Delivering The Goods

I was tempted to post the classic Judas Priest track (there's numerous versions on YouTube) but this is about that most aesthetic of UK crags White Goods. Having said that Rob Halford intoning...'You better watch out and hold on tight...' is quite good advice.
There's not really too much to post about the day - the most impressive part of the which was the drive down into Ruthin with a spectacular display of vivid double rainbows - unfortunately I didn't stop and get the camera out.
Good news for us mortals is there are now some more moderate routes at the main crag.

This is 'Don't Tumble' (M6+) which felt quite Scottish.

Dave G on 'Bold Start' which seems to be given M7...ahem!

As usual at White Goods I did the usual struggling, screaming and bleeding...

But after seeing Dave A put in a big fight on Tumble M9

More Dave A fighting on Tumble. 

After his effort I managed to drag my sorry large behind round the lip of White Goods (M8+). 

So I guess that is a fraction of progress - yipee. What with rainbows, redpoint success and Judas Priest that's plenty of inspiration to keep the training going. 

The good the bad and ugly

Last Friday saw a post Christmas shake-down at 'dry tooling central' aka White Goods. Even 3 moves into my warm up I knew which one I was of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Totally flat and fat! Mr T claimed to feel the same but he still quickly dispatched White Goods and then set about Left Over Goods the very stern roof testpiece at the lefthand side of the main crag. A big effort on multiple figure of fours into fig nines saw both Andy's axes left abandoned near the top of the crag and his forearms turned into this... The Good was undeniably Timmy, who whilst claiming to have eaten too many Christmas pies seemed incapable of getting pumped - here is making Tumble in the Jungle, an M9, look like M7.Someone this good isn't supposed to have this much fun. Tim left us at the end of the afternoon for the Power Pact cliff where he did the lip project - which is supposed to be good training for Spray On.The Ugly was left for Andy's final effort on Left over Goods when he ripped a hook whilst pulling into a fig four - I wasn't sure if the grating was my borrowed axes (his still being in wedged in the route) or his shoulder ripping apart. Luckily it seemed to be sore but not as ugly as it looked. I had a final effort on White Goods huffing up to the roof only to drop my tool in a definitive display of bad climbing. Then hung on forlornly whilst Andy and Tim took it in turns to throw my tool up so that I could demonstrate I was as good at catching as climbing. 1 hang later I managed to clip the chains only for my crampon to come flying off. All in all a typical White Goods day of humiliation and ineptitude, leaving with the usual (but useful) feeling - I must train harder.

The long and winding road ahead

Interesting day at White Goods today with Andy Turner - Shock Horror! there were other people at the crag, in fact so busy it felt like the catwalk at Malham on a bank holiday. Well perhaps the only similarity was that everyone was hanging off their respective routes 'sur le chien' so to speak.Learnt a few things today. I've been using my fig fours to traverse round the Edge bouldering wall and with three of the four sides overhanging it's not easy. In fact going by today's routes it is somewhere between M8 and M9. So I wasn't totally and utterly crap - managing to do the moves on an M9 called 'Tumble'. However despite that training I was still fairly crap with the locals Dave, Si (above on an M9/M9+) and non local Andy showing me how far I have to go.

Still whilst I am a long way off the pace I can at least still glimpse the rest of the field and know now how far I have to go.

Autumnal Bliss

Today was a perfect blue sky warm autumn day and I had a free day to go ...Yes Climbing! So where did I choose ...Cloggy? Scafell? Gogarth? er, no... the quarried tip-face of White Goods.Rich giving Jazz some beef!Rich lowering off - Jazz having returned the beef with interest

Something to train for.

I've always needed goals, aims in life, little targets - all very un-zen I know. But I struggle for motivation and get a bit lost without something driving me on. Luckily I've two interesting possibilities on the horizon. The first hopefully a return to Chamonix and the Alps, and a chance to hook up with Jon Bracey, who I climbed the Grand Couloir on the Plan with in the Spring. The ticklist as ever is enormous, it would be great to make it one or two routes shorter.

The other trip is a maybe for January - ice climbing in Japan! Which if it comes off should be very exciting - adventurous as there is little info in the west. Markus Bendler and Albert Leichtfried made a trip a few years back which looked amazing - here's their short film.

As a result of those two goals I've got inspired to start training - and so in the last few days I've had my first White Goods (the Welsh border dry tooling crag) visit and dusted off the 'fig fours' for a spin at the wall. There were a couple of new lines at White Goods - three on the left side of the Apples and Pears area (we did the one just left of the big tree - nice starting moves then horrible - definitely not one to go back for). Much better was the new M8+ in the main area which typically for this crag is 'solid' for the grade. I didn't have the guns or the skills for the roof, but enjoyed working and linking the lower section - which flows superbly on big moves between deep positive hooks - definitely one to go back for.

Talking of getting inspired I'm doing a show at the Covent Garden Snow and Rock Shop on the 14th September. I'm going to be presenting some new images, films and stories - more info here: www.snowandrock.com/pws/UniqueProductKey.ice?ProductID=DUM002000

Start of the summer

Well quite obviously the summer is nearing it's end but today I finally managed to go climbing outside. The first time in 5 months since my knee injury. So where did I choose - some quality gritstone? a classic mountain crag? er... no the dry tooling hole known as White Goods!

The arrival at the crag was classic White Goods, with a huge rotting carcass dumped by the parking spot. I met up with Rich Simpson best known as a 9a sports climber, but whose interested in turning his considerable abilities to the tools.

The day went about as well as you would imagine having not climbed for 4 months and then visited a ridiculously steep pumpy crag that leaves me broken even when I'm going well. But it was good to finally get out again, and get preparations kicked off for the real season coming up.

More White Goods

With the warm and wet weather of late rock climbing and accessible winter climbing are out so Jon and I returned to the dry tooling crag White Goods. To cut a long story short I got my botty literally spanked. Both of us felt completely knackered before we even started Jon with a chest cold and me battling sleepless nights as a Dad. After warming up I tried Power Pact an M9+ that I was hoping might just be a touch harder than Jazz, the route I'd done last visit. I ended up bailing from the third bolt as I just didn't seem to have my head on straight. I was a little bit thrown by the obligatory fig 4 needed at the start which I found really hard to get into and then it only took a few wobbly blocks up higher to give me the excuse. The bottom line is I need to get stronger before trying something like this. Dropping my ambitions I headed back to the main crag hoping to try Doorstep Challenge an M8 with a large finishing roof. Unfortunately I didn't get anywhere near that, pulling a sizeable flake off and bashing my bum on a nasty upside down fall. On a day like this you have to know when its best just to go home. Jon making more of the day than me with some worthwhile laps on one of the M7s.

This is the main crag (complete with White Goods!) Jazz takes a line just left of the righthand tree, Doorstep goes just right of the lefthand tree (you can just see a sling on the lip of the roof)

One of the many odd finds amongst the tip at the base of the crag.

Something a little different

I was hoping to be up in Scotland climbing steep hoar frosted cracks but the cold but dry weather means there's very little in condition up there I'd like to climb. To keep from going stir crazy Jon and I headed down to the Welsh borders to check out an area a friend of mine, Ramon had told us about. White Goods has been developed as a specific dry tooling crag one of the few around. One of the difficulties is finding steep rock that no-one would want to rock climb on. White Goods manages this thanks to muddy shale bands between the roofs and a popular fly tipping site. Aesthetic it is not. Infact all that seemed to be missing from the ambience was a stereo blasting out Industrial Noise by Skinny Puppy or perhaps the less gentle tunes by Pantera.

Never the less we had a fun trip, climbing the easier angled Kitchen Garden routes (D5-D7) and then I surprised myself by hollering my way up Jaz a steep D9 (although I suspect pretty soft at the grade). Dry tooling in some people's minds is about as low as climbing can go, but Ive found it to be fun and the perfect option to get the guns reloaded for when conditions kick in again up North.

There's more info on White Goods here http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crag.php?id=3826 and here http://www.drytooling.co.uk/articles/files.display-4.html. I think its a very worthwhile venue and certainly more enjoyable climbing than Birnam, the other major UK dry tooling venue, which is almost entirely drilled.