According to the Met Office the length of a season can be split into meteorological time periods or astronomical time periods. In meteorological terms a season lasts three months and the three months that summer falls into are June, July and August. In astronomical terms however summer starts on June 21st with the Summer Solstice and this year ends on September 22nd with the Equinox. In reality the weather dictates whether or not we feel a season is over and a new one has begun, and any way you chose to look at it, what is clear, is that soon summer will be over.
For me personally I think I’ll call an end to the summer when I go to university and my fifteen months of gap year come to their conclusion. It’s definitely been eye opening trying to make money and balance climbing for the first three quarters of the year and then just trying to go full time as a climbing bum for the past few months. There were definitely points where I wondered what the future would hold and whether university was going to be the right next step for me. However what I’ve learnt this year about the real world and about myself has shown me that perhaps I’m better equipped than I thought for moving away from home and that university is something that I want to do. In the meantime though, I’ve still got a few more weeks to put off thinking about university and enjoy the rest of the summer, so here’s part three of my summer update –
I think the train I’ve booked is at the wrong time!” I said with a hint of my panic in my voice as I rang the only person you can in a time of such crisis. My mother.
“If that’s the case you’ll either have to try to swap trains or just catch your train and meet Craig at the other end,” my mother reassured me.
In reality I had gotten so excited for our weeks trip I had convinced myself I was leaving an hour earlier than the times I had booked my trains for and didn’t realise my mistake until I was halfway to Birmingham New Street and had unnecessarily called my mother in a state of near panic. An hour spent drinking coffee and catching up with some of my friends who I used to work with and I was on the way to the Peak limestone with Craig. The rest of our journey went without a hitch and we soon found ourselves deposited next to Worm Hill by the bus, the only question being, where do we climb first?
Being lazy we went for the nearest option and headed to Chee Dale. What was normally a fifteen minute walk took a good half an hour of pain measurable to any spell in hell and we quickly decided that actually Chee Dale would be quite a nice place to spend the week, so why bother going to Raven Tor or Water cum Jolly?
With Cornice in good condition it made sense to head there and make it our base for the week and feeling fresh after a few days rest I had no excuse not to get back on This Is The Sea, it was on the hit list after all. I had definitely put off trying This Is The Sea again on my previous trip to Cornice and was definitely nervous that my head would go down the drain if I made it to the run out top section. However a quick top rope and I had gotten the hard start redialled and knew that if I could keep it together I would do the route. My first redpoint went amazing and I cruised through the start and up to the final bolt before the lower off.
“Shit, I have to do the top section now” I said to myself.
A few seconds later and I had clipped the chains. My second 7c+ in the bag and on day one of the trip, whatever happened now the trip was already a success. It was one of those leads where every movement flowed and every move went as perfectly. My feet and my hands working together in a natural harmony. My head clear of everything but the move I had to carry out next. My worries that my head game would revert to how it was in Spain disappeared, clearly the commitment I had put in to changing it for the better since then was paying off.
The first of what ended up beingbeing five very cold nights was spent sleeping out under the stars and one thing that I could be grateful for was at least I hadn’t substituted my roll mat for a slackline like Craig had. Both of us however had managed to forget any cutlery and I ate my tortellini that night with a bottle opener.
Too Cosy?
With one route on the hit list ticked off it was time to move onto another and with a further four on the list located at Chee Dale all I had to do was pick one. So on the second day I went to try Sturgeon In The Cupboard (7c), however being unable to memorise my foot sequence for the lower section left me in some doubt as to whether I wanted to come back and continue working the route. In the end I didn’t go back as both me and Craig got too psyched watching a group of people doing Jug Jockey (7c+) to want to venture too far from Cornice again that trip.
I did look at the moves on Jug Jockey the next day with Craig and although inspired by the route, I knew on such trips that sometimes working something so hard can be quite upsetting and have a big negative effect on your psyche if your partner does it before you. Sometimes it’s a big help projecting something with someone and you carry the other persons send psyche with you on your own send, but Jug Jockey didn’t feel like one of those routes where that would happen and besides it wasn’t on the hit list. So instead I headed round the corner to The Nook to look at The Lockless Monster (7c+) which had dried out since my last visit.
Lockless itself is an extended board problem with a four move 7A boulder problem crux in the middle, that means you have to skip third bolt, sandwiched by two 6B board problems maybe. It definitely suited my style and a quick change of foot positions on my last go of day three meant the final hard move of the 7A sequence, a big pop/dyno to a jug, was sent with relative ease and saw me just a few moves from the chains. Thinking I was over my premature ejugulation and having done the top section at least five times to get it dialled, I was definitely feeling optimistic, to say the least, about my chances of making it all the way as I shook out on the jug.
The Hitlist
One rest day later and I found myself putting the draws back into Lockless with my clip stick bright and early. After falling off after the crux two days earlier I knew my chances of getting it were good, lighting never strikes twice in the same place, right? I wasn’t going to suffer and fall off on the hand swap after the crux again, was I? Without even warming up I jumped straight on for a redpoint and despite nearly blowing the dyno I somehow held on and caught the jug. Staying calm I got through the crux and managed to get through the hand swap. For some reason my onsight head then kicked in and I did the final few moves in a completely different way to the way I had dialled. A risky move but I actually found an easier sequence and had soon clipped the chains. A 7c+ before breakfast, and not warmed up, I definitely felt good although I was really lucky not to hurt myself by doing something that hard when I was cold. Now all I needed for the trip to be a true success was for Craig to send Jug Jockey and it would be celebrations all round.
That day Craig looked like he was going to get it, even after getting a huge flapper. He kept getting through the first crux, over the roof and falling on the final hard pull onto the headwall. Despite evident frustration, he kept his psyche and kept giving it his all on every attempt. It didn’t go that day and another long and cold nights sleep followed, despite moving to The Nook and putting the tent up to try and get warm. When Mirf told me he was coming up on the Wednesday morning as we went to buy coffee from the van in the car park, all I wanted was for Craig to send Jug Jockey so we could go home two days early, finally be warm again, have a good meal, get a good night’s sleep and let our hands recover.
I Did Eventually Buy Some Forks – One Thing Of The University Checklist Sorted!
In the end it all came down to Craig’s finally attempt of the trip, after accepting that we’d struggle to enjoy ourselves anymore if we stayed, Craig went up to get the draws out. Everyone wanted Craig to get it, he had definitely put everything into doing it and he definitely deserved to send it. There was a deathly silence as we watched on, everyone wordlessly willing Craig up it. As he got through the roof and to the final crux everyone held their breath. Somehow he managed to pull himself onto the headwall, please don’t blow it now Craig, was all I could think. Craig seemed to spend an eternity shaking out before committing to the final few moves. He knew as well as I did, even after the crux it isn’t over until you’ve clipped the chains.
Craig avoided the curse of premature ejugulation though and moments later I was jumping round shouting “What a trip!” over and over.
And what a trip it was, so maybe we weren’t as hard core as we seemed, going home two nights early because we were cold and tired. But living rough for so long is a lot harder than I expected and I can’t think of many people who’d be willing to live like that just to do what they love. Once I’d recovered from that trip I’ve been as psyched as ever to go climbing. So maybe Summer is nearly over, but if I’ve learnt one thing so far this summer, it’s that even if I’m not hard core, I’m committed and I’m going to be a climber no matter where I am and how tough it is.
Tales Of A Drunken Giraffe 