Friday saw my first ever, slightly tentative, foray into the dark art of toprope solo. A fun day at Wintours Leap and Woodcroft and quite the mental challenge to work unfamiliar systems safely.
#Climbing #TopropeSolo #ClimbingIsMyPassion #LimestoneClimbing #Woodcroft

Well I seem to be taking a while to sort my Kalymnos vids, but here's a bit of a roundup of day 3 of a fantastic trip. Gammos is a new crag near Arginonta Valley, a short walk-in from Arginonta beach and well worth the visit. The lines were nice, the belay stances good, and plenty in the low-mid grades to play on. One of the more memorable features of the day, apart from finding my own flow, was Yoshi in beast-mode, following literally everything I climbed - including Pethera, which was by far the hardest route of the day and a serious challenge to onsight!
#Climbing #Kalymnos #SportClimbing #LimestoneClimbing #ClimbingIsMyPassion #TryHard #NewCrags

Up on the left of "The Beach" main crag, where we did our warmup climbs, was this interesting, techy route. Evening was getting on, but we were having fun so Carole and I gave it a stab while Helen and Yoshi were down playing on Karpouzi. History suggests we had the greater fun...
#Climbing #Kalymnos #SportClimbing #LimestoneClimbing #ClimbingIsMyPassion

Right next to Karpouzi at "The Beach" is this significantly thinner, harder, but almost equally fun line. Little disappointed not to get the flash on this one, but it was my own dumb fault... With maybe a little start-of-trip-low-mojo issue. Really good crag and a great climb, though.
#Climbing #Kalymnos #SportClimbing #LimestoneClimbing #ClimbingIsMyPassion

Climbing day one in Kalymnos and we headed to "The Beach" near Palionisos. A couple of climbs in, we headed down to the "far right" sector for the fantastic-looking line from the picture in the guide. Seems like lots of other people have had the same idea, it being one of the more polished routes I've climbed in Kalymnos (even for flowstone), but the route lived up to the picture; lots of great, laybacking action. A fab start to a great trip, though group opinion was divided as to how good the route was!
#Climbing #Kalymnos #SportClimbing #LimestoneClimbing #ClimbingIsMyPassion

I'd kinda forgotten I'd made this video; throwback to last month's trip with Jeremy and Robin - day two and there was trad. Port Eynon's Boiler slab is, indeed, impressively slabby and quite imposing. Not a great camera angle on this one; the routes start a scramble up the grassy, stepped bit of the slab until you hit the steeper rock, and finding a camera perch that completely captured the route and the actual angle of the wall was clearly far more effort than I put in! Still, this was a great line in a gorgeous location, with good company. Robin did a great job seconding this one, once he found his mojo again after the wounding the day before. Definitely somewhere to go back to and maybe get some trad try-hard going.
#Climbing #Gower #TradClimbing #LimestoneClimbing #ClimbingIsMyPassion #TradMojo

Having got my sendgeance on Anonymous Bosch, we moved a couple of routes down to this thin, balancy-looking corner to step things up a notch. To be honest I wasn't actually expecting to onsight this, but was super-chuffed to get the send. Definitely a lot of try-hard and sheer bloody-mindedness to keep going towards the top, which I am also quite proud of. Surprisingly for me, my inner monologue didn't break and I didn't start talking and swearing at myself... Maybe because of all the helpful encouragement from Jeremy Donaldson that I was vaguely aware of in the background :-) Thanks also to Robin James for the patience watching us try this stuff after he broke himself...
#Climbing #Gower #SportClimbing #LimestoneClimbing #ClimbingIsMyPassion #TryHard #Onsight

Sooo… Ended up back at Watchhouse slab with top geezers @Jeremy & @Robin. Inevitably, I introduced Jeremy to "Anonymous Bosch". For anyone following along, you'll remember it spat me off at the crux last time before I worked out how to do it, so I was after sendgeance. Unfortunately, my memory was kinda faulty so I well messed up the crux first go following Jeremy's beta instead of my own. On the up-side, my mojo was stronger this time, as was my shoulder, so things were looking up for the second try of the day once the brain had been jogged. Great route, fun moves and good catches from Jeremy.
#Climbing #Gower #SportClimbing #LimestoneClimbing #ClimbingIsMyPassion #Whipper

New crag for the ever-excellent Sue Lambooij and I - decided on as much because a route called "The Lesser of Two Weevils" ought to be climbed as any other - over by Weston Super Mare. Uphill Quarry was great as it turned out, apart from the... "colourful" locals having a "bbq". The view's pretty good, the anchors and ab-points solid (more solid than some of the rock anyway!) and mostly quiet - "wildlife" aside, we were the only climbers until the locals showed up for an evening climb. Oh, and the café had pretty good hot chocolate!
#Climbing #BristolClimbing #TradClimbing #LimestoneClimbing #ClimbingIsMyPassion #DodgyRock

"Oh, no! The sea! Run away!"... "...But not TOO far; just round the corner where it can catch us easily should do..."
At least Castaway Cove itself doesn't flood quickly in the tide, but on the other hand we did have to paddle out again round the corner - fun when there's swirling sand and one fairly narrow strip that's merely calf-deep when the rest is at least knee-deep. Totally worth it for this banging route, though, and probably the most picturesque cove of Rhossili beach.
#Climbing #Gower #SportClimbing #LimestoneClimbing #ClimbingIsMyPassion #Rhossili #LastMinuteRetreat