Ascents in The Nose

Very cool crux, but punted off after. Got it second go. Footwork is like shit after too much steep bouldering!!!

Climbed clean, but used the first blood slab variation for the lower pitch.

So close to onsight. One rest after trying various body positions at around the fifth bolt. Lovely route, want to get back on it now.

Question - is the big crack on the left (i.e. first blood) on? I used left hand in the crack for a couple of moves, right hand on small crimps on the face.

Enjoyed it. Chossy start, bouldery traverse section before the crack. Good fun.

Super awesome! Cool moves through crack before the beautiful arete. Felt it was more straight forward than First Blood.

Found it harder than Alarette with a few steeper sections through the bulges. Required a bit of thinking through some sections.

First ever trad lead

Went up the slab rather than the crack, as was not feeling super confident today, the slab makes for a less bold feeling ascent. Then up the cracks to the second anchor- rested on a bit of gear at one point after getting a bit nervy about the previous placement- the upper part of the second pitch feels good for placements, the lower part has some sections where I was less confident. All in all the usual DF trad experience - mildly terrifying. But a really fun route, next time there want to try directuss and the other second pitch, but will wait for a belayer as even this more simple variation of First Blood still felt a bit sketchy, need to build up some more confidence after not doing much LRS since lockdown

For P1 we Climbed the flake, Stayed right and gained the slab from Nose Ramp. Interesting route variation to make it a tad easier than climbing the crack. Perhaps this is supposed to be 'First Blood original route' ???

Eoin seconded P2 in the dark , and then we rapped off.

Only in dairy farm can you green point a "trad climb". Still finally led it all just on gear. Spurred on by the new cams Sank a pretty full rack of protection from BD #3 down to the little tiny ones.

An effective litmus test for current level of fitness (or a lack of therein).

[Link up to Alarette]. Still used the bolts. Didn't lead it completely on gear.

[linked from P1 first blood] We did a headtorch dance, swapping them over as I set off, (worried that mine was going to die) but in the end it was probably unnecessary! Causing Al to belay me in the pitch dark. I had a bit of fun with the gear. first getting a BD microcam stuck then freed, and then I managed to get a Totem cam well and truly stuck, but not carrying a nut tool, it needed a rescue 🙈😅 (standard).

With blowtorches

Night ascent. Planned to lead this all on trad gear, but in the dark everything is harder to see. Ended up placing cams of the perfect size lower down, with nothing for the traverse/finger crack. So sacked it and used the bolts. I did remember the crux sequence, which was a small condolence given my arsing about below

Setup a toprope, but this time actually used the bolts. Last time did it all trad, but the crux moves over to the left to get to crack just felt super exposed so was happy to get a couple of quickdraws in. Not sure how I had the nerve to do it without them last time, especially as it was solo. Climbed it a couple of times today, super fun route.

Seconded pitch 1 and led pitch 2. Pitch 2 certainly gets the heart rate going a little.

first multi-pitch trad (1st pitch real chossy)

Rope solo, sooo close to the onsight but one fall on the crack that closes off the first pitch. Did the whole route trad, but the movement from the top of the flake across to the left to the crack feels exposed without using the bolts. Fun route - nearly fell off the end of the second pitch was done in.

Faff to setup a ground anchor, ended up using a hex, two nuts and a cam, cause I just don't trust that those big chunks of rock will not shift around.

Scary second pitch