It's been about a year since I've done any bouldering outside, the last time being the trip to font which I made a video about. To my surprise it has almost 10k views on youtube now! Yesterday we went to Dinas rock, we being myself, Rory and Kelly. It was the first time for Kelly my second time there after a cheeky session there for the first time last week. The weather was drizzly and wet, the day before had been torrential rain too.. but according to Rory Dinas is *northern accent* "An all weather crag". We arrived and everything on the walk in was soaked.. but the man was right, Kennelgarth wall was completely dry, other than some slightly seeping holds. The waterfall was blasting and much more vicious than the last week after all the rain.
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| Flashing Mongrel Mob V7 |
We warmed up on some V1's/3's and quickly moved onto some V6's. Rory did 'The mongrel mob' V7 and I managed to flash it, with it being the first flash of that grade for me. Good start! Then me and Kelly moved onto 'launch pad' V6, taking a fair few more goes than I'd hoped! I had a play on 'Fat cat roof' V9, a line i'd like to try and project. I did all the moves, but struggling to string it together. It was a lot more slippery than the week before. Rory was doing well on his projects, making tracks on 'The Carpenters apprentice' V12 and 'Fat Cat into Taylor made' V10. He was also on 'Saluki' a V8+ which has a bit of an awkward cross under move to finish on to the undercut of 'Launch Pad' V6.
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| Kelly on the crux of 'The Groove' V7 |
Next up was 'The Groove' a painful V7 which requires you to take two limestone teeth, like a pocket, jamming your fingers together and making a strong move from this. I went for the flash, and almost did it, tearing some skin on the teeth! I wrapped up the fingers and did it second go, just! Rory then dispatched it and Kelly came up with some technical beta and managed to do it all, but somehow fell off going from the jug after the crux, the the slot finishing jug! Too much skin had been eaten, so this one will have to be next time, first go, no doubt!
The sun came out for a bit, and it seemed like the luscious light that you get in font! We finished on 'Paper Boy' V6, which was proving to be a bit of a pumpathon after a days worth of climbing. Both me and Rory did the hard climbing, only to fail matching the last hold!! It was a good day, a nice reminder as to why bouldering is also a legitimate form of climbing for me.
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| Rory holding the teeth on 'The groove' V7 |
Here Rory battles with the biting fingerlock on 'The Groove' V7. Have a look at my
Flickr for more photos from the day. So for me this is the start of a season of bouldering. Having made a topo for Dinas, similar in style to 'The mothership' topo at TCA. I have plenty of problems to work through, and a lot of psyche to ride on. I've done a lot of sport climbing this year and feel like a change. The feeling of trying 100% and the non committed fun feeling of bouldering has caught up with me once again. Especially as were building a woody in our spare room at the house. I can see a lot of training, or perhaps just a lot of tendons popping over the next few months! I'm keeping weekends free for trips up to the peaks over the next few months. I've only been up there once, and need to discover much of the classic grit boulders. Having seen everyone com back from Rocklands in South Africa, I'm starting to feel the psyche to plan a trip there for next year!
Finally back into blogging, like I said before I'll be keeping up with it, I'm always too slack with it all! It's quite easy to sit down and write when the weather is so bad.
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| Rory and Kelly having a banana break at Kennelgarth Wall |
Dinas Rock
