Lactic casual comp update:

Lactic casual comp update:

Lactic casual comp update:

Yes, stepping out and around that roof was very, very full on.

The list:

Muldoon (Adam), necrophiliac (Adam), mantis (Adam), fang (Adam), stalagmite (me), aardvark (Adam, yoyo), hornpiece (Adam), d major (Adam/me alt), pedro (Adam), megalomaniac (me), megalomaniac (Adam), electric warrior (TR), Agamemnon (Me/Adam, alt), kaiser/resignation (Adam/me, alt), Adam bailed off aristocrat, ivan (me), blockbuster (me), watchtower crack (me/Adam, alt), pitch one auto da fe (TR), Look sharp (TR fail), first pitch touch stone (Adam), touch type (Adam), kamikaze (me), xi (Adam/Cam), lamplighter (Adam/Corch), mari (Adam), electric warrior (Adam), bygone (Corch/Adam/me, missing link (Adam).

More later.

Lactic casual comp update:

Absolutely smashed a few problems that I'd struggled with a lot previously too. Fell off a couple that I'd previously found relatively doable though too. Might've done better if I hadn't gone to Burnley with Sol yesterday.

Lactic casual comp update:

I feel like I'm making some progress with all this.

Late Saturday night I put the clock on my phone forward and set my alarm for 7:45. 2am and my phone set its clock forward an hour. So at 6:45 DST I was up and about. I could've used more than 6 hours sleep. Breakfast was Sol's crazy porridge. It's good shit. Then there was coffee. A little more coffee. After a third cup of coffee I packed up my tent and stuff, packed the car and headed around to the start of the walking to Gilham's Crags. Cam was supposed to be close behind us.

After a lot of waiting and fucking about Cam arrived with our packs and we walked 5 minutes through to the waterworks road (again) and then spent 15 minutes slogging up a hill in the full sun. It was quite warm by the time we got to the crag.

First up we headed into the shady gully where I led Two Slobs on a Slab (20m, 14). This was a fairly intimidating lead for me with a very committing move on slopers around the overhang down low though the gear there was pretty decent so I was fairly happy. Once standing above the overhang though, the only place for gear I could see was level with my knees. I placed a very small cam (I think a size 0 c3, 10.7-15.8 mm range) but couldn't get down to examine the placement so I wasn't sure how far to trust it.

I turns out I didn't really have much choice. With routes I'd climbed previously, if a route was slabby, it's wasn't very steep. This route was both quite steep and quite slabby, with a lot of fairly rounded sloped holds in places and not a huge amount in the way of good gear placements. In some places it felt more like a series of boulder problems stacked one on top of another. Fortunately, there were several better stances where I could stand, shake out, think, relax and plan before tackling the next section though none of them felt like the kind of place I could hang around for too long.

About 15m up, I placed a half decent cam but it was quite shallow and I wasn't in the mood to trust it. With something in place I took a little time to look around and all I found and placed was an awful nut. By this stage I breathing hard and struggling to clip the rope. I move up a few inches and found a far better nut placement. With a lovely lactic pump burning in my forearms I looked at the mini belay I'd just built and figured at least one of those 3 would hold if I fell. I looked up and the last 5m of climbing, down at the 15m of air below me, looked up and committed.

A body length or so further up I found a solid .75 cam and then I calmly ran it out for the last 3 or 4 metres, pulled on to the top of the block, lay on my back and enjoyed the sun for a while. Once the burning in my arms subsided and I was a little calmer, I built a belay and Corch seconded up to join me.

With my lead tank thoroughly drained for the day I ate some lunch, seconded Cam up Head Over Heels (16m, 22) and then top roped Golden Gherro Greper (18m, 18). A bit later I wandered way down to Retro wall and watched Sol lead Begenung (20m, 17) and then Corch and I seconded that. Corch thought about leading something else but decided not to.

We realised it was quite late by that stage and packed up and headed back to Melbourne via the B160 to Ballarat. Next time I'll go via Ararat I think as there's options for food other than Ballarat McDonald which sounded like the Mario Brothers piloting USS Enterprise through an asteroid field. Dropped Corch home and got to bed a bit after midnight.

[Note: For the drive up and back, Corch and I listened to "The Top 100 Hits of the 80s". Track 100 was playing as I pulled into my driveway after dropping Corch home. Here's the track list: ( Tracklist )]

• Under arête yellow 16, lead
• Pillar easy green 17, lead
• Pillar pink 16, lead
• Angled crack area red 18, lead
• Between cracks blue 19, lead
• Around the arête orange 20, toprope
• Followed by the around the arête blue 18, toprope
• Steep blue 20, top rope with many falls

• Lara's knockers, grade 8, 15m, red point
• Lord Louis Mountsplatten, grade 18, 13m, seconded clean
• Koo Woz Ere, grade 16, 12m, red point
• Live and Let Di, grade 16, 14m, onsight
• Dead Queen in the Middle of the Road, grade 15, 15m, seconded clean
• Corner R of Jack of Hearts, grade 8, 8m, solo
• Regicide, grade 20, 10m, toprope with a rest
• Random undocumented route, grade ?, ?m, onsight

I headed back to The Lactic Factory for a quick crack at week 4's problems. Given that I didn't feel 100% and the A problem felt out of reach when I first got on it I thought it'd be a pretty crap week. I warmed up a little more and then ticked the A problem second shot and almost ticked the B problem first shot, getting it on the second too (although it didn't look pretty). The C problem involved a very left shoulder intensive move so I gave that a miss for the week. Given that Vu couldn't do it I think I would've struggled.

I spent the remaining 2 hours working on problems that I'd struggled on previously. Found some new footwork for the white I'd been struggling with and can now send it fairly easily. The black and blue that I was barn-dooring off is fairly easy now. The blue with the awful start went second shot. The pink at the back is still just out of reach but I can stick two more moves on it. The light green in the same corner is also a lot closer than it was. Hooray for getting stronger and a little lighter.

Profile of Horn Piece. I'm not quite sure the source photos I used were true to vertical so I've corrected as best I recall

Headed to Arapiles again over the weekend. Pitched my new tent for the first time (outside the lounge room). Glad someone finally made a tent for tall people (2.4m long).

Saturday woke up at 5:30am because Sol left his alarm on. Out climbing by 8am in light rain. Led Horn Piece (33m, grade 13) without too many issues. A little annoyed at myself for getting so freaked last time I was on it but pulling up around the bulges up high is quite intimidating. Rapped off and the rain cleared. Next I led D Major (50m, grade 10) and had a pretty decent time. The second pitch is brilliant.

After lunch I didn't feel like leading anything else. Jeremy was thinking about Aardvark (18m, grade 18) and with a bit of encouragement decided to have a go. He had to rest a few times but made it to the top with a little persistence. I seconded it clean (surprising myself a little) but was absolutely pumped senseless when I went I pulled over the top. We put a top rope on Aardvark and everyone had a crack at it. Once everyone was quite tired, I scrambled up it again, pulled the anchor apart and rapped off again.

We headed to the pub for dinner and then returned to the pines and sat around the fire melting beer bottles and chatting.

Sunday people got moving a little slower than Saturday and we didn't make it down to Watchtower Faces until mid morning. People were already on the route I'd planned to climb, Panzer, so I racked up beneath Chameleon Connection (113m, grade 13). I did not find this an easy or enjoyable route to lead. By the time I made it to the end of the second pitch I was not feeling very happy with my leading and we decided to walk off early, leaving the upper 2 pitches for another day.

After a couple of peanut butter and honey sandwiches I figured I'd have a crack at the first pitch of Panzer (95m, grade 12). It felt like a doddle compared to CC and I wished we'd got there in time to lead Panzer in the morning as I thought if that'd been my first lead for the day I think I would've continued leading for the rest of the day quite happily.

We packed and headed back to the pines around 4pm, about an hour later than we'd arranged to meet Sol. Turns out he'd headed off for a little more climbing so Andy and I told him we'd meet him in town and headed to the milkbar for a pie and a milkshake, the climbing shop to pick up my resoled shoes and the pub for a beer.

Eventually Sol arrived and we headed to the Royal Hotel in Horsham for a parma. Drove back to Melbourne, dropped Andy home, dropped Sol home, got home, got in the shower, got a call from Sol that he'd left his phone in my car and was heading to Sydney at 6am in the morning... So, back in the car, drove to Sol's, dropped off the phone, back home and then finally in to bed around 1am...