Any Rock Climbers out there??

Took Jesse, my son age 4 and 3/4, to an indoor climbing wall. And he loved it. I would have done it with him but for my bad hips.

We are having Jesse's Birthday at the wall climbing venue.

Very addictive and lots of fun

It is indeed - I love the fact that no matter how good you get you can always improve and you can always climb right on your limit and get just as much satisfaction as someone climbing 3 grades higher/lower than you.

Snap, Durbs! Just come out of A&E with an immobilised arm and it turns out I too have royally buggered my rotator cuff. I'd give you a high five, but you know how it is.

*grumble*bloody gastons*grumble*

Climbing is good for you!

Unlucky Joe, how long are you out of action for? I remember when I hurt my shoulder (mountainboarding not climbing) that it was dodgy for ages so make sure you give it plenty of time and go easy on it when you do start up again!

w00t!!

Managed a clean on-sight of a 6b+.

Also a bunch of 6a+ to 6b range.

Make sure you guys rest up well with those injuries. Recurring ones are bad for you....

Having gone to see a physio and received a slightly more intelligible explanation of what's happened, it's appears it's really not that bad as far as rotator cuff injuries go. Really a minor sprain. 4-6 weeks rest and gentle strengthening exercises they reckon. Such a relief.

Ah brilliant! Glad to hear

I'm loving the climbing at the moment! Been trying out this periodisation training program the last few weeks. You alternate between 4 week blocks of stamina, power endurance and strength, the idea being you get better results from specific training. Was pretty annoying at times doing laps on 6a's while everyone I climb with was blasting away at the new 6c's that have been put up at my local wall, but at the end of week three I've gone from dying just climbing up and back down a few 5+'s to quite happily doing 5 laps (up-down-up-down-up) on 6 6a+ climbs in a single session Noticed its really helping with all the time you have to hang about on trad leads at the weekends too.

Get to rest up a bit next week then switch to power endurance which at least should be more fun to train too

Oh the fun of geekiness!

top rope and some bouldering
i use to work at a college adventure course so i was able to climb more..i was a belay slave on the weekdays tho.. now
the closet place for me to climb is about an hour away and its an indoor gym
its really hard to climb a lot or get some pointers "for free" when not many ppl climb...one of these days im gonna take a lead climb/anchors class, until then its top rope yay

Leading on sport is not particularly hard to start. Trad is a whole other ball game though.

Will: I am planning on working on maximal strength for a few weeks.

Woot!

Climbed the south ridge of Rhinog Fach (180m) on Saturday, only a severe, and a lot was scrambling, but a superb day. Not a cloud to be seen, stupidly exposed with views right out over the ocean. Wild camped by the lake at the foot of the mountain.

Sooooo happy its summer again

Got a 6b+ onsight the other weekend.

Am climbing better than ever before. Need to take a bit of a break now.

Will: That sounds amazing....

I was quite excited recently when I nearly on-sighted an F6c boulder problem at Craggy2...

Sadly - turns out they hadn't updated the grading board since the re-set so it was 6b+ max. Darn it.

Sticking some lovely dyno's at the moment - shoulder's fully healed, fingers seem to have strengthened in my rest period (?) and now the sun's out too.
If only I lived near some rock.

WOOOT!

Off to Font in 4 weeks
Squeee!

Note to self: Work on slopers

Jealous much..? Me...?

Well yes, actually, as I sit here listening to the tail end of the overnight thunderstorms.

Slopers aren't quite the nightmare you might believe... I've been pleasantly surprised at how manageable they are when you commit. Seem to use a slightly different muscle set to crimps (that's my hypothesis, I certainly feel it in a different place), so tiring when you've not done them much. I have more bother with keeping my feet on them than my hands...

N.

Slopers do use different muscles. As far as I understand, each different grip actually does.

I managed to send a 24 (6c+/7a depending on conversion) last week.

Also feeling super-psyched to climb more after this last holiday. I got to see some of the best climbers in the country and met Adam Ondra. The kid is incredible....

Off to Font again in Easter, hopefully shouldn't get quite so spanked this time.

Also looking at some sport climbing in Croatia in March.

Too cold (for me) for UK outside stuff at the moment...
Failed on my 6C (Boulder) goal for 2009, but have set 7A for end of 2010 so we shall see

Where I live in the US it is cold and there is too much snow on the ground. Plus where I live is the plains of this country. The nearest mountain is a good three hour drive at least! But there is plenty of bouldering to do. As if to make up for the fact, there is a place called Chandler Park which is the bouldering mecca of this state. There's plenty of climbing, but nothing challenging that you'd need ropes for, so shoes chalk and a pad pretty much covers your needs. Can't wait for springtime though so I can go to Arkansas and do some real climbing!

i do indoor climbing. i love it XD

doww, look at the little gym bunny, so cute

Are you thinking of taking the big step into the great outdoors? If you love gym climbing the outdoors will rock your world.

I have a 7c (font) problem about 15 min drive from where Im staying at the moment, Im just waiting for the temp to drop below 40C before I can go do it.

Then its all march and april at Arapiles trad climbing with Easter spent sea cliff trad and hard sport (hard for me anyway) up near Sydney

Nothing outdoors for me at the moment, too cold, wet and icy. Guess I'll be sticking to indoors till our trip to the Verdon in March.

How did you find font last time Durbs? Was it a pricey week? Hoping to get over there next year with any luck.

I used a map

It wasn't mega-expensive, but La Musardiere (sp?) campsite wasn't the cheapest, though in fairness it was a nice campsite.
We're looking at getting a gite this time as there's 5-6 of us going, and it'll only be a bit more £££ for a lot more comfort.
4 of us went over, tank and a half of diesel, Eurotunnel, then 3 nights camping... all self catering (apart from one lazy pizza delivery which was possibly the worst pizza ever had, EVER), probably cost us er... £150 per couple? Not cheap-cheap, but pretty good.

Font as a place is AMAZING. Despite getting utterly spanked on most of the routes (we dropped down to 4s & 5s, got one 6a I think), the forets is so beautiful and the problems so good we didn't really care. Was starting to get into the Font headspace on the last day though, and suddenly the routes and style started to click. It's sooooooo different to plastic-pulling or lime-crimping it really threw us.

Good croissants in the morning too.

I do a little climbing, used to go to the rock gym and Wichita Mountains a lot, spent some summers in Colorado around Salida. Then I moved to Texas. Mountains are few and far between here lol

i actually did free climbing in colorado and in west texas. I took a week off of work durring the summer to climb with some friends. Its jsut hard to find ANY mountains in Houston. There are none.

Very true, a lot of people may not understand how damn flat and featureless most of this area of the country is. It can take hours at least to get to true climbing spots!

oh yea. the trip i took i had to drive (literally) 16 hours to get to the spot in west texas where there is good mountains.

I try and go to the Ozarks whenever possible, at least for a couple of days. There's plenty of climbing and camping and it's a very pretty area when the weather's nice. There is an ungodly amount of ticks though!

Hmmmm.... Managed my goal of climbing 24 and got comfy on 21 onsights last year. Want to push bouldering a bit and see if I can get a 25 with 22/23 onsights comfortably for this year.

Those are SA grades. 24 is about 6c+. So I am comfortable osighting 6b.

and we all know SA grades are a rip off of Aus grades; just like up to 2 grades difference which is retarded, your grade 24 is like our grade 22.

Ive sport red pointed up to SA grade 27 (sounds way harder than Aus 25!), whih is like 7b
So my plan is to do some epic training this year and be able to push my onsight closer to this mark.

Trad, Im nowhere near as grade orientated, so Im more inspired by actual lines than grades. But my goal for trad is about 7 routes, all 5 star epic; stupidly exposed; mostly crack climbs around Australia I want to do this year.

BOulder, I have 2 V5 problems and an ultra pumpy roof V8 Ive had my eye on, but not sure if I will have the time to play with the pebbles this year.

This year I have 4 main aims:
- La Demande - Epic 13 pitch, 430m trad/spot combo route in the Verdon (France). Goes at 6a+ but its sustained for the length. Will be done first week in march.
- Necronomicon - E4 6b at my local crag. Thats like bold-ish F7a trad. Been looking at it ages and this year I'm getting the headpoint.
- Impropra Opera - Font7c. Amazing line on the bowderstone. I doubt this will get done really, its a massive grade jump...
- Zeppelin - BIG sport route in El Chorro, F6c+ with a roof a couple of hundred meters up. Not there till November so shouldn't be a problem assuming I manage Necronomicon!

Of course this means getting outdoors, which based on current weather I'm pretty sure will NEVER happen again