Wetcliffe

Foundry comp round 2 on Monday. I was exhausted when I got there and it didnt go well. Only 2 hard problems, probably 4 droppers in total (i.e. of 20 problems, 4 were droppable/5 if you missed a trick on another, but am not including it as once you knew what to do it was very easy). Polish Dave, Stu and Roy Muesli will have been the contenders for winning this round. One hard problem on the board, I flashed to the penultimate hold, matched it and fell off - about 10 times. Feel certain Ned would have flashed this one. The hard problem on the wave was tricky up to the last two moves, then it was evil brick hard. It wasnt that I didnt do it because I didnt climb well, I didnt do it because i dont know if I would ever do it!

With such a poor performance as a backdrop, expectations for Tuesday's big day out were low. I collected Ned and Dave from their house in Crookes and set sail for Yorkshire, starting at Caley. Given that the roads into the area were wet, it seemed doubtful that Caley would be in good condition and it wasnt. Got a tour from Dave of the crag area which I have actually never been to. Understand now why people are so suprised I'd never been up there now - its really good. Banked lots of things I would like to do for when it is dry.

We'd always thought that in heading to Yorkshire we would at least be able to fail back to Almscliffe. This was our next stop and I can honestly say I have never seen the cliff in such a state of disrepair. Almost everything was wet. Went up to Demon Wall roof and that was about as good as it got, but it really wasnt good. Did a new thing (for me) called Pebble wall, then Ned did something which isnt Hot Dog Fromage, but is dolphin belly slap without the arete. Jon turned up. We tried to go to Matt's roof - soaked. Continued back to the Virgin to look at Dick Hymen. It too was wet. Had a look at Gypless - I dismissed the top at as nearly certain death and bottled it, whilst Dave, Ned and Jon all rinsed it out. They then turned their attention to something which wasnt called Magnum PI but much hilarity was had describing it as such. Some to'ing and fro'ing was required before Ned took out his balls and went for it. It looked gripping, and led to the same slimy E27 top out they had waiting for them at the top of gypless. I was glad I wasnt pretending to be brave and had my trainers on. Dave was next to succeed, seemingly scrittling his way over the top in a moment that was both inspiring and terrifying for those of us left on the ground.

Next it was my turn to shine and the four of us wedged ourselves in the cleft of Jess' roof. It was unclimbably wet. We went back to demon wall roof to finish the afternoon off, then drove home and went to the climbing works, which was almost unclimbably busy. And, I was useless. To say it didnt feel like I'd done any climbing I was knackered and left soon after starting.