British Tooling Series final round.

On the Friday night my dad, brother and I travelled in the car to Oban.  We stayed overnight with my cousins, it was nice to  break up the journey and catch up with Danny and his twin girls Danielle and Lillie.   

Next morning we got up early and travelled to Kinlochleven. As soon as we arrived we had a tour around the place, it was my first visit. The place was massive. My favourite part from looking around was the bouldering area.  We went and said Hi to everyone and it was nice to see some friendly faces like Willis (my favourite), Emma, Melissa, and I was surprised to see Karen. I sorted out all my kit and I read the routes with Willis and Melissa. The routes looked challenging but I was excited to give them a shot.   We then went to the Ice wall to look at the routes and I was really psyched to try the routes.

Tying in.

I then tried my first route on the wall, Willis (being brave) went first and managed to complete the route on his 3rd go. Melissa went 2nd and got the route on her first go. I then tried and was really happy that I managed it on my 2nd go. 

Route 1

 

We quickly moved on and tried some of the auto belays on the other side, I managed to get all three but not on my first go. I then tried a longer route and fell off 3/4 of the way up. This was my favourite route however I just found some of the moves too big and reachy for me. 

Route 2 Mellissa belaying.

Almost got the top.....!!!

We then moved on to the bouldering, I really enjoyed the short problems although they were really hard, There was 4, I managed to complete 2 one of which was on my first attempt, the other was on  the 3rd go.

The next boulder I managed half way but my axe kept popping off.  The final boulder was on a complete overhang. I barely managed to get off the ground , however I had good fun trying.

I then had a quick Scooby snack before putting on warm gear and my crampons. Willis and I headed to the ice wall. It was freeeeeeezzzzinngg!! Willis went first on the route, whilst I belayed him. Willis managed to complete this route and so did I.

We swiftly moved round to the second route.  This was my favourite ice route. It start on one wall, you had to climb a few moves before making a  massive bridge move out to the right on to the other wall, before continuing up. We both managed this first go. 

Bridging the gap!

 

Finally we moved on to the last ice route, it felt really long and had big moves. It  was a challenging climb. Then we escaped from the freezer....

I did a few more routes and then it was time for the final. I had qualified in 3rd place. 

Observation of the finals route.

 

When it was my time to come out of isolation I felt excited and nervous. I attempted my route without any fear, I only managed to the 4th clip before one axe popped off and as I fell back onto my other axe, the axe pulled the hold off the wall. I was a little scared as I wasn't expecting it to come off. I watched the rest of the competitors climb the final route, everyone did really well. I came 4th overall which I was really pleased with. 

This result gave me the following for the series;

Round 1  3rd Place

Round 2  2nd Place

Round 3  4th Place

This gave me 2nd place overall in the series.

I'm really pleased with my results as this was my first try at Drytooling and I competed in the adult category  :) Thanks to everyone that supported me, Mum, Dad and Scott, my coaches Alan and Willis, The Glasgow Climbing Centre, Snow Factor Braehead, TCA Glasgow and Urban Uprising.

Have a great New Year, see you all in 2017 xxx