Shear Fear, My first E2 |
The opportunity arose for another attempt 2 days ago, Joe was feeling a little better after having been afflicted by "the plague" so after church and full of Mercy Macfarlanes fine cooking I made the now familiar journey down to Ratho quarry.
The afternoon began with Joe sending Rock a boogie (VS 4c) to warm us both up. The route is fairly straightforward apart from an awkward layback into a mantle.
Rock a boogie under blue skies |
After a short psyche-up session at the bottom of the route I racked all the gear onto my harness and set off up a thin flake crack only to be stopped at literally the first hurdle.
The way the rock had formed meant that the only available foothold was one at an awkward angle that seemed to force my foot off the wall and my body away from a small sidepull crimp up and to my left that I was fairly sure was my next hold. The gear at this point was fairly poor as the crack was too parallel to easily arrange my nuts (please don't take that out of context) and too thin to put my smallest cam in. after backing off the route once and having a think from the ground I twisted my ankle around to sit it on the foothold as best as possible and committed to the move. As is always the case you immediately wonder what you were worrying about and think that the move was fairly easy, sadly retrospect isn't something we're gifted before an event.
The line follows the flake splitting the middle of the buttress then straight up the cracked wall above |
Bridging back up and left brought me to a good pocket where I placed another piece in a flaring peapod shaped crack. I pulled up again and stuffed my hand into the "peapod" crack experimenting with various jams until I finally settled on a fist jam with my right hand. I yanked on my right hand a few times to get it properly stuck in the flaring crack. This unfortunately was my only decent(ish) hold, my feet were on nothing and my left hand was crimping hard on a small quartz vein. I won't lie I've felt more confident as to my chances of succeeding on a move as I did then, I re-assured myself that even if my last two pieces popped out I'd still fall onto my nest at mid height which would almost certainly hold.
Wally 1 looking dank and foreboding, ignore first appearances, It's a fantastic route! |
Back in blue skies! |
Pre crux psyche up session |
A nice sunny shot to counter all the muggy ones! |
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