Ed Downunder...

Week 1 – Arrival…

I arrived in Australia after 24 hours of travelling feeling pretty spaced out and absolutely knackered. My journey consisted of flying from London via Paris and Guangzhou to Sydney. It was pretty full on. Anyway, I woke up the next day feeling slightly better and got myself some breakfast before checking out one of the local climbing gyms in St Peters. I was staying in a great little hostel in Newtown called Billabong Gardens. Newtown is a brilliant spot to be as there are plenty of shops/supermarkets/bars/restaurants/cinema’s -  loaaads!!!!

After a couple days I met up with some great people inlcuding Amy Wilson, Matt Adams and Bill Hatcher who were really helpful and gave me plenty of contacts for my stay.

Yesterday, I headed to the Villawood Climbing Gym to meet up with Carlie and Rob and to have a training session to loosen up. It is a fantastic wall with plenty of routes and boulder problems to go at across all grades.

I then headed back with them out of the city to their place in Falconbridge, close to the Blue Mountains. Today, I am resting as it was a pretty full on session the night before…..my body is feeling all beat up! Next stop…..Blue Mountains ;)

Week 2 - Into the Blue Mountains…

Day 1

After a couple of rest days I felt ready to climb again. I hopped on the train from Carlie and Rob’s place and 30 minutes later was in Katoomba. Here I met up with a local climber, Matt Norgrove, and together we headed out to one of the newer crags in the Blue Mountains called Elphinstone. There was a large group of people at the crag that day so the psyche was high. I started with a route called ‘Tiger Snatch’ (29/8a) which climbs up an impressive orange coloured wall.  There were some super gymnastic moves between good natural breaks. I managed to send this on my 2^nd attempt which got the ball rolling.

Next up was a climb called ‘Green Grass’ (29/8a).  This is by far one of the best lines I have ever seen. A few guys had been trying the route that day so I was encouraged to go for the flash.  This went pretty well for me and before I knew it I was resting after the crux moves with another 10 metres to go on slightly easier ground. I managed to dig deep and complete the flash. It was a great feeling clipping the chains;  a 5 star route ;o). Then we headed home after a great first day of climbing.

Day 2

The next day Matt decided to take me to a crag called Barden’s Lookout. It was pretty hot and sweaty but in the shade, so it was still possible to climb. I got ready and went for a route called ‘The way of all flesh’ (28/7c+). After some goes at the hard boulder start, I climbed through to the top. Another fantastic route!!!

Then I had a quick go at Bloodline (8b/+) to the right, but felt pretty beasted by then to have any chance of climbing it.  Next time maybe ;o)  

Day 3

We woke early raring to go. The previous night a friend of Matt’s called Gavin had come up for the weekend to climb in the mountains. We had planned to check out a crag called ’Red Ledge’. It’s another amazing piece of rock with a range set of routes. It has a slightly longer walk in - about 45 minutes - but pretty flat ground the whole way. We arrived early in the morning becasue the sun hits this crag in the afternoon. Matt got warmed up on a climb called ‘Andys 24’ (7a+). I then followed and Gavin gave it a few good shots although I think he had previously climbed it sometime before. Matt then told me to try ‘Bloodshot’ (30/8a+), which he had climbed already. It was well chalked up and again climbed up an amazing, bright orange wall. I had a go at the onsight, but didn’t get very far. It had three obvious cruxes which all felt pretty tough to me. However, after working out the beta I made it to the top on my second attempt which was cool. Another five star line!

We made the long walk back in full sun and 30°C and decided to finish the day with a session at the boulder gym in Blackheath. This is by far the best training gym I have ever used ;o). Totally psyched!!

Day 4

After three solid days of climbing, I started to feel pretty tired, but was just too psyched and I didn’t want to rest. Matt had some work on so I got dropped off in Blackheath, met up with Rob and Carlie and headed to another crag called ‘Centennial Glen’.  This sector was just unbelievable. There were so many good looking climbs that I just didn’t know where to start. I warmed up on a tough route called ‘Padington’ (25/7b) and then belayed Carlie on a route called ‘August 1914’ (29/8a). This had a very hard bouldery start with some big moves.  She worked out the beta, but decided to back off and save some skin. I was next in line, and decided to try the flash. I sketched my way through the start and found myself shaking out with a dodgey knee-bar rest before finishing up even more crimpy moves to some final jugs. I was pretty happy with this flash!!! I then finished off the day by onsighting a couple of great routes ‘Trix Roughly’ (26/7b+) and ‘Madge Macdonald’ (23/7a). We all headed home feeling pretty wasted.

Day 6

I woke up after a nice rest day feeling good and with a little more skin. Got the train early and met Matt again and headed back to Elphinstone. Matt wanted to finish off ‘Green Grass’ (29/8a) and I wanted to check out the moves on ‘Tiger Cat’ (33/8c). We both warmed up and I gave Matt a belay on ‘Green Grass’.  He came so close to sticking the last move on the crux. He was feeling pretty psyched with his efforts as it had been about six months since he lasted climbed due to an injury! Great effort mate! He has only been climbing for four years and has managed to climb a handful of 8c’s in that time.  Strong bugga!

I got on ‘Tiger Cat’ and managed to do all the moves pretty quickly.  On the second redpoint I fell off high up on the last few tricky crimpy moves damn it!  We then watched Quentin (a strong French climber) breeze up Tiger Cat and saw Lee succeed with another (8b+ or 8c) first ascent to the right. What a day! We finished feeling very happy with our efforts and decided to come back here the next day.

Day 7

Elphinstone again.  Warmed up!!! Matt totally beasted ‘Green Grass’ clipping the chains with ease. Nice job!! Meanwhile, I had a couple more goes at ‘Tiger Cat’, but kept falling from the same move high up going for a right hand slot from a tiny left hand crimp. Anyway I manage to compose myself and have one last effort and this time I stuck the move and climbed to the top. It was a bloody great feeling ticking this route.  It’s one of the best climbing experiences I have ever had. Great effort to Lee Cossey for the first ascent! Another rest day calling………..

2013....

So....
It's been quite a while since I last wrote anything on here and quite a bit has happened over that time.
Firstly we both had great new years.
Ed headed off to Siurana in Spain with Ted and met some mates over there. It sounded like he had a cracking 10 days with perfect weather with a lot of psyched people! Highlights were the usual few 8a onsights as well as 3 8bs. He also checked out Montsant which sounded awesome!
And then as from last friday he's flown half way across the world to check out the climbing scene in Australia for a couple of months. Plans are to spend a lot of the time in Sydney and the Blue mountains. He'll be writing up some blogs for sure.

As for me! I've been spending a lot of my time over in Germany which has been amazing. I've been training hard at the gyms over there and in general having a great time! Its definitely not the season yet for climbing in the Frankenjura but its not far away and I can't wait to get stuck into some of the awesome lines of the forest.

Apart from that we had a fun day out in the snow at Rowtor a couple of weeks ago. We all managed the awesome highball line My Apple V8.
Then two weekends ago, Saturday was an amazing day weather wise and I was up at Stanage popular end with Oli Grounsell where we both managed a brilliant little gem, hidden among of the easy classics called Wall of Sound E6 6b. Then further down the cliff we did the classic roof climb Shine On E7 6c. Was great to be back on the grit after some time off!

Then last week Finn was up for a few days to get out on some trad and ended up having an amazing last day, where I sketched my way up the incredible Gaia E8 6c over at Black rocks. Had already tried to do it earlier in the week but just as I was getting my boots on it started snowing and totally covered the route. Pretty pist!!

This time however it all came together and after a few attempts trying to get through the desperate start (for shorties anyway!), I stuck the move and just had to keep it together for the top wall. Such an incredible route! Big respect to Finn for the psyche and the belay! Cheers buddy 

Managed to get it on film too.

Check it out, my first video effort! ha

And then this was the video that Ollie put together of Wall of Sound and Shine On. Nice one lad



Some shots too.......

My Apple V8

Wall of Sound E6 6b

Wall of Sound crux

Snogging Crocodiles and Petting Alligators

Had a cracking couple of weekends out on the grit recently! Perfect conditions to get your head back in the game for gritstone.
So last weekend I met Ethan up at Higgar tor. He had got there abit earlier and had already done the powerful lefthand arete Block and Tackle and so the only thing left to do on the block was Linkline (E6 6c). This we didnt really know too much about but after a couple of attempts, it was in the bag and what a great route it was! Pumpy, with long moves and good gear!!
Then this weekend, Saturday consisted of a bouldering sessions up at Burbage South ticking some classics that we had never done before.
The Sphinx V7 (high!), Boyager V8 (turd landing!) , Monochrome V8, Velvet Crab V7 and Rocket man V8+.
Then finally on Sunday I managed to finish off the wierd and amazing Dangerous Crocodile Snogging (E7 6c) at Ramshaw. I had been trying to do this route for a while now and everytime something seemed to go wrong with it. Firstly the weather is usually shit over that way and we got rained and snowed on a couple of times just before attempting the route. Then once, I forgot the key size 5 friend at home and then the last time we got there, someone was one it!!! Jeeez
Anyway was good to nail it this time!
Ed did a desperate problem called Ram Air V8+.

Got it on film too, Enjoy.....

Ed was in Slovenia over the last 10 days and here is a video of climbing Petting With An Alligator 8A+ Maltatal, Austria
https://www.dropbox.com/s/buqsja2e2wbmn1q/GOPR2911.MP4

Autumn Update

Hey all,

So yeh, its been a while since the last blog update! We've both been pretty busy working hard, so not too much to report on the climbing front. I've been doing Rope Access work the last couple of months with work in Manchester, Isle of White and Reading and Ed's been busy on staff training days with his main sponsor Sherpa. We have managed to get out a bit on the weekends though.

A few weekends ago I did my first trad route in quite a while, with a flash of the awesomely steep Painted Rumour (E6 6a) at the Roaches. Its a route I've wanted to do for quite a while as its just a huge gritstone roof, with some scary yarding to an awkward hands off rest in a hole and then an exposed finale pulling onto the headwall. I used a slightly dodgy tactic of tieing down the sling on the flake which looked pretty stupid but thats what I was told everyone does to stop it falling off! Anyway, everything went smoothly.

Then a couple of weekends ago we were down at Rubicon where the conditions were incredible for this time of year! So with out wasting any time I got stuck into the classic peak route Zeke the Freak (8b). I had tried the route before on a couple of occassions but it had never felt do able. Anyway this time it was bone dry and cold! And so quite unexpectedly managed to send it pretty quickly. Classic Peak crimping!

 



Starting up the massive roof

 





 

Pulling over onto the headwall

Dodgy looking tied off rope on flake! 

 

Waddage from last month

 

 

Milking the rest after chimes belay

 

 

Big ass move high up

 

 

Success! Happy times

(Cheers Michael Bate for the shots!)

 

 

 

Sherpa ‘On the hill’ event>>>>

First up were a couple of days spent in the Lakes District with the Sherpa team and 25 other shop staff from around the country. It was a chance for everybody to get together and test out some of the new Sherpa gear. We all set off early wearing plenty of warm kit as we were told it could be -3 on the tops. It pretty much rained solidly for 4 hours while walking, which was brilliant as the kit got seriously tested! Haha! It was a lot of fun and I am looking forward to the next…..

BLCC 2012 Senior Win>>>>

After returning from the Gorges du Loup, I got the motivation to get on with some training and take part in the BLCC’s 2012. I decided at the end of 2011 I would step back from the comp scene a bit and try and get outdoors more. I did so and had some great trips to Turkey, Spain and France. 10 months on and I was psyched again to get back into the lead comps. First hit was the BLCC’s. I felt in good shape and was super excited to be competing. The whole day went very well for me, I managed to top the first route and just missed out on the topping the second as I timed out (to slow) clipping the chains. I made it to the final along with Barrans, Tilley, White, Parsons and Phillips. The final route was super cool at around 8b. I came out and climbed until I had nothing left in the tank. After all of the finalists had climbed, I found out that I had gained first place by the skin of my teeth. I think I held a hold that Robbie touched?!?! It was a lot of fun seeing everybody again and I am buzzing for the Slovenia WC in just over 1 month.

LEEDS>>>>

Once back from Ratho I had arranged to meet up with Luke Tilley over in Leeds to have a couple of hard core training sessions. It started with a sweet day out at Caley (15 mins away from the crib).  We both managed to make quick sends of Block Buster (7B+) and JuJu club (7B+/7C). I also luckily managed to climb Zoo York (8A) in a session, a fantastic problem with great moves. We then finished the day with a late night board session with the rest of Luke’s house mates. Psyche was high. The next day we were up and out at 9am and ready to hit up the Leeds Wall. We both had a sick session on the routes and boulders. A great couple of training days, thanks to Luke.

                 Senior Podium: Robbie Phillips/Ed Hamer/Dave Barrans                    

                                                           Final Route

                                                          Sherpa Adventure gear testing day

Here are a couple petit training video's innit,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BaCl6mnIms&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLr8BVWdZr0&feature=plcp

Rest is calling!!!!!! Onwards and upwards!!!!!

 

Frankenjura!

I've just got home from a lightling fast trip to the amazing Frankenjura in Germany! I was only there week but we managed to fit quite a lot of stuff into such a short time, with some climbing, a bit of sight seeing and even went back to school for a day! It was an amazing week in a very special place with a very special person, Tanja.
She kindly invited me over and gave me a tour of some of the best crags in Northern Frankenjura. Just down the road from her house!! It was great to have someone local show me around the place and I got a much better feel for the area!
Weather wise it was perfect climbing conditions being cool and sunny.
I dont know why we hadnt gone back, since we went there 4 years ago as its just such an incredible place to go climbing. So yeh it was awesome fun! Cant wait for the next trip there. Check out the shots to see what we got up to!

Here were a few of the amazing routes I did:-
Nikita 8a+, Infiziert 7c+, Lochverstarker 7c+, Down Under 7c+, Marathon Man 7b+, Dumbo 7b, Die Vollerdung 7a+, Salsa 7a.

Celebrating the onsight of Down Under 7c+

Classic 8 (7a) of the Jura- Salsa

Drinking in Bamberg-Gasmos!!

Huge pizza in Bamberg

Aaamazing Bavarian food!

Stick clip or is that a Clip stick?

Heeeeey!

Coburg

Spot the lady with the four breasts!

Nikita 10- (8a+)

Nikita

Then apart from that, we've been out abit back home, mainly just ticking off a few things down at the Tor. The Prow and Cruxifiction (both 8a) were super cool lines all the way to the top of the crag! Also ticked a couple of Ted's cool links, The Green Rooster 8a and Lets get Green 7c+. Ed did The Toilet 8a

Then we checked out a little crag down at WCJ with a route called The Vision on it. It was pretty dirty and hadnt been climbed for a good while and we found it quite tricky to figure out which route was which. But we spent a bit of time cleaning and it turned out to be quite a decent and pretty desperate route!! Not quite the 7c/+ it says in the guide! More like tough 8a we thought!
Then up the road at Bigginers wall I did Fossil wall 7c and a couple of new 7c's down at Rubicon, Slapin and The Wimp.

Then last but not least I had a great day down at the Tor this week with Ethan. It was amazing to have the crag pretty much to our selves considering its been so horribly busy the last few times I've been there. Anyway I did the awesome extention to Chimes, which goes all the way to the top of the crag called Waddage 8b. Its a pretty rad route with a full on jump move right near the top after a lot of climbing!
Then after that I did a neat little route tucked around the corner called Tomb Raider 8a. Only short but packs in the moves!! Ethan then dispatched a cool problem called Lets get ready to rumbleweed V11 and I did Tumbleweed V10 

So thats all folks for now, Cheers ya'll
over and out

Summer trippin in the Loup!

Hey up everybody!! Its been a while since the blog got an up date. So here's one....

Well, we have just returned back from another amazing Euro trip to the south of France. It sounds crazy to think that we were out there for 5 weeks as it just went so quickly!  Me, Ed and Ethan all headed down in a very full Mazda bongo!

So we spent the majority of the time in this huge gorge just north of Nice called the Gorge du Loup and most of this time was spent climbing at the world famous Deverse sector. It was an incredible place to climb with some of the steepest and hardest routes in the world all packed into this one cliff. Tuffa’s and chipped pockets was the name of the game here. So yeh, a pretty wicked place to be if you like that kind of stuff. During the time we were there, some fairly amazing sends went down from a lot of people, including three 9as by some Euro beasts!! It was a pretty hard place to get used to as everything was just soooo hard and steep! I found the style of the climbing there pretty tough and didn’t quite get the sends that I was hoping for from the trip but still managed some stunners. Ed as per usual crushed most routes he got on and got some amazing sends!

Here were some of the highlights of the gorge Deverse Satanique 8a, Cascade 8a, Sika 8a, Arrow head 8a, Welcome to the jungle 8a, Quassai 8a+.

Ed powered his way up these beasts!- Hot Chili X 8c, Quenelles Trophy 8c, New Power Sacrafice 8c, Hot chili beans volcano 8b+, Honk 8b+, SatanX 8b, New Power Generation 8b, Soul Sacrifice 8b.

Deverse Satanique 8a

New Power Sacrafice 8c

 

Chateauverte DWS innit

 

 The Lettered Man in Antibes

 

 

7b+ in Chateauverte

Chillin int Calais

 

Ethan on New Power Generation 8b

 

Nice car!

 



 

Cheese Fondue!!

 



Quassai 8a+

 

 

South Normanton's most wanted

 

Then for the last week we needed a change, so headed across to Chateauverte near Aix and did some awesome 40metre pump fests as well as a few bouldery offerings. It was a tad warm but a great place to unwind and finish the trip off. The top routes were Atlantis 8a, Bill boullette 8a, Le Diktateur 7c+ and Alexandre du blocos 7c+.

All in all a great trip was had with over 100 routes climbed on amazing cliffs in a beautiful area of southern France. So, apart from spending 20 euros each in a posh campsite for the first couple of days because we didn’t know where to stay, the rest of the trip we didn’t spend a penny and dossed in a picnic spot with the best view in the world!  There were some pretty spicy moments bumping into the police, park rangers, the mayor and a lot of other stressful moments that got people a bit pissed off but we had some pretty rad times as well. 

Big Up to everyone we met out there, cheers bru's!! Bring on the next trip hey!

Oh yeh and last thing is a massive big up to Ethan and Tanja for the photo's. We stupidly forgot our camera so everything was either taken on his mobile or her camera!  Cheers guys! Check out his blog for a cool write up and more photos.

Peace x