Gotta Love Climbing

On the climbing days when things aren't going so well an old hand I know will often proclaim "you gotta love climbing".

A day or two later I had reason to demonstrate it's use in appropriate context.

Charlie bought a new pair of shoes on the first day of this holiday, which gave him blisters on the heel on the first day he wore them.  The blisters haven't healed yet so he has been taping over the blisters each day but they are still giving him grief.

We go to a crag we had not been to before, Marmite Dei Giganti.  It is an older crag that has not been re-equiped and was bolted in the old fashion ie haphazard, bit run out and the occasional rusty piton where you’d prefer a solid shiny new bolt.

Charlie leads the first climb, 6a I think: hard off the ground then through a short overhanging wall then slab then another overhanging wall.  Bit streno, bit pumpy, a Charlie style of climb.  He gets to the belay and he is happy.  I second and yeah, it's a nice pitch.  From the belay there are two options, a 6a or 5c.  I suggest that we could do both ie do one, rap back down and then do the other, and then do two raps to the ground.  Charlie's keen, he's just led a great pitch.

So I do the 6a.  It goes a bit pumpy through a gently overhanging wall then up a steep slab.  It's really nice and the hard bit was great.  No nice chain for the belay though, just two bolts hidden under bushes over the top of the cliff with nuts on them.  I unscrew the nuts and tie tape onto the bolts.  Feeling like I'm back home and a bit of improvisation on the belay.

Have I mentioned that the sun hadn't hit the crag yet, and it was a bit cold.  And that it was a hanging belay, and Charlie was in his new shoes.

Anyway, Charlie starts up.  Voice communication is not good due to the overhang on the pitch.  Oh, did I mention that just before the overhang there was a sloping ledge that had a tangle of blackberry bushes.

Anyway, Charlie starts up, and the loop of tape on his harness that he had used on the anchor somehow combines with the rope to catch a strand of blackberry bush.  I hear a muffled call and assume that Charlie wants a tight rope on the crux overhang.  I hear another muffled call and think that he must be struggling and take in even tighter.

Then I hear, very clearly, an anguished "give me some @#$%ing slack".

It turns out that each time I had taken in I had pulled the blackberry bush higher up his thigh, right to the groin region.  Did I mention he was only wearing short sports shorts.

So by the time he gets to the belay he has scratch marks up his legs and I believe, some blood dripping from his scrotum.

We locate another belay and decide to use this to abseil off.  It is some wire wrapped through a hole in a bollard attached to a bit of old steel bent into a rectangle.  Hmm, old school.

Have I mentioned that Charlie is a really flexible guy but one thing he is quite rigid with is that we each take our turn on leading.  So we get down to the belay again and it's his lead, but he offers it to me ...

Turns out that what with the time he spent  uncomfortably hanging on the cold belay, with his tight shoes and then the whole blackberry thing, he's not really feeling up for another on-site lead ...

You gotta love climbing.