After the rain

Never tire of this outlook back towards the Glenfinnan hills

Today I had a great day in the Arisaig Cave which was completely bone dry despite the 20cm of rain which has doused Lochaber over the past three days. What a great venue it is. Last year I didn’t do much bouldering really, I spent most of the time on Dolomitic big walls and lately I’ve been getting back into mixed climbing a bit.

Today was a nice reminder just how great it is - so relaxing to head off late morning and feel warm March sunshine in your face as you stroll across a deserted beach to the cave to work on a nice project.

I haven’t been to the cave for not far off two years. Last time I was there I managed, just, to do all the moves on the last remaining big straight up project. It might be as hard as 8B and a great piece of technical and burly climbing up a big diagonal flange. Today I re-worked it and did the moves again. Crucially, I got a good sequence dialled for the upper half of the problem and linked the last 5 moves to the top. I noticed myself getting tired on it quite quickly because of the very physical moves with compression and undercutting. I’ll definitely be back on this soon.

The flange project. training motivation. It’s definitely possible for me!

My tick marks from two years ago still there like it was yesterday. Can’t believe how rainproof the cave is. The ultimate boulder venue really!