Try Not To Die

“I am so weak I might as well die right now,” said Doug as he fell off the crux on one of our climbing projects. Earlier, I had leapt off another route while leading because I was starting to get anxious about falling before I made the next clip. Sometimes, if I am really fearful of falling, but the fall is safe - as is the case with most WELL bolted sport climbs¹ - I just fall off and get the whole thing done with. Doug also took a lead fall on another route, so it was a falling kind of day.

If you do climb a lot, you fall a lot, and climbers can become complacent about the risks of the sport. In truth, I think living as the average Aussie, on a diet of pies and alcohol with too little exercise is much more risky than rock climbing, but yesterday I was reminded that complacency can kill.

Both Doug and I have come dangerously close to abseiling off the end of a rope. Doug, in fact, did abseil off the end of his rope but he was so close to the ground when the tails of the rope went through his device that he was not hurt. My incident was similar, but a little less bad. With rope stretch, I reached the ground but once my weight was off the rope, one end of the rope was hanging a metre above the ground.

Although I don’t believe the much vaunted axiom that “descending is the most dangerous part of climbing,” abseil/lowering accidents are more common than they should be within the sport of climbing, and many high level climbers, such as Dave Macleod, Brad Gobright, and Kelly Cordes, have been involved in such accidents (Gobright died).

Yesterday, Doug almost joined the coterie of climbers who have been involved in an abseil/lowering accident. The details are not all that relevant and are somewhat complicated to explain. Suffice to say that we almost made a fatal mistake simply because we have climbed, abseiled, lowered so many times that familiarity has dulled our sense of caution. The moral of the story, if there is one, is always check that the lower/abseil is correctly set up before unclipping from the anchors.

1Some sport climbs are so poorly bolted that falling is a significant risk.

Celebrating The Solstice

Winter is my favourite season in Australia. Despite a lot of moaning by some of the local inhabitants, the season is not unduly cold nor the days terribly short. The air is frequently crisp and clear, without the haze of smoky, dusty summers, and temperatures are great for all kinds of outdoor activities.

PC: DB

For a month or so, I had been mulling over how to observe the solstice. I am not a season, anniversary or even special occasion marker, preferring to opt out of our S&M (surveillance and marketing) culture entirely, but Doug and I had been solo a lot, climbing and bushwalking and, even a couple of confirmed introverts occasionally enjoy some company.

PC:DB

A sunset paddle out to the Tollgate Islands followed by dinner and photos seemed like a good idea. The last time we paddled out to the Tollgate Islands at sunset was 11 July, 2018 (how good is it to have a trip database?) and we were accompanied by just a couple of friends.

PC:DB

Nine paddlers launched from our home beach and in two groups made our way out to the Tollgate Islands. The rain earlier in the day had cleared and it was a lovely afternoon on the water. We regrouped on the western/sheltered side of the Tollgate Islands and then split into two groups again with one group paddling slowly back to the beach whilst enjoying the sunset over the bay and the other group lapping around the northern most Tollgate Island and returning via “the gap.”

PC:DB

After a big dinner, we had a communal photo/video show. I unashamedly stole this idea from my late friend Richard Collier. Rick was one of those infrequently encountered true individualists and adventurers. At the age of 71, he was leading a party of younger climbers on Mount Geikie in British Columbia, the only one of the party to have the head-space and cojones to lead the crux pitch up loose rock on this remote alpine climb. The mountain gave way, and Rick was suddenly gone.

Back in the days when we lived in Calgary, Rick’s home town, every November, Rick would organise a big slide show at his modest bungalow in the south of the city. Sensibly, his wife would disappear for the evening which usually started around 6.00 pm and had been known to go until 3.00 am not due to wild drinking and partying but instead the result of a whole cadre of grizzled mountaineers who had brought slides (this was well before the days of digital photography) of their mountain trips over the previous year. Each photo would be accompanied by descriptions of long, convoluted approaches and climbing routes. There were avalanches and rock falls, hair raising exposed traverses, loose and shitty rock (this was the Rockies after all), long mountain days and nights, planned and unplanned bivouacs.

Many of the big names in the local mountaineering scene were there and, as a new mountaineer, the company, mostly male, could be intimidating. This was, however, well before the era of ego aggrandisement in which we now live, and it was considered highly suspect to talk up any climb or ski mountaineering trip that you had accomplished. Understatement ruled. Anyone who pretended that 20 or even 40 kilometres on a trail was a long approach or that the climb required anything more than the odd piece of gear every rope length was not really considered a hard man (or woman). Modern society could do with a little less hubris, a bit more humility and a lot less spray.

How To Make The Ordinary Interesting

The moon is just past full so we have had some quite low tides, great for rock platform walking; except, apart from the last couple of days, the lowest tides have been in the middle of the night which is not that great for rock platform walking. But, the last two days, the tides have been around 0.2 metres and at their lowest just before dawn. Back to being great for rock platform walking.

On Saturday, low tide was 5.20 am, so I walked from home in the dark down to the local beach and around some rock platforms. Today, Sunday, the tide was a bit higher but also, later in the morning, so Doug and I drove south to Barlings Beach to walk around the rock platforms that lead east to Burrewarra Point.

This stretch of coast is a favourite for local sea kayakers as it is often sheltered and there is good rock gardening. Sometimes, however, when an East Coast Low rolls through, the entire bay fills with breaking swells for kilometres.

We left the car park before sunrise, with pinks and reds painting the beach sand and rays of early morning sun shooting up over the hill side. Along the sand beach to Barlings Island, and then along wonderful rock platforms to a hidden beach, some more rocks, a big sea cave, and then as the tide was rising making our way back to the car and home for coffee.

Failure is Failure

After writing this – kind of – review of The P:E Diet I decided, somewhat against my better judgement to try the training advice given in the book; which, if you recall, is train to concentric, eccentric and isometric failure on every repetition and every set (3 sets of around 5 reps) every day of the week. If that sounds exhausting, painful, and antithetical to progress, it absolutely is.

I am no stranger to training to failure as, over the years, I have done multiple cycles of Stronglifts which is essentially a programme of training to failure three times per week. Recovery from training to failure takes a long time, longer as you get older, so I knew that training to failure every day was not going to work so I opted for a two week cycle training to failure three times per week, on top of my usual three climbing days per week – during which I typically climb to failure. That is a lot of failure, but luckily, I am quite good at failing, so was not too worried about this aspect of the experiment. Indeed, I can say that, over the two weeks of the venture, I excelled at failing.

Sadly, I did not excel at much else unless being stiff and sore all day everyday is success. After initially getting a little stronger, the number of repetitions I could do plummeted and no amount of yoga, sleep, easy walks, stretching, nutritious meals or any other standard recovery techniques made much difference. I was just beaten up.

Interestingly, most of the research (here is an example) comparing training to failure to more standard strength and power training - whereby the lifter trains to within 2 to 4 repetitions of failure on the last set - does not support training to failure. Not only do the trainees incur more fatigue and muscle soreness but strength gains are less. It seems there is little place for training to failure for most people, and certainly beginners and novices have nothing to gain and much to lose from this form of training. My experiment is over and I do not foresee myself ever returning to training to failure. I am actually at a loss to understand why the book (The P:E Diet) so clearly and elegantly nails the nutrition aspect of being a healthy human yet fails so dismally at the exercise/movement aspect.

Pictures are from today’s walk along the coastal track near my house.

Plateau Is The New PR

Apparently, this is world first research, but I hate to think it is because Bro-Science has known for several decades that weight training can prevent bone fractures in people with osteoporosis. Simply managing an external load while standing means that balance and stability improve thus reducing the likelihood of falls, add to that stress on bones which requires remodelling and there is absolutely nothing surprising about this research except it has taken until 2022 to produce it.

In 2013, Rippetoe wrote “I think it's important to be able to fall down when you do a barbell exercise so that you have to make sure you don't. The balance aspects of the movement are critical to the training effect, and when this is removed you're left with a Glorified Exercise.” If you want to watch a really cool video, watch this 91 year old trainee at Rippetoe’s gym in Witchita Falls. Good thing, Rippetoe did not wait for the research to come out.

In my own training, after reading the P:E Diet, I decided I would test out the “train to failure” recommendation but not everyday, which would be not merely soul destroying but tissue destroying as well. I am aiming for three days per week, which is just about every other day, and am two weeks into what will be a 6 to 8 week strength training block.

As expected, I am stiff and sore every day, which is reminiscent of my Crossfit days, when, I alternated daily between feeling kick arse strong and crippled up old. So far, I am getting stronger (reps are going up), but I expect to plateau on this program sooner rather than later. But, as Pat Flynn pointed out for aging athletes “Plateau is the new PR.”

Focus On Performance

I love this video of Wide Boyz, Tom Randall and Pete Whittaker, on the first ascent of Century Crack (5.14b/33 or just bloody hard) in Canyonlands, Utah. At the time (possibly still), Century Crack was the hardest, traditional, off-width climb in the world. Have a gander at how exhausted Tom Randall looks at minute five on the video as he pulls/pushes/struggles through the final off-width to top out. How many of us can say we have ever tried half so hard to achieve anything in life?

Of course, the Wide Boyz are now well known for their infamous cellar training routines to prepare for Century Crack (and other off-widths), but, anyone who climbs, knows that climbing is almost as much a mental game as it is a physical challenge and I also think Randall’s mantra “focus on performance not the goal” is immensely insightful. Struggling through difficult things is just a lot more enjoyable and rewarding if you focus on performing not getting to the endpoint.

Down here on the south coast, I’ve had a couple of great days, climbing yesterday with Doug who has almost expelled the leech toxin from his body and bouldering by myself today. Yesterday, Doug lured me into thinking I was climbing OK by his judicious and encouraging commentary as I was leading all the routes. Buoyed up by this rallying support, I attempted a route I have managed to squirm up a couple of times when feeling very fit but failed somewhat dismally, not even linking the moves together. I actually could not understand how I had not wafted up like a gentle fart on a summer breeze until Doug finally confessed “well, you didn’t look like you were climbing as solidly today.” Initially, I was a bit miffed at being so badly misled but upon reflection, I realised Doug had done me a favour as I launched up the route with solid confidence which makes an important difference in your ability to try hard.

I had to get up at O-Dark-O’Clock today to get down to my current favourite bouldering area to get the tide right for bouldering, and, while it was lovely to arrive at the beach near sunrise with no-one else about, warming up took longer than usual as I was stiffer and sorer than usual from what amounts to three days of climbing training in a row and there was a strong wind blowing. My old climbing buddy, Hamish used to sum this up saying he was “stiff in all the wrong places at all the wrong times.”

After a couple of hours I had that done feeling where even easy things were starting to feel hard and I was faffing about more than climbing. Rather than jumping straight into the car and heading home thus guaranteeing I would arrive crippled up like the hunchback of Notre Dame, I walked along the trail for an hour, through a forest of gnarled and twisted eucalypts reminiscent of a scene from a Tolkien novel.

Messing About

I don’t know why but I seem incapable of just going on an easy bushwalk along a trail, inevitably, I am off bushwacking through horrible fire regrowth or in pissing rain, or both at the same time. On this afternoon, I had taken myself around the bay to Maloneys Beach with the idea of strolling west along the beaches and headlands to Square Head, but, the tide was a bit too high for such a perambulation so I decided to wander east instead.

At low tide, you can walk a good bit of the coast from Maloneys Beach to Durras but not quite all the way as there are several spots where, even at dead low tide, deep slots prevent passage. I ambled along from Maloneys, around to Archeron Beach, all empty except for a few sea birds, and then at Judges Beach, I decided I would go right out to Three Isle Point which is always an interesting place.

The rock along Three Isle Point can barely be called rock, more semi-glued together dirt, and I had to weave from one teetering spine to the other to advance to where the tide was again too high to persist. So, finally, I had gone as far as I could along the shoreline and scrambled up another crumbly headland suddenly finding myself on the new track that National Parks is building to link Maloneys Beach to Durras (and beyond).

Well, what a lovely new track and so pleasant to stroll back along. There has never been a track from Judges Beach over to North Head Beach, although bushwacking across the headland to North Head Beach has always been relatively easy. I thought it would be interesting to see where the new track goes so followed it back to Judges Beach emerging behind some signage that indicated track construction although the trail builders seem to have moved on.

The normal Archeron Ledge track, which is also in good shape right now, follows along behind Archeron Beach but this new track was going on and on in a northwesterly direction so I kept following it even as it deteriorated into a very boggy section with tumbledown trees, getting fainter and fainter. I am, however, a sucker for any trail I have never been on before so persevered until I ended up at a deep, dark, murky, likely leech filled stream with no way across.

My regular climbing partner, and the reason I was walking not climbing on this lovely winters day, is currently laid up with an infected leech bite from standing about at the base of soggy crags and being attacked en-mass by leeches, so I was not about to enter the leech kingdom willingly. The reason I have no bites is because, like a sorcerer standing in a pentagram, I surround myself with salt and the strongest bug dope to avoid getting bitten by the filthy blood suckers.

I could go all the way back, but time was getting on and I had actually strolled along this unknown trail quite a goodly distance. Plus, no-one ever likes to go back, even if that is the sensible option. I used to teach travel in avalanche terrain for our local mountaineering club and so many times the best option was to turn the f**k around but the punters would do almost anything to avoid doing so.

I spied a log crossing the stream and wacked along the marshy ground to have a look at scampering across. It was a slimy looking affair and I almost slipped off immediately. Only one thing would be worse than wading the creek and that is falling into the creek from a slippery log crossing, so I moved on with the idea that I might find somewhere else to cross. But the ground is so saturated and creeks so full that there was really no way I could “end run” this creek without walking a couple of kilometres north. So, against my better judgement I returned to the slimy log.

I decided to au-cheval the lower log - awkward as my feet would have been in the water in a normal au-cheval fashion - but, where the log climbed precipitously upwards, I managed to regain my footing and balanced shakily across the lower sections of log and, leaping forwards, cleared the last bit of water before the rotten bit of log I was on broke in half and sank into the murk.

Still, I was not on any kind of trail so I had a bit more bushwacking to do before I eventually came out onto the track I should have been on had I not gone astray following random trails and I finally scrambled down to the car. “Where have you been?” Doug asked when I got home near dark, “Just about,” I answered blithely, recalling, of course what the Water Rat said to the Mole in Kenneth Grahame’s much loved Wind in the Willows “there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” Or, on trails, off trails, on boulders, crags or even mountains.