Filming the Wide and Wonderful - Part 3

Day 7 – Ogwen

We thought we would make a short trip up to George’s Crack in the Ogwen Valley today as it has some good wide pony technique going on. I think, although not sure, Will Perrin and Tom might be the only people to onsight this problem, which is quite surprising for a V5 I guess they just know how to tickle that trout. Anyway I also managed to onsight the problem aswell. Its pretty simple really, just involves some nice hand/fist stacking and abit of wide ponying.

There’s a short video of me climbing the problem below:

Anyway after this short little warm up we decided to have a go on Cobalt Dream which is high up on the other side of the valley. After a walk in which I expected to be shorter then it was, we realised that we only had time for one lead. Me and Tom flipped for the lead and I lost which meant I was sent up first. It’s E1ish up to the roof, which was unfortunately looking bigger by the time I got up there.

I just thought, stick to what your good at and get the invert on, so I went upside down for most of the roof then pivoted left side in, in the end slot. It was a bit of nightmare to get fully into the slot with a rack on, but you just had to keep moving an inch at a time.

In the end I was pretty glad I didn’t fall off as Tom was getting the real E5 treatment on belay from death by midges. After telling me he was thinking about jumping off the top after walking up because they were so bad, I wasn’t entirely sure whether he was holding the other end of the ropes, especially as I also had to untie one end because the rope wasn’t long enough!

Day 8

Today was quite restful as Richie wanted some falling off shots for a Helium Promo. So I did some jumping off Offspring which was fun. Well really it wasn’t jumping off at all, it was falling because I’m so weak.

Tom did a bit of chat for this Crack School thing as he is good at that and I’m a complete punter at it, and that’s about it really.

Day 9 – Cellar session

Possibly the physically hardest part of the last 9 days was saved until last. Tom’s cellar. Paul wanted to get some footage of some of the training we have done down there recently.

Paul filming (c) Wild Country

Fortunately it turned out that the session wasn’t as hardcore as usual, so that was a relief, as usually it feels like you should be trying harder then you are as all Tom's motivational messages seem intimidating!

Motivational message (apparently)

I think the Hastonater seemed to cause the most amusement as Tom showed me a new exercise he had been doing in it. The chicken wing and deadbar curls. Destined to be a favourite over the next 6 weeks I reckon.

Crack sit ups

Tom on the wide pony

Anyway I’ve been on 2 days rest now, Tom is probably still driving around trying to find Ratho, Theres 6 weeks until we go to America and we are psyched!!!