Saturday 22 March 2014

A potter here, a potter there.


I've decided that a good rule of thumb while I am doing recovery mileage is to only go to crags that are new to me, or that I haven't been to in a decade. This narrows the choice of crags considerably, but ensure when I find the right crags, it gives a good choice of routes to potter around on. I've put this into action recently:

Drab Crag in Aberdeen, which I'd never been to, although I had been working down the coast south of Newtonhill in that direction: Dykes Cliff, then Boltsheugh, the Johnsheugh, then Brown Crag. I got plenty of mileage there and even got pumped a bit, which was nice.

Then it was down to Cumbria to King's Meaburn, which I'd been to a decade ago, and Coudy Rocks, the trendy new sport crag which hadn't even been climbed a decade ago - although Simmy, who I went to KM with, had spotted it and was telling me about these blank sandstone walls he wanted to develop. Well the bolters got there and with good reason as it's pretty much a sport only venue, of course that means all the numpties flock there to get their convenience McTicks and so King's Meaburn seems a bit neglected despite it being obviously the better craglet - although to be fair, the climbing at Coudy is genuinely fun for short quarried sandstone, less reachy and cranky and more technical than the Angus quarry morpho lankfest horrors. I did a few routes at each crag and actually started cranking a bit harder than usual which was a bit more satisfying, a bit more reassuring, and definitely more fun.

I also got to The Mighty R for an afternoon, and found that despite being so despairingly obese I was struggling to get my harness on (like my fucking legs need any more constrictions to the blood "flow"), I was climbing considerably better this time, and getting within 1-1½ grades of my usual limit. Again both reassuring and fun. My wrist is coping okay, it tends to be generally and consistently tender after climbing and/or in cold damp weather (woohoo!), BUT is definitely less tweaky, less sharp pains, and feels stronger. I haven't yet tested it swirling a wok around though....

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