My wall

This summer I have been busy. Mostly I have been working but I have also had chance to do a bit of climbing. My major achievement of the summer has been building my own wall in a spare shed at home. Well when I say spare a few bits had to be moved around but there's space for it now.
The wall consists of a 40 degree board up against another board with is just slightly less than 40 degrees.
The steeper wall is made to the same specification as a moon board and I have been using this for rock climbing, while the slightly less steep board is covered in sheets of old ply, which I have been using for drytooling.

Moon Board

I have used the old ply as a cover to allow me to use my crampons without needlessly damaging the wall.

Tooling Board

The wall has made getting climbing much easier, as I don't live particularly close to any commercial walls, and it saves me a lot of fuel money not having to drive through to York every day.
This past weekend I competed in the Buxton Thunderdome drytooling competition and came third, which was much better than I expected given the strength of the field. It looks like the wall is having the desired effect on my ability. Hopefully I can continue improving and do a bit better at the 2015 UIAA Ice World Cups.

Buxton Thunderdome

I have had a lot of help with this wall, mostly from my dad who helped me build it, or rather I helped him as he probably did most of the work. MKM Driffield were a big help giving me a discount on wood, as have been Red Goat Climbing Wall, in York, who have generously supplied me with loads of old holds for tooling on, t-nuts and bolts!

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

Skin Thicke

The skin on your fingers is what keeps you attached whilst rock climbing. The muscles and ligaments in your arms, and the rubber on your shoes, do a lot of work too, but without the skin on your finger tips then you would never be able to make and reasonable upwards progress. With this in mind it is very important that you keep it in good condition if you want to climb regularly.
This summer I have been extremely active on rock and I have had to develop a bit of a skin regime as a result. In general this isn't my sort of thing. I know some "modern men" have a beautifying regime, which probably includes things like brushing their hair, but you don't need to go that far to secure the longevity of your skin.

"Modern Man" (IRD Collection)

I also used to think that I climbed a lot but my skin was never really very bad so it wasn't really necessary to look after it that much. This summer has shown me a different side. To cut a long story, which I have told in other blog posts (hint), short I climbed a lot and lost a lot of skin. It was so bad that I was forced to take rest days, which is very much unlike me.
This lack of skin led me to test 3 types of climbing orientated moisturizer. These were the classic ClimbOn, Tip Juice and ProBalm. They all seemed to work in largely the same way. If I was going to go out and buy them again though I think I would go for ClimbOn, closely followed by Tip Juice. I liked the bar style of ClimbOn more than the tub based Tip Juice, but it did work well.
My climbing related skin management guidelines are what works for me. Every individual is different so tailor this to work for yourself.
Wash Your Hands: After climbing wash all the chalk off your hands. Whilst climbing however try not to wash them or get them too wet. Granted this isn't always possible and if you have to then make sure they are completely dry, maybe bring a towel or something. If I get my skin wet in the middle of a session it often feels quite sore to pull on holds.
Moisturize: Use some sort of moisturizer after climbing. This will help skin regenerate and hopefully stop it from hurting the next day. Make sure to wash your hands first. I find ClimbOn to be very good but as long as it moisturizes I don't think it matters too much.

Rock Types: Different rock types affect your skin in different ways. It is all to do with the grains within them. The small rounded grains found in Northumberland sandstone work like sand paper removing skin from your tips. This hurts a lot after a while. The large sharp crystals found in rocks like Gneiss don't abrade like sandstone but I find that they nick the skin more easily forming flappers. Climbing on sandstone will benefit more from the use of the procedure outlined above more than Gneiss, and others like it.

A flapper, not so Gneiss

I hope this helps anyone who has come up against this sort of climbing related hurdle. There is loads of other information about it. Dave Macleod has a good section on this in his book "9 out of 10 Climbers". 

Not much of anything

I have had 4 trips out since by last post managing to tick pretty much nothing.
I have been making use of my new Scottish Sport Climbs guide (review to follow soon!), visiting Kirrie Hill and Robs Reed near Forfar. They are both old quarries composed of a mixture of sandstone and conglomerate.
I went to Robs Reed with Jamie Sparkes and Alex Toomey. I climbed a 6b+ called Welcome To The Big Pocket, which as the name suggests features a big pocket. The crux was by far the mantle into the pocket, which I took a number of goes to get. After this I climbed on my second attempt a 6c+ called Get Shorty! and onsighted a 7a+ called Short Haul. On the left end of the crag are some steep roofs which have some short hard routes in them. I tried one called Dead Pull (7b+) but I dogged it. It didn't feel too hard but thanks to the nature of conglomerate it would be very hard to onsight.
A couple of days later I went to Kirrie Hill with Joanna Lisowiec. I spent most of the day climbing easy things, managing no more than 6b+, however I did manage to climb a 7b on my third attempt when we moved to the other section. The 7b was called Slim Pickins and feature a bouldery start followed by some big moves between jugs in the middle and finished with a hard crimpy boulder problem with very bad sloping sandy footholds.

Slim Pickins

Into the crux

I have also managed 2 days out bouldering. I had an afternoon at Cambusbarron and a day at Back Bowden. At Cambusbarron I tried Monkey Spanking. This route takes the left side of the Spanking the Monkey arete and gets font 7b. I took about an hour to work out how to get off the ground as there are no footholds on the overhanging face. I eventually managed the first move before falling off again. Maybe I need more body tension or maybe there is some sort of trick that I missed. Ill hopefully go back and try it again when I'm a bit stronger.
I had a nice day at Back Bowden yesterday. I only managed to tick a 6a+ but I did try lots of others. I managed to get to the last hold on Little Pixxies (7a), but I didn't hold it. I also climbed Low an Hard (7b) from a sit, it was just in the wrong place. The route starts very low on an under cut with a powerful move to the lip of the roof. After trying the start a few times and failing to do it I attempted the problem from the second hold and managed it. Unfortunately I can't claim this. I also worked a problem called Four Mats Wall (7b+) but I couldn't quite managed to finish it off.
You may have noticed if you have read back through my blog recently I have a new rating system based on thumbs. The maximum is 2 thumbs up and the minimum is 2 thumbs down. Its a 5 point system, a bit like conventional stars but its better as it has my name on it.

Excellent

Good

Distinctly Average

Poor

Disinfect Hands After Use

Schmoolz Review

Ive had a pair of schmoolz for just over a year now and I like to think they that have allowed me to improve my winter climbing and dry tooling ability. Schmoolz are indoor ice axes allowing you to simulate winter climbing or dry tooling on indoor plastic holds without damaging the holds, or yourself, with all the sharp bits.Since using Schmoolz I have managed to finish in an overall second place in the Scottish Tooling Series and pushed my winter grade to VIII 8, all be it not on lead.
Schmoolz look abit like nomics, or pretty much any other technical tool on the market. They have a big lower finger rest, which is abit too narrow when you first use them, and a smaller upper grip rest. The narrow grip rest does mean your little finger can go numb, but after a while this stops happening.
Schmoolz allow you to work the same muscles as you would using real axes, so are a good way of training endurance and strength. You can also train movement techniques, swapping axes and practice just holding the axes. Holding axes sounds simple but you don't want to be over gripping and getting pumped when on your real axe you will have a nice friendly grip rest to use now do you.

Schmoolzing

Some may say that having a rubber loop over a big jug is going to be more stable than using an axe placement. That may be true but if you branch out from jugs onto slopers things get abit more interesting. In my experience a bad sloper with one of these feels atleast as bad as a bad axe placement. A quick tip: If you want your Schmool to stick on that horrible sloper just stare at it and it won't dare move.

Stay!

There are some things you can't practice for with schmoolz such as stein pulls and torques. It says on the info that comes with them that your only suposed to hold the wooden handle and not stick it into jugs, so you can't get around it that way.
Id like to see Schmoolz make some sort of indoor crampon, as im really not great with crampons on rock. With a pair of schmoolz crampons and axes your winter training would be pretty much as good as the real thing, if not better as there won't be any spin drift.   
So like the other 7 out of 10 cats I would completely recomend schmoolz to anyone wanting to practice for using axes for real or just finding a new way to climb any of the old problems at your local wall. Best of all they're just really good fun.