So contrary to what you see, I did write a nice long update on the weekend, how I fixed the car with Malc’s help and drove up to Aberystwyth to surprise Sean (which I did) and how we both had a relaxing weekend snuggling and watching buffy. Unfortunately, it got lost. WordPress so needs a better editor – already looking into that.
Last night, Mal and I went up to the Welsh International Climbing Center. I’ve been there before but it’s come under new management since then, and one of the lads on our team works there which is good because we get regular updates on what they’ve done to the place – which is actually quite a lot.
So we wentup and changed and decided to do some bouldering to start with…and just carried on bouldering. They’ve completely revamped the bouldering room which is great – there are some 40 or 50 puzzles in there now, each one graded and laid out clearly, each one, it seems, concentrating on a particular skill. We started on the V0 graded routes, which equates to around a 5a/5b (ish). Now I know that I have climbed a 6a before in this center, but that was on a longer route, and isn’t really comparable to bouldering problems, where it’s pretty much all technique. There may have been a single point where that longer route was a 6a, but the rest was quite simple. We tried 4 V0 problems last night, of which I managed to do 3, and think that I completed 2 of them cleanly – the third I needed a bit of a nudge to get started. The last one was a traverse under an overhang with some real jugs for your hands, but I just haven’t got the upper body strength to do that kind of manouvering yet. So that route is my goal at the moment.
There’s explanations of how bouldering grades works here and here.
WICC has had a major facelift in terms of the walls – they’ve got two of my faovourite walls out of action at the moment as they’re rebuilding them, and I know that the staff they have there now are excellent. They really do offer a whole lot more than just a climbing wall though, especially with their artifical cave which rocks. Looks like they’re on the right track anyway, so I for one will definately be going back there.
I would like to pop back to Llangorse now that I’ve got a bit more experience than when I went there before, just to cast an eye around. It’s too far to go regularly, especially with WICC just around the corner from me really, but it might be interesting as a different place every now and again.