UKH

So, what routes do you want to climb in 2020?

I want to do point 5 on the Ben, the shepherd at Sandwood bay and as many classic VS's and HVS's on the mountain crags of the lakes. I also want to brush up my aid climbing as I want to go to yosemite in 2021.

Not routes but boulders for me - tick all the classic 7th grade problems at Longridge and maybe the shelter stone.

I might get back on wilton wall if i can summon the head for it.

No climbing as, sadly, I may not be able to train properly for climbing anymore. This year is building base for a pipe dream of mine (BGR) and enjoying moving in the mountains. 

Also, getting used to accepting that running slowly is actually valuable for training and stopping my habit of getting 'carried away'.

Best of luck to everyone else with their own goals!

One route I never did when climbing well was national acrobat at ramshaw rocks . I am going to put that on my to do list with my new found desire to climb again.

Get at least one day out with them ice tools. 

Perhaps tick a route or two (trad or sport).

Try a few boulders and see how they go. 
 

Strictly speaking, I’ll be Happy If I get something done (as has been the case for the past 4 years or so).

Let me know if you need a belayer!

I never even managed to get established on the overhang, let alone the hard bit.

You should speak to Charlie at Mountain Run, he's gaining quite a tally of people he's helped achieve the BGR through training and guiding. 

Make the semi-finals of the BBC’s & have a bloody good bash at Rays roof

Thank you for that, I will look in to it. Certainly on the training side (not sure if guiding is for me though). Cheers!

BB

I'd like to consolidate E1, and have a few routes on my list as contenders:

Whit's End Direct (E1 5b)

Central Buttress, Scafell

Cenotaph Corner (E1 5c)

Do Not (E1 5b)

Gimmer String (E1 5b)

The First Touch (E1 5b)

I also have a more local aim: Cracked Actor, E2, at Trowbarrow. I need more stamina and confidence for that, though.

 I also have a local font 7A boulder project, which I'm no where near at the moment, but which feels like a good thing to beat oneself against: Country for Old Men, at Windy Clough.

You should just get on it. It's soft for E2 - probably less daunting than the mountain routes you list.  The tricky section is only quite short (15 - 20 feet as  you leave Alladinsane?) and can be stuffed full of wires. Lots of people seem to forget their feet on this and try to wrestle the crack all the way up. Towards the end you actually move left on the breaks. I've seen people fluff it at this stage by blindly following the slanting thin crack. I always used to reckon it was about the same grade as Hollow Earth.

For me it's generally getting stuck into the 8b grade after getting heartbreakingly close to Migranya (8b) in October - a few projects in the works in Frankenjura but thankfully also a local one in the Swabian Alb called 'Glücksbringer'. A nice steep roof and headwall followed by a good rest and then a crimpy crux to finish. 

Other than this mileage in the low 8's and getting back into bouldering after a hiatus due to finger injury - in some miracle managed to tick a local 8A in a couple of sessions so now going to try and consolidate that grade and try the extension as a long term project which gets 8B+.

Some harder multipitch in the Alps such as Lilith (7c+, 11 pitches) and Hannibal's Albtraum (7c, 6 pitches). Other than that some good adventures on the multis at whatever grade as long as the route is good! 

Pipe dream is Battle Cat (8c) but that is a longer term goal. 

Flippin' Eck! Those are some big scary numbers. Best of luck  

Go for it - and please film yourself on Ray’s Roof, it is the ultimate existential struggle.

Thanks for the enthusiasm. I've read others suggest the same as you, that it's soft for E2, but I don't feel quite ready yet. I've led Hollow Earth in good style but seconding Cracked Actor on the same day it still felt a bit too tough. Once I've done a few laps of the main wall at Kendal over winter, perhaps I'll be there!

To strive

To seek

To find

And to have a beer

Any grade at (n +1) is scary to the man who climbs at (n-3). Its all relative to where you are.

But in general it doesn't have to be - the bolting is most often closer on harder routes.

I assume you know already so I’m probably preaching to the choir, but internet wisdom (Nina Caprez) says Hannibal’s is nowhere near 7c:

Looks amazing mind you. Never been to Ratikon, done Wenden a few times, would really love to get there one day......

Source: https://ninacaprez.ch/hannibals-alptraum/

Aha yeah I've heard about the reputation. I've been pretty consistently onsighting 7c this year so instinct for a multi-project which requires a bit of emotion/time investment (especially a shorter one like HB AT) would be more in the 8a range - but as you've pointed out with Rätikon the grades are often not what they seem, so it's best to exercise caution! 

All that being said despite having a special obsession for steep lines I climb my best on crimpy stuff so am optimistic for these routes - the plan is to get on them relatively early season and see how it feels, that way there's time for a few weekends if necessary. 

Drop me a line if you ever fancy heading down there, I live south of Stuttgart and around 3.5hrs drive from Rätikon. 

Cheers. Honestly with the numbers it's always those steps ahead that seem big and then when you get there it's just more of the same, only you're a little stronger. Good fun though eh! 

First E2. Indeed generally, getting back into trad. But saying yes generally!!

Best of luck! I've always thought that sort of multipitch redpoint project would be a very cool experience, although with two small children I can't help feel I've made the logistics rather challenging for myself!!! If I ever get the chance re ratikon I will certainly drop you a line...

Cheers. Just been having another look through the guide after this chat. Rätikon has so many class lines. Plenty to go at if HB AT turns out to be too much this year! 

What have I done to garner so many dislikes on this thread? Somewhat confused. 

I know, sometimes I get dislikes on stuff I post for no apparent reason.

I think some of the hardcore trad lot on here just insta dislike anything that mentions sport climbing...

(adopt miserable old git voice) "Well it's just not bloody climbin' is it?  And what's your grade on grit anyway?"

My aim this year is just to keep climbing, keep enjoying myself and to keep pushing myself to improve.  Without too hung up on grades, I felt like I wanted to consolidate at a level this year, and actually found I did ok at it, a bit better than I thought I would, so maybe I'm going to try and push just a little bit up this year.  As long as I'm being tested and I feel like I'm doing things that are hard for me then I'm happy.

I just want to keep feeling happy, but then that why we all climb isn't it?

Could be. I mean I used to do loads of trad - some of it even a wee bit tricky - but I now live in Germany so it's mostly sport and when I do go tradding it's in the alpine and gets a french or UIAA grade anyway.

Sounds perfect to me. 

Just an observation - I would really struggle to touch 7th grade problems these days, especially at Longridge, but I did Wilton Wall not long back.  Gear was good really and although some moves were pretty hard, it was possible to stop between the hard sections and work things out.

Top of my list is getting my depression sorted, 10-15 more munros done, enjoy myself in Lofoten and rehab from a subluxated ac joint this summer (parted company from my MTB in Austria) to get back to being comfy at HVS.

That lot should keep me busy. 

Gaining a dislike stalker is a status symbol and means that you've made it on UKC. Mine's been really lazy recently the little punk. 

Sounds like a plan, good luck mate! 

I’ve liked your post, does that make your status better or worse?

Likes are good obviously, but you've made it when you get a thumbs down stalker  

I see that you have done Eagle Front from your profile. That's a route high on my list for the year, went to have a look last August, but it was seeping a lot so ended up on Oxford and Cambridge. 

I disliked you for this ^

 And they’re idiots for that. The more people are bouldering or clipping bolts, the less there are crowds at the lines they want to climb. 

I have indeed done Eagle Front, it was a bit of a spur of the moment decision to do it with a couple of chaps from the Oread on a meet at High House in Borrowdale. Roger had done the route previously (30 years previously I believe) and was quite insistent about where the line went on the first pitch. I got at least 10-15m up having done what I thought were some fairly necky 4c/5a moves with no gear before looking down and seeing the peg mentioned in the guidebook description! That's the last time I follow route directions from Roger!

The bit of the route after the green ledge is however excellent and is among my best experiences climbing despite the fact that the other chap (Tim) let out a rather pungent fart before departing the belay at the start of the main traverse pitch! The smell should have dissipated by now... 

Did you read the second sentence in just your normal voice then?

I'm in a bit of a quandary over this. Up until last year, I was always quite "committed" in a sense appropriate to my utter mediocrity. I'd train indoors over the winter, I'd try to get out trad climbing whenever I could, I'd have a ticklist of routes at my top grade to try to do. Last year I got injured and climbed like a sack of spuds all year, and also reflected a bit on my relationship with climbing more generally.

I realised that I have a great time when I'm cruising a really great route that's within my comfort zone and I'm not properly stressed. But as soon as it gets hard, I go to pieces: I get stuck, can't commit to the next sequence, get frustrated, and start hating myself and the whole experience while my belayer gets bored shitless and freezing cold. Also, I quite often turn up at the crag just not really wanting to climb any of the routes - this is largely having done an awful lot of UK trad climbing over the past 20-odd years, and the buzz of it basically wearing off, especially now the big classic routes in my comfort zone have basically all been ticked. When I first started climbing, doing a VS on Stanage by the skin of my teeth was the best feeling in the world. A decade later, doing a Pembroke E3 by the skin of my teeth was just as good, if not better. Nowadays I've probably got the strength and whatnot to climb E3, but not the desire. The thought of clinging on to small holds, getting pumped, above gear I'm not sure about, with more hard climbing above me just fills me with dread.

I can have a nice time climbing E1s and E2s, but having climbed a bit harder in the past, scraping my way up a hard E2 over the course of an hour isn't satisfying. I feel like I "should" be cruising it, but instead I'm struggling and being shit. I used to consider E2 "good" before I'd climbed hundreds of E2s and E3s (and some E4s), but now I consider it puntery and feel humiliated when I fail on one. And of course in the Lakes I get beaten up on E1s too! It's all terribly unfair.

Most of the time I just end up repeating classic stuff, which is nice enough, but it's not "real climbing" to me - there's no euphoric buzz at the end of it. I could persuade partners to walk for miles to climb dirty E1s that no one ever does, and I'd definitely get more out of this than just repeating stuff, but again, it's not the real deal of climbing the dream routes you've always wanted to do.

So, I think I need a way of revitalising my psyche so that I do actually want to get on classic routes like Prana, Grand Alliance, Nazgul, White Wizard, Humdrum, Malice in Wonderland, Eastern Hammer; and in Pembroke Pan, Splendour, Deep Throat...but at the moment, the thought of getting on those routes is just too scary and I've got no confidence I wouldn't just give up before even getting to the crux. Or else come to accept that I'm not going to get the "real deal" trad buzz ever again. I dunno which way it's going to go. 

Sorry to hear that you've lost some of your psyche, maybe you should climb with my lot? For us it's all about the crack and piss taking more than grades.. 

I recognise quite a bit of what you express here, with another factor being that it is quite hard to find much new mileage to get up to the standard again.  This has the consequence that you jump on something that you cruised last time, only to find that (without the first time motivation), everything feels a lot more difficult, tenuous and sometimes frightening than it did last time!  

I'm with you in that my approach is to visit places I have never been just to find stuff to do that provides incentive and something of the original experience.  I even force myself onto routes I walked past a thousand times at Stanage, just to discover something different.  Despite university at Lancaster during the Lakes boom and a three year sojourn in the early 90s, there are still Lakes crags that I haven't climbed on, so that would do it for me!  Mind you, Scafell East Buttress can take a bit to catch the right conditions! 

Climb loads of other new routes on Hoy. Climb my project on Skye. Climb my project on Hoy. On sight an E6.

Oh, and I'd like to on sight E7 and bring permanent peace and happyness to the middle east

(roughly in order of decreasing probability that they will get done).

Cheers! If you're free during the week once the weather gets nice, I'll give you a shout. I like a good trek up hill for a classic HVS and E1s, and there's still a few I haven't done.

Yep. I also reckon that you edit your memory so all the gibbering and self-doubt is erased and only the triumph of topping out is retained.

I've still not climbed in the Cairngorms or Glencoe, so maybe when there's a heatwave I'll drive up rather than staying in the Lakes. Good idea!

Let's hope for a good summer. It's a great place to climb, and I've still got at least an E1 and an E2 to do up there (I've done the classics Ichabod and Roaring Silence a bunch of times now...).

Ive always loved trying harder routes (for me) and improving, but the most important part is having a laugh. When the two coincide it feels like heaven. 

My climbing has gone to crap over the last year. Rubbish weather, not getting out much, five year old at home, They're all just excuses though. I've started the year with the psyche again, and already managed a few VS's at the mighty Wharncliffe lol.

When you run out of rock to do, there’s always winter and alpine

Aye. I think my trouble might be having a laugh when I've just had my arse handed to me by an E1, instead of the inevitable getting face on.

Good stuff. I've properly got no excuses - sorted out my injury, bags of time on my hands. But I really really like soloing and scrambling on my todd instead of faffing with ropes and getting beaten up by trad routes, so on a really nice day I'm not always super motivated to go trad climbing. I even like really slippery, dangerous gill scrambling. It's perverted.

Too cold!

Currently I'm working Monday to Friday, but got my eyes open for something else. 

You're based in Kendal right? I work in Kendal and live up the road in Staveley.

Classic HVS/E1 up a hill sounds like an adventure in the making - will definitely give you a shout once the weather warms up. I also work on the bar at the union on a Monday if you want to come for a pint! 

Nice one, ta! - don't know the Union, but I just looked at your website and it looks like I'll get a good pint in there.

Sent you a message bud.