I returned to Scotland for a 2 week visit after a year and a half away living in the US. It was great to see the family especially my brother who had come over from Florida, his first time back since he left 14 years ago! My copy of the new bouldering book 'Stone Play' was waiting for me when I got home. Its a great book, but the fact that there is a pic of me (page 119) may bias my judgement. While I was home the weather barely let up from rain, sleet, and snow but it did let up a couple times to let me go out. I got out to Portlethen on a sunny Sunday morning. Portlethen was an old haunt of mine when I started climbing in Aberdeen, and I had a some of unfinished business I had to see to here. I went out with my friend Anthony who I started climbing with back in 2001. He couldn't climb cause of tendon injuries, but was keen to see if I'd really improved as much as I said I had. We got down to the boulders to find the sport wall soaking wet, which was a bit annoying as i was keen to get back on 7a+ I was close on before i left. But the Broccoli Garden boulder was in the sun, so we did some stuff on that. After a quick warm-up I managed Slap and Tickle a classic 6b+ (V4) after figuring out a good sequence. I had played around on this problem before, but never really attempted it properly. Its given 4 stars (out of 4) which I think says more about the quality of problems at Portlethen than the quality of this problem. I really wanted to try The Pit, the classic of the crag which I had worked on a couple of years ago but i never really got close on. My first go I pulled on and got to the underclings then my foot popped. My second go on I pulled through to the crimp and latched the lip, I had sent it! I was very pleased to have sent it so easily, it was a long term project of mine a couple of years ago for me so it was nice to have done it so easily. I tried The Buzz (7a+) next to it briefly and made some good progress, but i didn't have much time to work on it, and had to get back home.
Sending The Pit (Font 7a) at Portlethen
A couple of days later I headed down to Stirling to hang out with some friends from uni. I was really keen to climb at Dumbarton and get back on some of my old projects there. Despite the gale force winds and heavy rain I headed down with George and Dave, hoping that the weather might let up. We'd barely gotten out of Stirling when Dave's courtesy car broke down, not a good sign. We eventually made it down there about 4 hours after we first set off. When we got to Dumby it didn't look good, it was freezing cold with sideways rain. Despite the terrible conditions I managed to find a dry problem on the side of the Eagle boulder, Zig Zag. I made a feeble attempt at the sit start which goes at British 6b (about V5), but settled for just doing the stand at V1. I nearly got blown off the top of the boulder, getting off the boulder in those conditions was a bit of a nightmare. So we decided to just go to the sanctuary of the Glasgow wall where we met up with Paddy. I was a little dissapointed not to climb more at Dumbarton, but you can't say I didn't try.
A wet Dumbarton
I'm back in the US now and I'm looking forward to hopefully another great year of climbing. I improved my climbing level in 2007 more than any other year. And i'm going into 2008 injury free and in good form. My blog readers can look forward to reports from more exotic locations this year and maybe just maybe i'll climb my first 8a!
