Smear and Fear

My head hasn't really been into hard trad for a while now. Partly because I've been more focused on mountains, and partly due to being fed up of having my arse kicked at Swanage. This probably wasn't helped by my recent near miss at Guillemot Ledge. I got stuck on a route, went to lower off the gear, only for a hex to ping out and smash me in the teeth the moment I weighted it. Needless to say I scrabbled back onto the rock faster than the speed of light, pumped and gibbering, before finally managing to place something decent and retreat. Apart from the hex all I had in was a dodgy little nut and a bigger one too far below me to do anything more than prevent my mangled corpse from bouncing all the way into the sea.

I still shudder to think of what might've happened if I'd just slumped onto the gear, or worse, gone for the next move and fallen off.

However, with the mountains out of the way for now, and my deep and somewhat groundless hatred for sport climbing showing no signs of abating, I had no choice but to get back on trad and hope I could sort my head out. Enter Fairy Cave Quarry.

Off vertical slabs, soft as pig shit grading, and reasonable landings if you really screw things up. Sounds good. In fact, the average gradient is such that you're far more likely to just cheesgrate back down rather than properly fall off. Practically heaven for a shellshocked Swanage refugee.

After seconding a HS, I racked up and jumped straight onto a VS. It felt pretty good. So I tried an E1 next. It was typical slab climbing, all balancing on tiny footholds and padding up bit by bit past spaced gear. Again, I found myself unscathed at the top rather than broken at the bottom, having found the route a walk in the park compared to the handful of E1's I'd been on before.

I was happy enough with that, but the guy I was with, Luke, is the sort of enthusiastic climber who can psych you up for anything. First E2 lead it was then. The route, called Slight of Hand for obvious reasons, was short and extremely cruxy. I did a couple of moves to reach a horizontal break, stuffed it with cams, then stood up on it. Here I managed to fiddle a hopeless micro-wire into a pocket. The 5c crux awaited. Tenuous moves on smears and non-existent handholds led, with massive commitment, to a crimpy edge. I flapped my way up, feet on absolutely nothing. Just past the edge was a good gear placement but I carried on for one last hard move to the haven of a vegetated break. It was easy all the way to the top after that.

E2? No idea. I can't seem to get any perspective on slab grading. Perhaps it's just too different to the steep choss of Swanage that I'm used to. My instinct says probably not, although you'd definately deck if you fell off the crux. E2, but only if you cock it up maybe. Luke led an E3 with a massive runout afterwards that felt leagues ahead of what I'd just done.

I finished off with the classic Rob's Crack, which was utterly brilliant, and another E1 called Smell the Glove. Regardless of the grading, the climbing was fantastic; the perfect antidote to a Boulder Ruckle assault. Even on the badly protected bits it never felt that serious.

So now, lulled into a false sense of security, I will probably return to Swanage and get the living shit beaten out of me.