Ben Heason update....Deep Water Solo festival and a 50 footer!!
25th Oct 2011
Ben Heason sends us an update from a pretty exciting summer of action...!!
Hi Guys, sorry I’ve not been in touch with any updates for a while, but here’s a bit of a climbing update from my summer. I've mainly been concentrating on red pointing, down at the Cheedale Cornice. Did “Bricktop” (8b) a few weeks ago and “32” (8b+) a few days ago. (Mike Hutton got a few photos of me on it about a month ago, though I've not seen the photos yet)
Had a weekend in the awesome trad climbing area, Bohuslän (where the video Crackaholic is filmed) in Sweden in July. It was very hot, so not ideal conditions for granite but was great to check the place out.
Took a 50 footer off the classic E8 “Minaret”. I managed to successfully negotiate the very dangerous and technical lower arête but fell off the last move, but there’s gear in by then. Was disappointing to fail but it was one of my favourite climbing experiences in years, going for it (after top rope practice) despite shockingly bad conditions…
In August I wet out to Norway for an international Deep Water Soloing competition, managing to avoid humiliation by finishing 11th (and second in the speed comp I think).
I had 5 days on Lundy in August and surprised myself by on-sighting my first E7 since Venezuela (2005). A very dangerous slab called Matt Blanc (E7 6b). Got pretty scared, as did Miles who was belaying… It was nice to know that I can still do it, but I think I may be getting too old for this stuff...
Also managed my remaining Lundy Extreme Rock tick, the Pat Littlejohn classic “Promised Land” which was a memorable outing. As were the three Extreme Rock ticks in Bosigran’s Great Zawn, and Littlejohn’s other masterpiece “America” at Carn Gowla. Some fun mid-grade sea cliff classics.
I also went to Sicily for a long weekend last week, and gave a slideshow at the San Vito Climbing Festival which seemed to go down really well – some info here,
http://www.
I’m off to Mali with Miles in 4 weeks. I guess you may well have an order backlog, but any chance of a rack of Helium cams, by 16th November? Used some of Miles’s on Lundy, bloody awesome! We’ll be taking a double rack of cams to Mali, hence Miles’s not being enough on their own.
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