Zig-zags and pink skies

Standing on the upper slopes of Zig-Zags, I felt totally at home in my environment. The steep slope, the weather, the ground conditions - none of that bothered me, as I had expected it might, and instead I was filled with a warm sense of what I can only describe as belonging.  It felt as if we had 'mountaineered' to get there and that seemed special - using my climbing skills to go somewhere, to be able to take the more adventurous line up the hill, that's what it's all about for me. 

I was filled with pride as I watched the Simple Chick ascending, roped together with our instructor, Jamie. Her learning curve had been steep but she had risen to the challenge and there she was, approaching the top of her first graded winter route.

Jamie Bankhead leads the Simple Chick on the upper slopes of Zig-Zags

It had all started a few months ago when I turned to the Simple Chick during one of our tea drinking sessions at the wall and simply said, 'Winter mountaineering. Thoughts?'. Soon we had booked two days with my go to MIC, Jamie Bankhead of Glencoe Climbing, who was willing to have me back, despite my turning the air blue on Dorsal Arete last year! The Simple Chick needed an introduction to the wonders of winter with axes and crampons and I was keen to have a go at a little light leading.

Our two days were incredibly different, both in activity and weather conditions, but were both equally amazing. The pink sky seen from Buachaille Etive Beag could never truly be recreated in our photographs, while the whole experience of being there, in those conditions, felt like one of those days that you remember for the rest of your life. What a day for the Simple Chick to do her first winter Munro!

The view from Buachaille Etive Beag

Conditions and avalanche risk dictated our choice for day two, but I had my Main Wall Monday psyche on (well it was Monday!) and led two little easy pitches. The venue was so lovely and friendly, it was a perfect choice for learning in and I think only having two pitches to do meant that my appetite was whetted, not only for more winter climbing, but also for multi-pitch mountain routes on warm summer rock. 

Long Legs gets prepared

We returned via the route we had climbed, which meant the chance to abseil. I was in my absolute element, having been forced to learn to love abseiling in preparation for CWAA (JJ has a lot to answer for!) and was loving the addition of crampons and snow/ice to the mix. It was good to learn about the safeguarding of the party at the anchor and to see a stacked abseil in use and not just in the pictures in Libby Peter's book. The Simple Chick was less comfortable, but once again, she just got on with it, even though I knew she was finding it really stressful. She rocks!

The Simple Chick bosses the abseil

Both the Simple Chick and I came away having had a great two days and it is a credit to Jamie that he ensured that we both got what we wanted out of the experience. On the way home in the car, the Simple Chick asked me what crampons cost - I think we are going back next year!

Logbooks and leg warmers

I have often written about the difficulty I have in quantifying whether I climb better now that I used to, but the other day, the curse that is the Facebook memory showed me a picture of my climbing leg warmers and old climbing shoes, and I became curious as to exactly what I had been doing one year ago.

21st January 2015

My logbook tells a story of fear. Easy routes rested on, panic attacks and a strong desire to vomit. There were no overhangs, grades were low and sessions were short. There was clearly not enough tea.

Logbook entry for 21st January 2015

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I also went climbing on the 21st January 2016. New routes had been set in the gully and my climbing partner and I, together with half the Leeds regulars, were on those routes like Winnie the Pooh round honey. Our session was long, there was lots of tea and I felt like I was climbing pretty well, but was there any demonstrable improvement?

I think I'll let you decide that for yourself.

Log from 21st January 2016

Work your weaknesses

The Simple Chick and I have made milling around at the wall, drinking tea and updating each other on life's ups and downs into such an art form that sometimes climbing becomes secondary to the experience. These very sociable sessions are great fun and often progress is made, but I sometimes find myself climbing the same old 10 vertical routes and shying away from anything that might be remotely challenging. I suppose I convince myself that I won't be able to do anything harder and on occasion, would rather drink more tea than actually try. Ultimately though, such an approach just leads to frustration and those horrible plateaux during which gains just seem never to be made and confidence begins to wane. 

The process of CWA consolidation did more than prepare me for assessment, those five months of hard work also, rather unexpectedly, resulted in many new friendships with people who climb far harder than perhaps I ever will. These people inspire me, but because they also happen to be climbing instructors, they have the innate ability to draw the very best out of me. The fact that Fantastyczna Cooka also feeds me healthy pizza, cake and ginger biscuits is a welcome added bonus! It was through these friends that I became inveigled into Main Wall Monday, a brilliantly simple idea which may very well result in my imminent death and judging by the full body pain as I hobbled about this Tuesday, I wouldn't be surprised if the Grim Reaper turned up and asked me for a belay next Monday night.

Views of the Main Wall

The Greater Main Wall (similar to Greater Manchester but with less hipster beards), is pretty much entirely overhanging, the premise of Main Wall Monday, to only climb the routes on it. I hate overhangs, I have no stamina and my technique is still pretty embryonic, for me, Main Wall Monday is like some kind of pump-filled torture, punctuated with cups of tea I can barely pick up. But, if it wasn't a challenge, it wouldn't be fun and although possibly still in the realms of Sir David Brailsford and his 'marginal gains', I think, some progress has been made, not least because after a full-on wrestle up the Main Wall, nothing else in the centre seems half as intimidating as it did before. 

Main Wall Monday, together with its younger siblings Training Tuesday, Weakness Wednesday and Features Friday, forces me to address a huge and gaping weakness in my climbing and try as I might, I simply can't do that while gossiping in the cafe - if only we could work out what to do on a Thursday...

Spot the Long Legs

Zen

It was the 11th route of the night but I knew, at that precise moment, that I was doing the best climbing I have ever done in my life. I had tried the route once before, months and months ago on a top rope and remembered thinking it was tricky. Now, on lead, everything felt so smooth and effortless, my head so uncharacteristically in the game that I reached a previously unknown state of zen, the moves just flowing as I floated over the lip and through the crux. As I stood up and shook out, I was so psyched that internally I was screaming an expletive ridden monologue of joy and it was hard to stop myself from bursting forth out loud. Clipping the chains, inside I was doing cartwheels and fist pumps, I may even have let off some fireworks. I was still buzzing as the Simple Chick lowered me to the ground, and, when a passing Campusman asked how our session had been, his eyes turned to saucers as he was hit by an unexpectedly excited, and enthusiastic, potttymouthed reply!

Having clearly reached the peak of climbing, I briefly went into retirement, however, this only lasted the weekend, before a good, solid session last night. On a new and ungraded orange, where there was huge gap to get over the lip, a similar, but lesser, zen state seemed to wash over me and I pulled some shapes and just went for it. There is no way I would have done that 6 months ago.

It is hard to explain what has happened to me or how I feel about climbing at the moment. I know I have worked really hard at it all through the year and I should be getting better, but I don't think this is really about technique, or power, or weight, I think it is about confidence. The people I climb with seem to have faith in me, they tell me things are 'comfortably within my grade', they encourage me to try that little bit harder. Last night my climbing partner, absent for 6 months, said it was as if I was a different climber now. 

Two years ago I gave up everything to move from an island in the North Sea to somewhere near Bradford. This year, climbing has helped me rebuild my life and to find the girl I felt I had left behind - it has made me happy. And because I am happy, my climbing is better and when I climb better I am happier still. Yes, I am a different climber now, but I think the change also goes deeper than that.

Good times on the island

A change in focus

Way back in June I completed my Climbing Wall Award training, but the weeks immediately following were taken up with preparing for the big Saltburn race, together with the small matter of a full time PhD, and it was not until July that I finally plucked up the courage to ask the nice man at the wall if I could come in and observe some sessions. Following a hiatus in September, during which time I spoke about field systems to an international conference in Glasgow and taught a local society how to collect and process geophysical survey data, I finally had time to get back to what really matters - climbing.

When I was a paddler, on a small island off the north coast of Scotland, I became both a 4* sea leader and UKCC L2 paddlesports coach within the local club(s), so when I started climbing, it seemed quite natural for me to want to get involved with the instructional side of things. Something in the recesses of my mind reminds me that one of the impetuses for taking up climbing was my desire to work towards my SPA, as a complement to my water based qualifications (the other reason being because I had broken a finger about a month previously!). 

The Orcadian L2 coaches, looking very wet and bedraggled after a long journey to obtaining their awards

In real life I often teach students and local groups about archaeological survey and geophysics and I have come to realise that I get a great deal of enjoyment from teaching people practical skills - it is very satisfying to watch them begin the day asking lots of questions and seeking your input, to finishing the day being able to undertake the tasks independently. To me, it does not matter if I am teaching them to use an RM15, perform a sculling draw or belay correctly, there are many approaches that are directly applicable to teaching any practical skill. Certainly, I have often felt that the things I learned about teaching and learning styles in my very thorough L2 training have been incredibly useful in the other areas in which I also work.

Explaining archaeological survey with a GNSS system

After the Simple Chick and the One on the Island took a metaphorical stick to me, I finally manned up and booked to undertake my CWA assessment in November - this gave me around 8 weeks to prepare and meant I well and truly had to shift my focus back to climbing and engage in what I have come to term as 'binge observation'. For the last couple of weeks I have also been permitted to assist at the wall, looking after one line and 4 people under the watchful eye of a fully qualified instructor and this has been a brilliant way to learn the ropes (boom boom).

I have found, to my surprise and contrary to my own preconceptions, that I actually really enjoy working with young children, particularly when they have huge smiles on their faces and are so excited about getting the chance to climb for the first time. I have also found that my own confidence is increasing, partly because I have to have 'instructor front' when I am working, but also because I am continuously being pushed slightly outside my comfort zone and am learning an immense amount from every instructor I work with and from every different session I see. Watching people being introduced to climbing for the first time and gaining obvious enjoyment from the experience takes me back to when I first started to climb and reminds of why I love this sport and everything related to it. It may sound rather clichéd, but climbing is not just a hobby, for me it is a real passion.

Doing what I love

Wood and trees

My climbing partner, who I had not seen for several months, asked, quite legitimately, what grade I now climb. I remained evasive. Of course there is an answer, but there are so many caveats to it (is it vertical but technical? Sustained or featuring an overhang?), that it would have taken too long to give a full and thorough reply. I responded with some unconvincing muttering, but I suppose the main reason I didn't want to answer was because I didn't want to (quite literally) set myself up for a fall.

Week in, week out, the Simple Chick and I are down the wall. Sometimes we climb better than others, during some periods we are frustrated, at other times we feel like we are making real progress, but twice a week we are there, climbing routes, doing pull-ups, drinking 'one tea and one coffee' and indulging in rather a lot of gossiping. I don't blog about these sessions for no other reason than I have no photographs of us climbing (or eating Chia Charge bars). 

When I watch the Simple Chick and her excellent use of smears and screw ons, I am so proud of her. For months she wouldn't lead at all and it took a long period of steady progression for her to get where she is now. I often watch her on the sharp end and I know that 6 months ago, she wouldn't have even attempted routes she now looks so smooth and confident on; to me, the improvement in her climbing is obvious. But in my own head I am still the same climber I always was and perhaps that is why it was so difficult for me to answer that initial question. It's hard for me to stand back far enough to know if anything is changing, I am particularly good at convincing myself that 'I can't' or even that parts of the wall 'are not for me'. And I don't know why I think like this, because, as Coach Emma pointed out the other day, that's not at all the way I think about running races. 

Coach Emma's overhang aversion therapy.

My coached session earlier in the week had looked at overhangs and so yesterday, when it was very quickly clocked that I appeared to have become blind to the overhanging routes behind me, I thought I better HTFU and get back on the first route I had worked with Emma. I was pleased, on reaching the crossover, to find myself placing my foot correctly and twisting right to reach the next hold with ease. And for the first time in a long time, I realised that, although I was aware of the overhang being there, this fact did not really bother me, I was far too focused on what I was doing. Back on the ground, my climbing partner said, 'You bossed that route!', elaborating with a (slightly uncharitable) impression of me whimpering on the same overhang 5 months previously, 'Today,' he said, 'you just did it, without hesitation.'

I continued the session with my first clean lead of a very steep and sustained 6a; 5 months ago, I wouldn't have even attempted it. Perhaps, sometimes, you just need that view from outside, to help you obtain perspective on yourself and all those things you didn't even realise that you have achieved.