Last weekend I was climbing in Stanage and I climbed Hollybush Crack, tonight I found that RockFax had a decent picture of it and someone had described it as one of the top 10 climbs in the world... lovely 50 odd foot of fun.
I've discovered a new use for blogging too, Lucy and I have started a climbing blog, with a new entry per climb or training session and using keywords for the grade etc. It will hopefully be a useful way to track our progress.
climbing: June 2003 Archives
I went climbing at the weekend with Lucy and we had a great time, we even did our first lead climbs at Stanage. Climbing outside is a great experience, much more satisfying than at the climbing wall, good training though that is. There is a real feeling of becoming a small part of the history of the place, people have been climbing at Stanage for over 120 years, and many of the easier climbs were first climbed in the late 1800s / early 1900s. The difference moving to real rock is interesting, you have to make use of what is on the surface of the crag, rather than the artificial routes of coloured holds at the gym. This inspection and physical relationship with the rock is quite satisfying, if somewhat short lived, I have three or four sharp memories from the weekend and a haze of other moves and grey brown rockfaces.
UPDATE: I've added two pictures of Lucy and myself climbing. We went with Rockhoppers, a long established London based climbing club and were guided and taught by Charles and Shelia, who provided a good natured friendly weekend of climbing. END UPDATE
Fifty foot up there is a great view, but looking down can give you plenty of thoughtful moments. A climber the previous day fell and broke some bones. This leaves quite an impression on a novice lead climber, like Lucy and I. Sad for him, but reinforced the safety aspect of climbing very throughly. Some of the things that flow through your mind when you are leading range from the quality of the gear you just placed; what the next 3-4 moves will be; to many variations on "are we there yet", when looking for a rest spot. Climbing is one activity that really clears your mind, you just focus on the next move or setting the belay, the day to day worries vanish for a while. Climbing is a challenge on two levels it is partly physical, learning to move properly. Strength is part of it, but it is not all upper body power, balance is a key part of making your climbing successful. The other aspect is a mental challenge, using and dealing with the fear and adrenaline that climbing produces. Climbers often refer to this as a head thing, fear of heights is healthly, but you can then let doubt stop you from making a move than you are physically capable of. Finding balance between these two aspects is part of the game.
An amusing 100 things about climbing article, with a glossary to translate it. Explaining to my friends at work what I did is quite hard, they don't appreciate what a flake is or about gear or leading, yet they are the lingua franca of climbing. Another jargon to translate to and from, more than that really as there is a whole range of implicit knowledge in the process of climbing. I'll look for a better basic guide to climbing, as I'm sure I be writing more and want you, my readership, to follow things.
And finally, Lucy sent me this article on how cats manage not to hurt themselves when they fall, even from 32 stories up. They have this amazing ability to turn in mid air and then land on all four paws, a broken jaw is one of the more common injuries, if seldom occuring. Pity humans fare so badly in this respect, but then again I'm more likely to get injured driving up the M1 to Stanage than climbing there.
