MegèveSki

Almost nailed that tricksy 4b

I bought some more climbing toys during the week, a harness, belay plate and chalk bag, etc. Note to self: there's a reason why the black chalk bags are cheapest, think about the colour of the chalk and how the bag looks as soon as you've used it once!

I climbed with Linda again and we almost nailed the 4b that we'd been having problems with. In fact Linda made it to the top, after several aborted attempts and a lot of faffing around, but I didn't so, well, she wins as I'm a naturally generous kinda guy! ;) We'll see who does it cleanly next time...

I'm quite surprised at how this whole climbing thing is quite a mental puzzle game. It's great that, like skiing, you can't think about "real-life" and do it right. It's also pretty cool that each route is a bit of a puzzle and the puzzle has a time limit that's based on how long you can hang on trying to work it out... Like playing Tomb Raider, but for real and without the guns... ;).

Whilst warming up I did an interesting bouldering 4b that I failed miserably on the first attempt. Someone who was waiting to take a route that was close to mine pointed out a hold that I hadn't used but, to be honest, I couldn't for the life of me work out how to use it. I stood there for a long time just looking and thinking and then suddenly it hit me. Second time up I used the wierd hold and pushed my body into a strange position that just happened to put my foot where it needed to be. Guess what, I needed to do a similar move near the top... I spot another theme thing...

The "tricksy" 4b had a difficult hold near the top that I've been thinking about since I last tried it on Sunday - that's bad, isn't it... Anyway, it seemed to be something to push against rather than hang on, so today that's what I tried and heh, didn't I just waltz straight past the problem point like I've climbed it every day... Now I just need to solve the last move, but, having sat in the pub and discussed it, we think that's a case of a bit of a radical, free leg, counterbalance and swing thing... I guess we'll know for sure next week! Stay tuned, or join us...

Hmm, hang on a minute; shouldn't I be reading ski things? Well, I kinda consider the climbing to be part of the fitness training (it hurts so it must be good!) and I can climb in the evenings and I just can't seem to do gym stuff then... Perhaps I should try and find a Spanish climb buddy so that I can work on more of the stuff I'm supposed to be doing for Argentina...