Sunshine... Happy days. ..The last month was a bit of a weird one. I didn’t have much work and the weather was too bad to get out on the things I wanted to climb on...normally when there’s not much work on I’m secretly completely psyched.. .. but this was just frustrating. ... So I’ve trained a lot recently (power endurance—projects in mind) and bouldered a bit at the head..but mostly sat around the house looking out at rain..there was one night were all the lights down donnybrook street flickered on and off in this mental hail storm... .But now all that is gone... right now I can’t imagine it will ever rain again in Ireland... I’m sitting in a hotel in Athlone (the middle of Ireland) with sunburnt arms. We're doing some access workn high up on a massive posh hotel...and there’s plenty of work in the pipeline..sometimes life gets in the way of climbing...but that’s fine... climbing never seems to get in the way of life..I’m psyched because I got out climbing on Saturday. And it was brilliant...I went to the east face of lower cove with Craigy, Andy, Michelle and Molsey.
It was roastin but the wall goes into the shade pretty early.. prime conditions for climbing and prime for sitting watchin in the sun.. I climbed a new E7... I love climbing new routes. They always mean something a wee bit more to me than repeating routes.i'm lucky i get to open new routes....For example this route, I looked at it from the ground about a year ago with Craigy. We both thought it looked like an amazing E3 and I suggested he should satch it up there and then. Craig abbed it and floated immediately into space then laughed at me...E3.. The line is this big wet streak on the crag. It was covered in overhanging grass before I cleaned it.. Sounds terrible but if you get it dry it’s friggen wild looking...slightly overhanging the whole way but not sustained in the slightest...a tricky bold section then massive jugs..then a hands off rest on this pedestal near the top of the crag then a slopey boulder problem crux to top it out... the route climbs really well but the thing that appealled to me about it is the granite is completely multicoloured!!..., it’s surreal...black, purple, yellow and green granite. ..It’s mad looking...like nothing i’ve seen anywhere else...I called it The Dark Crystal because I found this (see pic) big black crystal in a ceuse like pocket about half way up the wall. I pulled a big lump of grass out of the pocket and there it was..The Dark Crystal—like the film. If you haven’t seen it, I suggest you do.. the skeksis, were serious bad ass’s. The route climbed well..I enjoyed it simply for what it was...it was fun and natural and completey the opposite of sitting about stressing about work like before...Andy repeated it straight after in typical Marshall style not without a minor moment near the top...before we left , I climbed on another project on the wall... It had one wet hold..I made good progress since the last time I climbed on it. I’m keen to get back on it when I get back from the gloriousness of the creggan hotel athlone. Saturday was class. I think everybody had that wee feeling like it was the start of another wonderful trad season.
enjoy the sunshine
Ricky
No comments:
Post a Comment