This fortnight of bouldering up on Lewis, is plagued with squalls, veils of rain drifting over a peat sodden horizon, & storm force gales. I've managed a few good quality lines so far, scurrying between titanic battles of war driven elements for a peice of dry rock... A few obvious blanknesses left for those on the trail of Port Nis bouldering potential, have been filled through my own impatience. The best of the new lines are as follows. From a crouch start, Hidden In Plain View, is an excellent v11 taking the steep obvious scallop shaped wall of smooth black speckled gneiss. This is on the first major area blocking the path to Disintegration on Port Nis beach. Two nasty sloper layaways & a few tiny edges, the only weakness through a blank frictionless void...a few hard moves to latch the top of a 15ft rock. I even managed to get an mpeg in before sleet ridden rain squalls came rampaging on the wind & took to throwing the tripod around...brrr, winter sending weather is on the rise. For now, it's time huddle up by the fire, & get ready for tomorrow. Round 4 of wet ropes, flapping mats, storm driven sea cliffs, mad-ass dogs & wild waves below a howling stance as I try & fiddle the shunt on with numb fingers...Lewis in winter aye...who needs Tenerife...
Hidden In Plain View - v11
16.11.05: The new photo series of Atlantic Bridge v14 way will be up tomorrow sometime, showing the whole sequence from the deep gnarly sitter to the arete finish. Complete with woolly hat, just in time for the rock report, which bizzarly I seem to have been craftily manipulated into pen-ghosting for Mick as he's somewhere over the Atlantic gathering jet lag on his way to the UK...err aight then...feckin Rockfax staff & their executive lifefstyles aye...
Lining up the big move
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◑Climbing To Fail◑
Above: Skidding along & failing on, a very wet Rhangornish - v9 - A morning lull after the night storm. I was trying the v11 sitter coming out of the areted nose before a wave clawed at my feet. Why try when everything is wet, frictionless & torn with gales? For the hell of it..why not climb to fail? Soaking conditions are comedy & frustration in one. Lethal wet algae teaches that you can't always rely on friction & holds. Climbing to fail...because simply, you don't always have to win. Becuase you have adventure in your heart, & a joker; becuase the rule-stick that judges form, ascent, style, grade & ego, says it's a big no-no, that it's folly & not serious enough. In these conditions, you don't set out to win, you set out to enjoy a climb because you know you won't do it. You go out to run on marbles. You set off up a v9 & it's a comedy nightmare. Yet still you gain things from the experience, while the world hides indoors complaining about wet crags, seeping holds, & storm fronts...Have they lost the spirit of the game? How dull it must be to only see the stoic ruler of judgement & measure, yet remain blind to the currents swirling around it...
Cogito ergo sum - I think, therefore, I am...Cogito Ergo Zoom - I think, therefore, I climb quite fast?
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