Day 73 - Scratting Around

cam again?

We picked up a real bargain on Sunday. 

A couple of winters ago, we'd been climbing for about a year, and decided to enter a bouldering competition at Big Rock Climbing Centre in Milton Keynes. 

In a bouldering gym, there're usually one to several hundred different "problems".   A problem is made up of a set of like-coloured hand and foot holds, bolted to walls of varying steepness, from almost vertical, to extremely overhanging - climbing on a ceiling in some cases.   The objective is to climb from the starting holds to the finishing hold, using only the holds for that problem.

Problems are graded from the very easy (not much more difficult than climbing a ladder), to unfeasibly impossible.   Of course, where "impossible" starts is entirely due to your personal level of technique, skill and strength.

Very easy climbs (indoors at least) start at grade V0, and go up to around V8.  Outdoors, the highest Grade so far achieved is V16, and there are only a few boulderers in the world that can climb at this level.  

But one of the great things about bouldering (or climbing in general), is that everyone has their own personal level of easy, difficult, impossible.

A year ago, we were finding V0-1 very easy, V2-3 quite difficult, and we only managed the occasional V4.    In sport (roped) grades, we were finding f4's easy, f5-f6a+ difficult, and f6b very hard indeed, usually impossible.

This year, we're finding V0-3 fairly easy, V4-5 difficult, and I don't think we've climbed V6.   In sport grades we're finding f5-f6a easy, f6a+-f6b+ difficult, and only getting anywhere on the odd f6c.

But it seems more or less the same difficulty.   We still climb at our limit each time, it's just that that's around V4 now rather than V2-3. 

So, where was I?  Oh yes, bouldering competitions!

From October, they set around 50 new problems each month until March or so.  These will be spread over the grades.  Each time you climb, you tick off those climbs you manage to do.  At the end, the winner is whoever climbed the most problems of the 250 or so set.

We'd usually climb around 15-20 problems each session, although Anna, of course, climbed one or two each session that I couldn't do. 

Then, in December, Anna injured her elbow falling off the wall.   I had horrible shoulder issues at the time, and we missed 7 or 8 weeks of the competition whilst we tried to recover. 

At last we felt able to go climbing again, and tentatively got back into the competition for the last couple of weeks.

I had the mixed blessing of being in the "Veteran" category, but still I ended up 4th with around 100 problems climbed, against a winner with 112 or so. 

Anna was climbing very nicely through that period (injury permitting), and finished 3rd in the tough Womens category, on 115 or so, only pipped by a handful of climbs...a brilliant achievement!

The prize was a small trophy, and a £20 voucher to spend in the shop at the centre. 

Shortly after that, Anna had her hip operation and couldn't climb for 6 months, and we forgot about the voucher. 

It turned up again recently, and as we were there on Sunday we thought we'd see if it was still valid, 2 years later. 

We were looking at quickdraws and the like , although we didn't really need any.  Then someone pointed out the sale rack, with 25% off.  A couple of small cams immediately caught the eye.   As noted earlier, these can be expensive, up to around £60 each. 

The ones in the sale were small, basic 3 Cam Units, which normally cost around £35.  With 25% off, that came to £26.25.   We scratted around in our climbing bag, where there's always loads of loose change, found the £6.25 we needed, and left with what felt like a free cam...bonus!

Of course, we won't need cams on our forthcoming climbing holiday, as it's sport, not trad.

My daughter pin snot and her boyfriend Roob are coming to join us for a few days, which will be great...although it won't change the requirements for cam units. 

For 3 years I've been trying to get pin to climb with me, but so far, no luck.   She's tried it but doesn't like the hard work aspect of it. 

Maybe outdoors in a warm climate will change her mind...

Ok yeah, I'm just wishful thinking now, aren't I?

Sigh...

;-)