Coming back to Climbing

Since coming back to Bristol in June last year one of the things that has been most important to me is to start climbing again. It's taken a while - I really only managed to go a handful of times last year - but I think I'm finally starting to get back into the swing of it.

The last time I climbed properly was in 2002-2003 when I first got into it and I did a couple of courses teaching how to climb outdoors safely and was regularly leading 6c's indoors at Undercover Rock at St Werburgh's. 6c is nothing to a real climber but I was quite pleased to be able to do those at the time. Outdoors I only did it "properly" once on a Very Severe, 4c multi-pitch climb in the Avon Gorge. I've published a post from the original incarnation of The Isolationist, dated 29th August 2003, describing that climb; I was quite excited.

When I first picked up climbing again, probably in September or October last year, I went all the way back to top-roping 5a's and struggled a bit with that. That was quite hard but when I went last Friday night I was quite pleased that I felt relatively comfortable leading a tricky 6a climb. At least I'm back in the 6's! I was also doing ok in the bouldering room.

So now my attentions are turning to climbing outdoors again. Time to dust off my trad gear, and hope that the ropes haven't perished and the wallnuts haven't rusted. Only one way to find out!