Powerband

Ω Big crowds at Flock Hill on Sunday. There must have been at least 20 climbers there, some with very bright clothing and one chap with a particular comedic balaclava (resplendent with a knitted Baron Munchausen moustache). It’s good to see the “one of the world’s third best bouldering areas” (to quote Mark Watson from Southern Faces) getting so much love.

As congregations of humans are want to do, the masses quickly broke into clusters of smaller masses. Team A (not be confused with the A Team), comprising Kester ‘Oh, you’ve got a boyfriend?’ Brown, Rach The Muss, Matt The Muss’s Musses, Brian Older and 2008 Powerband Award winner, Roland Foster, cast off in search of rocks. We’ll pick up their story a bit later.

Team B, comprising Peter Allison, camped out under Trifecta Middle. His story is short: tried Trifecta Middle (repeatedly), came agonisingly close (repeatedly), fell from the very top (repeatedly), smashed back on rock due to total failure of spotter to actually make contact with him (repeatedly), lay on the ground in agony (repeatedly). Next weekend, Pete will overcome his demons and send this badly named problem packing. Either way, that’s enough!

Team C, comprising Dan ‘Buff’ Mackay, Jason ‘No Contact’ Whittaker and a friend of theirs, went in search of fame and glory. Big Buff nabbed a repeat of Automorphism V8. Not sure what the others got up to.

Team D, comprising the Powerband massive (ex Kopp), international Rampage star, Derek Thatcher, and the Kids went in search of first ascents. To warm up for this important work, the dynamic Powerband duo repeated the powerful and quite excellent Trifecta Left V8 (which is left of Trifecta Middle, which is left of Trifecta Right). Tom cruised it, I thrashed. I got my own back on the not-powerful but still excellent Julian’s Arete V6, with Tom finding the small holds and uber-technical sequence not to his liking. Then the FA-fest started in earnest.

First to fall was an excellent friction problem on the Green Room boulder. Having warmed up on The Green Room V8, Zac and James got a head start and were making good progress when the star of Rampage emerged, like a cruising shark, from around the corner of the boulder. With blood in the water, sequence exploration became frenzied, with dust, chalk and climbers flying in all directions. Eventually (and inevitably) the shark struck, via an archetypal ‘Yes-I-locked-that-non-hold-to-my-ankle’ sequence to produce The Green Hornet V9. James quickly nabbed the second ascent, via some impressive contact-strength. And I brought up the rear (as it were), with something approximating a total shambles.

Next on the list was a curiosity that the star of Rampage has cleaned earlier in the day. It had two possible starts, one a ‘pull on’ problem similar to Ideal V8 at Spittle Hill, the other an extended 3D start involving an upside down knee bar and some almost unbelievable gyrobatics (you heard it here first!) on miniscule crimpers. The ‘pull on’ was quickly disposed of by the star of Rampage, Zac and me, at around V6. Zac also came close to sending the extended version but after kneeing Derek in the ribs while “trying” to spot him, he duly retired (for fear of retribution?) and Derek executed yet another gymnastic routine of power, precision and creativity. Possible names for this problem include: Not Ideal, Less Than Ideal, Hardly Ideal and Ideal-ology. Please vote for your favourite, or suggest others in the ‘Comments’ box neatly provided below.

We’ll leave Team D there for now and return (as appropriate) below.

Team E, comprising the man with the comedy hat and his young friends, seemed to be having a good time. At one point, there was a lot of shouting and excitement, leading to speculation about sending. However, nothing was confirmed. It may have related to the hat.

Back to Team A, psyche levels were moderate to middling, and not a great deal was achieved. Ghola V8, She-Male V8 and others were attempted, but (I gather) nothing sent. Notwithstanding that, everyone seemed to have a good time; except Kester who mysteriously rolled his ankle (badly) while attending to a call of nature and had to crawl like Joe Simpson all the way back to the car. He starts work today on a book about that experience, its working title is ‘Touching the ‘roid’.

Finally back to Team D (losing track? I am). As the day wore on, the search for first ascents lost momentum, as some in the party got distracted by established problems (this is where I slip in the fact that I did Grooverider V7 and Commander Keen V8). Others drank too much coffee and lost the ability to stand still. Yet others wandered off to watch Pete take repeated back slams off Trifecta Middle. Finally, with the sun setting, each of the teams made the decision to call it a day. Ivan might say that those decisions had an immediate, palpable effect on the sun, which promptly dropped from the sky. I tend to think that the sun was always going to set, and there was nothing whatever to be done about it.

The end. Ω