Plan B and Progress

With a bank holiday weekend to play with, a trip to Pembroke for some sun-kissed sea cliff action seemed the way forward. As the weather forecast nose-dived as the weekend approached though, a late call to instigate Plan B was made. 😥

To celebrate the loss of the umpteen hour drive necessity, I treated myself to a beer or two last night, such that this morning my slightly fuzzy head forgot my camera as I packed up and headed for Malham again. 😳 My apologies for this error, here’s a nice picture of a sheep to make up for it!

It was pretty busy at Malham today, with plenty of people choosing to avoid the showers by sheltering under the cove’s great roof. I was back upstairs to the Upper Tier again for a few more goes at Obsession.

Having put the rope up, I was surprised to find myself linking the two bottom sections on first top rope, only stopping because I didn’t want to ruin the session by trying too hard too soon (the dreaded flash pump!). The last hard moves felt okay too.

It was obvious that the time had come to pull the rope and get on the sharp end, not necessarily for a redpoint attempt, but to get used to feel of the thing and sort the clips out. 😮

After a bit of wobble at the first clip, I managed to lead through to the second crux, but didn’t commit and sagged on the rope. It’s good though, as I usually feel exactly the same on top rope at this point. There’s a small side-pull for the left hand and a reasonable undercut for the right, but you have to get your feet high on smears that only feel good once you’re above them. 👿 It should be fine with the added motivation a redpoint attempt gives.

A brief rest and then back on, to do the second crux, enjoy the cheeky half-rest and then dispatch the final moves without too much bother. A little awkward clipping the chain, but again, I’ll not be letting go if I’ve redpointed it that far!

All in all, a good day, and much better progress than last weekend. Who knows, maybe it’ll go next time? Monday perhaps?! 😀