Sunday 15 August 2010

More Outdoor Days

Been busy with outdoor days this week- a trip up to Llangollen for sport climbing with small group, then a day out for SPA pre-assessment practice at the Roaches. Not having much luck with the weather at the moment- yesterday at the Roaches was like the middle of winter with driving horizontal rain. I'll be putting up some more SPA training and assessment dates on the website 

Scotland trip

Recently back from a climbing trip to Scotland with Craig and Mark- we managed to dodge the showers and climbed at: latheronwheel near Wick- a sandstone sea cliff with quality short routes; Dunkeld- Cave Crag- on the way up and on the way back! A really nice mica schist crag with ome classic trad lines; Yesnaby- lots of sport and trad routes in a beautiful setting by the sea; Old Man of Hoy!
It's amazing what you can get done in a few days, and stopping off on the way up and down turned it into much less of a driving ordeal.
I've got one or two other people interested in doing the Old Man of Hoy, so I might well be heading up there again later in the summer.

Tuesday 27 July 2010

Old Man of Hoy- forecast windy!

Off to climb the Old Man of Hoy on Friday evening with Craig and Mark- we're planning to get some practice in on shorter seacliffs at Yesnaby first, and then on to the Old Man of Hoy (weather depending!) Hopefully it will remain dry, the strong winds forecast shouldn't be too much of a problem except for the abseil. Last time I was there some poor unfortnate had lost 2 9mm ropes which had wrapped themselves around the stack and were irretrievable.

SPA Training weekend

Just had a really good SPA training weekend running from the centre- we had the full complement of 8 people training, and needless to say the ongoing brilliant weather was with us too. A first day at LLanymynech looking at anchors and abseils, with the second day at Pontesford from some trad leading. We'll be running a few more training and assessment courses in the near future, so keep an eye on the website for dates or contact us.

Tuesday 18 May 2010

Volcanic ash forces extra climbing!

Our short break to Catalunya was extended thanks to the ash cloud hovering over Britain, so we got back a day later than planned- time to do some final redpoints at Tres Ponts. It's a great crag, not much frequented, by the river, with masses of steep, juggy routes as well as more technical stuff.

Friday 7 May 2010

new route set

All the new problems are now up, and feedback has again been very positive. At the top end, the black circuit is harder than the previous one, with no-one managing to flash any of the problems so far! I'll be setting up an aggregate sheet today, these will be available from the counter shortly afterwards.

Thursday 4 February 2010

Moon board

We've just installed a Moon board upstairs- for hose of you not in the know, this is a steep (40 degree) training panel using a specific set of holds provided by ben Moon. The holds can be orientated in various set ways, and problems are downloadable so that we can set the exact same problem using the grid as others set- a sort of National Curriculum for climbing training. Is this the future of climbing? You can find out when the holds arrive in the next couple of weeks.

Monday 4 January 2010

Dry Tooling event in February

In conjunction with Pete Hill of drytooling UK we are running a Dry tooling weekend on the 5th-7th february. All information is on the website, but in brief there will be come snd try sessions, workshops and a fun comp, together with barbecue. It is very much aimed at beginners as well as experts- if you've never done any winter stuff, you are in the majority so no need to feel intimidated!
To find out more about dry tooling in general, click on the link to Pete Hills' website;
www.drytoolinguk.com
If you are interested in any of the workshops Pete will be running get in touch with us at the wall, as places are limited.
Hope to see you there