Anvil battling continues

More blood spilt at the Anvil yesterday in persuit of nails hard projects. Above is Dave Redpath's hand, ripped up after getting ever closer on the Heavy Metal project. My extremely irritating hole in my index finger only allowed me to warm up before splitting again. Al's super glue saved me from having to fully sit it out on a day of perfect conditions and sunshine. But with all the splitter inforced rest this week I have lost the edge (and a bit more!) off my endurance and didn't even regain my highpoint on the roof project. I always try to find something positive even if it's been a bad day, and I did get very close to the highpoint despite wobbling like a fool through the lower section which last week I could path. I also ran an experiment the night before to see if I could still drink a moderate amount of alcohol and still climb well the following day. Not possible! Two pints of beer, not even finished was enough to take a full grade off my ability.

Alan Cassidy dispatching Spitfire, which was seen off shortly afterwards by another man with big muscles; Robin Sutton. With 4 ascents now the route has finally seen its formal upgrade to 8a+.


Beautiful clear spring air looking across to Carrick Castle. The arete on the left is Anvilfire 7c+, already upgraded once because noone has managed to repeat it yet. Come on guys, get on that one next time and we can see if it's creeping towards 8a??