Clipping Heck
I was in the Youth Open at Ratho on 28th July. Youth A Boys were faced with a technical route across the old comp wall, and a powerful route on the articulated wall.
Embarrassingly I fell off rather early on the first route. The second went much better, until the penultimate clip which was on a long runner. There I am hanging by a heal hook and the last hold, clip the rope…which popped back, clipped it again….popped back out again, and again and again, finally the rope stayed in and I could take the final move to top out. The spectators seemed to enjoy my high drama. Good result I’m in the final.
Final route again went smoothly until the penultimate clip, but which clip was it; the one to the left or the one to the right, I decided to climb on for a bit to see if it became more obvious, which it did but then it was tricky and I fell trying to make the clip. Bit of a school boy error! Still I had done enough to get second, and learnt a valuable lesson.
I had a great day, managed to catch up with friends and watch some awesome climbing.
Photo: Nick Pope
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