Well I was about to blog that absolutely bugger all happen to me today. The blogging equivalent of paint drying, but then I remembered that this blog is about my life in the vertical, and although it had seemed like nothing to me, ticking two and a half routes at Tremadog as part of the 9 to 5 drudgery was actually more exciting than any peoples day in the office. Whilst the majority of people will earn more than me the view from my office is priceless!
Today I started up Valeries Rib a classic Hard Severe, before abseiling down at nipping up Gilljo, a rather nasty VDiff with no gear till 40ft, but fine if you have a few grades in hand. It is the first pitch of Valeries rib, that I have avoided for many years. I usually walk into the start of the classic traverse of pitch two. The reason is because many years ago before I was an instructor I tried to impress a lass by taking her up the route, she feel off hand jamming, and complained of a sore hand for the rest of the day. It turned out she hand broken her hand!
Anyway no breakages were had today, we finished up the first two pitches of Christmas Curry before time got the better of us and we had to head back to the Van. I was tempted to gun it for the top, however there was an in situ climbing on the micah finish above me. It turned out when I got back to the van that it was a visiting instructor whose client had become a little gripped, as she had been seconding the pitch for over an hour! What was even funnier (for me at least!), was that he left her at the top of the cliff, having said that ‘you can make your own way down’ to her.
Whilst I might find it funny I doubt the client did! In fact it was totally unprofessional, whatever qualification that guy had he doesn’t deserve it, and should give me a wide birth, as I might have to question his suitability for the job if he can’t a) choose a suitable route for his client or b) be arsed to get his client back to the car safely, the descent is rather gnarly if you haven’t done it before. I wish I could name and shame him but I didn’t get his company name, as he is giving instructors a bad name.
Anyway as you can see I did nothing interesting today, other than work and go for an evening run, which after setting a personal best of 41 minutes on the Llyn Padarn run thought I would take it easy, as Llion set a 38 minute lap, and the competition was getting stupid. So I was back at 45 minute chilled lap!