Eastside

Wed night I visited the foundry. I couldn't decide whether:

A) I was climbing badly
B) I wasn't climbing badly, I just wasn't psyched for climbing indoors
C) I was climbing well.........................but wasn't psyched for climbing indoors

Despite all of the confusion going on in my head I was very aware that my hand still doesn't feel right. It aches on the 5th metacarpel and feels sore (especially when crimping with my little finger). So I AM carrying an injury, thankfully not an A2 and it could just be the cold. Whatever it is, it's slightly annoying and a pain (literally).

I stopped the session early ish and decided to accept Jon's offer of a trip to Eastwood today (Thur). Good decision.
On arrival at the crag, I was impressed by the bit of rock but when Jon demonstrated his sequence on the traverse I was horrified at all the gritty ness involved and didn't feel confident. After this we did Jon's idea of bouldering and spent an hour or so setting up a pulley system to trundle a rather large hunk of rock. A good warm up.
For the actual warm up I climbed the great layback crack before getting stuck into 10 inch zombies. This ate my skin and Jon talked me out of Foleyitus on the grounds of actually climbing something else that day.

Trying to get a landscape shot of Jon at Eastwood, I'm no Johnny B

Unfortunately the finishing holds on the traverse were wet, and I mean wet wet (more on this later). As Jon went to play with ropes I worked out my own way through the tricky bits. Hmmm. I gave it a shot from the start and first 'redpoint' I got to the last dry holds. Damn, so close but I can't do it! Jon wasn't about so I sat about at the end eyeing up the possibilities. I eyed up a dirty little crimp and a powerful sequence emerged in my head. I tried it quickly and hey presto it sidesteps the wet holds apart from the slimey break.
I rest for a bit while Jon is still rigging stuff and was about to have a go until I remembered; its really bad form to do things when no ones looking when you've gone with somebody, not to mention suspicious. I shouted up to Jon and he was nearly done. So I sat it out. He came over to spot shortly afterwards..... The traverse went without incident, Jon had to point at the finishing hold as by the time I got there the chalk had all been eaten by the damp. So a nice quick tick, the Powerband of gritstone, used to be 7b+ but now with a broken hold its 7c ish supposedly. Well worth seeking out if you haven't done it and to be honest it put a big smile on my face!
We then got involved with Jon's stuff, it was great and I'm keen to return. Freezing fog from the other side of the valley soon saw us of home....very chilly....brrr.