yyyyy-YESS!!!

Sloper dead-hang up to 10 seconds. Yeah!

Bouldering at Idwal Cottage and Caseg Fraith

On Monday, we set out with the intention of bouldering in the legendary Llanberis Pass, but as we drove up the A4086 in increasingly thick pea-souper fog, visibility was fast approaching zero. By the time we got to Pen-y-Pas, there was no denying it. A quick glance at the stern warning at the start of the Pyg track - AVALANCHE RISK CONSIDERABLE ON SNOWDON, all points - put paid to any residual hopes of ascending above it.

We're not going to be able to get anything done at all, are we? moped Lise, despondency creeping in - she'd hauled herself out of bed for THIS?

..we're going to have to go to a cheese museum or something!

Now I must confess, the idea of a cheese museum is not entirely without appeal - a vision conjured itself up in my head, of a huge prop-forward of a Welsh museum guide explaining -

now THIS close-combat Caerphilly was used as a bludgeoning weapon in the Battle of Bryn Glas, 600 year old, it is...look, it's still got the original hair on it!

- but it was definitely second best.

Well look, I said, while we're here, lets just try going back round to the Ogwen valley, it might not be so foggy round there. Admittedly it was more in hope than anything else, but I figured it had to be worth a try.

Luckily enough, as we passed Joe Brown's at Capel Curig, the fog became less dense, and as we rounded the long bend to get a clear view of Tryfan with its winter coat on, we perked up considerably.

Parking at Ogwen Cottage, we walked a hundred yards or so through the trees to find a beautifully picturesque little crag, with some stunning views of the surrounding peaks:

We had a lot of fun here. The rock was dry, with good friction, and the landings were all flat and level. The lower-grade problems were as good as any at Burbage South, and our particular favourite was "Problem 5", described in the guidebook as eminently pleasurable - and I'd have to agree. It feels a lot taller than it looks in the photos, believe me!

Problem 5 - the eminently pleasurable crack line

One thing to watch out for though, is the low-flying jet planes. The RAF use this valley as a low-flying training run, and on my third and final attempt at this problem, just a few seconds after I'd finally made the nervy committing move to gain the ledge in a numb-fingered, pumped-out whimpering panic, a jet came screaming overhead, a deafening crescendo that got louder and louder and louder as an involuntary convulsing scream escaped me and I felt I was going to have to either let go and fall to stick my fingers in my ears, or suffer burst eardrums and fall anyway. It passed after a couple of seconds, but by god it was loud. I dread to think what would have happened if it had flown over a few seconds earlier, while I was in the middle of tackling the crux.

As the sun began to dip below the peaks, we figured we had about an hour of daylight left, and headed back down the valley to Gwern Gof Isaf farm, to grab a quick look at the Caseg Fraith boulders behind the bunkhouse. The farm owner was very friendly, as was her Jack Russell, who followed us up to the boulders in a typical puppies' frenzy of excitement - Oh boy oh boy oh BOY, there's a ROCK!!! - and even proved a dab hand at scampering up the lower slabs itself, and licking Lise's nose as she was trying to top out.

Again, the rock here was perfect. Rounded yet juggy aretes and laybacks aplenty, but with plenty of friction to make even the tiniest of footholds viable. The best problem we found was straight up a slabby face (pictured) on tiny crimps and pebbles, before thankfully gaining a blocky flake near the top and launching a committing move over the top of it.

We could quite happily have spent several hours here, but our hands were tired and numb, and the light was fading. Definitely worth at least one repeat visit, both crags are highly recommended.

Fingerboard progress - week 3

I haven't been using the board as regularly this week, as we nipped up to Wales for some actual outdoor bouldering (there's no training like that, right?) but a quick post-run workout last night showed that I'm now up to:

• 3 x 30-second dead hangs on the jugs


• 3 x 5-second dead hangs on the slopers


• 3 x clean 5x5x5 pull-ups on the largest four-finger edges


• 3 x 3-second dead hangs on the large 2-finger pockets

Getting there, slowly, but steadily.

Bouldering on the beach in.... North Wales???

It's true - on Tuesday, with the snow still on the summits, and a mid-January Welsh pea-souper in the Llanberis Pass, we discovered the boulders on the beach at Cae Du.

The rock here - Greywacke - was very picturesque and kept making me think I was surrounded by IKEA prints. On the other hand, it was rather less amenable than at Llyn Ogwen, with a distinct lack of friction for our gritstone-accustomed taste. It's probably due to the beach location, more than anything else, but even on the few climbs we could find that were actually dry enough to tackle, I found it quite difficult to trust my feet. There were plenty of large shelvey edges for the hands, it's true, but unless they were actually 90 degrees or less, even they were slippery. Anything remotely sloper-ish, just forget it.

Still, there was some fun to be had. We stuck to areas 1 and 2, as areas 3 and 4 were full of what looked like (eep!) a school club, and managed to induce a minor hamstring pull on the overhung heel hook of Problem 1, Area 2 (V2**), and what might best be described as a brick on Problem 10, Area 2 (V1/V2 ***). The latter was an unnervingly high slab on teeny tiny holds, that felt to my scaredy-cat mind like I would need more than just our one mat to tackle the top half without bricking it. Definitely a good problem to try if you're in the area and comfortable on that kind of thing though.

On the plus side, the fingerboard training is definitely paying off, with my crimps feeling solid and reliable despite having trained exclusively open-handed.

First Weeks With a Fingerboard

After about two years of constant "canwecanwecanwe?" / "no, you'll only injure yourself" / "but pleeeeeeeeeeeeease", and one decisive bout of steep limestone sport climbing in Spain that made us both admit that we just had to get better finger strength, I finally relented and bought Lise (well, ok - us) a Metolius Simulator Fingerboard for Christmas.

A mere four hours of strenuous screwing later (stop sniggering at the back there) it was installed in pride-of-place above the living room door, and my wrist was ready to drop off (I said STOP it!):


I've been careful to start slowly, and not overstrain myself, but I have to admit that in just over a week, I'm already seeing a real improvement. Enough to make me think it's worth keeping some kind of record of it, and that I might as well post it here for future reference and probable hilarity for you rock gods reading this who probably do a hundred one finger pull-ups just to warm up:



So here goes. All the advice I've read from Dave McLeod and others led me to shy away from crimps and concentrate on open-handed strength, so that's what I did.

I started out doing:

• 3 10-second dead-hangs, open-handed on the two big jugs.


• Then I'd do slow open-handed pull-ups on those same big jugs (slow as in a slight enhancement of Tim Ferris' 5x5 method - 5 seconds going up, lock-off at 90 degree elbow position for 5 seconds, then take 5 seconds going back down). I could do two of these in perfect form, was really struggling by the down-stroke of the third, didn't even start the fourth.


• Finally I'd do open-handed dead-hangs on the biggest flat edges (four-fingers) for as long as I could. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that that was all of 3 seconds at first. Eep!

I've been doing this above routine maybe twice a day every other day, for about ten days, and already I've moved up to the following:

• 3 15-second dead hangs on the big jugs


• 3 clean 5x5x5 pull-ups on the big jugs, can do the up-stroke of the 4th but can't hold the 5s lock-off yet


• 3 10-second dead hangs on the largest flat edges


• 2 5x5x5 pull-ups on the largest flat edges - really struggling at the end of the 2nd, couldn't start the third


• 1 3-second dead hang on the top slopers

I've also noticed a definite improvement in my open-handed grip strength at the indoor wall, particularly on slopers.

So I'm going to keep up the progress reports in the hope that it makes me keep at it, and gives me a bit of inspiration next time I'm feeling weak.