Weak in the Peak

Well i'm back from the peak having climbed a bit every day on rock- not bad all things considered. First day at the tor i just bouldered managing to sack my knee in the heel-toe on the 7b+ right of Bens Roof. I fell off the last move and kept waking up in the night as my knee twinged. A very dangerous problem for the ligaments. Next day was back at the tor, i struggled with a move on Chimes cos of my knee so had a play on Mecca, great fun! Did the crux move with the right drop-knee beta. Sacked it off at the end of the groove but would be keen to play again sometime and work out the top moves. Very knacky route. Its a bit unrealistic living in Wales but i'd really like to do it one day, so good. Ry was trying Evolution, really good to see him cranking again after a minor blip in the summer when he was crap. He shows what a wad he is on this route, he's very close! I have some footage of him on it, so will upload soon. Pritch basically did short Chimes but got a bad case of hot aches, he was almost in tears! Today i went to the Plantation with Pete for a couple of hours. We played around on Jerrys Traverse and Brass Monkey. Pete seems to be cranking again after his accident in the summer, good to see. I still couldn't hold the swing on Brass Monkey, bummer! Anyway i quite enjoyed the grit, was a nice change.

Orme Shut

The Great Orme is shut to cars and pedestrians because of "massive rockfall". This means i have nought to do all day as the Mill is an evening and weekend thing at the moment and everything else is wet. I'm not sitting in Penrhyn Bay on me tod all day so tomorrow i will head to the peak to climb with Pascal and whoever else is around.

Grimness

And so the rain continues to pour, very dismaying indeed! I have been going to the cave a lot. Although there have been many wet holds and some days have been very grim i can nearly always have a bash at the start of Pilgrim. I still haven't got into RA, is proving a stubborn link. RA is also hard for me at the moment, although i have done this countless times over the years its still tricky especially after months of sport climbing. So it looks like i've got a seige on my hands. Would be nice to mix it up and try some other stuff but the front of the cave is pretty wet. I found this footage of the first time i ever did Rockatrocity back when i was a skinny boy in 2002:

I also went to the Mill yesterday, without having to worry about doing circuits it was great fun. Ticked a load of 7a+'s- great!

The Cattells auditioning for the next series of Queer as Folk:

Cave Season

Well after a bit of a worrying spell i can finally say that i once again really like to go bouldering. This is a bit of a relief as a:) the weather has crapped out BIG TIME and b:) i hated the thought that i'd been wasting my time over all these years. One day i woke up and it just clicked, bouldering seemed like a worthwhile pursuit again. And the cherry on the cake was that i was even psyched for the Cave again. This is quite handy as it currently rains every day and opportunities for none cave activities are few and far between. Even after the most significant seepage there are usually dry holds in the cave. Its normally only completely knackered after a change in temperature when an inversion occurs. After all the recent redpointing a bit of stress free bouldering has been a breath of fresh air. I have several Cave projects on the go, Halfway, Broken Heart/Sams and now Pilgrim. I have been trying the ramp section of Pilgrim for donkeys years. Its probably the piece of rock that i've tried the most and had the least success on. No one else's sequences worked for me and i had tried everything i could thing of! Going right to left (i.e Cave Life) i find quite steady but going the other way just seemed completely desperate! Well the other day my stubborness finally paid off and the beta was revealed, YYFY! Soon i should be into RA although this feels hard right now so a bit of seiging will be on the cards i'm sure. Need to tone up my bouldering stength after all the sport climbing. To me Pilgrim is one of the most obvious of the Cave links so it would be great to do it, also would achieve a long held ambition to do an 8a+ in there. Theres nothing better than being in that cave when waters dripping from the roof and outside the rain is pouring and your hammering three holds into submission!
John Maskell working In Heaven:

PAG Part 2

The Power and the Glory Part2 from Chris Doyle on Vimeo.

The Power and The Glory

After the good response Obsession got on Vimeo (over 26 000 views! wish i'd charged 10p a view!) i thought i'd stick my swiss flick up. Some of the footage you will have seen before on some of my youtube vids. Its too big to go on in one go so here is Part 1. Part 2 will follow shortly.

The Power and The Glory Part 1 from Chris Doyle on Vimeo.

Between The Trees

Between the Trees is the latest offering from my sometimes bumchum Keith Brad Uncle Fucker Bungle Bradbury. He is flogging it on his site. Today i rested so i had a watch, in a way i kind of knew what to expect, funky soundtrack, tripod stylee and many hard ascents from Ty. Ty's trip to Font was groundbreaking in many ways. He was extremely well travelled and had performed at every place he had visited. To go to Font though and come back with such a meaty ticklist was truly historic and propelled Ty to the front of the pack at that moment in time. Keith had to do justice to this ticklist with his film and i'm glad to say he pulled it off. The film is a very classy affair. I was impressed with how much interesting and comical commentary that Keith managed to extract from Ty (it was like trying to get blood from a stone when i was with him in Swiss). Keith's editing style really suits the climbing in Font in my view. When you have so much hard quality climbing on film its hard to make a bad film but making it stand out as being special is equally as difficult. Well Brads hours in front of the computer screen have paid off and i really hope he makes a bob or two out of it (GO GET IT). I suppose the true test of a climbing film is how inspired you feel after watching it. Well i really felt the urge to back to the forest after watching this, what a place! Good work Brad.