Going solo again

As Brad is out of action with his ankle again, it's given me time to concentrate on the soloing once more.

The attraction of soloing for me, is the independence of achieving something by my own means, and to be able to do it with relative safety. My recent experience of aid climbing was good, but I would like to mix in some more free climbing.

The issue arises as to which technique to use for protecting myself.

My seaside playground.

This weekend I went to the Cattle Troughs to experiment using the ATC Guide technique (described in my soloing section). Whilst this technique gives hands free feeding of the rope as you climb, the feeding can cause a bit of drag. This technique does not work for traversing either, as you have to switch to awkwardly feeding the rope through the belay device. It does however seem to hold falls well as I took a few test lobs on the cliff to see if it worked (with a backup rope of course). The other thing that could potentially go wrong is falling upside down, as the device will be oriented the wrong way by the chest harness. I have seen people use velcro to automatically detach it from the chest harness, but this seems like too much work!!

A spot of bouldering on the walk back.

On my next outing I am going to experiment again with the clove hitch method. I used this last year for a couple of climbs and works well enough. I plan to go to Roche Rock in Cornwall as I will be down that way at the weekend.

Running seems to be going ok. IT band still aches a little but I don't seem to be aggravating it more. A good 6km done yesterday in the heat!