One summer trying

Yesterday I omitted some very important cofe news. The hairy bugler went on something of a rampage. He crushed Foo fighter,
Goldfisch and Hohenrausch, and is having a well deserved rest today. Effort word!

Our pads were not where we left them this morning. We continued into the forest figuring the campers must have taken them and just around the corner was Rob smith above a sea of pads beneath hohenrausch. I think this could be the best problem here. I have some pics but cannot post them yet as am writing from my blackberry. A soaring shield of granite launches from a pit of jagged boulders, criss crossed by good edges. Plus, its highball, so there's spice in the mix too. Its got it all. Anyway, the last hold is a biter and tho rob is getting there he's fighting the battle to stay attached as his skin is about to go through.

We start warming up and rob sets off from the bottom, displaying a finely measured display of agression to reach the last crimp, he sets up and throws for the top, hits it but is airborne on a fast track to the bottom of the pit. Boom! He's fine. Phew. That partly allays my fears and I'm totally up for taking a ticket to get involved. Robs next go is amazing. It would be inaccurate to say he climbed the problem - more he attacked it and tore its head off! This time as he took the top crimp he touched in for the match, and launched himself to the jugs with a man bark - BRRRAAAAPP! And he was up. Jittering, I sat myself at the bottom for the flash go.

Although shaky, the first moves were very much my cup of tea and soon I was staring at the top crimp, but rob's sequence felt uneasy and I stepped off. On my next go, I changed some foot beta and nailed the top crimp (which is very sharp), I started to unwind and get my weight over my toe and I realised I could lock it, reached further and deeper in, I'm going to have to pop for the top, pop and stick and whoa!!! I'm off, taking the ride right from the top and its fine. The jittering passes. Dylog steps up and does the same as me on my first go. His next go is with the benefit of having seen me get to the top and fall off from just about the worst possible place, and he absolutely crushes the problem. My next go its all perfect and I too am on top. Jim has arrived by now and is getting to the last move but being unable to finish it. Ed brown too. Three or four times he gets there, but his skin is terrible and he looks to be cheesing around on the grips. He can't make himself do it and throws in the towel.

We move to pura vida. I'm going to stop telling you so much because my thumbs are getting tired. Jim and james foley do schnae brett (which it turns out is what we did the other day - schnaesturm starts on two crimps in the middle of the wall, I try and nearly do the move, but its a bit unpleasant and hard on the skin.), and I have one really good link to the end of one summer in paradise, but it turns out that the last bit is actually about 8c. I try it a bit and sure I could do it if I had unlimited time and skin, but I don't think my reserves of these limited resources will see me victorious. This time.... anyway, I'm pleased to get to the end and know I can do that.

I take my stuff up to octopussy. There's a couple up there from london. They seem really nice and we chat for a bit whilst he and I exchange goes. He can do it from the start to holding the jump, but cannot get his feet down, whilst I do it from the jump to the end, which is another new link for me. I'm shedding skin like a snake in a skin factory and pack my stuff away and call it a day. I think if I rest tomorrow and grow some skin back it could be on.

Whilst I'm there jls comes up to chat and I'm glad to talk as since we arrived I've had some sort of anxiety attack thing going on. In short, I think I massively got heat stroke on day one, didn't know what was happening to me, or how to make it stop and this brought on some hideous anxiety. I managed to hold it together by the skin of my teeth but not without help from all of my understanding and kidly friends. Thanks boys.

Joe and I have a walk to sofa surfer and meet up with some of the rest of the team. Apparently I just missed james foley adding fool fighter to his tick list - a good day for him too then. Andy jennings does the deed and I get it on film.

I go for a bit of a walk and find john and cofe beneath some cool looking 6b. They're not climbing just looking. Finally, I walk up to high spirit and voigas for a quick look. The great thing about here is that I can actually fully concieve of being able to do quite a few of the hard problems. The difficulty is in picking the one you want to do most of all and sticking to it. And the thing about that is that this time I've shot me bolt on other worthwhile problems rather than focussing on the projects I really wanted to do, but this isn't really a projects trip, its a team thing, and that's fine, but it has whetted my appetite to come back, perhaps at an ever cooler time... Like october. I feel like I could climb 8b here.