Powerband

ΩAfter a hearty roast dinner courtesy of Matt and Rach (and a fair amount of rain) on Friday night the team (Derek, James, ZacAtak™ and Matt) made a late start to Wuthering Heights on Saturday. There they climbed some stuff. James warmed-up the mighty Okinawa Steel, while Derek re-repeated Oren Ishi’i (despite his spotters saying enough was enough and we need more than one pad and he wasn’t able to return for the third ascent). ZacAtak™ repeated Derek’s latest addition to the area Sloper Syndicate (V9ish), which probably involves slopers. The double-mantle problem to the right of Texas Chainsaw Massacre received some serious attention (including a spectacular fall from Matt). On the way back down the hill they stopped at The Vostinar Sloper Traverse #54, a.k.a. Powerlicious. Derek and James repeated this problem which is described as “a slopey traverse”.

Sunday dawned with an enlarged posse for a three-car attack on Flock Hill. Matt and Rach (no she didn’t climb, have you SEEN her finger?) brought out Rowan and Mark Pugh-Williams (who will henceforth be referred to as ‘Pug’ to avoid any immature toilet humour) who are two of the older geckos (do older flying geckos become Tuataras?). Pug and Jamie Vinton-Boot both climbed Porky, causing it to be downgraded to V7 and V6 respectively. Finally, to the utter embarrassment of Kester Brown (who was off being poncey) I climbed it, causing a further downgrade to V5 (did I mention ZacAtak™ flashed it AND the topout was wet?). Shortly after this something actually happened, with Derek making the first ascent of a project up the hill a bit, via some cool slopers, a single upside-down pocket and some body contortions.

ZacAtak™ continued his quota bagging with an ascent of the sideways daze problem Right of Validation. He had some goes on Liquidous Line, his gentle slab/groove which only looks like a fearsome highball project (Kay, we know you are reading), but needs a bit more work on this one. At this point I did some further research into CSS, and expanded my theorising on the three most commonly experienced forms of spooge (hot spooge, cold spooge and I’m watching a scary climbing movie spooge[also known to civilians as 'job interview spooge']) Later on, James and Derek tried to repeat Derek’s old problem Non-sequitur but neither had any success and this problem may be upgraded again (it was originally V8, now it looks more like 10).  Meanwhile Pug showed he has the requisite physical attributes by battling his way up Hipster at the end of the day. ZacAtak™ also climbed this problem and James pulled his quota out of the bag with a last gasp second ascent of the low-start to this problem (grade unknown, but it’s probably harder than V5 I reckon). Then it got dark.Ω