Trad Anxiety

The good weather seems to have been and gone; it's frustrating that the long days should be rendered useless by rain. I'm looking at it sheeting down now and hoping that it rains itself out by tomorrow. Having done so much bouldering and sport climbing so far this year, I thought it was about time I put my helmet on and got back to some trad. In my usual fashion, I will start with the easy stuff so as not to scare myself silly. Tomorrow may end up feeling like a huge anticlimax if all I can manage is a VS, but I am sure that longer term it will pay off not to jump straight on E2!

Yes, I am a huge scaredy cat when it comes to trad. At the moment, I'm atributing this to lack of practice. Tomorrow may change that view. I'm quite anxious about how Trad will feel, whether I will have lost my bottle completely. I hope that all the indoor training will pay off and my strength and technique will not fail me in my hour of need. It's my head that will get in the way (yes, even my little pinhead!).

Spanish bolts

Why is it that the psychologies of trad and sport are so different? I am happy to fall on bolts (well, relatively speaking), which someone else has fixed to the rock. I don't know when the bolts were fixed, by whom or how. But if I can at all help it, I won't fall on gear I placed myself 5 minutes ago. I will also try hard moves above bolts that I wouldn't in a million years contemplate doing on trad routes. I don't seem to be able to trust my own ability to save my own life, but I have blind faith in Joe Bolter's ability to wield a bolt gun and mix resin properly. [Apologies to those of you who might have bolted routes yourself - this isn't a criticism of your ability to place bolts, just an observation that I don't usually know who you are! In fact, it may be a credit to your skills that I am prepared to trust my life to your work.] In theory, if my gear placements are solid, they are as likely to hold my fall as bolts. But something deep down in my subconscious doesn't believe this.... I'm hoping (again) that practice and experience will help initiate some mind control so that I can match my trad grade to my sport grade. Maybe this is too much to ask of myself, along with my other goal of 7c by Christmas. Do I want the moon on a stick or what....??

High steps above bolts, not so easy above trad gear

Sunday Update
What is with this weather?? It's damp and horrible and it's rained all night so everything is soggy. So I decide to climb indoors. Two stamina sessions and 29 routes later, I step outside into beautiful sunshine! I am suspicious that the weather has a personal vendetta against me and my purposes for trad. Either that or this is an omen from the Gods, telling me that trad is not for me.

Warm Spanish limestone

I'm just back from a week climbing in El Chorro (southern Spain). We had some great climbing weather, not too hot, but no rain, and some great climbing. While it's always nice to come home, as soon as I am here, I realise how much more climbing there is to do out there and how much I want to go back.

El Chorro is an amazing gorge. We didn't get time to take a wander along the famous Camino del Rey (partly because most of the climbing along there is beyond what we are currently capable of tackling!), but we did wander along the railway to Los Cotos, for some superb slab climbing and a tremendous view of the inside of the gorge.


More pictures here.

It's very easy, when one is accustomed to climbing at indoor walls, to kid oneself that indoor grades = outdoor grades. Not so, my friend. Outside, for me, it's all a head game. It's not about strength or technique as much as it is about being brave enough and confident enough to climb higher than the last bolt. On a toprope, I can probably manage F6c without too much trouble. On the lead, I'm only just scraping through F6b+. Having said that, at Sella in November I was lucky to get away with leading F6a+, so there is some improvement somewhere along the line. Maybe it's just about mileage. The more I do, the better I get.... or rather, the less worried I am about falling or climbing above the last bolt.

On Dos Tetas Tiran (6b+)

Some odd things come to mind...KT Tunstall... "On comes the panic light, Holding on with fingers and feelings alike. But the time has come, To move along...". I still hung around too long; my right arm was pumped solid! More pics of the things I found especially challenging here.



Tonight I am having a night off, making cake. No climbing. The skin on my fingers is sloughing like an adolescent snake, and having seen the Fizzy-O this morning I should give my shoulder a break....by sitting at my computer. Err....

Enough. Cake is ready.