science friction

The wind was cold but the rocks were warm. Jacket choice is always an important decision when heading out the house, and due to the sunshine I went light and fast - alpine style. I came to regret this later, but strangely, the rocks weren't as cold as the air. Met Rich and Folog on the way down to the Plantation cark. Claimed good nic in the pit of Brad and whilst I only wanted a potter, the possibilities started to churn in my mind. I love the Plantation. Its close to home, has a great circuit and a pleasant aspect with a wonderful view of the sunset. Perfect for a reintroduction to the grit.

I start my education with a fairly standard sequence of problems. The pebble aretes, that thing that faces the green boulder, the ramp line above Boston Mess. Of note, i find the original Pebble arete desperate on my first go, I wobble, it feels desperate and I have no faith in science friction (orbital ref). I make myself keep doing it until I climb it with some semblance of style, and begin to trust the rubber on my feet again. But, I can't even get on deliverance. It feels slippy and polished. I go and do the green traverse, dope on a slope, ron's reach and then that mantle from the crimps. I move to captain log, but it hurts my leg and I push on to the easy arete/prow thing next to it. Adam turns up, we chat, he does the problem in his trainers, and then, unnoticed by me, he torques his foot into the crack in such a way as to be able to take his hands off and do a ninja hand movement. Actually, when you have seen those holds, and considered the trainers he was wearing, its not that impressive, but when you'd not seen the jessery involved, I appeared to be bearing witness to a matrix-a-like climbing moment. My faith was restored when seconds later, sans feet, I witnessed a sweeping pad dab. Dab'em Log.

We go to the hourglass, and I am glad of Dab'em's instruction as I wobble through the brilliant problems. If only he could have turned up earlier and I could have done Delifrance. We walk down occupied with talk of the coming winter and aspirations of greatness. Then race our wheeled oil burners back to the city. He goes home, I go to the climbing works. I'd not realised how beasted I was, and basically stand around gabbing for an hour without doing a move (or at least, an impressive one).

For the first week for a while, I have no big climbing impacting engagement this weekend. I think the forecast is ok, and i hope to get out on Saturday at the least. It might be time to head to Log Rider, and Green Room Log. Lee (!) is keen. Ed Log is going to yorkshire, Follog is team Sunday, and Dylog wont get up early.