Filming Girls Climb

I love how work is going at the moment. There’s plenty of it and it’s varied which is all I can really ask for. I like to do lots of different things because for me it keeps life fresh and interesting. I’ve been itching to get out and film some projects I’ve had in mind for some time now, but the weather is making that as difficult as possible. I’m trying to think of the rain as an opportunity to get all the editing and adminy stuff I need to catch up with done and dusted so when the sun is out I’m ready!

Lounging at Upper Cave, Dunkeld.

The sun sort of came out on Tuesday, and I was ready for it, so I joined some friends at Upper Cave crag at Dunkeld to film the phenom that is Vicki Mayes on some routes there. Watching Vicki climb is inspirational for a variety of reasons – she’s an awesome climber, she has fun and she tries hard to great effect. The main event that day was filming her on sight attempt at Rat Race, a lengthy and awesome-looking E3. It was a good chance for me to practice ascending a rope and also my first time filming a route – quite different to shooting boulder problems as it happens!

Vicki on Rat Race.

Now it’s raining again, but as ever, I’m ready for action when it stops, and now at least I can start putting my documentary together, hazaa! 4 months to go…

Soon these feet will be in aiders on El Cap!

Aid Climbing!

Easy aid climbing isn’t rocket science but it’s still pretty intense when you’ve spent your entire climbing life trying to avoid weighting a placement. We’ve been practising at Limekilns a couple of times now and are getting a tiny bit faster…

Working out the set up…

Jugging… © Jen Randall, Light Shed Pictures

More jugging! Jugging… © Jen Randall, Light Shed Pictures

4 months to go, and I can safely say we are by no means ready for El Cap yet.

End of Training Block 1

Well Al might be climbing really hard things on actual rocks (he crushed 8a+ in Font, but forgot to mention that in his post), but I have been continuing my training odyssey mostly indoors in a quest to be fit and ready for Yosemite this September. It’s been interesting. I’ve never trained in a focused sort of way before, and all I can really say about it so far is that most of the time my body is tired. Achievements so far? Jackie and I got the complete Turkey Workout down from 4 hours on week one to 2 and a half on week 4, so that’s something. Learning curves? Jumping off the top of too many boulder problems leaves you with dodgy legs – don’t do it. Also, working (more than) full time and training this much doesn’t leave time for anything else except a bit of sleeping.

For the second block of training the focus is still on endurance but we’re mixing it up a bit so we don’t get bored. This means doing routes, hitting the gym and working on endurance circuits at TCA which I am genuinely terrible at. Oh and we’re also hoping to go outside and refresh our aiding skills if the sun ever comes back out.

I have been out a little bit though, spending a whole weekend at Dumbarton during that warm spell which was totally awesome. I came up with a great circuit of around 18 do-able problems to get some mileage which was tiring and fun – something I never thought I’d say about Dumbarton.

So bring on the real climbing. Come on summer, you can do it!

As the mist burns off...