Going back a few weeks Tim had seen me desperately trying to make use of my ice tools, playing on girders under a bridge, taking pity on me he offered to show me the ropes in Wales. I couldn't be more excited, taught to use ice tools by someone who stood three times on the podium of the Ice Climbing World Cup? But also it was damn good to just hang out, if ever you need cheering up, Tim is your man!
So, where to go play? White Goods - a peculiar, chossy, pair of massively overhanging caves with rocks littering the floor the size of fridges, freezers and in some cases even small cars! Further leading to the intimidation was the fact that we were meeting two of Tim's mate's there; Ian Parnell, master mountain photographer, editor of Climb magazine, Everest summiter, Patagonia gnarl endurer along with Andy Turner, who's recent achievements include repeating the hardest of Scottish winter climbs Cathedral X,11 and The Hurting XI,11 both ludicrously hard and sketchy, then seconding Dave Macleod on his monstrous Longhope Project. I know I shouldn't admit it but there was definitely a little bit of idolisation going on, these two guys are 'cool' and embarrassingly I knew a lot about their achievements and had watched a lot of videos of their climbing!
So with that we entered the lair, helmets on asap since not that many weeks ago there's been an accident when a rather large block had fallen on a guy and he was rushed to hospital with a fractured skull and vertebrate - that was DESPITE wearing a helmet; there would only have been one outcome if he hadn't been wearing one. Danger aside however, I've got to admit it was my sort of crag, secluded, imposing and chossy. Funny place!
After one more cup of coffee Tim tied on and raced up the wall through a series of small over hangs, and then a few huge looking moves into a pair of skinny cracks to the chains, on his way up describing the various holds and ways to pull on them. Lowering off he looked up grinning, "Whatcha think then mate, ready?" - Ready?! The realisation suddenly hit me, this is what I was to climb up, too! Apprehensively I tied on and looked across at the first move a backhand hook with a big reach up and onto the face, commenced from the top of a freezer sized block lodged in the ground. Looking at it I didn't think I could do it, what would I do if I couldn't even do the first move?! I slowly tottered across and stood up on the block, hooked my tool in across my chest and looked up to where I was to place my right tool, I managed it, I was on the wall. This was already cool. This was already strenuous!
I could describe all the moves up to halfway now, after a series of goes playing on the route through the day, the latter half of the route I got up the first go after some serious hang-dogging (sitting in my harness, off the wall resting in between sections). But I don't think it would be of particular interest! The finest piece of advice that Tim doled out during the day came as I scrabbled at the top trying to get up a skinny crack, near the chains. Seeing me fumbling about he shouts up, deadly serious "Only pull on the good holds, Pete." That piece of advice made me lose all sense of focus and laughing my arse off I fell from the wall whilst Andy and Ian grinned at Tim's expert coaching! The thing is after a bit of explanation it made more sense, what he was saying was to not trying and use shite intermediate holds to make getting between the good holds easier - it's better with axes to hang and rejuvenate before trying big moves between good holds then trying to do a series of little moves on closer spaced bad holds. Once he cleared that up it made a load of sense and I stuck to it at as best I could later in the day, that said the temptation to try and thrutch up rather than carefully planning an ascent is all too tempting when you know you're about to slip off the wall!
So back to the title, "Never Meet Your Idols". How wrong this advice can be - Andy and Ian were great fun and as so often with climbers, so supportive and encouraging, can't ask for a better crowd watching me bumble about trying to figure out which end of the axe was which! It was also great to see them having troubles of their own, Ian dropping a tool halfway up and having to retire to the ground after aborted attempts to catch a spare tool thrown up along with Andy clearing off leaving his tool firmly lodged at his high point (see the shoddy video at the end!). It's great seeing people this good climbing, impressive and very inspiring, I'm determined to get strong before I return for round two!
The final part of the day was the coolest thing I've seen, Tim ticking his brutal project - a traverse along the lip of an overhang before stepping out onto a dead tree and back to clip the chains - the first go saw him fall at the end of the lip, just before the closing moves. Dropping off, we planned to chill for 20 minutes whilst he got his strength together, a quarter of an hour later he was bouncing and ready to go, on he pulled and raced across. All of a sudden there was an ominous screeching noise and some serious rattling and shaking on Tim's part - his tool was stuck, super stuck! After a few more aborted attempts to free it, he was forced to back climb to relocate it in a poorer way so he could free it easier when he moved on, that he did and blasted on to the tree and the chains - utterly amazing, super brutal climbing.
I want to be that good one day!
With that we leapt back into his Audi and raced back south to Bristol and somehow to both our surprise we made it back to The Climbing Academy for me to start work at 7pm. An awesome day through and through. That said today, the morning after the day before I felt absolutely worked, I've never ached so much in my life; biceps, shoulders, the lot!
Cheers Tim, owe you for that. best days cragging in ages!
Oh and here's the video of Andy, one of the strongest climbers operating in Scotland complaining about being weak, if that's the case there's little hope for the rest of us ...
