Preparation...

Things are going well, which as I type this brings a smile to my face, and for a brief moment I even considered marking the occasion with an elegant and refined self-portrait. I'm sure you know the sort - tops off, slap on the baby oil, flip the mood lighting and stare moodily into the distance – but unfortunately, I can’t find my favourite pair of aviators, and you know as well as I do that a portrait without aviators is no portrait at all.

The reason for this blog is that the day I depart these snowy lands to return to England is drawing near. I planned to talk about how strong I feel both physically and mentally, about the preparation I have made to increase my concentration and performance under pressure, and how I feel it will be to return to hard trad after such a long time away.

However, my gooning groupies are on holiday this week (everyone needs a break once in a while - even from the best job in the world) and so my overly indulged ego is feeling a little fragile today. I fear being accused of narcissism for the second time in a week would likely be a blow from which I would not recover, so instead of continuing to talk about myself and my life, this blog will be from now on dedicated to the best of British - Fish and Chips and Galaxy Chocolate.

And talking about Chips and Chocolate – I have to give a big shout out to the good old cup of Tea. Enhancing both sweet and savoury, is there a more versatile and appreciated drink? Answers on a postcard please...

Groupies - Check, Tops off - Check, Aviators - Check! Is any more proof needed?

OK, Time to be serious... If the above few paragraphs seem a little more eccentrically out of place than normal, you should head on over to UKClimbing to read the amusing (if a little lengthy) forum thread discussing my mental condition. Whilst I am flattered that people are so interested in the inner workings of my mind, I can’t help but feel that there must be more important things to discuss? I'm not entirely sure how much (or little) of the content was serious, but regardless, it is one of the funniest things I have seen in a while.

On with the show...

Here are a couple of photos from the weekend, sampling the brilliant trad climbing at Cadarese, Italy.

Mustang 8a, Cadarese - Photo Riky Felderer

Mustang 8a, Cadarese - Photo Riky Felderer

Despite training harder than ever and being in the best shape physically, I know that trad is an often difficult and delicate mistress to please and I felt it was important to spend a few days reminding myself of her subtleties.

Cadarese is a bit of an anomaly in Euro granite as the entire place is made up of splitter, after splitter, after splitter. Development began around 8 years ago, and as is usual in these parts the main sector was fully bolted. Three years ago, Riky Felderer and friends began to develop an adjacent area that became known as “The Crack Party” and since then, perfectly protectable trad routes have been established up to 8a/+.

I began the day warming up in the main sector, climbing a very fun full body experience 7a+, followed by the sectors current hardest route, the 8a+ “Once Upon a/Beslan Memorial” combination. Beslan is a wonderful route, with two distinctly different crux sections, but most importantly follows perfect hand and finger cracks for most of its length – Time to bring out the friends!

The first thing I noticed when racking up for a trad route after an extended sport period is how heavy the gear is. Stepping off the floor, one immediately feels the effects of all the extra metal as it swings back and forth below your hips. Secondly, it is so much slower than leading a sport pitch, even with very simple protection.Every placement has to be found, judged, selected, (often reselected if you are bad at stage 2), placed, tested, and finally clipped. This process breaks up any rhythm, vastly slowing down the climbing and increasing the time hanging off your hands – and all this before we even go into the mental aspect of trading.

The lead went well, and despite having a bit of a tussle to seat the final crucial .5 friend and getting majorly pumped in the process, the last 5m run-out on slopey crimps passed without too much drama. This was a relief for reasons more than simply ticking the route, as my England project is in a similar style to this final section – its confidence inspiring to know that I can perform well on crimps despite being pumped silly and far above protection.

Up next was Mustang, the route from the above pictures, and a route I had been drooling over since Riky shared with me a picture from the year before. After an easy hand crack for 10m, one finds themselves at a brief rest point, with a tiny finger lie-back crack the only way to the belay, 12 meters above. The climbing begins with a technical, delicate sequence, and finishes with a burly, pumpy sprint, with the transition between the two extremes bringing the crux.Unfortunately, the crack was not entirely dry, and after a careless foot swap the damp crack spat me off on my onsight attempt.

After another slip, I worked out the secret of staying on the rock. By keeping my hands and feet close together I could apply even pressure directly to the rock, no twisting or extending made for very powerful climbing, but atleast I could stay on the wall. Placing protection was difficult due to the small size of the crack and the powerful body positions. Small friends have small lobes, which means a small margin for error when placing them – it doesn’t take much change in the rock for one of the lobes to miss its placement. To be able to confidently commit to the climbing, you need to invest a lot of energy in placing the gear. Its a bit of a catch 22 situation, but ho-hum, it all adds to the fun, and after a big fight I made it to the top. One of the best!

I’m back in Innsbruck, resting my skin for something big... Ill tell you more soon.

The Return Of The Jedi

The Return Of The Jedi... Photo: Copyright David Simmonite

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, I promised you a detailed description of my latest grit route “The Return of the Jedi”; a great little arête in Bank Quarry, climbed on boxing day last year. As seems to be the norm these days, I have been mega busy over her in Austria training and preparing for another English project in the near future, which if all goes well, should be a really exciting time... But before I start going into details of what is yet to come, I need to go back and put right the past!

So, my project...

The Line... and the landing!

Shortly after starting climbing, I was introduced to 2 “projects” in a small, dirty quarry, not far from my parent’s house. The quarry was not the most inspiring place, but these 2 lines were simply stunning and I decided I had to climb them – the only problem was, back then I couldn’t even move up the featureless overhanging rock!

I sporadically returned over the next few years as my climbing improved, and on Boxing Day 2004 I made the first ascent of “The Power of the Dark Side”, an awesome route up a slightly overhanging fridge, and a route I still consider to be one of my very best. At around fr7a+ the climbing was relatively easy, but as the route took no protection and climbed over a terrible landing, leading it was a pretty intimidating prospect.

The main project still remained, and from time to time I would wander up from my Parents to have a play, gradually working out the moves and developing an idea of how the route would one day climb. Three dynos/slaps (where my feet would often cut), linked together by several other powerful insecure moves, all above another horrible landing. I knew the line was possible but I also knew it was damn hard, and for one reason or another, I never found the motivation to lay siege and get on the “sharp end”.

Yet another session...

The quarry (and its projects) were unknown by all but the most esoteric explorers, and this gave me comfort; my little project was not in any danger of being snatched up from under my nose, I could sit back and relax in the knowledge it would be waiting, should I ever feel like the time had come. That was until the new Froggatt guide was published earlier this year, including detailed information about all the Matlock quarries, and a nice picture topo which includes my line as the “E9 Project”. Shit! My secret was out, I needed to act...

Boxing Day 2010 dawned clear and crisp. Persistent snow still covered the ground; if the route was dry, conditions could be prime. After abseiling to clean the route I returned home to warm up. Pulling on the rough gritstone edges on the side of my home brought childhood memories flooding back; a lot has changed for me over the last few years, there has been good and bad, happy and sad, but all of it has served to make me stronger, in many senses of the word.

A very cold Caroline...

Caroline offered to be GriGri girl for the day, and the two of us made our way to the quarry, neither really knowing what to expect. This would be her first experience of belaying a hard grit route, and it would be my first time on the route since failing to even do the moves during my last visit; what was going to happen was anyone’s guess. Climbing the route first try on toprope came as a big surprise! The rock felt grippy under my skin, the holds felt big under my fingers, and the moves that were once so hard, now came easily. I knew it was on...

During my time away in Chad, I noticed a big change in my mentality towards trad routes. Rather than look at and plan for all the negative points – where will it feel hard, where will I get pumped, where will I feel scared, where can I sneak a no hands rest... I now found myself excited to try, eager to see what challenges lay ahead, confident that I was fit enough and strong enough to succeed. The same could be said about this project – leading it would be fun.

“The Power of the Dark Side” was named after a pair of Christmas socks, and in keeping with the idiot Star Wars theme, I’m calling this new one “The Return of the Jedi”. I placed a couple of boulder pads at the base of the route that made it a much safer proposition than it would be without. I still believe that it’s not possible to offer an E grade for a grit route climbed with pads, simply because of the potentially limitless amount of protection they can offer. For me it was E x, for the next ascent with more pads it may be E x – y, and the one after with less pads, E x + y, with y being dependent on the number, size, and quality of your foam.

The Return Of The Jedi... Photo: Copyright David Simmonite

HXS 7a explains as much, or as little as you need to know. In other money it is perhaps F8a+ to toprope and would be a fierce little offering with a couple of bolts – from the floor to the ledge it is slap slap slap, no time to stop and chalk! With enough pads and big balls you could possibly consider the bottom section a highball boulder, but the top of the route is pretty far from the floor and still has a tricky move. I chose to take a rope and place some (bad) gear, if nothing else it kept Caroline smiling until the ordeal was over.

I’m really made up to finally finish off this duo! It’s a strange little place, but the lines are both 3*, the first projects I ever tried, and only a few hundred meters from my house – how about that!

To see a small gallery from the route, as well as a video of the first ascent, check out realbigpimp.in...

After a near fatal hard disk failure, I just started to sort out my archives and began to upload a few new videos. Check out the Video section in my portfolio @ realbigpimp.in

Here is Progression...

Tafraoute's dirty little secret...

Arrival...

At first you feel like you have died and gone to heaven, a bouldering heaven decorated with palm trees and coloured carpets; but fairly quickly Tafraoute reveals its dirty little secret.

Very rough, very sandy, and very frustrating is how I would describe the rock in Tafroute in polite terms. My mum told me saying bad words makes baby Jesus cry so I wont stoop to those despicable levels, instead I will use SCIENCE to demonstrate my point.

Surveying...

Utilising some of the most modern and accurate methods of visual guestimation, I was able to conclude that 89.74% of the rock is bad, and of the 10.26% that is good, 2.37% is inaccessible due to its location, and 6.44% is just featureless. This leaves a disappointing 1.19% of good quality climbing which may not sound much, but thankfully Tafraoute is all rock; as far as you can see in every direction, mountains covered in giant orange eggs entice you to explore.

Cleaning the holds on one of many new trad routes...

I know that the perfect line is out there, hiding somewhere in the shade is a line of perfect edges and huecos through a big roof, but this on this trip I didn’t find it. However... we did manage to climb every day, for 8 days straight on good quality problems. Sport, bouldering, and trad – we even found time for a mini desert rave. That’s not too bad going when you think about it.

Caroline chilling before the onslaught...

I'm planning on writing something a little more in depth about our adventure in Tafraoute, to be published in one of the climbing rags at some point down the line along with a host of pretty pictures. There is also 60gb of raw HD footage sat on my hard disk waiting for someone with the time and skill to turn it into something cool – if any of you budding film makers fancy taking a look, drop me a message and we can talk some more.

Just another beautiful sunset, just another beautiful day...

For now, I want to say a quick thank you to Ivan and the rest of the smiley Spanish for the helpful information they gave us – without it we would certainly have climbed a lot less. You can find Ivan’s website here. There is also a lot of useful information about climbing in Tafraoute here.

I just wanted to add, as somepeople seemed to have taken my post the wrong way (probably my fault in the way I write) - I liked Tafraoute a lot, in fact it was one of my best recent adventures and would certainly go back without too much persuasion.

The Expedition Reports - 5 - The Arch of Ba-Chikele

Here it is folks, the final instalment of our Chad Expedition Reports. This time Renan Ozturk takes us on a journey up the Arch of Ba-Chikele - the most impressive and delicate rock formation any of us had ever seen!

I'm a little sad the reports have come to an end; it has been fun to share it with you all, and in a small way it was like being back there again, staring out into the unknown, wondering what magnificent route lay just around the corner. But fear not, as the Camp4 team are working day and night on the video edits so you should get to see something shortly. As for the pictures, I have seen the final edit and they are something special. Check out the April edition of Outside magazine if you are State-side, or the August issue of Climber Magazine for those in the UK.

“Expedition Time Distortion”: I think this could describe what the whole crew is experiencing at this point out here in the remote Chadian desert. Although we have only been gone for a matter of weeks, and it probably seems like a blink of an eye to all those back home, to us it truly feels an eternity lost in the endless sea of unclimbed sandstone, micro barbed picker grass and roaming camels.

Despite the looming homesickness, today the moral is high. We convinced Piero, our tireless guide, to go for a final hail mary quest to the most remote part of the region to check out what seems like the most inspiring formation from our research: a tower/arch that we have deemed “the delicate arch” of the Ennedi. Piero is skeptical of the whole journey after the incident with the knife bandits (see dispatch 4) and tried to ward us off from the idea: “You know there are vipers and cobras in camp-- definitely maybe!!” Even though we will only have an afternoon and morning worth of water to explore the location before have to turn back we all agree it’s worth it.

More 4x4ing through the heat and we arrive at the objective. It is even more inspiring than we could have possibly imagined: a helix of two spindly towers ~160 ft tall connected by a tiny arch that truly resembles Canyonland’s famous Delicate Arch!

With our limited time the team quickly sprung into action and headed up the talus cone in the brutal midday heat to scope the line. Each side had distinct cruxes of chossy unprotected slabs or decomposing cracks. Eventually Mark and James decided on the slab. The rest of the day was spent battling for protection in the decomposing sandstone. At one point Mark tried to place a bolt and it was so loose in the hole he had a double stack pitons around to make it even remotely passable as protection. Jimmy, Kempy and I scrambled around trying to document the madness we could here James cursing after Mark relinquished the lead: “Its like bloody Caster sugar up here, after you break the outer surface the rest just explodes, #(*)&#@#&!!!”.

Feeling a bit antsy at the base Alex took matters into his own hands and went for the kamikaze onsight free-solo first ascent of the crack up the other side. At this point it was a free for all with time running out to find a way to the summit. “Here you go dude, take this wireless mic,” I suggested and he clipped it on. After sending half the formation I could hear his breathing elevate with is knee stuck in a wide crack unable to commit to a loose flake transfer. Displaying good judgment and some extreme skill he carefully retreated down the lower tech face as we all watched clenching our teeth. Darkness set in James and Mark also decided to play it safe and descend, hoping to get it done with an alpine start the next morning.

During the night as the climbing teams rested for the morning we stayed up most of the night documenting a moon-rise we will never forgot: The nearly full moon rose directly behind the arch and tracked a perfect path slitting the formation. For the Camp4 Crew this was a mind-blowing coincidence for us to be able to share the beauty of this place. We ran 3 timelapses through the night, one on a motorized Kessler dolly tracks to add another layer of movement to the tracking stars and moon. I have to say it was kinda gripping scrambing around wondering if the aforementioned snakes might be lurking under any rock.

Before sunrise the games began again. James took the final leap of faith. I’m sure the details of his moment with God will come out in his and Mark’s own detailed descriptions but all I have to mention is that Mark could barely force himself to belay the pitch. If he fell he would have ripped the entire pitch including the anchor...

After some victory screams he brought up the rest of the crew for some truly feel good moments. Its so rare that in this day and age that such iconic first ascents are still a possibly. Looking out over the expanse of rocks and village life below it was an unsaid realization how special this experience has been. . (The Arch of Ba-Chikele)

Our time here is coming to a close. By Marks’s vision of putting this adventure together, Piero’s 20 year knowledge of the landscape/people, Alex and James’ bold summit leads and the Camp4 Collective crew photo/video efforts we all hope to bring back a greater understanding of the Ennedi to share with those back home. However haggard, diarrhea ridden, sand caked, starved and exhausted we all may be there is no doubt we are vastly grateful for the experience and the opportunity to be the first to climb in this remote region. Stay tuned for not only a feature in Outside Magazine and Video Dispatches but a more polished film festival piece highlighting the start to finish epic!

Thanks for following and cheers from the whole team out here in middle of nowhere! ~reo

For more inspiring pictures, check out "the Word" at realbigpimp.in

The Expedition Reports - 4 - Shiny Pointy Things

Expedition report 4 comes from team photographer and fairly handy climber, Tim Kemple...

There are two types of thugs in this world. Those that will knife you and those that threaten to knife you. Fortunately these were the later.

Its been one of those days for me really. The harshness of the desert has begun to set in --every step calculated, as snakes, spiders, insects, and flesh eating grass seem to be lurking everywhere. Making things more stressful, we’ve broken enough camera gear to keep B&H in business for another year… its almost like our video equipment can feel the stress of the Ennedi as well. Yesterday James and Mark bagged another tower first ascent (The Wine Bottle) so we packed up the 4x4’s and headed deeper into the sand in search of more desert gold.

We have no real system for finding new routes. Just drive for hours across the desert to the next well known landmark and see if the rock is climbable. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so much stone in my life, so at times it can be overwhelming. Its mostly loose sandstone, but there is enough good rock to be found that every turn finds everyone’s eyeballs glued to the windows wanting to be the first to spy the next gem.

That’s how we were yesterday when we ran underneath Aloba Arch, reportedly the biggest land arch in the world at close to 100m. The solid ‘Red Rock’ black faces to either side of the arch were going to be the perfect passport to the summit. We were stoked! Problem is we were also so busy looking up that we hardly noticed the 4 knife wielding teenagers approach from the bushes. At first we thought they just wanted us off their land, but soon it became clear that they wanted to mug us.

Normally I would have been fine leaving my gear for the bandititos, but I forget North Face athletes don’t like being told what to do; so we picked up sticks and got ready to do battle… Fortunately their knives were just threats and they ran into the dusty desert afternoon.

We took off as well, the Delicate Arch of Chad awaits.

tk

Yes, It was pretty scary!

The Expedition Reports - 3 - The Crack

Its time for more Expedition Reports from Chad. This time, Alex takes on one of the most disgusting routes I can imagine...

So this dispatch is about a cool arch I got to climb. I’m typing it from the back of the jeep while we quest around the desert.

We stopped at the Sao Paulo [sp??] Arch a few days ago while we were driving just to see it as tourists. But when we parked underneath we discovered an amazing offwidth crack that split the whole formation from one side to the other. The whole team decided that we should give it a go, but we didn’t have any wide gear and no one else really seemed thrilled to climb a sandy offwidth. Tim was kind enough to go up top and drop a line down through the crack to give me a toprope belay and I set out up one side to check out the rock. My first attempt I chose the side with better rock that looked a little easier. I made it half way across the roof before my legs gave out and I collapsed from fatigue.

We broke for lunch for a while and then I tried it again from the other side, which involved a sandy boulder problem on friable face holds before gaining the crack. This time I gave the whole things the fight of my life, knowing that once I made it to the middle I would be back into familiar terrain. Jimmy was hanging in the middle of the arch shooting pictures, which always makes things a little more fun to have a friend hanging out next to you. And Mark and James were shouting up encouragement from below while I grunted and struggled across. The whole process took an hour and ten minutes of hanging from my legs and thrutching wildly. I broke off tons of holds and a certain points could hear sand pouring into my ears.

In some ways it was the most disgusting route of my life in terms of poor sandy rock and hard climbing. But it was also the most satisfying pitch of the trip for me. It was awesome to try my very hardest for so long and barely be able to squeak it out. I’ve deemed it the hardest offwidth in Chad. I don’t think there’s much competition. Alex Honnold