One of "those" days

Sometimes you have "one of those days", when the everything conspires against you. You simply might not be as good at something as you were the day before, you might try something and an unlikely but frustrating outcome occurs. Basically nothing goes to plan. This Saturday at Glen Clova I had one of those days. The day begins with me squatting in a ditch:

Me: Joe, I feel rough. I think I've got car sick for the first time in years
Joe: Just take deep breaths
Rosie: Yeah, just walk around a little
Me: Yeah, good idea I'll probably be fi-*BLUUUUURGH*-ne, ugh maybe I won't be fine...
Joe: Are you sure you're alright? You haven't eaten anything funny?
Me: Well, I had waffles and maple syrup for break-*BLUUUUURGH*-fast, probably wasn't the easiest thing to digest -*BLUUUUURGH*
Rosie: Caelan, your vomit is pink... That's not healthy!
Me: Hmmmm, that's a good point Don't worry I'm just shedding weight for the hard climbs, I'll be fine in a min-*BLUUUUURGH*-ute
Joe: I think you should take it easy today Caelan, The road here is very windy 
Me: Well, I seem to have emptied my bowels, shall we head up and climb? We'll see if i'm up to zig zag double direct (I wasn't)

Auspicious beginnings I hear you jeer, rather unsurprisingly the day continued with as much success as it began (with a lot less vomit).

Glen Clova in the sunshine, The weather was one of the few things that went to plan

First on the agenda was Cauldron Crack a steep HVS 5a, probably not the best selection for a warm up, especially for me. Thankfully this was Joe's lead. Joe climbed up to the roof, filled the crack in the roof with cams and then blasted through the steepest section to the safety of a tree on a ledge above. The climb then finishes up cracked slabs. A physical start to the day!

Pushing through the Crux

After the wild ride

After Joe's lead Rosie and I quickly seconded up to the top of the climb, whilst sorting the ropes out I figured the fastest way to get the rope I was coiling to the bottom would be to just throw it off the route, completely forgetting about the tree at mid height. An "abseil of shame" soon followed as I went down to retrieve the ropes from the tree, my hubris got the better of me.

The next route on the agenda was in my opinion the best of the day: Proud Corner (VS 4c, though it felt quite soft) The name is a bit of a misnomer, it is more of a face climb than anything else. I can't really put my finger on what made it so fun, It was relatively bold with some nice techy moves on easy angled ground, the polar opposite to cauldron crack.

Getting run out on proud corner, the crag classic

After completing this climb, We headed to the upper crag to try the other crag classic, Red Wall (E1 5b). The climb is split onto two pitches to remove rope drag, I got the bouldery and steep first pitch, First it begins up a very thin crack, which you gaston until you can reach the good hold at the top. Then you climb up and right on good holds to the crux of the pitch. Following with the pattern of bad decisions and luck I immediately (and unwittingly) filled all of the good holds with protection which lead to my first fall on E1, a bit sad to lose the streak. After dogging the route a little I made it to the top where you belay in an awkward quartz chimney.

The traitorous cams just in view

Joe then lead through to conquer the top pitch with relative ease, though he did say "watch me" more in one minute than I'm used to as he was doing the last moves. Despite his worries, the last moves were dispatched and soon we were being brought up the cracks and grooves of the top pitch.

Looking down Red Wall.

After having hogged all of the morning leading, we felt it was time for Rosie to lead a route she went for a climb that I'm fairly sure was Monsters Crack (the VS 4c variation) The difficulties stemmed (pun intended) primarily because of an awkwardly positioned tree growing out of a huge crack in the rock, making progress very inelegant and uncomfortable. In other news I used my first ever stacked hand and fist jam. I think I need more practise as it didn't feel very secure but I'm improving at finger and hand jams and regularly use them on crack routes.

Climbing as a three had slowed us down meaning we only had time for one more route that day, Joe decided to go for Wandered (HVS 5a). The climb is easy until an overhanging hand crack is reached, which you pull through with difficulty to reach a large ledge. The climb then traverses out onto the arête, which you finish up on with good holds. Joe began up the route but couldn't finish the overhanging crack section and came down to let me finish.

Rosie slacking off and Joe out of focus on the climb.

For me the crux of the route wasn't the hand crack It was the route finding from the ledge after it, If you traversed Immediately out right you ended up on a large blank section of rock which definitely wasn't HVS 5a. So I opted to climb up a little and then traverse out right to find what I think was the proper finish, a very exposed but enjoyable finale. After having spent a lot of time faffing around with swapping climbers and route finding. It was now time to head back to St Andrews.

If we ignore that a lot of things didn't really go as expected (and the car sickness) It was actually a great day of mountain cragging in glorious sunshine! I can't wait to get on longer mountain routes though. It looks like Centurion on the Ben could be in the pipeline.

Glen Clova