Author Archives: simon

YCS 2015

Another year and another YCS final at Ratho!

Each year my role in south wales is to help young climbers train and prepare for the BMC YCS which is the largest youth climbing competition in the UK by some distance. Working for Boulders climbing centre in Cardiff along side two awesome volunteers, Joe Holmes and Brianne Evans, we run a climbing academy that helps young climbers develop their skills and hone there physic ready for battle!

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Lucas pulling some wild shapes during Team Wales best finish to date.

It has been an busy season with many highs along the way, leaving the academy in a good position going into the final. coming through the regional rounds and the Welsh final it gave myself and my assistant coaches great pride that 2/3rd’s of the Welsh team was made up from young climbers from Boulders climbing academy. This also resulted in South Wales wining the North vs South title for the 8th year running, something which is a bit of a personal mission for me (although we have a huge advantage with larger numbers of participants in the first place).

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Gwen keeping her cool and turning a difficult start into an amazing finish.

The trip to Scotland was pretty epic in the van with Liz and two dogs, including uncountable diversions and traffic jams but eventually we arrived. The Arena was set to host the final and it was great to see almost all of the academy in the centre doing a spot of familiarisation and checking out the routes and blocs that have been set.

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Jess pushing on to a 4th Place finish!

The Final was a real battle with the standard improving year on year, the organisers had set the bar far higher than previous events leaving many youngsters shocked as they fell of there first routes. This mad the comp much more about metal toughness and getting back into right frame of mind. This is a hard lesson but one that is so important, on a recent coaching trip to kalymnos Adrian berry gave a talk to the clients using a wonderful analogy of climbing in a bubble. and how being worried or anxious of what is to come is pointless as you have no control over it until it is within your bubble. Like wise what is below you has no bearing on what is to come unless you allow it to.

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Harry having his mind blown during the YCS 2015

It was amazing to see all of the Welsh kids get back on the horse and put in brilliant displays and in doing so elevated Team Wales to our highest ever finish position, 2nd! There were many individual moments of brilliance including several podiums but for me the day was about the incredible team performance with so many Welsh climbers finishing in the top 10, in fact many finished in the top 6!

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Welsh Team

Well done to all the youngsters, parents, coaches from North and South and lets take this one step further next year!

Climb Magazine

Ok so just back from a coaching trip to Kalymnos, working for Positiveclimbing.com. It was great to be back on the Greek Isle with good friends and great weather but more about all that in the next blog.

The first good news to great me on my return is that my website is back up and running. after some trouble with the previous setup I was using I know once again have somewhere to showcase my pics from my adventures.

Also hot off the Press is this months Climb Magazine in which I have an article running about climbing on Gower.

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Really excited to see this one printed as the editors have done a great job and it looks amazing with the added graphics. In total the article ran with 10 pics from around the crags of Gower with the 2 above being my favourites. On the left is Rhos climbing The Raven a Brilliant 7a at minted hole and a must on anyones trick list. On the right is Dave Pickford during his FA of Delta Dagger 8a, this picture was a nice surprise as it came about due to me being in place to shoot some pics of ben working his project, plus I completely balls’d up the exposure but thanks to shooting in RAW managed to get it back. A lesson I have learnt so many times is if you put yourself in position you will always capture something.

getting into position in the Grand Grotta

getting into position in the Grand Grotta

I’m know sorting a few photos from Kalymnos, and I’m really pleased with the results. Once again it all came down to putting in the hard yards to get in position. hopefully you will all think it was worth the effort when I post the results soon.

 

Disaster strikes!

So its been a while since we flew home from Tenerife, and so much has taken place. As soon as I returned I had to make the long drive a to North Wales ready to deliver a presentation for the BMC. For several years the BMC have been running a Symposium for climbing coaches, and for my part I have given presentations on various subjects. This year I was to talk about the use of ‘Drill’s’ to teach techniques to climbers. This is something I have done for years, and can vouch for the success of using drills at the right stage of learning. After delivering the presentation multiple times during the day I was pretty shattered, but so happy with how well the concept was received.

BMC Coaching Symposium 2014

So when I left the symposium I felt quite smug, I have just returned from a great holiday and the presentation that I was nervous about delivering to my peers went well. Unfortunately from this point on things fell apart quite literally. Having a quick boulder in the pass before leaving home seemed to be a good idea, and indeed it was until I went to leave and my battery appeared flat. A push start and I seemed to be on my way, but very quickly I lost all electrics (lights included) and broke down beside the road. After contacting my breakdown cover, Greenflag, I was informed they could not find a tow truck for me. Instead they offered to take me to a local garage and get it repaired in the morning. After a night in the carpark they also offered to pay for a new alternator and battery so my luck seemed to be turning.

Tow truck fun

Tow truck fun

all I wanted at this point was to get home, and see my husky, Tufa. I had been away for 10 days, and I always miss her. As soon as I got home we dashed over the beach, we made it about a mile when as I reached down to pick up a stick I suddenly found myself collapsed on the sand. My knee had given way from under me and to cut a long story short I had torn my cartilage out of my left knee. This had left my knee locked at 90 degrees and unable to weight bear. A mile of crawling and hoping got me home from were Liz drove me to A and E. After all the normal NHS issues a MRI scan showed a bucket handle tear to my miniscus which led to surgery a week later and 2 months on crutches!

Fresh from surgery

The Injury was a double blow as I was meant to boarding a flight to Kalymnos to work with Positive Climbing on one of their coaching holidays. This had been something which I had been looking forward to for some time. It was horrible having to phone Adrian (a good friend as well as my employer for this trip), and tell him that I would be letting the side down. Fortunately for me and the trip, a replacement coach was found at short notice and every one had a good time.

But there was little or no time for being injured back on the home front, as it was also the Welsh Championships.  This is a competition that I have been running for 6 years, with help from other climbers around Wales. For 2014 I had decided to run the event at Boulders climbing centre in Cardiff (I try to rotate around the available walls in Wales). One of this biggest challenges in organising the event is preparing the routes. With climbers in all categories tackling 5 routes we needed around 40 routes to run the comp, and gauging the difficulty right is a hard job. This year Myself, Anthony Williams, Ben West and Fred Nash took on the task and after 2 days it felt as if we had reset the entire centre.

The Comp started on saturday morning and having not done online entry we had no idea how many climbers would be taking part. But as Paul Walters ( my buddy with whom I first started the event) used to say, ‘Build it and they will come’. Indeed they did, with over 160 climbers taking part from all over the UK and Ireland, making it the biggest event so far!

Welsh Champs 2014

Welsh Champs 2014

The day was a massive success, and many thanks go out to the local climbing community, who rallied around to help run and in turn make this amazing event. DMM and Serious Climbing were on hand as our sponsors and they gave away some amazing prizes and some novel trophies!

On the Photography front it has been a struggle as I have simply not been able to get out to the crags due to my injury. So as soon as I could walk with out those dreaded sticks it was a relief to get out with my camera and to start shooting. First on the agenda was Oxwich, as I have been working on a Topo for some time. Richard and Cai met me at the crag and it was fun to get the flash gun out again with two climbers eager to have their picture taken. The day was pretty overcast with short blasts of rain, but for a short hour of blue sky when we quickly pounced on the opportunity,  and I’m very happy with the results!

Richard climbing at Oxwich Bay

Richard climbing at Oxwich Bay

With the help of local strong man Liam Fyfe I hope to finish the Topo over the christmas period, although it is turning into an epic job with so much bouldering being discovered. This being said I feels like we have found a good system so keep your eyes peeled for the next free topo for our region.

I have also been to the cinema a bit, turns out its a good activity for some one with limited mobility!  Firstly Hunger games the latest instalment is SHIT! don’t watch it, nothing happens! But Interstellar is amazing, and after watching it I spent a few nights checking out the night sky. If you have never bothered checking out the milky way, get outside on the next clear night (prefrebaly away from any city and with no moon) and you will be amazed!

Gower Milky Way

Gower Milky Way

My full time job is coaching young climbers in South Wales, and this last year has been fantastic. With so many of them seeing gains from there training and reaching new PB’s its been great to be a part off. One climber who is on fire in terms of performance this year is Emily Philips. Her constant desire to work hard and push her limits has payed off, having just been selected to represent Team GB for the up and coming season. She has been a delight to work with and hopefully will be the tip of the iceberg. With so many young climbers performing to previously thought outrageous levels following in her footsteps, I believe we should see a ground swell of climbers from South Wales putting on the GB top and competing at the highest level in the not to distant future!

Emily winning the Youth Open

Emily winning the Youth Open

Shipwreck Cove Article

If I am completely honest the last month has been completely crap! I am on crutches and will be for some time, My van has broken down yet again and at a great expense which is absolutely doing my head in. Anyway more of that in a another post, the good news is that I have some images in Print!

Novembers Climber Article

Novembers Climber Article

This Months ‘Climber Magazine’ has run an article on Shipwreck cove written by Adrian Berry, I have supplied the pictures. As such this is the most pictures I have had published in one go and is very exciting. I am really happy that the shot of Leah got published (right hand shot above) as she is made up to see her first picture in a magazine. Also the magazine ran a full page pic of Ben West on his 8c at the same crag which I had also managed to get some good pics for to cover the story!

Tenerife

Just back from a great week away. Its been a while since I went on a trip with no agenda or pressure to perform. By this I mean most of my trips and holidays over the past few years have been climbing trips. Nothing wrong with this, in fact most of my adult life has been built around the concept of adventure trips. The only down side being that it can be very demanding on you mentally and physically and in fact not really a holiday.

So when liz phoned me to tell me she had booked tickets to Tenerife I was first surprised and then unsure of what the hell we were going to do? I am no beach chilling dude, yes I love the beach but please god let us do something! A quick google search about tenerife didn’t reveal much, climbing options looked limited and it was going to be way to hot, but then some salvation….. Surf!

We flew out to tenerife late in the afternoon and arrived just as the sun was sitting low in the sky. Hire car sorted, we blasted along the coast to our accommodation for the week. Turns out our hotel was high up the hill side, with a great view over a large section of coast. Having dropped the bags in the room a walk onto the balcony revealed head high surf looking back at me. I wanted to grab my board and get straight out there, but hey I had a week here and it would getting dark soon.

The nights are long as its so hot! A troubled sleep leads to the excitement of my alarm clock and a mad dash for the balcony, Bugger. The view ahead is still stunning, but instead of perfect peeling point breaks the ocean is like a deep blue mirror. It gets worse, as I return to the apartment and fire up my laptop the surf forecast is not good. I had checked prior to leaving and it looked as if I was in for an amazing week of stella line ups, but instead my screen is telling me to find something else to do for the week.

Liz is keen to explore the island and see whats about so a high speed tour ensues. Its only know that it dawns on me that tenerife is actually a large volcano, its amazing how your brain filters stuff on google if its not what your actually looking for! Quickly we climb hair pin bend after hair pin bend and a crazy luna landscape reveals itself with some of the wackiest rock formations I have ever seen! We quickly decide that we must return and check out the whole volcano, Mt Teide, which is amusing being from Wales and as you probably guessed from this point on Mt Tidy is said with a welsh accent.

A Tidy Dyke

A Tidy Dyke

So the surf report is true for the next few days and we need some stuff to do. Excursions seem to be what a typical holiday is filled with so we start checking our options. The most obvious is to climb the 12,198 ft Mt teide and see what a volcano looks like close up. The road to the summit is long and we soon pass a sign telling us we have entered a world heritage site. This tells me 2 things, up and coming is something that will make me go woooooooooow, but there will also be a fence around it!

We check out the crazy lava flows (not crazy hot bubbling red stuff) evidence of huge rivers of lava that must have flowed when Mt Tidy wasn’t being so ‘Tidy’. It turns out that from this point it is possible to take a cable car to the summit, saving a 3hr march in 30degrees the 50 euro price tag seems worth while. We then que for some time only to find that yes it gets you very close to the summit, but just shy of the crest you will find the fence. If you want to go to the summit you need a permit, which can only be obtained some time prior to your visit and is a mildly complicated affair. We take the cable car anyway and the views are amazing, with a huge horizon and deep blue sky it is worth the wait and the price but in future I would get up early and walk.

The next few days led to some other excursions such as visiting a crazy water park that really should be on every ones list of must do’s if you are on the island. Siam park has some amazing water slides including the ‘Tower of Power’. This slide features a 28meters vertical drop which sees you falling/sliding at around  50mph! but there are tons of crazy slides that really pack a punch for a change.

The next day we set sail on a stunning yacht on the search for whales. Im going to confess that I did not expect to find any, but the idea of spending the morning on a yacht with a bit of snorkling sounded a lot better than lying on a beach. Who new, within ten minutes of leaving the port we have turned off our engines are floating with the current as a pod of Piolet whales cruz by. They are with out doubt some of the largest mammals I have ever seen and certainly the largest sea creature I have seen in the wild.  They were pretty mesmerising even though they were clearly just chilling, I can only imagine what seeing a huge whale breach must be like.

Piolet whales

Piolet whales

Ok so 3 or so days have passed and all this excitement is great, but I am keen to check out some of the bouldering. As its a volcanic Island there is simply rock everywhere, so some bouldering must exist. Google uncovers the Islands climbing shop and after a frantic hour trying to find it we manage to negotiate some pad hire. We are also fortunate that they are keen to spill the beans on the local info. Car packed with some pads and a print out of some blocs in hand we follow some vauge instructions that leads up what could be described as a goat track that could easily lead to nowhere. But soon enough we find our destination, Arico.

Fun 7a bloc at Arico

Fun 7a bloc at Arico

Arico is a dry canyon of sorts which looks at first to be set amongst sandstone walls, but closer inspection obviously reveals some crazy volcanic rock. The Boulders are set on the canyon floor and in truth they offer some good quality bouldering. Unfortunately its simply to hot and after  a few 6c’s and 7a’s I am already feeling beat. A prolonged battle with a 7b follows but skin is perishing quick along with my psyche which marks the end of efforts for the day. It may have been hot but the bouldering was good so when its cloudy on the following day we head out to another recommended spot, Arico Nuevo a more recent development thats class is immediately apparent. The venue is made up of several sectors with a great range of grades and some more interesting looking lines.

Liz enjoying the volcanic blocs

Liz enjoying the volcanic blocs

 

Were as previously we were searching for interesting blocs, here there are large clusters of great shaped blocs with many obvious lines within close proximity. We have a great day bouldering here and I would recommend a visit to any climber who find themselves on Tenerife. Arico Nuevo is easier to access and has better blocs than Arico. you will find everything from great lava encrusted 4’s right up to some amazing looking  7c+’s. I would not travel here especially to go bouldering as the weather is simply to warm and even in the winter is pretty hot. but hey if your here its good and you should check it out.

fun sessions

fun sessions

The other massively positive note to the latter half of our trip was the surf returned! it was quite intimidating walking out across the reef into the swell. I had no idea if the locals were as laid back as they appeared or if the reef was super shallow. The Swell by know had picked back up and sets were pumping in at around head hight, out back it was crazy, you could easily sea the reef bottom and shoals of fish swimming around my feet which was something new for me. I had never surfed in Board shorts before, as the Welsh waters rarely offer the mix of warm water and surf so I’m normally in at least 3mm of wetsuit. But this was fantastic and the freedom of movement makes a huge difference to your surfing. Paddling is so much quicker and easier but the flip side is you are not so buoyant, so need to remember to swim for the surface after being dumped on the ocean floor. 3 days of surf made a great finish to the trip that was to prove to be one of my favourite trips in recent years although this was almost spoilt at the airport on the way home were a disagreement about what can and cannot go in the surfboard bag almost resulted in an very expensive excess baggage charge. It frikin winds me up that airlines try and pull this crap when you have clearly paid for 20kg of sports luggage. The long story short was me and liz holding our ground and eventually wearing all of our clothes so the very rude and unhelpful check out lady (I am being polite calling her a lady) could no longer claim our hand luggage was over weight after making us transfer all of my stuff from my pre paid excess luggage to my hand luggage. It was embarrassing but after the way she spoke to us there was no way I was paying any more euro’s.

 

 

 

September Climb Magazine

Finally got hold of this months Climb Magazine and very happy to see a pic of Tom Randall on his new E9. Im really happy with how the shot looks over two pages and to top it off they also used my shot of Ben on his new 8c. know i’m off to smiths to see if Climber features any of my pics, fingers crossed!

 

 

Looking good!

Looking good!

Pictures in Print

Its potentially been my best month yet for pics, with many lessons learnt along the way. Im writing this whilst sitting in the evening warmth of my hotel room in Tenerife, but with the marvels of the internet I have just sent an image half way around the world to a happy customer.

Climber website

Climber website

Were to start, well I have my fingers crossed that pictures of mine could feature in both UK climbing publications this month. Both are running features on Ben West climbing his new 8c on Gower and Thomas Randal climbing his new E9 found at Dinas Rock. I have submitted some images and I believe they are going to be used which after the hours spent suspended in a harness is a real bonus that is keeping the psyche high at present. I also did a small news piece for ‘Climber’, which is found in there latest news section online click here for more.

Along side all of this Adrian Berry has written a piece on the development of Shipwreck Cove and ‘Climber’ have asked me to supply the images, so once again i’m sitting here with fingers crossed that they use a few. It is great seeing  your images printed large in a magazine, so I am hoping a few of these make it past the editors and into the glossy pages.

I Also took part in the first DWS comp in Exeter and have to say that this was a real blast! unfortunately I did not do very well but it was so much fun and a visit to berry head made up for the fact that plastic is not fantastic for me. I was really down here for one of the young climbers I coach Emily Philips, and it was a very impressive day in her development as a competition climber.

Emily in the final

Emily in the final

Emily was by far the youngest in the field, and it was also her first real go at DWS so we had alot of hard obsticals stack in our way. What we new was in our favour was, her ability which is fantastic, her desire which is steadfast and no pressure of expectation. Well that was true from us any way but Emily always gives 100% and expects the results that she deserves for all her hard work. It was a joy watching her climb with no hesitation above the water, and in turn she qualified for first the semi’s then the Final having topped 5 out of her six routes so far and only narrowly missing out on the 6th. The final was amazing with the top 4 under 16 girls taking on a rising traverse across the whole wall. Emily climbed fluidly with a great control, and narrowly missed out on the top spot. All the finalists were split by 2 holds with time being the deciding factor. In the end She finished 4th but against World cup stars 4 years older she showed what she can achieve!

Video from Joby, check out his site www.newsonmedia.co.uk

 

 

Shipwreck is open for business

Its been a long time in the making but Shipwreck cove is officially open! Obviously we have all been climbing here for some time, but after the very successful crowd sourcing Roy Thomas his buddy Dai, Adrian and myself set about bolting up many more climbs. Most of these new routes are in the 5’s and 6’s and offer some fantastic climbing straight of one of Gower’s finest beaches.

Adrian enjoying the fruits of his labour

Adrian enjoying the fruits of his labour

It had taken around a year for this second spree of development to take place and we should be grateful to the amazing amount of work put in by Dai and Roy in getting us to were we are today. The cove and its adjacent walls house just over 70 routes that have been bolted using Jim tit’s Twizzles, a glue in anchor that should be long lasting.

Mermaid Wall topo from South Wales Mountaineering club Wiki

Mermaid Wall topo from South Wales Mountaineering club Wiki

The topo above is from the great Wiki available on the South Wales Mountaineering club website and has all info about shipwreck cove, also there is the rock fax download which covers the whole of Gower for sport climbing and can be used on your smart phone at the crag!

Topo Link from SWMC WIKI

The previous weekend saw a mass of climbers meet up at the cove, all invited after they pledged there hard earned cash to the bolt fund. Around 80 climbers attended a great day and almost all of the lines saw ascents with many seeing more ascents in a day than they will probably receive over the remainder of the season. Dave Pickford managed to put a new line over the weekend with an amazing looking F8a+ ‘Delta Dagger’ and it was amazing to See Cai Bishop Guest tick his first 8th grade route with his blast up ‘Airshow 8a+’. Whilst all of this was going on TCA, the bouldering guys and girls from bristol who donated a large amount of wonga to the project, provided a great BBQ for the day and some prizes for the guess the grade competition.

Dave Pickford on Delta Dagger 8a+

Dave Pickford on Delta Dagger 8a+

As if this wasn’t enough Ben West was back in town to finish off the ‘Proj’ as it had become known. This route was actually the first route i bolted in the cove but soon after i bolted the super steep Achilles and that had taken up all of my time, and belayers patience! At the same time Ben had ticked almost all of the routes in the cove (Vernenne is still not done Ben!) So i offered the line to him. He took up the challenge and after some 12 sessions he finally clipped the chain, in doing so South Wales has a new hardest sport route, Helvetia 8C.

Ben on his new 8C

Ben on his new 8C

So I have several more routes on my tick list know thanks to all this bolting, all thanks to the Cove!

 

Back from the printers

Just nipped into work today and found the new Dolomites guide from Rockfax has arrived in the shops. Looks an amazing place to visit for climbing and photography, and I’m keen as mustard to get out that way as one of the six north face route id like to climb is located in this region. The Six routes were made famous by an old alpine book entitled Starlight and storms and includes Mountains such as the Dru, and the Eiger.

New Rockfax Guide

New Rockfax Guide

Any way enough about that I was also excited to see one of my shots used as for an advert. The shot is one of my favourites as its is from a trip last year with the gang out to Mallorca, were DWS is the name of the game. Bouldersuk.com used the pic to advertise their online climbing shop in the rear cover of the guide.

 

Boulders Advert

Boulders Advert

Ok, i’m off to make sure they have my invoice !

Ogmore

Had a great evening session at Ogmore last week. Back in the Davy Jones Locker cave but this time starting from the right hand side. First off me and Rob Lamey climbed a new line Made in Maes CwnThis is a brilliant traverse of the whole cave and can only be described as an epic shuffle. We followed the lowest beam in the massive roof, start by abseiling down the ‘Hatch’ to the ledge then follow the obvious low beam which starts off as a whopping great jug but quickly turns to some open handed grimness. The heel hooking required for the duration of the traverse has left my right hamstring a little tender but it was great fun.

next off me and Lamey managed to flash Martin Crockers ‘Supistious 7b+’ through the roofs above. Got to say this is an amazing line on good rock, we found the difficulties to be much lower than 7b+ but defiantly 3stars. To any one interested in repeating this line is worth pointing out the depth of water under the finish is dubious and learn from our mistake and place a rope for the 10ft of rubble above the top out.

 

 

Below is a video of Martin on the First Ascent.