Some new, Some old

It has been a while since my last post. In this time I have been attempting to climb as much as I can to get some mileage in preparation for the summer. Over this time I have also been doing my final exams, which are a lot less stressful than people might make you think. With almost all of the work which goes towards my final degree already handed in the pressure has been kinda off really. Despite this I have spent much of my time in Edinburgh, making lots of trips to the citys local crags.
Most of my time has been spent at Agassiz Rock, a small but steep crag composed of Pyroxene Andesite in Blackford Glen. Agassiz rock is a pretty famous locality thanks to the Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz who interpreted the striations on the rock surface as being created by ice. If you are interested you can read about it here. After a bit of time working out how to use the Scottishclimbs wiki grid topo of this crag I managed to climb lots of problems here. My best effort has been the Low Traverse, weighing in at font 7b. This is quite long and probably deserves something like a 7c sport grade too. My usual warm up here is the problem Last Gasp, which is a long pumpy font 7a, which also gets a 7c+ sport grade apparently! So maybe the training is paying off.

Craig at Agassiz

Further down the glen from Agassiz Rock is Corbies crag, the neck of an extinct volcano and of the same unit which Agassiz Rock is composed of. I had never climbed here despite often walking past it to climb at Agassiz. There are a few easy routes which make for a nice way back to the flat from the glen. I climbed a very nice Mod called Retromingent Ridge, which I can highly recommend, and a Diff which follows a gorse filled gully, called Sunny Scoop, which I can't recommend.
Other local Edinburgh adventures include a quick trip to Traprain Law, where I climbed a few routes I hadn't done before with Elaine, and a couple of trips to the Salisbury crags, where I also managed a few new things.

Elaine on Great Corner Direct, Traprain Law

Further afield I made a quick evening trip to Oxen Wood in Northumberland, which is only really worth an evening trip. There isn't anything very hard here, although there is a nice font 6c, called Oxen Wood Traverse, which is probably worth seeking out.

Oxen Wood

Oxen Wood Traverse

Again in Northumberland I made a very unsuccessful trip to Bowden where I managed to climb a grad total of nothing, and a wet afternoon at Heckley, near Alnwick, where I managed a few nice things. Heckley is a bit of a strange crag as there was a f5+ which I spent a while trying to do but to no avail, but then I managed to flash a few 6c's. I can only think that some holds must have broken. The dead rabbit at the base of it added to the atmosphere.

Greg on Staggered, Bowden

Andrew on Vienna, Bowden

Dark Times at Bowden

Heckley in the Rain

Further south in Yorkshire I had an afternoon soloing at Scot Crags in Scugdale, where I managed to climb 60 routes! Most of the routes I climbed were between HS and HVS, however I did also tick a few E numbers, including an E4 which you really wouldn't want to fall off!

The Prow, Scugdale

So yes that has been my life recently. Hopefully I will be able to make some bigger trips soon which merit their own post, so you don't have to trawl through an essay to see what I've been up to!
Also here is a song I like: Metric-Waves

Fogtown

Joanna and I headed to North Berwick Law todain the hope of some nice sunny weather, although this ended up being quite broken up by cloud. Joanna started by repeating Darkness Falling (f6a+). I put the clips in Fogtown (f7a+) and almost did it clean on this attempt, but I fell off from the last move again. Joanna then had a go at Law and Disorder (f6a+), although she couldn't do the final move.
My turn next and I went back to Fogtown and fell off low down on my first attempt. I pulled the ropes and managed to do it clean, despite messing up the sequence in the middle abit.
We then decided to play around on a few of the boulder problems at the bottom of the main wall. I managed to tick Law of Gravity SS (font 6b+) and I Fought the Law (font 6c+).

North Berwick

Today the weather was far too good to justify climbing inside, like we usually do on a wednesday, so I headed off to North Berwick Law in East Lothian where I met up with Tom Eadington, Morgan Trigg, Ted Angus, Rob Askew and Chris Prescott.
I arrived early so I warmed up by having a blast at the first few move son Law of Gravity before putting the quick draws up on Fogtwon (7a+) once the others arrived. I had been trying Fogtown in the summer. I was finding it quite hard and didn't see myself leading it. Today, after initially forgetting the sequence, I managed to get it clean up to the last move 3 times on lead. The last moves is a big span/small dyno to a small but good crimp. It takes a lot of commitment to make the move, which is something I seem to be lacking when on lead. It was feeling good though so should hopefully be ticked before long.