Damn The Midge

Headed back up to The Scalp with Jamie this evening. He has been injured lately and has been visiting the physio and has been diagnosed with a torn hip flexor, its been an injury hanging around and flaring up a lot on J for the last 6 months or so.  He injures it playing football and unfortunatley the hip flexor is a key part of the core when doing hard climbing moves, so he hadn't climbed for a week and came along hoping to ease himself back into it.  He wasn't yet ready and had to sit this one out, but he is deffo on the mend and keeping his rehab stretches and exercises up. It was very humid, the air was hot and hung still amongst the woods and there was bastard midge out in small numbers by as early as 6 o'clock :( They weren't a problem at first but as the evening wore on their numbers grew exponentially, I had no hat and no long sleeve t-shirt and a freshly shaven head which they found most appealing ... horrible jaysus yokes so they are !!  We had to call the session early to escape their  irritating, itchy wrath :( But it wasn't all bad ...

Me On Gen Tilly 6B+

I warmed up on the easy arete again before heading over to the thuggy Plank Arete 6A and then I headed over to a problem I have had my eye on for a while called Gen Tilly 6B+, its a lovely overhanging arete/lip traverse on small crimps, open handed holds and a nice sidepull pinch, it also involves some sweet heel hookery. The sit start was powerful for the grade but nothing compared to the pull off the deck on Dark Angel. Nice little problem, figured out the finish first, then the sitter and then stitched it together nicely.  After this I had a go at Natural Born Crimpers 6A, really nice unusual problem, very reachy, I couldn't figure it out much to my frustration, I'll have to go back for it at some stage.  Up the hill we went to try Crimpnarris 7A again, I would love to see someone climbing this problem or get some beta for it, I'm not quite sure where it starts or whether its a sitter or not, who ever graded this thing must of been high on potent hallucinogenics, it feels WAY harder than 7A !! I really want to get strong enough climb it, it looks and feels exactly like a sweet 7B+ in Albarracin called Rude Man that me and J have our eye on , I gave it a few goes before my comfort threshhold was pierced by the midge and we headed home. Into the gym tomorrow and Gravity on friday for some hard training, less than 3 weeks to go until our trip to Pfalz in Germany and The Magic Wood in the Swiss Alps ... psyched :) Happy scurrying folks !!