Posage Video

Have you watch the last one? That's what I call a proper video:

Bouldering in Galicia

I am just back from Galicia. I am not going to give you the usual touristic description. Let's just say it's a paradise in terms of food, wine, sun, landscape and not the least, people friendliness.

In terms of rock, it was not the season. Indeed, the main spot in the southern part is Pena Corneira, near the town of Ourense, which did not really see the temperature dropping below 30 during this summer. So I stayed on the coast instead and had a few sessions among the mini sea cliffs.

The guys behind Cantil (A bloque en Galicia/bouldering in Galicia) have gathered a few topos and drafted a Google map of the various areas that have been developed:



There's a great spot called A Pedra Rubia where I had a few nice sessions, but I even found a good spot closer to where we stayed: the Supertanker boulder of Portocelo. I'm not sure if it's got a name or if there's any info about it so I just gave it that name for the sake of it. It's got a good few problems and features a steep overhang with very poor holds. Potential for 8s from sit-start, but hard enough from stand start. Video here:





There's a lot of other stuff around especially between Portocelo and La Guardia. I even found a jumble of boulders with savage roofs and overhang but the landings were also savage, so I did not go near it. It's all in the following video:





And finally, also in Portocelo, close to the Supertanker, is a nice roof with three obvious lines: left arete, centre crack and right arete. But between the last two there's a really hard eliminate that will see me again if I get the chance. Video here:






Special thanks to Miguel and his family for looking after us during As Festas do Monte. It was great!


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UPDATE (23 /09/ 2010):

Luis Vigo (that would be his forum nickname), says that the Portocelo's boulders have been a climbing spot for the last 15 years and it even saw the first Galician bouldering comp in 1998. He says there used to be a topo but he doesn't seem to know where that info is gone.

My Soft Spot

Climbing dad?

Don't miss this article by Sarah Stirling-Assistant (ukclimbing.com):

Mountaineering and Climbing Dads

To all dog owners: please pick up your beloved pet leftovers.

Unlike dogs, babies can't be left running around while climbing. 

Unlike babies, dogs shit everywhere and because the colour can be the very same as the ground, you run the risk of smashing it with your pad (don't sigh, it increases the smell).

My big willy dot and you (2)

Boycott 8a! from Shawn Boye on Vimeo.

In my backyard

Give that man a job!

I was meant to publish the above video ages ago but time flies and I hardly find any time to look after the blog. Anyway judging by the number of posts, you must have read that excuse at least 16 times last year so I'll try to stop writing it and talk only about what is relevant.

Very relevant indeed is this video that Michael Duffy sent me a few months ago at the end of the summer. 2009 has been a bad year for young architects, but for strong climbers it is another story. Having recently moved to Bray, we can only hope that it will make it more difficult for the Dublin man to complete the first ascent of the Arch. Michael has worked out all the moves including the last one on the dodgy top jug, but as the video shows, he has failed to link the most famous line in Portrane.

He wisely hasn't mentioned any grade but we can reasonably assume that this long standing line must not be far from the magical 8 figure, although I've been told it isn't about magic, it's all about will, organisation and power. Anyway, being recently responsible for Switch, Leftism, and Contact, respectively 8a, 7c and 8a+ Michael's unemployment has given him the opportunity to deal with a lot of unfinished business and I would not be surprised if more hard lines like the Wow prow or the Big Squeeze SS were falling before the end of the winter.

Michael is also a talented young architect. Someone, please, give him a job!

My big willy dot and you

I have registrations on various climbing websites. Registrations usually give you more options, and they allow you to use the forum. Another recurrent interactive feature is the climbing log. Users can set up a profile and then log onto their climbing log, where they can record their latest ascents. Of course it depends on the website. For instance, Bleau Info will only allow you to record ascents you made in the French forest, because the log tool is based on the website's database.

In some cases the system is more flexible, allowing you to create new entries for new ascents. On UK Climbing for example, you can become a crag moderator and enter all the info about your climbs if it is missing. Obviously this poses some ethical problems and the limit between showing-off and providing actual information is often blurred but if things are done properly, it is in my opinion a very good way to share info amongst climbers.

Where it pleases me less is when the webmaster puts you under pressure to participate in the emulation by sharing your ascent details with other users, notably encouraging an escalation of grades by creating so-called 'score-cards' which allocate points to climbing grades. This process is sometimes referred to as 'measuring willies'. I will not go any further in my description, we all have the same reference in mind. Let's call it My big willy dot and You.

Some will say that on My big willy dot and You, score-cards are optional and you can check out of the competition list and only use the log as a record of your ascents. Although this is true, your log is still not hidden and people can actually find your details especially when your log includes first ascents in a small country. I tried to keep a low profile by not filling in my name. I also stopped using the log options like FA as this tends to send local news updates every time you use it, but I was nonetheless discovered and I had to shamefully explain to my mates that I was using My big willy dot and You only because it was the only website allowing me to record all my ascents.

That was until I got fed up with My big willy dot and You 's webmaster, who kept insisting that I should fill in my name and asked me to use the score-card. I explained I was not really the showing-off type. I don't take off my top at the wall because I'm afraid to catch a cold and my size 0 features would hardly make me look like a beast anyway. But the webmaster of My big willy dot and You insisted on me using my real name because if everyone was like me, he argued, it would ruin the whole purpose of his website.

I think his comment was fair. How can you compare willies if no one is willing to put what they have on the measuring scale? Since my willy was not big enough to go on that scale, I cancelled my registration with My big willy dot and You. A few weeks later 8b+ became the synonym of warming up, which means achievement really starts at 9a now. I guess the webmaster of My big willy dot and You will eventually have to update its domain name.

Ailefroide's new Guidebook

Following an old post of Dave, I've been playing with wordle and here's the best picture I have come up with.:




Talking about the Short Span, Dave the Flan has updated his PDF guide of the bouldering in Ireland - that's no big news given that it's been up and running on his website since 04 September. The main 5th edition's addition features the Black Valley, a great spot in Co. Kerry that Damo Sullivan & Co had started to develop back in 2007.

Moving onto John Watson's comment on the last post, I did write a little review of the new Ailefroide's topo, which I had sent to the Short Span, but I think it collided with Dave's guide publication, so I'll stick it here instead.

Is it worth buying the guidebook?
(I bet you ask yourself that question every time you try a new destination)

Ailefroide’s new guidebook (Ailefroide, Topo des blocs, Team les Collets, 2009) was published last June, right on time for the coming summer event, the Ailefroide bouldering meet following the “Tout à Bloc” competition. I was going to spend a week there in August so I spent the money on what I thought was the result of some hard work from the locals.

Apparently this 2nd edition is an improvement compared with the 1st guide. According to Zebloc, 100 new problems have been added to the original 200 in the first edition, with 5 news areas and 2 children circuits added. The quality of the paper is better and the cover stiffer. The whole document is in black and white apart from the usual colourful sponsoring ads.

The info is plain but well organised. For each area you get a numbered list of climbs with their names, grades, and a quality indication based on a 3 star scale. Each boulder has been photographed and has been attributed a letter. The problems have then been indicated on the photos by a white line and the number corresponding to the list. And if you’re not sure where you are, a basic map of the boulders and their corresponding letters is also given for each area.

A small “Edito” introduces the guide. It is written by a certain Gilles Estrambouli but you cannot be sure if it is the right spelling because the name is handwritten and does not appear anywhere else. However the guy clearly wants to become famous because he claims Ailefroide “contributed to making him a legend.” I might be wrong but when you have to tell people that you are famous, somehow I think you’re not there yet.




Apart from this you do not get much text and this is maybe why I felt a bit cheated. It looks like the authors have wanted to keep it easy and simple. The photograph approach is indeed very handy for identifying the problems. On the other hand photographs do not give you indications of how to climb the problem. Of course we do not want the tricks to be given away, but when no description is given, you always come across that one problem where the question remains: “Is this in? Naaah, can’t be, that’d be too easy... wouldn’t it?” So you climb the line again without the hold to make sure you have done the problem properly. It can be fun and it can be a good way to get strong. I think it can also be a good way to frustrate visitors, and this is how I felt a few times.

So the question remains, is it worth 13 euro?

Here is a comparison including various guidebook details I gathered on the net:

. Guidebook Problems Pages Hardback Price year . Ailefroide,Topo des Blocs 300+ 66 No € 13 2009 . Boulder Albarracin 200+ 7 PDF free 2007 . 7+8 2000+ 288 Yes € 28 2002 . The Short Span 1400+ 114 PDF free 2009 . Northumberland 1800+ 433 Yes £19.95 2008 . Peak District bouldering 2000+ 384 Yes £19.95 2005 . Bouldering in Scotland ? 188 Yes £19.99 2008 . Targabloc 2005 350+ 35 PDF free 2005

However to really find out the answer to our question, we would need some sort of rule of thumb to compare prices. For example, spuds are priced per Kg, childminders per hour, and translators per word. So I think guidebooks should be price per problems. This way we can see that The Peak and Northumberland are roughly £0.01/problem, while Font is about €0.014/problem. We can also note that the sneaky John Watson does not want to give away the price of his hard work. The real bargain is coming from people like Dave Flanagan who give you the best competitive rate on the market at approximately €0.00/problem: the guy must be Chinese. But Ailefroide’s guidebook, at €0.043/problem is far from the crowd and should not therefore be contemplated...

But if you are not one of these brainless traders who made a fortune by putting the world’s economy on its knees, you might be able to acknowledge somebody’s good efforts (after all someone had to clean these boulders, right?) and in that case I strongly recommend you to buy the guide on the following webpage:
http://boutique.tlcprod.info/