Ciro's Blog: Back on the road!

I left a rather wintry Central Scotland on Saturday afternoon, and after several hours of challenging driving conditions, one motorway aquaplaning incident, and one self rescue from a soft verge, arrived in a rather wintry North Wales.

Not exactly the Spanish sunshine I'm aiming for, but with Ramon and Viki making the pilgrimage up to the White Goods dry tool training crag, and having not climbed for four months, it seemed a good way to shock my body back into action without risking my fingers.

Ramon's a machine with axes in his hands, and I knew he'd been training hard for an upcoming trip to Helmcken Falls, so it was no suprise seeing him tearing the place up and sending Stump Man (M11) - but what was really inspirational was seeing how well Viki has taken to the dark arts of climbing with tools. After recent sends of a couple of M10s, she was looking very strong on Stump Man as well. Looks like Ramon's going to have to up his game soon if he wants to keep the post-crag bragging rights.

For my own part, I had great fun and was pretty pleased with my climbing - I almost repeated Jazz (M8) on my "warmup" (not sure they are supposed to involve so much gasping for air), and did send it on my second climb. More importantly after so long out, my head was in a good place; I was able to go till I fell or clipped the chains with very little concern about falling.

I'm in London now for a few days, then off to Portsmouth for the ferry... next stop Siurana, and I can't wait to get my actual fingers on the rock, but thanks guys for a great start to being back on the road; have a great time in Canada, and good luck with Spray On Ramon!