One Year Ago…..or so……
My nerves are shot!
I’ve been sitting in the corner of an office inside Glenmore Lodge.
I can hear applause, gasps, the scream of someone fighting.
I try to block it out, but I can’t.
The office is clean and bare, the only thing in here with me is Neil Silver writing up result of the competition that is still going on.
tap, tap, tap…..scream……gasp…….a shout, applause………
Is it over? Did they finish the route?
I went into the climbing area to see lots of peoples faces, some smiling, some not so much. A sweaty climber had just untied and sat down out of the way. He looked nackered, as if he’d just crawled out of a bare knuckle fight.
Rewind One Year and Four Days…..or so……
Mark Chadwick (an lodge instructor) and myself are having discussions on how to set routes for the STS (Scottish Tooling Series). Mark wants to work on the granite towers outside, and I have the ‘pleasure’ of setting the final routes.
Route setting, is it hard? If you ask me now, I would say its alright, a bit tricky. If you’d asked me halfway through setting the routes, I wouldn’t say anything. Instead I would just hand you a fist full of hair that I had just been puling out!
Watching/listening to the dudes and dudettes climbing the final was horrible. Some would climb it really bad, as in not the way I set it. Others would sketch around on thin holds, making it look like they were about to fall off at any moment, and some would cruise it making the route look easy. I couldn’t take it, I was a wreck!
Once the final was over and I somehow looked 20 years older, I said there and then. ‘No way!, never!, don’t bother asking, I’m not doing that again!’
Rewind a few weeks ago
Ah, email. Oh it’s Bri.
Open email……………..
(short version) Would you like to set routes for the Glenmore comp this year?
hahaha, no. Sorry, you couldn’t pay me enough money. Thanks anyway.
Rewind Four Days Ago
Email:
Kev Shields was going to set the routes for Glenmore, but he’s hurt himself…….Any chance you could step in? We’ll pay you!
AAAAAAAggggggggghhhh!!!! KEEEEEEEVV!!! If you weren’t so god dam accident pron and were about to kill yourself anyway, I would be doing it!!!!
I had no choice. I had to suck it up, set some routes and book an appointment with a hairdresser for later…..
Rewind to Saturday Night
After being at the wall till 00:30 on the night before, I was back in doing the final touches. Well I say final touches, it mostly consisted of flash pump climbing, spinning holds, one near deck out, and a lot of doubt if I had set the route way to hard. I want the climb hard, maybe have someone get to the end. It’s always good having someone or yourself finish a final route, but I like it when no one does, its a proper test! and this route was going to test the best of us.
Did I watch? Did I hell, instead I waited in isolation with the guys. Instead of listening to the crowd, I listened to Fiona Murray sing the Strictly Come Dancing theme song. Instead of pulling more hair out, I sharpened about 7 pairs of very blunt tools, and a couple of pairs of crampons!
It was easier than the last time. I think the route was close to being really good, not quite there yet. Some people were off at the start and other half way and some nearly topped out. There was no real way of guessing which climber was going to end up.
Sorry for the lack of photo’s this time, but that was the last thing on my mind!
Anyone that reads this should understand that Gareth and Bri worked super hard organizing these comps (its no easy task, ask Pete Hill and Neil Silver). Karen also worked her wee arse off, dawning the head touch to gets the route in! If it was easy, well it would be crap. Setting routes is ok, no so bad. Setting good routes is hard. Sometimes it doesn’t go right and sometimes it does. But the thing to bare in mind is that, the route setters are trying their best to keep good climbers challenged.
What now that winter has gone? Back on the tooling venues for some cranking.
Long Reach Climbing 