January Training

So far the new year's been pretty interesting in terms of the work that we've been doing. Just before the new year, we had a trip to the blueys to get some climbing done up there, and that was a great trip. We spent two days out there; the first at Barden's Lookout, where we got through a bunch of climbs (although we got roasted in the sun for a good part of it). The next day we went up to Shipley Upper and revisited a couple of really good climbs, and I managed to get through lead on Jack High (19) which I've wanted since the middle of the year, considering I backed out of it earlier. We then went down to Dam Cliffs to do some teaching and the less experienced people in our group got a chance to hop on lead and get some lead belay done.

It's been pretty great, and at the moment I'm just building confidence on grade 19-20 climbs. We had a short trip to Nowra shortly after the new year, and got some more climbing in there at Hospital Rocks and Thompson's Point - both fantastic places. We didn't really try chasing anything difficult in terms of grade down there; it was more to get Vic comfortable with heights, etc.

Anyway, as the new year's here I've started to work on some projects out at the St. Peter gym. There are a few climbs which are pretty awesome and they're grade 26 (although it feels pretty soft for the grade; I can't say I've completed those climbs cleanly but I am very close to grade 24! [5.12a] ). That's the goal for the time being; but the outdoor trips have actually taken away a little bit from the endurance and outright strength that I've been working on recently. I'm also continuing to work away at bouldering strength and the core work's been kept up as well; I've moved towards doing things off the hangboard and really focusing on been able to keep my legs up past 90 degrees when I'm on the hangboard.

Finally work on the site's been a little bit slow as of late, but I haven't been able to get any traffic in which has been pretty disappointing. I'm just cleaning things up at the moment before I submit anything big to any sites, etc. to have a look at the work that I've been doing, and hopefully people will appreciate it when it does come up!

Last weeks trip to the mountains!

For some reason I must be stuck in a time sink; I have no idea why the video is labelled 14/05, when that was actually a monday... :\ so it must've been the 12th. No idea why my dodgy calendar has been mixing that up.

In any case, last saturday we went out to the mountains for a straight-up amazing experience. We went to Dam cliffs, and even though many seasoned climbers have told me that it's a fairly dangerous noob-area, I had a bucket of fun.

We made a video on youtube which you guys can check out here - but otherwise, a rough summary of the day goes something like this......

8am left syd, driving on L's, got two apple pies, drove into a ditch, got pulled out by a winch (amazing), got wet feet :(, fell into a river, then climbed some amazing climbs.

The ones we did were:

• A Tale of Two Cities (18)
• Sisters of Fatima (16)
• Envirodandal (19)

I also gotta say that it's pretty scary watching the lead climber go up. 

On the agenda for things to do include learning how to do the anchoring. I also went lead climbing this last week but I haven't finished the course yet - and a writeup will go up in due course! 

See you soon!