Imperial bedrooms

Birthday send . Likely second ascent after Glenn Erik Johannessen put it up some months ago , I can't remember when but I do remember spotting him on it ( between bouts of rain ) and thinking of how it should have been mine just the day before ... If only I hadn't fumbled that last move ... Oh well , at least with GEJ sending it it got a decent name . It's good to finally get it done as I hadn't tried it after Glenn got the FA ... I had worked it pretty solidly though before that as i was hungry for the FA .

It's suggested at V9 but with some gas in the tank it doesn't feel too much harder to me than Zillmerised , but without many V9s under my belt I will have to bow to experience ..

Anyway some fun moves that add to the Zillmerised journey , good fun and very flowy . When Glenn sent it originally he had to start on a lower right hand jug and had to do a little bump to where I started , I was able to reach the better hold and did so as the bump for me was an ugly move that took away from the whole .

Spot by Ben

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I had been looking at some of my uncompleted climbs from the past and this one stood out . I guess because I have become quite confidant on Zillmerised now and so the variations aren't as tough as they seemed in the past . Also making that last move on Zillmerised is very daunting for me and it would be nice to breakthrough and truly master it . Whenever I am up there I have a very intense self doubting inner dialog going on and when I do successfully pull the move it makes me feel really really good .

Once again I am dancing with another annoying injury ... Some kind of nerve discomfort in my left elbow , I'm wondering if it has something to do with my rotator cuff ... I did go see a hand and arm doctor who suggested it could have something to do with my ulnar nerve . I was told to take some anti inflammatory drugs and do some stretches ... Also to back off climbing for a while ... Which I have done a bit with this session aside .

I had started some dedicated power training using mainly jugs and slopers and isometrics but I'm wondering if that is what has aggravated my left arm . With this in mind I think I will back off the power stuff a bit and focus on endurance again possibly throw in some hypertrophy too .

Set the cruise control baby .

Be well , play safe .

Caught on tape !

A good day today !

I did about 3 hours of traversing with only one or two little stops . Figured it would be good to build up some endurance again after not climbing for nearly two weeks . I might try do this a bit more often to get a solid base fitness ( raising my anaerobic threshold ) it's likely good therapy too ...

I hadn't planned on doing anything hard , infact just the opposite but hey ... Whatever ... I tried a few moves on Glenn's " Stranger From The Id V9 " after not making much headway I thought I would give Yakuza a go . I have repeated it a few times but never caught the ascent on camera so took a punt . After a quick brush and putting on my old full of holes shoes I pulled on and found myself crushing the moves first go relatively easily ! Setting up for the dead point on Seven Samurai my right hand wasn't on the best part of the hold and I was very awear that I was trying to smear with worn through shoe rubber ... Not wanting to let an opertunity go by again though I managed to select crush mode ( not ideal when nursing as many injuries as I am ... ) I stuck the dead point openhanded and was stalling a bit as nothing was quite on target and I didn't want to use my left crimp but I managed to close up the left hand ( very naughty ) and squirm my way though the final hard move . Yay .

It was getting dark by this stage but thought I would stay on the train and so sent Secret Crack 17 solo which I had chickened out of before and then further warmed down with some of my regular solo/ highballs . A good day and happy to come away with only very mild discomfort in my hands .

Snow day

Still no climbing ... It has been quite difficult to not climb anything , I can feel myself getting gradually weaker and it's not nice . I did pull on to my wall for a couple of sloper hangs a few days ago just to remind my body what's what and that actually felt pretty good , but I decided to play it safe and just take a little more time . Tomorrow I may reward myself with a trip to Froggatt to climb some easy to moderate stuff to see how my injuries react .

I managed to get some distraction by heading to the snow for the last few days . The weather turned out mint which was awesome because the forecast was pretty average . I went down with my friend Jay and we got in two days of snow boarding . We commenced out journey Friday evening after Jay finished work at around 6:30 and must of got to Taumaranui around 10 I guess . We stayed at the Taumaranui campground which was all we needed it to be at $50 per night for a twin room . They left the door open for us so we didn't need to mess around with keys and could settle in easily after our long drive . The next morning after breakfast and coffees we headed up the mountain utilising the cheaper half day pass - from 12 on - obviously we hadn't been in much of a rush .

I had pre booked the alpine club hut for Saturday night , which sits above 2000m on the Whakapapa side . It was my first time using it and it was awesome ! We had a good night of movies and chess and also meet some people who were up there for ice climbing and general adventuring . The night turned very windy and snowy and I wasn't all that hopefull for the next day , but when I woke up we had clear blue sky's and after a while no wind at all . Perfect .



All in all it worked out amazingly and i had a perfect trip and now that I have been up to the lodge I will likely start using it a bit more frequently . It will make a good base for some climbing scouting missions .

Playing it safe

After looking back through my training log for the past few months I've realised that my work load has been a step above where it had been . Going back a year or so I was climbing a lot , mainly bouldering outdoors and my average session was probably close to 7-9 hours , all day basically . I was climbing two days on one day off and sometimes three days on . Looking back there's no wonder I was getting injured a lot especially when I didn't have trained/climbing ready tendons . If I think back even further when I had just discovered climbing it wasn't uncommon for me to climb five days on ...

During that time I picked up what I would consider my two main injuries that have plagued me my whole climbing life . I injured my left middle finger collateral ligament . It was quite a horrible feeling when I pushed my finger to the side I could feel my middle knuckle shifting and grinding ... Yuk ... I never gave myself time for this to heal , which in hindsight I regret . The reason I didn't stop climbing was that it only slowed me down when doing certain had positions ( locking , jams , open handed , anything that applied sideways pressure ) and being a crimper not being able to do these techniques didn't seem such a big deal ... About 12 months after injuring my left collateral ligament I injured the exact mirror image on my right hand ... Bummer ... This was a shock because I thought my right hand was boomproof ( being a tradesman and always working with tools , hammer , I've always had a strong right hand dominance ) so it was a bit scary to say the least . I got a bit worried that it was bad genetics being an identical injury , but it was likely a combination of this and just bad technique ( hideous crimping on untrained fingers ) when I injured my right hand I started taking things a bit more seriously - I had to , I was running out of digits - anyway I went and saw a hand specialist whom built me a thermo cast and basically told me don't do anything that hurts , there goes climbing for a while ... I did take a break for a few weeks ( likely not long enough as it never really healed ) and tried to get back to climbing gradually - which also didn't really happen - eventually these two injuries did go away enough for me to start training again , but I knew they were always just lingering below the surface .

Now back to today ... I've been feeling my right collateral injury coming back this past week . I'm wondering if its from climbing in a new style - the style that used to aggravate it in the past , pockets and open handed ... and to often . So after looking back at my training log for these past few months and paying attention to my fingers and arms I have some concerns that I am pushing myself too hard again . So I may have to drop back on intensity again probably by training my open handing and pocket climbing on my woody in a controlled manner - no dynos , snatchy climbing , hard moves when tired - and maybe keeping away from climbing hard routes for a while - unless they are suitable ...

But not only am I feeling my collateral injury but I have also picked up some strains in my flexors ... Will it ever stop ? I haven't done anything about this and have just been climbing regardless ... Will I never learn ? Maybe ... I have taken the past three days off from climbing to see how I feel and today have just done some biking , planking , crunches , push-ups , dips , calve raises and other various things that won't aggravate my hands and will give me some climbing benefits . I've been needing to strengthen my shoulders too because they have been feeling very crunchy and unbalanced .

So I guess time will tell where I'm at , I will likely give myself a few more days then perhaps get back into endurance circuits if I feel ok . At least I am accepting that I have some limitations now and doing something preventative instead of just ignoring my injury's and hoping the will just go away . Progression will be near impossible if my body stops working so i must look after it , there's no more denying it , and short term fitness loss is not such a big deal I'm realising now ... Progress ...

Stay strong .

Froggatt bouldering day

Yesterday was a pleasant solo trip to Froggatt and I had the whole crag to myself until about 4pm ( excluding Farmers and Cows ) . The drive doesn't seem as long now that I recognise the way , I find myself a lot of the time travelling on auto pilot . I guess it's just a stones throw in comparison to some of the driving I did on my Castle Hill trip .

Here's some climbing footage from the trip . My grading has been a little jumbled lately , not really sticking to personal grades or topo grades but a mix of the two . I will try to stick to one view in the future once I make up my mind what the best approach is ...




Went to Froggatt yesterday and did some exploration . I finally got around to all the different areas . I didn't attempt anything I would consider hard except Power On V7 - feels pretty hard for V7 in my opinion and Mossy Menopause V7 unfortunately the top three pockets were wet on MM ... It's a shame because its an appealing line with nice looking pockets and I think it will suit me . There's also a sit start suggested at V8 so that is also cool , something I can spend some time on .

Double take V6 - I've been wanting to get some decent footage of this . I really like this one and its good for warm up laps , just tape your left middle finger ...

And Another One V6 - In the guide I think but more upper 4 or 5 for me , its always hard to say after a flash attempt because I'm generally trying pretty hard no matter what .

And Another One Arete V5 - In the guide maybe there's a different line if it's dryer ... It was pretty mossy and damp .

ADO V5 ( V4/6 ) in the older guide this is V4 and the newer V6 ... It's likely in between the way I did it , I didn't use the arête as mention in the guide just pockets ...

Kiwi Kiwi Attack V6 - a bit gutted as I flashed the crux dyno and was hanging on to a good hold when half of it snapped off in my hand ... I had thought it looked a bit shit too but figured if it was still there it must be ok . Sent second go but not without it biting a bit out of my left index finger . Damn birds .




A couple more boulders .

Just do it V5 - a bit of a cramped start for me - nothing different here - but otherwise fun . Nice textured edges that got me to crimp . Flash/onsight

Salsa V5 - I took some time using the guide to pick this line and I could just make out some coloured chalk maybe from a past comp ... This is what I interpreted as Salsa anyway ... Figured I still had plenty in the tank so may as well reverse the moves . Flash/onsight

Lunatic To Luna Leopard traverse V6 - nice techy climbing a bit crimpy though ... I decided to try go for the reverse too but hadn't checked the moves before attempting it ... 3rd go total , took me two tries to figure right to left .


There is also three V7's I have been looking at / trying . I will keep my iPad mini rolling and try to capture the ascents . On that note all the footage I'm recording on the iPad and using iMovie to edit , it's a very easy system to work which is nice , it's just a shame the vid quality isn't a bit better . Also once I get over my excitement of climbing at a new area I will take some extra time to try get more thoughtful shots . At the moment I tend to just balance the iPad on different objects or lean it up against things ... I have missed capturing lots of climbing from this approach as it doesn't take much for the wind to knock it over , or a branch to move ect ...

The up and down climbing in the second movie seems a bit long winded ... I wasn't to sure how to edit it or even if it was worth adding to the movies . I'm not even too sure what I am trying to achieve by publishing all this , if I'm archiving , sharing beta , or just practising narcissism ... What I do know is I love watching climbing moves , and there's not enough of them out there ! Especially local ones and ones around middle of the road grades achievable by average climbers so I guess in that sense I am filling a void that I have perceived . It will be interesting if anyone takes any notice or shows any interest ... If you do see these or read this leave me a comment , I'd appreciate some feedback , ideas , tips , spay , links ... Anything retaliated to climbing is generally appreciated .

I'll finish with this , a video of the grand Wizard that is Dave Graham , he has an awesome perspective and is fully submerged in his climbing . I think it's awesome ! It's an interesting view the whole inside the box idea , I'm going to try this out and visualise this when i climb , see where it takes me ...





 

Be well .

Home training session

I had planned on training today but had not planned on climbing tomorrow ... For some reason half way through my training session I made up my mind to go back to Froggatt . Anyway for good or bad that's now the plan , time to post on the Project page on Facebook to try connect with other like minded individuals .

Here's a vid from today's training . Bare in mind I cut it short ...


Just an easy session today as I would still like to have some good performance for tomorrow down Froggatt .

Not the smartest idea training before a climbing session but I hadn't planed on going to Froggatt but made up my mind during training ...

Started with 15 mins on the bike and some abdominal work .

Then doing

10 single pull-ups
5 double pull-ups

Finger recruitment

10 reps of

4 finger open sub second hangs on a positive edge using 1 pad
3 "
2 front " on pocket

Then repeated with a slightly longer hang .

If I'm not feeling strong after this I will continue as long as necessary ...

Then I do easy circuits on comfortable holds until my body and arms feel strong . All the while being careful to not warmup too hard and get a pump .

Then I boulder with increasing difficulty , again taking decent rest between attempts and being careful to not hang on too long if a problem isn't going well ect .

I haven't spent much time climbing pockets or open handed in general , so i am playing things safe , I also have a few injuries that I'm being careful not to aggravate .
This is just a general workout leaning towards fitness and maintaining strength . Normally I would climb harder problems and or train endurance .

Be well .

Froggatt Edge Day

I love days that start with climbing ( technically 3 hours of driving ) there's excitement , anticipation , maybe even a little performance anxiety ... What am I ... Ah , that's right , climbing trips .

Yesterday I got up at 5am had my breakfast , got my stuff together , loaded the car and hit the road . I had plans to meet Phillip Higgins in Pukekohe for 7 . My last few climbing sessions have involved climbing with Phil , whom I had spoken to on occasion a few years back at the Quarry . Recently i had some climbing shoes for sale and Phil purchased them through Trademe . We ended up staying in touch and with both of us having the goal of stepping up our climbing , we made some plans .

The trip started well with only one short stop for coffee at the Ngaruawahia BP . We must have got to Froggatt around 09:30 , after a quick looksy at LAD a 24 i was interested in trying we headed to Animal biscuit valley to get warmed up . I didn't have an agenda in the end ... I thought I did , but I was still very relaxed from sending my long term climbing goal on Sunday And I decided it would be good to be a bit aimless . 

Our first climb was Supertwitch 18 ish . It was my first time on it and i was finding it pretty difficult , mainly due to moist and sloped footers ... Not ideal . We then did the next two climbs to the left , so far Phil was climbing first placing draws with me climbing second and cleaning . We then headed over towards the cave , I was quite keen to figure out a V7 boulder traverse which Daniel Krippner showed me my last time here . I Tried a few ideas out but nothing felt easy so I moved on pretty quickly , I did climb Zoomers though before moving on , a powerful and varried 20 that climbs the entrance of the cave . We then carryed on in the same direction to two climbs called - Bother - and - Don't Bother a 16 and 20 ( likely harder ) next to each other . After bagging these Phil declared he was finished climbing so I starting thinking about something that would give me a bit more of a challenge .

I tried this . Brontosaurus Theory - 24

I took a lot of time trying to imagine a successful sequence from the ground , I wanted to go for the onsight ( Climbing it with limited knowledge ) The start was looking pretty unreadable and I nearly had second thoughts but being pretty relaxed I wasn't going to let fear of failure turn me away . I blew the onsight and second go but by that time I had found what turned out to be a crucial hold . Once I pulled the starting moves I was away on a fun journey that took 20 mins to complete . I really enjoyed this unique looking climb that I had always noticed but never attempted in the past .

After my success on BT I decided to keep the ball rolling with an attempt to onsight Swell a 23 directly to the left of BT .

Success ! I was happy to top out but I wasn't such a fan of this one ... Finding it hard to read and very sharp , also I might not have given myself enough time to recover from BT after only waiting 20 mins or so ... But I came through the battle as the victor .

I was feeling pretty good after this , but the day was now coming to a close ... Phil went to get some coffees while I tried out a few more boulder problems , one of them being - Mossy Menopause V7? I think - which I made some progress on ( lots of pads are recommended ) I also tried Stretched Out a V7~ that has some pockets that don't dry ... I thought I would wrap this one up but dealing with the wet pockets killed my psyche , I might try again perhaps if I can find a way around the wetness ... 

Phil returned but there were no coffees to be found , so we decided to pack up and call it a day , stopping at Subway for diner and coffee at Te Awamutu . Picking up my car at Puke i then made my way home for some well earned rest .

Chasing Numbers

I think it's best to start with a movie

 

Zero Gravity 30 (29)

Possible 2nd ascent after Scott Mooney's 1999 ascent .

Stoked to bag this one , it's a great climb .

Basically it's a V8 / 7B+ to a flat edge with ok feet , then a 26/7b+ to the top , I had thoughts of eliminating footholds for the second clip but in the end it just didn't make sense as they are used for your hands ... Anyway I feel like this is the most logical / non eliminate way to do the climb . In theory you could swing around and rest on the ledge but this would make it ... Poo ... Scott gave it 29 but I think for me anyway with the intensity of the V8 it should get 30 . I guess time will tell ...

I set myself a target 11 months ago to send a 30 whilst 30 and today is pretty much payday ( with one month to spare ) It's been a very up and down year , due to life - work - injuries ... The highlight was getting down to Castle Hill for some civilised dirt bagging . For 7 weeks I was lucky enough to wander the hills and let myself be overwhelmed with what the area had to offer . But with all things there is a balance .

My first step onto the Flock hill area I fell off the fence like a tit and sprained my ankle . Luckily one of my friends I met down there was a physio and was able to administer two Panadol and some professional strapping - this made up for the laughter that erupted directly after my fall / failed jump ... Now with my foot making my size 11 feel like a size 8 I managed to get to the top of the hill - where all I managed was to sit in the sun with my foot elevated ... Anyway this was my first injury of that trip and I'm still having to favour the bloody thing . I then sprained my other ankle falling from the mantle of The Sorcerers Apprentice ...

Not letting these slow me down too much I keeping trying to perform at my limit . Then at week six the dreaded pully injury occurred . This was a huge downer at the time and for following months . But it taught me a few very important lessons - I was just a crimper - now I have learned that climbing open handed is key ! Also while climbing through my injury I learnt how to train endurance , which as a boulderer was a very foreign concept but I was forced to , by not being able to do hard moves and starting from scratch with open hands .
This has been the best discovery of my climbing so far and shot me through the roof of my plateau ! Endurance ! Doing a hard move and actually being able to do more moves after ... Who would have thought ? I had just accepted that i was useless and that hard moves were just always going to pump me out ...

So nearing my 1 year time limit with hurt fingers and ankles I have succeeded when I thought I was having no chance =) and it has all occurred from learning the importance of open hands and endurance circuit training , and all because of injury ...

Now I'm off with my new found skills to try and wreak some havoc down at Froggatt .

Belay , Phillip Higgins

Music , AcDc

So that was me climbing yesterday .

And it's where i have been angling a lot of my energy towards this past year , most would say obsessively but for me its just felt normal . It's also the accumulation of nearly three years efforts ! I was going to write hard work , which maybe it has been but I've enjoyed it so much that calling it " hard work " is far to misleading .

Anyway , where to begin ...

About three years ago three young excitable men went to Ohakune , a small town at the base of Ruapehu , a rather large active volcano ... As one of us was completing his 28th journey around the Sun , we found we had cause to celebrate ! Making a long story slightly shorter , Guinness flowed , men showered with meat pies and chips , bouncers were fooled , canned chicken flew and was regretted , $1000's were won $1000's were lost ... Yadee yarder ya ... We survived but did we keep our dignity ? Perhaps .

Ok , so the main reason we chose this town ( at the base of a very large active volcano ) is because this rather enormous pile of rocks is so high that even in the sub tropical North Island they attract and store vast amounts of steep and gullyed snow . Yayballs . We were there to snow board .

If my memory serves me right we only managed to get some boarding in on that first day ( There's some more storeys that could be mentioned here about getting lost ... Getting stuck on ice shelves ... losing friends ( for an hour or two ) but i don't have time to get into it , especially when i was likely the one , ahem , to blame for such things ) It was still a good if just a tad stressful day .Then our volcano being what it is and doing whatever the fu#k it wants because it's a volcano shut down .The weather up there can be sporadic and unforgiving at times and more often that not it does close down . This is what happened to us , and ultimately what put me on the path to climbing . Yes this is all leading somewhere ... With not much else for us to discover within stumbling distance of town ( because we tried ) we walked in , then walked back out , tried to find something else to do , but then went back in again to the indoor climbing centre .

Through a haze of partial memories , regrets , wonder , and likely wearing more than a little bit of creamy canned chicken , i realised i may have some natural climbing talent ( even while still wearing slippers ) After this delightfully fun taste test and leaving with a single digit raised high above my head , one thing then lead to another - Brothers of Partners of Friends were called and our first climbing lesson came to be with Arnie at the Birkenhead Leisure Centre .

Some time then passed ... Shoes were bought , callouses were formed , rope skills were learnt , adrenalin flowed , vertigo was discovered and after all said and done ... We were left with what was a small homogeneously square pack essentially containing three Bodleys and a Watson ready to tackle some stone .

Our first trip ( i think ) was to the quarry , and by the end of the day i had found this piece of stone - It was around the beginning of 2011 .





 
I honestly thought this thing ( Red Arete ) must have been one of these V13's i had seen Chris Sharma climbing in the Dosage films , it truly looked impossible and nobody around me at the time could tell me how hard it was graded ... I was enthralled ! Arnie then told me it had been climbed !! My God ! My mind instantly pictured what must have been God like humans ascending this 3.5 meter piece of shear stone ! I was spell cast . ( I now regularly climb with the possible first ascensionest ? of this climb , Glenn Eric Johannessen ( but it may also have been Scott Mooney who did the first ascent )

It likely took me around 8 months to climb it from a standing start . I Sent it/climbed it on 27-08-2011- Red Arete V6 . That's a long time to stare at a very small , very red rock face , but this time spent here solidified my love and obsession for the short side of the Mt Eden Quarry . Then on the 26-11-2011-  only 3 months later i did the sit start version graded at V8 . This V6 stand and V8 sit start are still now my reference points for these grades ...

Since that time , at this very small section of wall , there has been many new boulder problems put up ! Including its first V9 which I'm proud to say was my creation , YAKUZA - Click here to check it out - ! climbed 26-05-2012- with my good friend Ben encouraging me on . I am yet to capture the full line on video but here is the stand start named Red Samurai ( Yakuza being the sit start to this - V8 into a V7 = V9 )

To be continued ...