Friday, 20 May 2011

Time for Lime

Well since getting back from Spain a few weeks ago, its been all go on the Limestone sport front! Ed's been knuckling down to some hardcore training at the wall to get him ready for the Competition season to kick off. While I've been hitting the crags. Have had some great days out down at Chee dale, WCJ cornice, Dovedale and Malham. Ticks down in the Dale have been the short and sharp Entree 8a and desperate Unleashing the Wild Physigue 8a. Both routes being completely different styles and pretty tough for the grade.
Last week I had a quick hit trip to Malham with two other crushers being Caff and Ethan. We were lucky enough to be there the exact same time as the best climber in the world, Mr Adam Ondra! It was all abit surreal to be honest. We were camped right next to his tent at the campsite and I was on the same route as him (well, the easy first part anyway!!) All quite funny really. Anyway saw him warm up on Connect 5 8a+ and slip off the top of Overshadow! He made Overnight look about 7a!! Prett damn amazing. So yeh, we did manage to do some climbing ourselves with me ticking Overnight Sensation 8a+ and Yosemite wall. Caff did Connect 5 and onsighted Minimum Fuss 7c+ and almost did Power Ranger and Ethan nearly got Raindogs. A good couple of days.




Yesterday we all ventured down to check out Dovedale with Ethan, our local tour guide. First on the send train was Ron's amazing Eye of the Tiger up the centre of Ilam Rock. We decided to climb the route in a sport trad style as most of the gear is in-situ anyway from old pegs, threads and stuck wires. I got the route 2nd attempt after a quick abseil inspection. Its a fantastic route with a 'Big' feal about it topping out on a proper summit! Its relatively safe but still has some spicey run outs and definatly not a sport route!! As for the grade E6 6c seams fair, with about french 7c climbing. We then went further down the dale to check out Reynards arch. This is anouther amazing rock feature containing one of the best 7c+'s around, Arch Enemies. After doing a new 7a to the left we got stuck in to the main event with both me and Ed nailing it 2nd go. A brillinat find!
Right, thats it
Enjoy all the amazing dry crags out ther!











2 comments:

  1. Great stuff guys, dovedale photos are brill.

    You should have got on my 8a though to the right of Arch Enemies! :-) I thought it was awesome. Keen for it to get more ascents!

    Jon

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Jon, good to hear from you! Where you been???
    Yeh Dovedale was awesome, what a great place. Never been before but Ethan showed us the ropes. Really psyched for all these less known places, off the beaten track. Arch Enemies has to be one of, if not the best 7c+ in the peak! And yeh your route looked even better. Looks brillinat but didnt have enough time to get on that, was getting dark and I was spent! But well keen to head back down to have a crack at it.
    Took a good lob on Four door yesterday by the way, got a rather sore arse now! Bit of a nasty fall. Haha safe sport climbing hey!!

    ReplyDelete