Spain, Swizzy and the Summer ahead.

Hello. When I wrote my last entry I was training in the wall a little bit (training being lapping 6as...) for my trip to Spain in late Feb. During the trip we visited the classic, yet quiet, Limestone venue of Wild Side in Sella. The last time I had climbed there was two years previous, where I had climbed my first 7a+ (which i was pretty chuffed about at the time!) This time I was there to focus on the classic 8as, with Ergometria and Watermark being the two that were most recomended by friends. I ticked Ergometria on the 2nd day, which was pretty surprising and went on to do the best route of my trip, Mediterraneo, a classy 8a with a very high crux sequence! All in all it was an ace trip, although the rain did ruin my ambitions of ticking Watermark aswell.

Between this trip and Switzerland I had two weeks of very little tickage. I played on The Zone at Curbar once, got the moves pretty wired and penciled it in as a post swizzy project. Unfortunately the psyche hasn't materialised yet and I find myself looking to other things.

Anyways, back to the trips. I realised in the week leading up to Switzerland that I wasn't going to be strong enough for the trip, which was a shame, but it was too late to solve it (learn for future...) Despite this it was a pretty fruitful trip ticking wise. Highlights being the stunning Confession of a Crap Artist ("Its Chaos Man!"), the uber classic Dr Crimp (first problem I saw abroad, leah crane vid..) and doing a whole bunch of classic 7as and bs. Waddage to Mr Carmichael and Chris 'Elijah' Smith who both went hard, then went home. I should have a video of this trip up soon. In the meantime check out george's.

The one thing which pained me most in Switzerland was hearing of the amount of snow back home, and looking at the photos of the snowballing in the cafe near the end of the trip left me feeling homesick. So when I arrived home (after toms thing, next post!) the first thing I wanted to do was get to the platforms. As promised they were still there, under all the classics of the Stanage and Burbage snowball circuit. We checked out Black Car and flailed about, then quickly moved to the popular end where we despatched Shine On and Cemetery Waits. Shine On temporarily being the best 7a+ in the Peak! Next up was Burbage North where Mark Rankine had been busy building a platform under Nefertiti. This is usually a highball with pads anyway, and with the snow it was a boulder, which meant it could climbed with fun jumps to holds rather than static locks. Another problem in that vein was Puck, which was climbed via a wild dyno! Cheers to Mark for the effort on Nefertiti and everyone else who has built platforms, I wish I could've been there to help!

Now attention turns to bigger things, I feel like I've not done anything properly hard for months, so hopefully I can take it up a notch soon..... provided the temps don't go through the roof.

Ciao Grazi.