Thursday, September 14, 2006
I was there for 7.30am, warming up moves in the darklight of Carn Liath as usual, the collie growling at shapes out in the fog. A few hours later, the excellent, bouldery & steep side of the short walled arete direct, on the nails triangular monolith had been climbed. The collie took to searching crevasses & talus for rotting sheep skulls, & myself, with no reply from James & no chance of a belay, took to launching into an eerie bold solo in the damp air, aware also, of a forecast approaching deluge, & very very nearly lost my fight with the finishing sequence basalt sloper system. Frightening myself stupid on the first few moves didn't help either by almost aquaplaining through the immediate &, as it turns out, greasy cut loose moves above a rapidly diminishing talus slope. As a rock type, damp basalt can be nightmarish - & a consistent friction fight in the dry. Again, it's one of those lines that looks easy...from the floor, but you somehow weaken as you touch it...poor mans kryptonite maybe...Show me a steep climb of any standing & rating, with flowing moves, exposure & thrust, situated close to a path which would drop you off on the same summit without injury, complexity or event & you have a climb of Poetic Folly..
There are also no good holds on the line in all seriousness, & there is one stupidly fiddly & shallow wire over the routes length a few feet below the top in a void, where becuase of cruxy dynamics, it's impossible to stop & arse about. Having previously placed this wire on a shunt, when it's tugged from forward & below, it simply drops out. This could be avoided by tensioning it off, in cahoots with a short sling & wire outside of the natural line if you pre-placed a rig. Personally, I think the line would benefit from a discreet peg placement here, enhancing the climb dynamics, the clip & flow of the whole experience. Niall would love it, himself being the master of hard trad in a downpour & all that...Later I did it again, dry with friction, in the respite of a warm sun. The dropping cloudbase, the lack of rainstorm...Despite technology in space, weather probes in the hills & a thousand babbling atmospheric scientists, I've always said if you want an accurate assement of the weather ahead - look out the damn window...how difficult is that...Another hard sprad line for the grey hill anyway, some photies of skidding on slopers up soon...The eagle pair were up there today, giant gliding shadows in the cloud cover & fog as we trudged the descent back to the road...E7 on lead maybe, scattered with a few hair-raising V9 moments on the technical edge, one bit of gear. I wouldn't call it mountain E7, say like The Gathering in Coire Lagan, or some huge streaking runout sea-wall cataclysm, more like when Jerry top-roped Father Ape & a few years later Dave lead it renaming the line Geronimo & grading it a short power E6, but it's also a bit highball killer to warrant any sensible use of the word bouldering. I'll bang a peg in it & maybe get Yogi to belay me in the near future...take a lob on the gear to justify it, all that shizzle...
Poetic folly, that's climbing old son..& the Sprad issue, that's another thing...I was blethering amongst the clatter of scree again & the name stuck. The collie looked up at me curious like, as if he was about to interject, but went back to terrifying rabbits...No, it's no the rabbits that are terrifying, it's the dog...the....oh never mind...scary bunnies? Get a grip...
I'll be cranking over at Rock Dust sometime after a weekend of active rest, pulling 100mtrs of aerobic & anaerobic tool & circuit boulder training at Kilta in an imaginary rainstorm bathed in an indian summer if anyones up for a session of either...
19-09-06: Rock Dust cancelled due to storms.
There are also no good holds on the line in all seriousness, & there is one stupidly fiddly & shallow wire over the routes length a few feet below the top in a void, where becuase of cruxy dynamics, it's impossible to stop & arse about. Having previously placed this wire on a shunt, when it's tugged from forward & below, it simply drops out. This could be avoided by tensioning it off, in cahoots with a short sling & wire outside of the natural line if you pre-placed a rig. Personally, I think the line would benefit from a discreet peg placement here, enhancing the climb dynamics, the clip & flow of the whole experience. Niall would love it, himself being the master of hard trad in a downpour & all that...Later I did it again, dry with friction, in the respite of a warm sun. The dropping cloudbase, the lack of rainstorm...Despite technology in space, weather probes in the hills & a thousand babbling atmospheric scientists, I've always said if you want an accurate assement of the weather ahead - look out the damn window...how difficult is that...Another hard sprad line for the grey hill anyway, some photies of skidding on slopers up soon...The eagle pair were up there today, giant gliding shadows in the cloud cover & fog as we trudged the descent back to the road...E7 on lead maybe, scattered with a few hair-raising V9 moments on the technical edge, one bit of gear. I wouldn't call it mountain E7, say like The Gathering in Coire Lagan, or some huge streaking runout sea-wall cataclysm, more like when Jerry top-roped Father Ape & a few years later Dave lead it renaming the line Geronimo & grading it a short power E6, but it's also a bit highball killer to warrant any sensible use of the word bouldering. I'll bang a peg in it & maybe get Yogi to belay me in the near future...take a lob on the gear to justify it, all that shizzle...
Poetic folly, that's climbing old son..& the Sprad issue, that's another thing...I was blethering amongst the clatter of scree again & the name stuck. The collie looked up at me curious like, as if he was about to interject, but went back to terrifying rabbits...No, it's no the rabbits that are terrifying, it's the dog...the....oh never mind...scary bunnies? Get a grip...
I'll be cranking over at Rock Dust sometime after a weekend of active rest, pulling 100mtrs of aerobic & anaerobic tool & circuit boulder training at Kilta in an imaginary rainstorm bathed in an indian summer if anyones up for a session of either...
19-09-06: Rock Dust cancelled due to storms.
posted by ※Sgian Dubh ※ at 6:09 PM | 
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