I had done on my first outing to the Stone (see my first blog entry) and worked out a few more on the West and East sides. The North side was pretty covered in moss so I left that for another day.

The Buck Stone is proving a useful place to get to grips with real rock and building my confidence - you can't get more than about 5 feet from the ground!

I like the Buck Stone.

Clambering on Coppet Hill

Mr Tom Stone & I went to Coppet Hill (Forest of Dean) in search of some good bouldering. Although it was a great adventure, we didn't actually manage to climb much - maybe cos we're crap at climbing, maybe cos this conglomerate rock just falls apart in your hand/under foot!

We set off from Monmouth on Tom Stone's motorbike - a 500cc Kawasaki. I had my (brand new Christmas present) bouldering mat on my back. It acted like a ship sail. Every time a gust of wind blew I was nearly blown clean off the motorbike and onto the dual carriage way, into the path of some unsuspecting driver! I held on pretty tight and we survived the journey in one piece! We looked like some kind of weird Wallace & Gromit-like day out duo!

After some scrambling around in waist-high dead bracken and wandering about the hill-side, we found what we had been looking for - the Crags of Coppet Hill!

The views were stunning - overlooking the Wye and rolling hills around us, but the view of us stumbling around on the rock, but 2 feet from the ground - was a lot less stunning.


I have no idea how anyone climbs this rock! It's insanely dangerous (even more so that hurtling down the dual carriageway at 50mph with a sail attached to your back and nothing more than a tight grip to save you from the oncoming traffic?!)! Every time you bear down on something it falls off or crumbles away! Everything was covered in a layer of lichen and brittle pebbles! And if these did somehow hold your weight, the rock underneath would just fall off. A piece of rock the size of a fist feel off right from under Tom Stone's foot.

So, a little perturbed by all this brittle rock, we did a bit of traversing, did some more confused staring at the rock and then, for safety's sake - got back on the motorbike and headed home.

A good adventure, but we're obviously far too pathetic to conquor Coppet.

Life Changing Weekend in the Peak District

Woaw! Yeh!

The Peak District is unbelievably beautiful. We were totally spoilt by the weather - it was crystal clear and glorious sunshine all weekend. We tackled the easiest problems at Froggart on Saturday and Burbage South on Sunday. All beautifully hosted by Rob - who, in an extremely harsh hand of Karma - sustained the only injury all weekend - jumping off a slab from only a few feet up, he landed his heel directly in the join in the middle of the bouldering mat and consequently dealt himself a bruised heel bone & strained foot - extremely unfair!

Massive thanks to Dave and Rae for hosting us, thank you Ross for the use of your bed and big ups to James for organising the whole thing for me! And massive respect to Rob for caring for our every whim and transportation need during the whole weekend. So sorry about your foot!

Here's how beautiful the Peaks are..



And here's some pics from the day....

Buck Stone Bouldering on the Welsh Border

Howdy, howdy interweb world!

This is my first ever blog. Hello! What's happening?

Well, rock climbing mostly - which is what this blog is all about - me, trying to learn to rock climb! Sweeeeet!

Having been bouldering around the faux rockfaces at the excellent Mile End Climbing Wall in East London for just over a year, I decided it was time to try my hand on some real rocks. Yes it's December, yes it's freezing cold, yes there's ice on the ground, no I can't feel my hands or toes, but what the heck! A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do - and this man just has to try and navigate his way around some REAL rock.

So, this morning, I got on my trusty push-bike and pegged it off to the BUCK STONE. A delightful little rock I had previously been introduced to by my good (aptly named) friend, Mr Tom Stone (and equally good friend Amy Wade was there too - Hiyer Wade!). The Buck Stone is right on the Welsh

border - between Monmouthshire (Wales) and the Forest of Dean (England). Technically the Buck Stone is in the Forest.

The Stone is not very big - about 10 feet tall, 15 feet long and 5 feet deep in the middle. It faces South-ish, which is just as well, because at least one side of it had seen the sunshine, which helped to thaw the rock out a little. The top of the rock was still covered in quite a layer of ice! Nice! But, I didn't let this put me off - I was super excited to be near REAL rock - even if it was more like a giant ice-cube!!

On first attempt the rock seemed impossibly cold & any climbing incredibly difficult. I couldn't really feel my fingers or toes and holding onto an ice-cube of a rock was not helping. The South-facing side, being the most sunned, was where I spent most of my efforts.

My hands were so numb I had to stop after every few attempts and warm them up on some part of my body that wasn't already turning blue. The fact that the rock was pretty sharp also didn't help

- but my hands were generally too cold to notice when the rock did bite me.

After a bit of searching I found a really good little route, that kept me entertained for a good 20mins and made me forget the cold. It would have probably been really easy, had it not been for the freezing rock, numb hands and, by this point, completely numb toes! but it felt like an E1 at the time!! I started with straight arms on the first good hand holds, with my bum inches from the floor, then heel hook out to the left, to reach up with my right hand for the next hold, them shifting feet over to the right and a bit of lay-backing, floyking and snaking and finishing up about 2 feet from the far right hand side. Only about 6 moves in total, but it took about 7 attempts - mainly due to the fact that my hands just kept on getting too numb! After completing it once I tried to do the whole thing again without any matching, but I was too cold & it wasn't happening.

(I've marked the key hand-holds in red and foot-holds in yellow.)

I had a little play about on the West-facing side, which was bathed in beautifully dappled, winter sunshine, but wasn't quite as much fun as the South-facing side I'd previously been rocking.

The views from the Buck Stone are amazing.

You can see right out over the beautiful, rolling Welsh hills. Properly good for the soul!

For those of you who want to go - the route I took, from Monmouth, is as follows. I'm sure there are easier routes, and more pleasant, depending on which direction you are coming from! Go along the Staunton Road (A4136) until you hit a lorry layby - right opposite a 'You Are Now Entering The Forest of Dean' sign. Following the line of wire fencing right by the 'Forest Of Dean' sign, walk straight up the hill. Near the top of the hill, the wire fencing takes a 90degree turn left. Ignore this turn left and keep on going up the hill - pretty much in a straight line. The Buck Stone is right near the summit, sitting in amongst some trees and a couple of other smaller rocks (maybe an ancient Welsh ceremonial alter??).

Tomorrow brings the adventure of the Suck Stone (as long as it's not raining that is!!)...