So managed to get out a bit over the last few days, although lots of climbing indoor. I had not been outside for a while. With a weekend off, I managed to socialise on friday night, so there was a slight disconnect between my body and mind when we headed up the slate. Llion led Looning the tube to open the slate account for the Autumn/Winter season.
I then tried A Grand Day out and was shut down on the initial slab. Although my excuse was that it was so hot, I was nearly blinded by the amount I was sweating. It was an OK route, but not as good as combining a few existing routes up through the levels.
Sunday, I got up and headed to Milestone butress for belay duty, as caff was trying a new route left of The Wrinkled Retainer. It looked incredible but a little too hard for me. Caff worked it on an ab rope and then went back up to try placing the last runners. He then waited some more and after filling his tip down having split it on his second practice, he headed up the wall. Complaining how ‘rinsed’ he felt having been trying the beast down at The Diamond yesterday. He quickly made it to the crux, which looked like it was placing an RP2 and Rock 1 for a very tenuous position.
He seemed to take forever to essentailly fail to get the RP but clipped it anyway. Then started complaining that the split tip was bleeding badly and making the crucial hold sloppy. Managing to get the rock 1 in, he looked set but was ejected.
More rest and some tape on his split tip, caff didn’t seem very confident, but he chose to leave the gear in situ, and made rapid progress and not having to hanging on forever placing gear he made it to the top. E8 6c was his reckoning.
