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

Briish Tooling series so far.

On Saturday 26th November, me and my mum got up and organised today is the 2nd round of the British tooling Series. 

We got in the car and headed down to Keswick in England. The drive was about 2 and a half hours with stopping at the services where we met some climbers Joe and Kev, also heading to Keswick. Once we had got to king Kong climbing wall, we signed up for the comp. After we sorted all the gear out we had a quick look in the shop before others started to arrive. We went and said hello to everyone, and then went for a briefing. At the briefing they told us the rules and how the comp worked. We had to wear leashes, we were allowed to wear rock shoes except from two routes which you had to kick into ply wood with. 

Briefing

 

I started on route one with rock shoes on. I managed to get it first go and quickly changed my boots to ones with points on the front for route two. On route two I could only use holds with carpet behind it and the ply wood for my feet, my feet could also use holds I had used for my axes. I hadn't really tried my boots out, because they were brand new so my first few hits into the ply wood weren't very good but I got the hang of it. I was at the 3rd last hold on route two and suddenly my axe popped of the hold and I fell. I moved on to the second route which needed crampons. it was the same rules but it was slightly at an angle and a lot longer. I got halfway up before falling off. I decided to try the route two again while I still had my crampons on. When I got round I tied in as quickly as possible. I had already wasted time by waiting for routes with long lines so I had to speed my pace up a bit. I managed to get it second go. It felt easier because I had tried the longer one. After that we didn't go round them in order only by how hard they looked. the next one I tried I slipped off and then tried one on the more slabby wall. I flashed it but found all the moves really long and stretched. I tried one with really big moves. I got halfway up to wear the icicle was. The icicle was a bit of wall which hung by itself. I put my axe on the hold on the icicle and the whole thing moved. I almost popped off only to slip on the move afterwards. This was one of my favourite routes because the icicle moved and I had never done a route with anything like that on it. There was a really overhanging climb that looked really hard do my plan was to leave I till last and try the 3 boulder problems. 

One of the qualifing routes

I really like doing bouldering with the axes because I feel a lot more confident on them than routes, although I still get a wee bit nervous before trying a hard boulder. I got to the last hold on the first boulder problem second go and didn't really try it after that. When I got on boulder two I slipped of near the start but got back on and got to a big move going for a chain, I could just reach it but as soon as I stretched to hook the chain my other axe popped off the hold. The same thing happened on my third go but I was running out of time so I went and tried the third boulder. It was really hard. it had a sit start where you had no feet and hung on a chain, you then had to do either a figure of four/nine or lock of before striking into a big log which was attached to another bit of wood. I got my figure of four sorted then messed up and over stretched my shoulder. I didn't want to injure it any more so I went to lockers, sorted my gear and put some heat pads on my shoulder before having another quick look in the shops. 

I was really annoyed because in the end I never got to try the hard overhang one and also one that I hadn't seen with a gherkin shape hold. I looked like some massive moves but I was still pretty disappointed that I never got to try it. we came back from the shop had some lunch, then went to see the results and finalist. I qualified for finals in second place. My mum didn't really want me to climb in the final, but its only one route and it was lead, and since I had been practicing some leading back home with the shmoolz, I really wanted to try it with the axes again. In the end we agreed I would climb the final route. I went got all my stuff put in isolation before heading out to read our route. our route was a slight overhang with some pretty small holds. I had climbed on the holds before so I wasn't too nervous about them. I went out second. once I was out  quickly went over the route tied in then got my axes sorted. They already have two preclips. I made it past the first two preclips then made a further two clips. I was almost at the third one, but unfortunately I wasn't confident enough doing the move. I ended up timing out. although when I came off I was pretty annoyed at myself for not going for the move I was still really happy I got 2nd place and I didn't find leading as scary. All I have to do now is get more confident. :))

 Photos courtesy of Kong Adventure.

CC