Sunday 21 June 2009

Loose rock, dust, vegetation, hidden holds, obscure moves...


...blind climbing, dirty slopers, dampness, spaced gear, badly positioned gear, man-eating plant-life, icy river-crossings, misleading descriptions...

Sounds like a full on adventure climbing horror, right??

Actually, it's supposedly proper convenience climbing - Peak sport climbing, on natural limestone.

I got a taster of it today in Chee Dale Upper, a taster that was at best educational and at worse bore an only highly tangential relationship to "enjoyment". All of those factors featured throughout the day, sometimes all on the same route - although the river crossing was rather fun. Compared to my recent experiences in the quarries, which have some of those qualities but generally in less overwhelming quantities, it was rather offputting. I can see the sense in training on this....stuff, it certainly works my weaknessness better than the pleasant and often reasonably bolted quarried crimping, but....well....I climb for FUN :S.

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