The Training Plan (Video)

 

Ellis Butler-Barker on a training link-up at Dartrock Climbing Centre. Grades are: ~Font 7c+/V10, F7c, F6b+ (Reverse), F7c, F6b+ (Re...), F8a, F6a+ (Re...).

This was going to be used in Ellis's South West Film Festival Movie but was a bit too long so decided it upload as a throw-away clip.

**No resting in the groove just before the 8a for training purposes**

Big thanks to Jack for the 12 minute belay!

National Colleges Champs Gold!

After the earliest start for a long time, I woke up, got my gear together, missed a few buses and arrived at college just in time to catch the mini bus to the climbing centre where the TNCCA Championships were being held. It soon became clear that being one of the youngest in my school year I was the youngest competitor on the day.

After a long journey we had eventually arrived at the Rock and Rapid Climbing Centre in South Molton. The competition was split into several categories ((Bouldering and Speed Climbing) and (Top-roped routes and Circuit)). As I'm doing training my endurance for a upcoming trip at the moment I decided to do the routes and circuit, I also did the individual lead comp too. It soon became clear that being one of the youngest in my school year I was the youngest competitor, I was competing against people much much older...

I quickly got through the team event and onsighted each route and lapped the 25 move circuit 6 times but then had to stop due to time constraints, luckily the furthest others got was 22 moves which was the middle of hard bouldery section.



Towards the end of the circuit
Photo by: Briony Martin

Then it was time for the lead comp, the first route was graded at F7a and topping this would qualify you for the final route which was F8a. I was first on the route and felt strangely nervous due to some very reachy looking moves which may have been greater than my span! I managed to top it without any trouble in the end. I relaxed for the second route; after about 5 minutes rest I got called up to go first on the second route! Having no time to read the route I set off feeling a little tired but I was soon through half way and with a little bit of screaming and missing three clips along the way (no rule about missing clips) I made it to the top feeling a little pumped! After me several very strong climbers tried the route but none manages to top the route leaving me with 1st place overall.

Qualifying route
Photo by: Briony Martin

After this I had a long journey home, a sleep on the bus and the one arriving home I went for a nice long run. Tomorrow I am going to train at Dartrock for a session on a monster project which I have put together (V9 boulder into 7c, reverse a 6c then a (different) V9 boulder and finish up another 7c)! On Friday and Saturday I will be heading to Anstey's Cove where I am looking forward to possibly trying 'Tuppence' a classic F8b.

Thanks for reading and thanks for everybody involved!

Christmas Sessions...

On Thursday 20th I travelled up to Birmingham to stay at my Dad's over ther christmas period and this also gave me the opportunity to train at some different walls too. I arrived at Birmingham New Street train station, got in a taxi and went straight to Redpoint Climbing Centre, on Thursday I had a couple of hours to climb and did some nice font 7b+'s and some endurance training on the roof too.

The following day I was back at 9:00 for a long training session... I took a long time to get completely warmed up and got on a black circuit (font 6b-6c+), onsighted all of these and then got onto the barrell section of the wall and started to work through the problems on this wall. Soon after I had done a few font 7b+'s and some font 7c's. I then realised that there were graded problems on the roof and started to get working on a nice font 8a, I quickly got all the moves done but sadly my skin was hurting too much to go for the full link. So I decided to go for the font 7c+ but was too short to do the moves from the sit start but did it from standing which was maybe soft font 7c+/hard 7c. I attempted to onsight several font 7b+'s but fell from the last couple of moves on almost all of them! I then decided to do some fingerboard and power endurance training, after this I was ruined but did laps on some problems in the roof and the some easy problems to complete the session. After 8 hours of almost non-stop climbing my skin was ruined and my toes was in a lot of pain...

After a day of complete rest I travelled south towards Gloucester to compete in a BMC Leading Ladder round at The Warehouse Climbing Centre. I onsighted up to F7c (including F7c) and thought the F8a was very very hard, much harder than any other F8a's I have tried indoors. I finished off with an extremely pumpy F7b going through a roof and then a journey back to Birmingham.



Just starting the tough F8a at The Warehouse.
Photo by: Justin Barker

I will be having a short session tomorrow and then I'll be heading to Brean Down on Thursday 27th if the weather allows us too where I am hoping to try 'Black Snake Moan' F8a and then 'Brean Topping' F8b.
I have also found a partner who is keen to try some hard  Dartmoor trad in the new year, he is very experienced and has lead E8!

 http://javu.co.uk/Climbing/Articles/HardGranite/index.shtml

Merry Christmas and thank you for reading:)

BaseCubic and British Championships

After a good evening out with a friend on Wednesday 3^rd, I got home to another sponsorship deal… ‘BaseCubic’, a new bouldering company whom are soon to release their new boulder mat/pad. The pad has been designed over two years of hard work and a huge amount of dedication from David Cross. BaseCubic currently have a fantastic range of chalk bags and buckets, which also followed the same long and fierce testing process as the new bouldering pad which should be available for purchase within the next month. I am extremely pleased to be supported by BaseCubic and I look forward to building a relationship with them and using their high quality products.


BaseCubic Logo

At around 6:30 on Friday 5^th October I was awake and getting ready for my 9 hours of travelling to Edinburgh via train. I used the time on the train to watch ‘On the Circuit’ several times, catch up with college work, start editing a video of a friend of mine getting the fourth ascent of Paciencia plus some second ascents on some easier problems and I manages to get a small amount of sleep too. I got off in Edinburgh Station almost without fellow southern friends (Alex and Phil Waterhouse), whom almost missed the stop, we then travelled to the hotel where we were staying, had some food and got an early night for the following morning- BLCC’s (British Lead Climbing Championships).



College Work on the train...

 Another early start on Oct’ 6^th in time for British Championships at EICA (Edinburgh International Climbing Arena), saw us arriving at the competition venue at around 8:30 for registration. After registering I collected my comp vest and warmed up on the freestanding boulder which started off feeling like I was holding on to blocks of ice, I was absolutely freezing! Eventually the wall warmed up and I managed to on sight a V10 (more like V6 though), then did a few V6’s and V7’s which left me warm and feeling recruited for the hard routes which were about to follow.

Ready for my attempt on the first route I was a little anxious to whether I would get anywhere near the top or whether I’d drop the first couple of movements. As I started up the wall, I realised I was slowly getting higher than I first expected. Near the top and approaching the upper crux I heard somebody shout “speed it up”, which I then stupidly lost focus and rushed the next few moves. After a couple of hours of waiting for the next route I jumped on and did the sequence wrong in several places which lead me to reversing moves and wasting a lot of energy and time. I was soon off when going for a powerful move to a side-pull. I learnt a lot from my experience at the BLCC’s and have realised that my greatest weakness is probably the mental aspect to the sport and will be working on this a lot in order to get stronger in lead climbing competitions. I need to retain focus after a blunder on route and learn to efficiently deal with errors. Overall I came 15^th which I wasn’t too happy about but wasn’t expecting a great result as I’ve been training bouldering a lot recently in order to be on form in Fontainebleau. After the competition I had a good evening with everybody and was left feeling psyched to improve my lead climbing competition ability and overall aptitude in competitions.


EICA Competition Walls
Photo Credit: Phil Waterhouse

 The next day I spent another day of climbing, watching senior British Championships, Junior BSCC’s (British Speed Climbing Championships) and struggling up some routes with awfully sore skin. I managed to do some cool boulder problems and some really nice routes too, abit of finger boarding on the Beastmaker 2000 and ruin some more skin.

Now I am on the long train journey home feeling very happy after a brilliant weekend and looking forward to travelling to Birmingham next Friday to meet the BaseCubic owner, do some bouldering and compete in my first leading ladder round with Orrin Coley (British Speed Climbing Champion ’12). Then the following weekend I will be heading out to France for a week in Fontainebleau with Tom Wright.

Thanks for reading,

Ellis.

Busy Weekend; Anstey's and Berry Head DWS

I've had a fantastic few weeks of outdoor climbing and have done loads of training in preperation for the BLCC's early in October. My training has consisted of mainly endurance and lots of core training ready for the overhanging EICA competition wall.

Saturday 15th; it was an early start for a full day at Anstey's Cove in Torquay, the main aim... 'The Cider Soak' (F8a). Getting there just after 9:00, I thought the conditions were fairly good so decided to do a quick warm up and get on the route but soon realised that it was way too warm to have much of a chance, so decided to get on some easier routes and slabs and wait until around 17:00 for the route to become shaded. I happily belayed my friend on some routes on Ferocity Wall  ('Rawhide' (F7a) and 'The Lynch' (F7b+)), then we headed down to Cocytus area where lies some beautiful slabs and some very spaced bolts. I decided to give 'Cocytus' (E2 6a/F7a?) a try and managed onsight the amazing, polished, technical, scary groove in very hot conditions- In my opinion it is the best slab that I have done so far!

After this I went to rest with some strong climbers from London working on 'Just Revenge' (F7c+) on Empire Wall. They also managed to retro flash the crag classic 'Empire of the Sun (Direct)' (F7b+), which looked like a fantastic line; this encouraged me to give the route a try and I look forward to having a flash attempt on the route in the weeks to come. I'm also very keen to try many more routes on this wall which I have always overlooked in previous visits to the crag.

As the time got closer to 17:00, I started to warm up again and was soon back on the route where I fell of around mid way. After 15 minutes rest I was told a new way to do the middle move which was always 50/50 to whether I'd manage to do when attempting the route. This change made a huge difference and I hit the pocket better than ever, I was then approaching the final section of the route and climbed through the part that I'd found most difficult and was ready to take on the final couple of movements which are possibly the easiest 2 moves on the entire route... As I went for the good edge I felt myself fly further away from the hold and realised that I was no longer fighting to top the route. I'd fell 1 move from finishing 'The Cider Soak'! As reality hit me, I realised how close I came to success and how easy it is to blow the last moves on a hard route when your head isn't completly in the right focus zone.

Lots of rest and darkness fell upon us, the day was over and my goal of ticking 'The Cider Soak' was over, only for the remainder of that day.

Sunday 16th; Deep Water Soloing at Berry Head. I'd arranged to meet the people whom I had met at Anstey's for a long day of soling at the DWS mecca; Berry Head. We'd decided to do many routes along the Rainbow Bridge wall and spent 6/7 hours climbing along, up and down the quality rock. After coming very close to falling on several occasions due to no chalk in the chalk bag and I'd managed the 3 star 'Rainbow Bridge' (F7a+), then up another F7a+, down a really scary F6b+ and into another S2/3 F7a along the lip of a roof with a potentially nasty fall with just a slip of the foot or any little mistake would be extremely hazardous.

Then into the spectacular climbing of 'The Cauldron' (F7a+) around the back of the cave onto a scary technical slab and onto the rope bridge. This then led us onto 'The Wave' (F6c) which was definatly the coolest F6 traverse I've ever set eyes on, with amazing jugs and heal hooking sequence all along with a really nice move off of slopers to a jug which forced me to cut loose, it was a really nice line which I'd really love to do again. Then after nearly 6 hours of climbing we went onto 'Gluteas Maximus' (F7a) which is supposed to be done at low tide for very obvious reasons, the water was at knee height and then I took my first DWS fall which was actually quite enjoyable. All but one of us fell of this pitch and this bought the day to a close as daylight diminished.

I would love to give some the tougher of the routes a try now, maybe 'Cutlass' (F8a+) or 'The Barrel Traverse' (F7c). After going in once, I am alot more confident about taking the plunge.

I've had a very enjoyable weekends climbing with nearly 20 hours spent at the crags, thanks to all the people involved: Adam, Stan and everybody from London for the great tour of Berry Head.

Thanks for reading,

Ellis.

8a+ Route

Just a quick post about my recent F8a+ ascent:

At Dartrock on Sunday, I walked in for a training session and was pleasently surprised to find a newly set F8a+. I stood reading the route for a long time before going for an onsight attempt but unfortunatly used a hold wrong on the first and second attempt. I successfully did it clean on my third attempt which I was pleased with as it was my first 8a+.

I have now climbed Font8a and Fr8a+ indoors now and hope to do an Fr8b once one gets set.

Leading Ladder Bronze

Yesterday I competed at the Final of the BMC Leading Ladder in Reading... It was a very early start- waking up at about 4.30; to make it worse I had struggled to get to sleep the night before due to excitment.

I arrived at Reading for around 8.30 and signed in and grabbed my competition t-shirt, looked at the routes and did some bouldering to warm up and jumped on route at around 10ish.

I started on a technical and rather reachy Fr6C, then to the 6B+ then 7A and got each of them onsight/flash. I was eyeing up the moves on the 7B and thought that it looked very technical and pretty fingery for a 7B, I had half an hours rest and jumped on it and pulled through the moves and kept pulling and kept going and I wasn't coming if, soon after I clipped the lower-off and I was on for everything on-sight... All I had to do now was onsight the 7C for the win.

After about an hours rest with 30 minutes until the end I decided to go for the 7C, at this point the route was starting to get busy. With 15 minutes to go, I finally got an oppurtunity to get on route, I climbed most of the route effortlessly until about 3 moves from the top when I fell pulling up slack to make the final clip before the finish. With 5 minutes to go, I got another chance and blew it with two moves to go, I was pretty sure that I would have finished it on my third attempt. Time was up. I finished in third. I later found out that the winner got the 7C on the fifth attempt and second place got the same score as me but beat me on round points.

Overall I had a really enjoyable day and was happy to make the podium in my first national competition(CWIF is international). Well done to everybody who made the final.

On the 7C

Photo Credit: Gary Willis