Crucial Breakthrough

I've always pottered around on Crucial Times. Its not the best or nicest problem in the cave but i think it has something about it. For one it is one of the first hard problems in Wales, very old skool. For me to tick the 'original' 3 classic 8a's would be very cool (Diesel Power. Manchester Dogs, Crucial). All hard and all very different. Crucial has always seemed the toughest of the 3, i could conceive of doing the other 2 but couldn't even find a way of doing Crucial. Usually the Cave succombs to some weak mans beta but not this problem it seemed, no decent kneebars and very little faggotory. That mono is also rather painful. Chris's original sequence has only been repeated once by Mick Adams, a brutal go again slap to the finger jug off the mono. Floppy pisses it, its his party piece. I still reckon this problem has had less than 10 ascents which is not very many considering how many beasts visit. Yesterday i felt shit on my redpoint projects so i had another few hours on it. I had found a sneaky upside down heel under the roof that had made the move to the jug feel more feasible. Using the wettest hold in the cave for my right and the wide pinch on the lip with my left and a tweaked foot position i managed the move, the heel stuck too. I then managed to work out a way of getting into the position, Pete liked my beta and got close. He would have done it if he hadn't had 5 goes on The Incredible Bulk. Dyer was jumping through off the pinch with finger still in the mono. Anyway i've still got one more move to do but it felt close, i'm sure i can do it. Here is Chris doing it the original way and trying to link into Trigger Cut (this is known as East Coker).