planes, strains, and automobiles
 
SPACEBOOK
“I can’t make it...snowdrift apparently, the whole area is being held to ransom by a crippling THREE
INCHES OF WHITE STUFF- food rationing on the bread front..no milk, panic buying, no gas, no coal,
nothing on SKY..look out of the window and..oh look the snow has gone, it’s sunny and that guy is
wearing shorts.....global warming, my oshiri!”
Soooo then, Fab has left us holding the proverbial infant while he takes what’s best described as
one big fat jolly in California on some US style rocks for five weeks..fab we love you...and HATE you,
oh and talking of infants, baby Dory landed on planet earth a few weeks ago so big congrats to
big Dory and Leah.....
The Fabmeister isn’t the only member of our flock to vacate our shores for a bit...Hirito Kobayashi,
techno dj wizard for Folk fm has ‘popped’ back to Tokyo for a family thing so tons of manga goodies
please Hiro- oh and talking of flocks, the rev. Andy who used to climb at Pilton is busy fundraising
for the ‘nearer to the good lord’ climbing wall in the church steeple that he does his bit of vickering
(is that the job description, forgive my oafery)- Simon Young looking at the build- and talking of
Simon, Pilton bouldering room is looking very good after Simon spent only two days on the main
central inverted boulder thing- while on the subject of Pilton and Simon, the eliminate yellow route with
the volume is still fending off would-be suitors as to date, Si is the only person to flash it, hugely
amusing watching people attempt it though- talking also of the rev.Andy, he does his bit for the
school where Phil (ex instructor type from Pilton) works and who has now come back to our happy
clan-Phew.....too many links there!
Fab has a new car, Mca and Nic have a new car, Mca has a new Matsui robot that only comes to
life when the lights go out, Dory has a new baby, Bovey woods has a new (ish) topo guide page
for the ‘bottom boulders’ sector (Mr Rainbow still doing a brilliant job on the development front there)
........Mca now officially p****d off with the soon to be in bits, Matsui robot............peace to you all
 
Friday, 22 January 2010
areanine
BLACK HILL BOULDERS
`
OBJECTS OF
DESIRE
Red Chili Matador
well..first time I saw these, it was
Julian who turned up with a fresh
pair that he had just won- the most
obvious thing you notice is the rand
which looks as though Red Chili
must have shares in rubber as
there is SO much of it- the down
pointing shape is fairly extreme
so initially the maiden voyage
in these puppies will have you
talking just like one of ‘Alvin’s
Chipmunks’ and walking may be
a slight problem (sit starts then!)
mca on his mini-project at the
luvverly black hill boulders-
CLIMBING SHOE TEST LAB
the first climb in these was the V4 on the ‘fin’ by
the pyramid boulder- once you start to move they
really come into their own- you body weight is pushed right into the toe making light work of
commiting to crystals on problems with fairly thin
moves- the vast amount of rubber would also
be great for toe jams right up to the first velcro
strap- PROS: light, positive, good build quality
(synthetic with no leather), lots of rubber in the
right places CONS: they really need breaking in...  
I am a 9 and these are an 8- avoid going too small
neoprene under the three
velcro straps = comfort
PERFECT BOULDERING WEAPONRY
FLUFFY, CUDDLY WOODLAND BOULDERS
well yeah...you would think that...first really dry day with sunshine and blue sky so hot-tail it to the
woods and lower Shaptor for some major ‘just come out of hibernation play’ when on really close
examination of the ‘Red dot’ en-route, revealed...why hello...green stuff, lots of it- ah no...turns out
that the vast amount of rain has turned most of the granite into the perfect environment for growing
a new type of green life-form which encourages a rapid form of groundward descent once the very
unsuspecting foot is commited to it (didn’t have the red chilis then, dammitt)
ok then..BIG wire brush parties again to kick the green menace into touch, shouldn’t take too much
time so long as the wet stuff stays away!
so there we go ‘Kidney stone’.....nope, ‘Jungle room’...nope, things looked grim untill we got to the ‘Arrowhead’ and AHAA!...dry, so milked that one, up to ‘Cornish wall’, AHAA dry so milked that
too- Tom Rainbow told me that there is a new problem there as well (highball like most of them)
which I could only guess at, great rock though (different from the rest it seems)
the last port of call was Shaptor itself but our hearts sank due to woeful drippage but up top was ok
for the traverse straight into lunch with a view
 
Shaptor....
this week I am
mostly moist
ON THE ROAD (AGAIN)
we eventually found amanda and andy in sainsbury’s carpark..they had parked their car in possibly
the furthest space from civilization that they could find....after the usual pleasantries we hot tailed
it to the barn which turned out to be busy....worse than that, someone had painted the boulder
‘desert storm beige’ covering up simon’s organically developed artwork....um, not nice!
we launched into some problems for an hour or so and then decided on some routes....things were
going well up to the point of amanda’s re-occuring ‘grip of death’ that decided to kick in half way
up a random f6- the solution was for mca to climb up and prise her fingers off the unsuspecting
metolius.....after several hours of prolonged ups and downs it was decided to head back to the
pub and THE worlds ‘most mingin’ bunkhouse- example...the kettle was growing a not too distant
cousin of the bovey green menace in its remaining water.....ok beer then
that night, it rained- not just rain....I am talking “hey I hope you guys can swim” type of rain and the
new day greeted us with the biggest thunderstorm since records began (why do they always say
that...basically it’s nonsence, lets just say that there was weather)
 
EQUATION     SUNDAY+DARTMOOR+RAIN=CHUDLEIGH+MORE RAIN=PIXIES HOLE
 
 
SCHOOL OF ROCK
well.... ‘school of rock climbing’        above, julian on his new school traverse wall that simon built
come on over, warm up on the traverse wall and then off to baggy and long rock- great plan, the sun was out and the enthusiasm pumping- plans, however tend to go a tad wrong and first phil
and then simon had to pull out due to other stuff- having to be back for midday left the only
option for julian and mca to give the school traverse wall a good seeing to that ended up with
eliminate variations bordering on insanity- after a chat over the second coffee of the morning
turned to urban bouldering, julian just happened to mention the school was made of rock
similar too baggy point, that was enough, registration was skipped and we launched straight
into the first lesson of the day, micro traverses, sit start on a mini arete, break and then a very
tricky corner arete to the roof- the flat wall direct saw us both fail our exams....ok just wait for
the re-take next term  
 
 
stay off the flake!
ok ok while on the subject of new walls, here as requested is a mini preview of the latest creation
from the mind of mr. young....pilton bouldering loft, two days into the build, inspired, I’m told
directly from the excellent boulders of font, a superb body, crisp colour and aromatic fragrance,
an impressive vintage which evolves from the region to the south of the parisian basin
more stuff on ‘more news’