Quiteness and stuff....

Its all been a bit quite of late.

Well, it has for me anyway, the boys have been training hard and getting to the crag when they can but for me its been, stag do.....recover....work....recover....more work. The training has been a bit haphazard and the visits to the crag no existent. Unfortunately its set to stay that way up to Christmas now with one weekend pencilled in for a trip to Scotland (please bless me with some good conditions) and bugger all else other than work and other commitments. Its a good job i'm one of those climbers that can enjoy and focus on training otherwise I would have gone mental by now.

Its all been happening over at White Goods of late. Mr Garry, Mr Frost and co have been putting up some new lines which I should probably get round to visiting sometime (though not by headtorch after work Mr Pritchard........silly boy) and equipping the place with in-situ draws. Bravo. They are also planning a DT gathering/weekender around the 24th/25th November I believe. Needless to say i'm busy that weekend. Gutted. Stay tuned to their blog for all the info soon no doubt.

After the success(?) of the article UKC posted about Masson Lees recently I thought it was about time I got an updated topo of the The Works cave out there for people to see. There is still tons of new route space to be going at in both the main cave and the lower cave but obviously this is going to remain a work in progress for the next few years and due to the upside down nature of the climbing is a tough job to complete.

The Works Main Cave.

Ian Parnell had an interesting article on the Climb Magazine website recently talking about all these new goings on in UK drytooling. Is it becoming mainstream?! Ha. But aside from all the politics he did create rather fine ticklist at the bottom of the article for all you DT wads out there. Get training and get 'em ticked.

Back to the wall tomorrow for more endless circuits on the tools followed by some strength work.

The Yoof of Today...

A good trip upto The Works on Sunday saw yet more efforts on various projects from Andy, Matt and myself. Nothing special achieved but good progress by all.

What happens when a steinpull fails.

I think we were all a little tired to be honest for any success. Matt had been at Masson Lees the day before and myself & Andy were reliving our yoof(!) at the BMX centre in Manchester. Brilliant to get back on a BMX after so many years and hilarious & slightly scary when the coach says, "the big drop in ramp is for elite riders only and is the biggest in the UK. So we'll use the other ramp...which is the 2nd biggest in the UK!"

Turner lining up against Cainey. Riders ready!

Dropping in about to get beat by a 12 year old.

I've also been getting some pretty good training sessions in on the tools at the moment thanks to the guys at Rock Over Climbing. We stripped and set some new circuits last week, consisting of a tenuous circuit around one of the pillars, a loop around the 50deg wall (shown in video clip below) and a longer route coming out from the 50 wall. At the moment there are no plans for public drytooling sessions but if enough people show an interest than something can definitely be set up now that winter is getting closer.

Masson Lees DT

I've been visiting this place with a few different climbers on and off for the last few years, doing a bit of bolting and trundling some dodgy looking blocks off the top of the cliff (surprisingly good fun) and its all been very much under the radar drytooling except for a post on Ramon's Blog a year or so ago.

A couple of new lines have been completed recently, Andy Turners Marginal Gains (M11) is a mega pump fest and must be at least 22m long, a line bolted a few years ago by Rob Gibson. Whilst Simon Chevis got the FA of Blind Luck (M8+), a line originally bolted by Matt Pritchard.

Andy finishing Sub Rosa before continuing into Marginal Gains with a long way still to go.

Simon Chevis on Blind Luck.

With the help of the guys at Lyon Equipment & Petzl we have been able to place in-situ draws on the major lines in the cave which will hopefully add to the locations popularity amongst those keen to get involved in some drytooling.

So without further ado, I shall reveal the dirty secret that is Masson Lees........

Cave Left-Hand Side

Cave Centre and Right-Hand Side

Please take care when climbing at Masson Lees, it is a quarry after all and there is no shortage of loose rock around. Keep your helmet on when around the cave area as rock does sometime fall down from the gullys above especially after rain. Oh, and please, dont even think about drytooling any of the sport routes in the quarry! Info on getting to the quarry, access etc can be found on UKC's Masson Lees page.

Enjoy.

The Beginning....

It seems like winter is on the way.....

The nights are drawing in, leaves falling from the trees and the rain is hammering down (like it has been all summer) add this to the fact that their was snow on the Ben a week or so ago and it seems people have turned their thoughts to ice and mixed climbing. So the axes have been brought out from under the bed (dont tell the missus I keep them there) and the training for what we hope to be a long and productive winter begins!

Myself, Andy Turner and Simon Chevis seem to have been getting out quite a bit of late and boys have slowly been getting the projects ticked at Masson Lees and The Works. Andy nailed a particularly hard project today at Masson, good work that man, you'll find all the info on his Blog.

We've put in a bit of work at these venues of late and need to say a massive thanks to the guys at Lyon Equipment for the donation of kit which we can leave in-situ. Taking the draws out on a huge horizontal roof is not a task you need at the end of a hard redpoint session!

Thanks Petzl!

And so now its back to the hard training sessions at Rock Over Climbing if i'm going to have any chance of getting some decent ticks this winter, i'll keep you updated with the progress!