Extream-dream Dry- Tooling Round

Saturday was round Three of this winters tooling league. Extream- dreams tooling round is always the best with funky logs and boards that you have to plant the axes into. We had 11 amazing/ funky routes to do and then the final on the 13 meter roof. One of my favorite routes were in the boulder cave, it included of three logs one of them about one meter long, that you had to slide down (as it was slanted) then figure of four onto a smaller one, swing to another log then slam the axe into the finishing plank of wood that was bolted to the wall. In the qualifying round I got 110 points along with another two Juniors.

There was 5 of us in the final on the roof and I was climbing last, after watching the others on the roof I was really phyced up, After getting half way over the roof I was happy then I managed to get to the last clip and I was pretty pumped, after clipping the last clip before the lower off I was trying to get my axe out and I droped it, but I managed to do a funky move and got the lower off with one axe and then won!!

More results can be found here:

Sports Climbing

This afternoon I went to Moy Rock, my local crag, met up with a few friends and done some climbing!!

After doing a few warm-up routes, A friend suggested that I should try these 2 routes:

1. Little Teaser (20m) 6b+ **
   
2. The Ticks Eat All the Midges 7a+ **

But instead of climbing The Ticks Eat All The Midges I went up the wrong line and climbed Cloak and Dagger 7a ** which I thought was pretty good but really pumpy trying to climb over the small roof to the lower off.

Photo taken by Stevie Hammond

Scottish Tooling Series Round 1

Round 1 of the Scottish Tooling Series was held on Saturday at Advertical World. This year is the second year that the Scottish Tooling Series.

Saturday, the competition started at 10.45 and we Had 4 hours to complete 18 boulder problems/ routes.

In the Qualifying round I got 153 points out of 180. The final we had 1 route and I managed to get to the top !!!!

I liked the competition routes, but I think that they would have been a little bit better if some of the routes were harder with sketchy holds.

Some more information can be found here for the Scottish tooling series: STS


Here are some pictures: (thanks to the Scottish tooling series website)

EYS

This weekend was the British round of the EYS and I was one of the GB team members to compete in the event. This was my first EYS competition and I was really excited, I was totally psyched.

The Friday night we were told our starting place for the first route, and I was climber 120 and was climbing 16th on the first route.


Me on my first route.

I felt really strong when I was on my first route and was really happy that I got to the second last clip.

A pic of me climbing my second route.

My second route was really hard and had a few long moves at the start, which made me use most of my energy.

After this weekend I am now placed 33rd in europe in youth B boys!!!!

Sport Climbing

Went climbing at Moy rock tonight, the weather was really good and managed to get a few routes done before it got too dark. I have not been out in ages as I have been training for my comps, and really enjoyed getting out.

EYS Training day

Last weekend was a 3 day training session for people competing in the European Youth climbing championships at the end of September, I was reserve in the boys group B.

Day 1 (Friday)
We started climbing 2 o'clock on Friday afternoon. Day 1 was a hard fun boulder competition, which included of 20 boulder problems. At about 4 o'clock Dave Binney (head coach of the British team) came and gave us a lecture on how most of the European and world competitions run.

Day 2 (Saturday)
Saturday started in the lecturer Theatre on how we should warm up and route demos.

Warm-ups

On a event final the isolation area opens at 7.30am and closed at 8.30am. At 8.30am route demos start, and 8.45am first climber is out to climb. So if you are climber number 1,2 or 3 you will need to be warmed up and ready by 8.30am, which means you will need to be in isolation at 7.30.


Route Demos

When Dave Binney was telling us about the route demos we had to take some notes. I learned a lot from what I was told about route demos.


At 12 o'clock after we had been talking about warm-ups we were all send down to the warm up area, and try and warm up in a small space with a lot of people in only 1 hour, just like it would be like in the EYS. It was quite hard to warm up in a smallish place because people were fighting to get onto the wall. After 1 hour of warming up we were all sent out to climb 2 routes.

At the end of the day Dave Binney came over to me and said one of the other climbers injured there finger and could not climb in the EYS, and offered that if I wanted I could take the place!!

Day 3 (Sunday)

Was a mock EYS competition, so we had to get up at a silly time and be in isolation. We had to be in isolation one hour before route preview so the first 3 people could warm up and be ready to climb. We all went out for route preview and read the route, after 6 minutes we were all sent back into isolation and carried on our warm up. During the day the judges put in some Technical faults in (Eg a spinning hold or a clip that was the wrong way or something like that) the idea was so we were aware of what to do if this happened in the comp.

Tooling

Only 5 weeks to the first of the dry tooling comps so I put up a couple of training routes in the Cave.

Here is a clip of me dry tooling last year
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXUFDDY5ElQ