a new found love

Sport climbing. Maybe it isn’t so bad after all.

On Tuesday I managed to red-point my first 6c, an absolutely cracking limestone route called ‘Traction Control’ at Trevor, Llangollen. I’d first tried this route with Patrick at the end of on Saturday’s easy sport climbing, where we’d just done loads of routes in the 5 – 6b region, I decided I wanted to have a go at this 3 star 6c, as seeing as it was easy to get a top-rope on it (as the lower-off was right next to the lower off for another route Patrick climbed), we had a crack.

The start sequence took a while to fathom, but once that was sorted the rest of the route just sort of fell into place. I didn’t try leading it that day, because by the end of the session I was shattered and my fingers were just crying for a rest.

So, a couple of weeks later I headed back with Mick (and his clip-stick – oh my goodness what an amazing invention. I want one.) Had a couple of goes on a top-rope then just decided to get on with it. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I cruuuuuuuuiiiiiised it. Awesome!

So, on to a new bolt-clipping challenge. Having never even attempted a route harder than 6b before this one, and having found this lovely 6c actually quite straight forward (all the moves were fine, it was just the working of the sequence that proved a challenge), me thinks it is time to actually find a 7a to work on (and yes, I know I’m missing the grade of 6c+ out completely there). Could my goal of climbing 7a sport actually be achievable before the end of the year? We shall see…

Meanwhile, I still need to get my trad head in gear. Maybe this weekend will see a return to some kind of form? Again…we shall see…