A Disappointing Day

Having listened to the BBC weather forecasters saying that the weekend was going to be freezing cold with rain and snow, I spent the working week not expecting to climb this weekend. Then I saw the possibility of a window in the torment, Saturday morning might just to dry. So Serena and I rose early and headed off the check out Craigmaddie, the UK's most northerly gritstone crag.

I recently bought the new Stonecountry bouldering guide and have been obsessively reading it even since. I'd heard of a gritstone outcrop being developed near Glasgow on an Internet forum sometime ago and had been really excited about it. Its been about two years since I was living in the Peak District, so it would be good to restart my love-hate relationship with git. Plus, the photos in the new guide really got me psyched for a visit. The crag was really good, with great views out across Glasgow. We also found it to be a bit of a sun trap, as the weather mans predictions ended up being totally false. A lot of the problems are in a compact area, allow enjoyable session covering lots of problems. This is in contrast to a lot of Scottish bouldering, where boulders are tend to be well spaced apart, making climbing lots of lines a bit of a faff. The rock felt like a really rough sandstone unlike the grit found in England, which contains lots of sharp pebbles.

Attempting the moves on Easyjet

Alas, as sometimes happens when you finally visit a crag that you've been looking forward to visiting, I had a really bad session. I only managed to climb about 3 lines all day. Admittedly, one of these was a font 6b (The Mantle) which I was happy to send. Apart from this small success, I spent the day feeling wholly useless on the many roof problems that are found at Craigmaddie. I just couldn't find any decent footholds to keep me on the rock whilst moving across the roofs. This is depressing because I normally pride myself on have quite good foot work. Think I may need to work on some body tension before I return to Craigmaddie, which I'm sure will be soon.

Not the weather that was forecast