Climbing Training to reach 5.12 on lead in two months time.

So far the climbing training's all been going well; mainly just climbing a lot now (2-3 hour sessions) and trying to get through difficult moves.

It's nice that the gym that I train at doesn't have the grading on the routes; they're just classed into easy (green), medium (blue), hard (yellow), expert (red), impressive (black). I've been really pleased with the way the year's been going so far as most of the reds are coming under my control quite nicely, with some of them still been quite elusive; and I ticked my first scramble up a black the other day although I fell off a few times.

Which, I must say, brings me to my first training goal over the next couple of months! Hitting 5.12a on lead :) I have to say that with just a little underneath a year of outdoor experience, I'm not sure I'll be able to do it but at the moment I'm quite sure I can sail up 5.11b (21) with quite a bit of confidence. It'll just be the mental aspect of getting onto lead.

Having said that, the things I'm looking to continue to employ will be the cardio to keep the weight down. I've also started to get things under control with what I'm eating as well (FINALLY), and I'm watching that a little closer.

In terms of climbing specific training, I realised that I was dying with the endurance aspect of some of the longer routes, especially when I've been on outdoor routes. In order to combat that I'm doing circuits on the bouldering wall at my gym to try to build up endurance at a relatively high level of strength. I'm also going to get a bunch of holds for home and set up a small board with holds hanging off it which I can practice off, as opposed to buying another hangboard (although I was REALLY close to getting my hands on the revolution grill, it just seemed a bit expensive).

Well - that's it for the time being. I'll let you know what training I get up to; but over the last two days it's just really been climbing. Stay safe :D

Nowra Trip, Day 2

After burning out a bit on Day 1, we decided that we should check out the rest of Thompson's Point as we never really ended up getting to the other end of the crag. It had been suggested that there were plenty of classics that we were yet to look at, and so that was one of the main priorities - to get on some of the more famous walls down at Nowra.

First, we started off with Vanderholics*** 25m (18), which was a fairly good climb. It was pretty apparent that I was absolutely smashed from the day before, and I didn't really have that much confidence going up the route, which was disappointing to say the least, but I still ended up getting to the finish. The cave was a particularly interesting feature but I've gotta admit, I've never really enjoyed climbing when there are caves around as it gives you something to hit if you fall.. same goes with slabs.

Next we hopped onto Birdsville Track*** 23m (20), which was a really fantastic climb :D I lead it again and it was great! Lots of concentration required for the first couple of bolts, and in the end it yielded a fairly spectacular route with a very interesting midsection. This is also the point at which I'm quite sure I figured I climb better on a slightly more difficult grade where I focus more on the climbing and execution of moves, as opposed to actually getting injured if something goes wrong.

The final climb of the day was Gun Barrel Highway*** 23m (19), which was also a great route. Dom led this one; lots of interesting moves and fairly sustained climbing to the top.

And that was it for our Nowra trip! We pretty much decided to bail at this point due to the sun beginning to threaten to start frying us, and the fact that we hadn't eaten lunch yet. But it was a great trip - certainly will be back for more fun times in the future!

Nowra Climbing Trip

Too much fun!! This was probably the first climbing trip we did which was focused mainly on looking at trying to see where we're at in terms of trying more difficult climbs and seeing if we're improved or not over the last couple of months.

To say the least, it went great! We drove down with the conditions looking a bit shitty but it ended up clearing up pretty nicely. First we thought we'd check out The Grotto area, since we'd only previously been to Thompson's Point for most of our climbing down in Nowra.

After looking through the guidebook we tried to find access points The Grotto area, and frankly it sucked. We couldn't find the proper descent path (parked too early in the road) and then when we did, we couldn't find the cliff-face or a good way to access it... So access pretty much took slightly over an hour.

With the clouds looming and the 20% chance of lunchtime rain looming, things looked pretty crap. But we eventually ended up identifying THE palm tree, which marked the Palm Tree Wall; and finally found the crag!

We ended up hopping on two fairly good climbs on the Palm Tree Wall, LHS:

• Backdraft* (18) 22m
  Essentially a warmup climb, and a warmup lead. Good fun; got a bit exciting with the finish having to step back out again. 
• Shmoken* (21) 22m
  Loads of fun. I think Dom and I were both kicking ourselves that the first pinch of the climb wasn't captured by a SLR, which we'll hopefully rectify in the future. The climbing on this wall was really great with super-balancy footwork and an exciting finish. I believe the lead fall I ended up taking as well was the first big fall that I've taken; probably equally big to the largest I've taken indoors. Just affirmed that the new quickdraws are sexy.

After we did those two, we moved over to the Gonads Wall and did Depleted Gonad Circumference *** (18), 20m; fairly interesting climb, wouldn't say it's a mega classic but was a lot of fun! 

By this stage the day was getting fairly late and we were getting pretty tired but Dom wanted to have a shot at a ridiculously hard climb (by our standards). We had a bit of a look at Bondage and Discipline; but frankly getting to the second bolt looked really shit and run-out, so we bailed. Instead we decided to look through the guidebook and we found Snowman and Kings Kross to be quite promising, so we headed on down there.

Snowman ** (23) 20m stands as the greatest thing that we've ever done outdoors. In terms of difficulty, it was certainly the hardest thing we've done outdoors; Dom spent about 30 minutes alone figuring out the first two/three moves. But it proved to be a nice testament to where we're at in terms of outdoor skill, combining a gutsy start with a lot of beautiful climbing, and an exciting finish :D

And that was Day 1! I'll do another post about Day 2 tomorrow :)