The DaxMindMapper Reloaded

Wow .. it’s been a busy time. In the last two weeks I’ve:

- Climbed at Symonds Yat twice.
- Climbed at Windgather (grit) once - solo’ed my first route ever.
- Climbed at Wynastone once - solo’ed my hardest climb ever! - E3 5c (the E3 bit is a bit misleading .. it’s a special grade just for Forest of Dean)
- Climbed at Bamford (grit) once - led my first HVS on grit.
- Climbed at Wyndcliff Quarry once (it’s only 35 minutes from home!) - led a knarly F6b route .. probably one of the hardest lead I’ve ever done in my life. The crux was below the first bolt (approx 3m up) and was so strenious that I climbed the rest of the route with my arms pumped.

In fact May has been busy full stop .. around 50 routes climbed in total (mostly VS leads,a few HVS’s, a couple of F6a+ and a F6b).

I’ve cycled approx 200 miles this month .. and run about 5 miles. I’ve also fallen off my MTB twice .. bashing fingers on my left hand in the process.

My weight has been down to approx 12st 10lbs - but it’s probably around 12st 12lbs at the moment - and my body fat index has gone down to approx 14.9% - but it’s probably 15.5% at the mo.

I’ve learnt a fair amount about trad lead climbing too. In fact I’d recommend the following book: Trad Climbing + (Rockfax Climbing Guide) by Adrian Berry and John Arran (Paperback - Nov 2007). Loads of usefull stuff .. wish I’d had the book when I first started out.

Went down to The Wyastone in the Forest of Dean last night to check out the solo potential of the routes there. Very unusual rock. Very unusual climbing experience.

I’m not sure what to think; did I like the climbing or not?

I mean the rock is so friable it’s not funny (esp. as I was soloing everything) and there’s a lot of moss on some of the routes but even so .. even with all that .. I actually enjoyed the climbing.

On the plus side the landings are usually excellent .. very, very soft with lots of leaves

I managed 8 routes (? Not sure where a boulder problem becomes a route ?) and 4 definite boulder problems. I had to jump off one route (2m up), backed off another after 3 attempts (the top out looked ‘orrible) and had one foot hold
explode on another ( = big barn door but managed to hang on)

I stopped after soloing an E3 5c! Reckoned I’d pushed my luck enough for the evening

I’d go back but I suppose I’d prefer it if I was on a top rope due to the nature of the holds - either that or at least have some with me in case it all goes pear shaped.

Route details were:

Touchy 6m VS 5a - Solo. I climbed in from the left, under tree, up and around tree to the right and then desperate top out (can see head sized hole where a rock used to be!). I number of large pebbles on the route appear to have been broken off.

If these Slabs had Ears 6m HS 4a - Solo. Very easy.
Councellor Slab 6m HVS 4c - Failed on Solo after 3 attempts (exited to the right below arete move). Just didn’t like the look of the top out .. no holds, rounded sandstone with mud to finish = bottled it.

Tread Lightly 6m HVS 4c - Solo. Big start but the holds are there.

Squeezed In 6m HVS 5a - Solo. Big start and then the fun is getting onto the slab (I had to jump off the start of the slab on my first attempt). NB: Could see a damaged hold and also noticed evidence on the rock of someone’s rock boot having slide approx. 10 inches down the main slab! Wonder what happend there?!

Diminutive 4a - Boulder Problem
Big Brother Widow 4c - Boulder Problem
Golf Ball Wizard 5a - Boulder Problem
Snap Dragon 5b - Boulder Problem. Nice layback start. Exploding foot hold on first attempt (on a layback for gods sake!)

By this point I reckon I was getting the hang of the rock and the climbing.

Turtle-head Soup 6m E1 5b - Solo. Big foot hold exploded at half height = serious barndoor but was able to hang on as I’d made it to the big handholds on the face. Reachy at the top.

Mr Stretchy 6m E1 5b - Solo. Desperate slab climbing, easier once I’d made it to the face.

Liealot 6m HVS 4c - Solo. Watch out for rocks at a base.
Viva Vigilante 6m E3 5c - Solo. Serious. Rocks not so bad but be carefull.

Wyastone Drive Details

16:12pm left work (Poulton).
16:30pm Airballon Roundabout.
16:40pm M5 J11a Northbound
17:00pm On M50 I think.
17:15pm On A40 roundabout 2 I think.
.. another 10 minutes or so to get to Wyastone.

Today I finally got round to telling Resharper to stop reminding me of possible issues with my code (via it’s hints and warnings):

1. Turned off the “Redundant ‘this.’ qualifier” check - I actually like using it as it clarifies exactly what the identifier is refering to. I know that Resharper will warn me of any hiding issues but I still like to see the this. notation.

2. Turned off the “Convert property to auto-property” check - I don’t like this new .NET 3.0 notation .. there’s no need for it. With an auto encapsulate refactor menu one keypress (Ctrl-Shift-R) away there really is no excuse for not encapsulating your fields and therefore there is no need to use the auto-property. The icing on the cake for me is that with auto-properties it all gets a bit confusing if you want additional functionality eg read only/default values. Confusion = Bad.

NB: These options are accessed via Resharper -> Options -> Code Inspection -> Inspection Severity.

Officially started today .. practise sessions start tomorrow.

All of the action, as they say, available via the BBC Coverage and their iPlayer service.

NB: The BBC site is currently (pre-2008 racing) very confusing as it’s got last years content all over the place .. I guess this will disappear/sort itself out as the racing starts proper.

Here’s some YouTube onboard content to show you what it’s all about:

Going really well

Training for Climbing

Climbed at the Link on Tuesday evening with Rhys .. managed to lead two routes over the biggest overhang: 6a and 6a+ .. both quite nasty for me becuase there was hardly any chances to “cheat” the holds where close together so not much chance to use technique .. all down to endurance.

Cleaned one of them and only one(?) rest on the other. Impressed myself with my willingness just to go for it .. in one case on bad holds just after the tin strip and rather than just give up I hung on, out of the corner of my eye spotted a great foot hold .. used that and made it clean to the top.

Also clean lead a soft touch 6B meduim overhung route .. and then finished off on the yellow slightly overhung 6B .. not clean but did well to get through the difficult top section (tiny holds) after one or two attempts.

Climbing

Last night climbed at Symonds with Adrian - Ward and Anthony there too. We got 5 routes done (see log book for details on 8th May 2008) .. which was really cool.

Adrian managed to have a pretty memorable lead fall on the first route (Sentinel S 4a) Unfortunately he grabbed the rope as he was coming off => rope burns on three fingers I believe Lesson learnt I guess .. always easy to say in hindsight, not so easy to be calm when your falling off a trad route.

Although his first piece of gear ripped - the next piece held, which is probably a good thing as he came close to his bum landing on a sharp branch (ouch!). BTW I spent about 5-10 minutes extracting the nut that held when I seconded.

I led a great little VS 4C (Goblin’s Grumble) .. very nice .. had to think about what I was doing, be confident with the gear placements and move quickly when I had to, slowly when I didn’t = nice!

Oh yeah .. and I also led a HVS 5a too (although it’s the easist one I’ve ever done .so a bit of a soft touch). That means clean leads on a VS and a HVS in one evening = gotta be good!

Cycling

Lovely weather .. covered approx 80 miles this week.

Body

Although chest not 100% perfect .. it’s near as dammit back to normal after the flu.
Weight has been fluctuating between 12st9lbs and 13st .. pretty good actually, might be on the cusp of a weight drop .. waist measurement must be down as various trousers/climbing shorts are getting slightly more baggy.

One advantage of the old waist size coming down .. my new harness is L-XXL (the only other option is S-M, which was too small) .. this means that my gear loops have effectively moved round to the front of my body = means easier access to my gear compared to my old harness = really good news for leading trad climbs.

Arms/Shoulders seem fine .. after climbing on Thursday my shoulders were great .. free and without any discomfort.

My fingers now seem to be the weakest link .. they feel a bit over used/tweaked on and off all the time. Reckon I tweaked ‘em a bit on some real small holds on Tuesday. May well try the Lewis Reaction/Ice Therapy (videocast) on them.

.. and today it’s stuff about trad rock climbing (that’s climbing outdoors using temporary gear placed as you go.)

Tests show that extending a sling with another sling directly can reduce the slings strength by approx 40%! I didn’t know this.

Conclusions (abridged)

Better to extend using a crab .. no lose of stength.

If you must connect two slings together than:
1. Use the same types of slings and
2. Use a Climber Sling Hitch.

Details of two sets of test can be at Black Diamond’s website: Connecting Two Slings Together and Extending a Cam Sling: Sling on Sling

.. went climbing at the Link on Tuesday. Didn’t really feel like it but wanted to meet up with the guys and at least attempt to start getting back into climbing (after having had the flu).

Climbed with Rhys and it all went fine .. approx 2 1/2 hours of easy routes .. downclimbed each one (apart from one: the see how hard a 7C route is .. ohh .. that hard. Oh well, might as well climb to the top using all of the colours .. ho hum).

Climbed at Symonds on Thursday with Ward. I seconded 3 routes, led an easy HS and bottled it (?) on an easy looking E1. See my logbook notes (http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/showlog.html?id=31648 and look for Derek, The Flightless Hedgehog E1 5a) for description of why I backed off. Will have another go another day.

No way I was going to do any kind of endurance training this week .. flu (or whatever it was) has moved onto my chest and still reckon I’d end up in hospital if I tried cycling 20 miles or so Just gotta wait it out.

Symonds Drive Details

16:15pm left work (Poulton).
16:30pm Airballon Roundabout.
16:45pm Gloucester ring round
17:00pm Cleared Gloucester .. and same old, same old .. got stuck behind a slow vehicle for ages (this time a double decker bus .. held 10-15 cars up in a 50mph zone, travelling at about 35mph).
17:30pm Arrived at Symonds.