Another Rubicon hopeful

Climbing as an activity lends itself to fabricated ascents. You may be on your own, there may be no witnesses and so you ask to be taken at your word. The idealist reading this will bristle at this statement - why can we not give everyone the benefit of the doubt? because people lie!

In theory it totally doesnt matter what other people say and do. If they're not talking about you or hurting anyone, then why should you care? you shouldn't of course. So why does it matter if someone embellishes their own acheivements? again, it shouldnt - they're only kidding themselves, so dont sweat it. But it does matter. When you put a lot of time and love into an activity its more than just an arbitary pastime - you've become more involved, and so if you think someone's making stuff up then it irks - why should I bother training and trying and failing and being honest about my failure when i could just say I did it too? Its a hollow victory saying you did summat you didn't - you know you didnt really do it. Although I do wonder if some people convince themselves...

The benefit of the doubt is afforded people based on what you've seen them doing. For instance, having climbed with Paul Bennett and having seen him do some very hard problems at the board (sometimes with weight on), its reasonable to assume that at the very least he is extremely strong and I have no trouble believing he is capable of doing some very hard routes/problems. I've never had the pleasure of climbing with Paul on a slab, so I dont know that he is an equally skilled technician, but - he is a good climber. If he said he'd done a new 8b somewhere (for instance) I wouldnt struggle with that.

People have bad days, go through rubbish patches - may even be particularly good at one facet and not another, which is why a value judgement about someone else's abilities should not be formed on a single experience. As another example, I can remember Rupert Davies and Rocket man Rob Smith actually rolling about laughing at my laybacking technique. If you saw Adam on the Kudos wall you would still see a very talented climber at work but you wouldnt get the best impression of his skills.

Dont be reading this thinking I am talking about Scott Mclellan - I'm being general, although that is what got me thinking about it. I shouldn't have said he didn't based on climbing with him once, and the internet is no place to debate these things, plus, he's said he's several witnesses - even mentioned one of their names, it sounds awful to be needing to know who someones witnesses were, but when you've come from behind to the very very front people are gonna want to know how you got there and that you actually did. Anyway, thats enough of that - don't tell fibs kids.

It rained and rained and rained yesterday. I drove to the Tor to meet Ed and Dan. The rocks were pretty much dry, but the floor was v.wet. Staminaband undercuts dry, pocket 4 in powerband a bit spoogy but climbable. Junior Fred Nicole was camped out there, Debbie birch traversing about, Stone, Jon Cook, Sharples and Simon of the unknown sirname. It was really cold - dare I say baltic? I dare - it was. Ed wanted to go on Dangerous Brothers and I on Beluga so without even putting my boots on we zipped around to the mighty Con. Remember the wellies? thankfully still in the car. The crag is completely flooded again and they were necessary to make an approach. When I walked in it was about 4 or 5 inches deep, when we walked out about 8!

Who would ever have thought that two essential items for climbing at Rubicon would be wellies and pallets? Ed and I create a platform just out of the water for him to start from and I come on belay in wellies. He climbs up to the crux and looks to be a bit uncertain, but takes the holds and pulls them down, he's got the jug! amazing! he clips and rumbles up to the top but hasnt got a krab for the belay so jumps off in celebration. THis is not like us - we dont just get on and do stuff, usually theres at least three hours of fannying about before such things happen. We head back to the Rubicon island beneath the Sissy and Zeke. I dont feel massively excited about getting on Zeke - the last time I tried I couldnt hold any of the holds or positions and thought it was fully desperate. I knew I could do beluga and wanted the success rather than a working out the moves session. But, in the final analysis I had more than that on Zeke and have lit a new fire of desire. So, this time after some of the aforementioned fannying I basically did it in two sections. Its gone from being totally implausible to being on. I dont know where I will clip from but I'll work something out.

We leave and I pop to the climbing works to see Ed Robinson. Its rammed.