Quiet Times?

Its felt like a quiet few weeks in North Wales since I've been back from France. Then I realise if I go a day or two without doing something I think its quiet. Then I think about home, friends I haven't seen in ages did I do the right thing packing up everything and moving. Lots of people talk about getting out, falling out of love with Ireland, wanting to leave. I've been gone a year in another two weeks. Feeling a bit like I've not done much recently so I'm making a list to remind myself why I'm here and why its worth it...

Ran up Snowdon after work a few times.

Walked up from Llanberis and soloed the Trinity Face after work. It was dark. Felt ridiculous and amazing.

Near the top of Trinity Left Hand.

Walked up to Clogwyn Du after work with Will to try and find something easy to do. The rock was black when we got up there. Nearly got lost about four or five times.

Sitting in a tree for 2 hours belaying Will on Pincushion, he made it to the peg and lowered off.

Perched on an arete on One Step in the Crowds wondering what the hell I'm doing up there for the first trad route of the season and how the hell I'm going to get over the roof. Smeary feet, good jam, work feet up. Hit the slopey lip of the big crack, jam other hand, work feet up on nothing. One last look a the WC zero at my feet. “Trust your feet, don't fuck this up,” is all that's going through my head. My arms are getting tired, I think I've been up here for fifteen minutes or more, time crawls. I pull. I see good holds. Smear feet up. Reach slowly. Keep in balance. My foot pops. I slap up violently as I start to barn-door. My hand lands on the jug. Tremadog rock has never felt so good, I laughed after an outpouring of expletives.

Up at five to 5 am and find the last of the ice in Ogwen with Helena. We walked in, it was warm. Climbed the Idwal slabs in boots at 7 am. Pretty ridiculous. Few snowy and icy holds up top. Felt sorry for the guys starting up it at 9.30 am in rock shoes it was cold!

Helena somewhere up on the Idwal Slabs at a stupidly early hour.

Ran Moel Eilio and around the quarries a few times.

Few beacon sessions.

Seen the Alain Robert talk.

Had a chat with Joe Brown. He showed me this pretty funny video: 

We got chatting about bolting and how he's worried that climbing is loosing its adventure. He comes from a generation where it seems like they just went out and got on with it in pretty much any weather so this week I decided to take a leaf out of Joe's book.

Jono arrived from Ireland on Wednesday. His heel is still injured for his trip to the States so we couldn't head up the mountains to have a look for conditions, too much walking required. We headed up to Skyline in Australia in the quarries instead. I got on one of Joe's routes, a HVS which had 30m of novelty gear placements until I got a good wire 10m from the top. It got windy, then the horizontal snow came whizzing by followed by hail. The rock stayed dry so Jono climbed directly to the line of bolts on the 6a. I was wearing two belay jackets. We couldn't feel our feet or hands. Just as I topped out to join Jono it started raining. The rock got wet so we sacked it off...

A crap forecast lead to us drinking too much that night. Made it up to Vivian at 2 pm the next day with a raging hangover. Jono had his eye on the Dervish. I offered to lead Last Tango for a warm up. I was in trouble straight away. I could barely get of the ground. I couldn't seem to quite put my feet and hands where I wanted them. Moving up the crack to the overlap I was feeling really rough. It was a mega effort not to vomit, then I got the shakes and couldn't keep my feet on anything. I put in a wire and lowered off. Jono shot up the route. Just as he got back down we heard a rushing sound. A wall of white hail came in from the mountains and soaked the place. The ropes got stuck when Jono tried to pull them. An ad-hoc system got him back up the ropes to release them. We retired to Llanberis in the rain.

So back to the start of the post. Did I do the right thing in moving? I think this picture says it all.

Alone on the Trinity Face in the dark. Never been happier! I swear I'm smiling.