Alan Cassidy (& others) Climbing: "Another Tick in the Book"

Thursday, 30 December 2010

"Another Tick in the Book"

The Chorro invasion continues...

The Chouchter invasion of Chorro!!!

Ah 15 degrees! - Warming up, for the send (Photo: Sam Walker)

"Another tick in the book" seems to be my catchphrase. As a discerning collector of grade 8 routes, I have to be pleased with a haul of 12 "guidebook" 8s in 14 days away yet I still feel like I should have got more done. Bad weather, rain and high humidity, meant my next 8c project, Que Trabaje Randy, (after Cous Cous) was permanently out of nick. Indeed the clip retreival mission might have been harder than the actual route! With the tufas of Makinodromo sector never drying out, it was a case of making the most of the things that were do-able. Classics like Swimming Through a Shark Attack and its 8b extension, remained possible as long as you disn't mind the odd wet hold and a mid route shower.

Enjoying having survived a Shark Attack 8b (Photo: Ross Henighen)

I felt like I was climbing well, perhaps my best ever and with a few more 8's ticked my mind turned to a lifetime ambition tick of 8b onsight. I had identified a soft-touch target at Chorro that I knew would suit me; fulfilling all my favourite criteria: very, very long (45m at least), tufa-y, blobby and not a hard 8b by all accounts. Though it had a few wet tufas, reading from the ground they didn't seem to interfere too much and happily that turned out to be the case. I wont bore you with the blow by blow account except for recounting the epic I had at the last bolt, thinking it was in the bag only to be faced with a long move off a small slopey crimp. Up-down-up-down I went until finally I was convinced that it was indeed this horrible little thing I had to pull on. Summoning everything I had for one last pull, it was a relief when the next hold turned out to be better than it looked. Job done! El Oraculo in the bag. Maybe it's only 8a+, but it felt like I gave 8b's worth of effort and the mental door has been opened onto doing more in the future. An important big step!