Just Another Blogpost

Welcome back to another installment of the CoC blog, sure to be a brilliantly biased blurb coupled with belittling banter, henceforth to be besieged by bitching bitches who wouldn’t know a brontosaurs from a bullfrog and spend all their time bantering like buffoons with a mouth full of ballsack in internet forums... For the record: 8a=29=HVSexplanation=5.13dx^2 x 45% of your vertical height/BMI ratio...
Moving on.

After yet another controversial blog post by the man with no brain-to-mouth filtering mechanism, I felt I better keep this one simple. There has been a fair bit happening over the past few weeks. Spring has arrived, the days are slowly warming up and there seems to be more and more people in the campgrounds. I like to call them the “fair weather climbers”. You know the type, they only get away when the temp is between 18-25 degrees, with a light south-south westerly breeze, no more than 45.875654% humidity and their horoscope tells them that they are living a life less ordinary wanking away on plastic in the gym.

The reason I bring this up is that I recently competed in my first ever comp. I finished equal 4th and was pretty happy with that. I can’t say I overly enjoyed the experience, if anything at least I had a decent training session. I think I’ll stick with route setting in future, way more fun! What astounded me though were the results. There were a lot of very strong climbers in the comp, but I rarely, if ever, see these guys out on the rock. I have to admit, watching the eventual winner of the comp literally hike his way up everything he tried, I sat there pondering what I could do with all that power? How much easier would my project feel if I could simply hang the crux hold with one hand? I wonder if I could trade him something for it seeing as he really isn’t using it? Would my old Sega master system cut it? With great power comes great responsibility Peter Parker, so god dammit use that power and go crush some shit on real rock!!

What I am trying to say is; there are a lot of super talented climbers in Melbourne who seem to only climb in the gym. Now, I am not an old timer by any means, but I remember when I started climbing there were people climbing every single weekend of the year. Freezing cold, pissing rain, 45 degrees and 98% humidity, it didn’t matter. People were just psyched to get on the rock. These days, the Melbourne climbing scene seems to have disappeared and the number of people who are psyched to head away on the weekends is a low as I can remember. It’s time people, get out of the gym, get on the blocs, get on the sharp end, take some falls and enjoy the privilege we have here in Victoria with access to some of the best climbing in the world. You might just come to realise the amazing experiences you are missing out on.


Speaking of real rock, here is some cool stuff that has happened in the past few weeks.

Tassie lad Mark Polinski was in the gramps recently leaving with a haul bag of ticks, sending routes up to 29 including a nice flash of Venom (28) and swag of boulders up to V10.

The D’laide crew have been busy on the blocs also. Big Bad Bilbo Baggins has been putting his 6’12” 250Kg frame to good use sending 100 Pound Club (V10), Race Eater Original, the cop couldn’t make it and collision course (all V9). The second strongest midget ever to visit the Grampians (after Logan Barber) JT, has been in good form also, sending Krusty and Annagrama (both V9). The enigma that is John Smith, AKA Redanon, dispatched the “Impossible, it will never go, F%$k this problem, piece of $hit” Rodeo Girl (v7/8) and the seldom repeated critical mass (V8).

The man, the myth, the cripple; Arnold Wheeler is quickly recovering from a full knee reconstruction. Knocking over a host of repeats up to V9 including a crag tick of Alby’s new Jungle Boulder. He was last seen doing some extreme top roping at Spurt wall. Pete “The Raven” Reynolds, strong as always sent the 3 star Butchers choice (V10) also. Now if we can just get him up Iceberg! Ash Hendy must be psychic and have read my mind last week, a long time gym crusher, she was last seen cruising Dial a Lama (24) and putting the draws on pretty much every route a spurt wall. Great to see her having a crack!

Still waiting to hear some news from the recent rockstar invasion, but heard on good authority that Alby’s classic “The Eagles Nest” (V8) finally got a repeat. Suspicion about the grade is rising as it seems that unless you can boulder V15 (a-la Nalle howestrongisthatkunt), it’s impossible.

The crag kids team AKA the “Red-Caps” comprising Toby Polcap and the Kent “Red duck” Paterson have also been firing. The duck sent Serpentine packing last weekend and also cleaned up the last of his VD land projects. They also made a coup ascent of the classic Archimedes principle (26). Toby polcapper has clearly been eating too many pies as he managed to completely rip of the finishing dyno flake on Le petit mort at the Gallery, nearly severing his leg in the process.

As for me, I am proving myself to be the king of the “almost Send” at the moment. Over the weekend I managed to fall of the last hard move of both Fabios Route (29) and my soon to be classic Mt Zero project Rhythmic Pumper (Probably 29). As frustrated as I was, I know I have to stay positive, after all, I got a new highpoint on both routes, refined some beta and I know they will both go down soon. It’s just a matter of time. In the meantime it’s back to the gym, but only until the weekend.

See you out there!