08 Friday Feb 2013
Posted in Climbing
For my followers:
Due to storage limitations I am moving my blog to http://mattcox.net/
I hope you will continue to visit my site, I have added a Follow plugin to enable email notifications of new posts.
Thanks for reading
17 Thursday Jan 2013
‘Threadbare’ F7c+, Torbryan Quarry.
Posted by Matt Cox | Filed under Climbing, Photography, Sport Climbing
31 Monday Dec 2012
Posted in Back Care, Bouldering, Climbing, General, Photography, Sport Climbing, Trad Climbing, Travel
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 7,900 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 13 years to get that many views.
06 Thursday Dec 2012
Posted in Climbing, Sport Climbing
It would seem I have over done it slightly in the last few months. Two weeks in Spain followed by excessive work including a fair amount of setting both on the ropes and bouldering.
I have caused an over use injury to my drill arm, I’ve decided to call it ‘Setters Bicep’ a combination of a tear in the lower part of my bicep and the well-known Tennis Elbow.
Tennis Elbow Image – Red spot on left showing point of irritation / pain.
I originally noticed the pain roughly 5 weeks ago, I obviously ignored it to start with thinking it would go away. Well it didn’t, a few weeks later I went to Brean for a photo shoot, one thing lead to another and I found myself pulling back onto ‘Brean Topping’ 8a+/b.
This obviously didn’t help the arm and I ended up seeing a Osteo 2 days later for treatment.
Prognosis being 10 days complete rest from climbing, massage, ice and stretching and all should be good again before christmas.
27 Tuesday Nov 2012
Posted in Climbing
Click on the link below for info:
http://stevewinslow.net/bristol-climbing-scene-christmas-party/
27 Tuesday Nov 2012
Posted in Bouldering, Climbing, Photography
This image was taken whilst setting for the recent UCR Festival
The start of a problem I now name ‘Slab Art’
20 Tuesday Nov 2012
Posted in Climbing, Photography
A few weeks ago a small team of us went to check out Coppett Hill for the day, a predominantly soft sandstone crag with many pebbles, a lot of which fall out as soon as you touch them. With the nature of the rock being very unpredictable we settled for a day of short easy solo’s and top roping.
The pain of pebble to knee!
The crag was quite hard to find and as a result of that we only saw about half of it, but all the more reason for a return visit one day. The most impressive line we saw was that of ‘White Deer Arete’ E6 6b, at 9 meters tall we decided to drop a rope down it for a little ‘Timmy’ top rope. Even the sun came out for Tom’s top rope flash ascent.
Tom on ‘White Deer Arete’ E6 6b
31 Wednesday Oct 2012
Posted in Climbing, Photography, Sport Climbing, Travel
For the sake of keeping my blog going (which proves difficult sometimes) I wanted to write a little about our recent trip to Spain… then relised I didn’t have much to write, so I’ve put together a short photo collection instead. They say photo’s speak a thousand words, which is ideal for me and more interesting for you!
It wasn’t the smashing hard routes trip I was hoping for. Due to a set back with my back at the end of August, I never got back up to fitness.
That said it was real nice to get away, soak up some rays and climb on pockets for the first time!
Steve on a F6a+, Siurana. Photo: Matt Cox
Steve and I started at Siurana, with no car, we got a lot of walking under our belts. It was way to hot to climb in the sun, so mainly morning and evening sessions were the order of the trip. Jason joined us 4 days later and we continued to do battle with the sun and walk ins.
Jason climbing into the sun at Siurana. Photo: Matt Cox
Steve concentrating on ‘Crosta Panic’ F7a+, El Pati, Siurana. Photo: Matt Cox
Jason on ‘Ardi Belltza’ F6b+, Siuranella Est, Siurana. Photo: Matt Cox
Myself looking very confused by being unable to do at least 5 moves on ‘Terrones de Azucar’ F8a+, even in isolation! Photo: Steve Winslow
Ben pulling through the crux on an amazingly steep F8a, Margalef. Photo: Matt Cox
After a very sweaty week Ben, Heather and Al joined us. With new team members, knowledge and it being too hot in Siurana, we moved onto Margalef which offers a larger choice of shaded crags. I’ve never climbed at a pocket filled destination before, so this was a great change of scene.
This was the same route, higher up as the angle started to ease. Photo: Matt Cox
Steve displaying a classic Margalef belay stance. Photo: Matt Cox
Ben on-sighting ‘Voladurum’ F7c, Margalef. Photo: Matt Cox
Wide angle view of ‘Voladurum’. Photo: Matt Cox
‘Gravity Glove’ F8a, Margalef. Photo: Steve Winslow
The grey pocketed head wall of ‘Gravity Glove’ F8a. Photo: Steve Winslow
So back from Spain and straight into the winter comp season! Time to get strong.
Setting for UnderCover-Rock’s first round boulder comp Oct 2012
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18 Tuesday Sep 2012
Posted in Climbing, Photography
Well … It seems that I’ve managed to use all the free storage space on WordPress, so just testing out using Photo’s on G+ as storage and inserting the URL into my post.
Graffiti in Bristol City Centre
24 Friday Aug 2012
Posted in Climbing, Photography, Sport Climbing, Travel
The summer has been rather busy this year, among, work, SPA Assessment, extra work, building wall alterations and attempting to get out climbing, there hasn’t been much time for rest and recuperation.
A quick round-up of the crags visited and routes I have done in the last 2 months.
A weekend trip to Shropshire. Saturday we visited the large LLanmynech Quarry, most routes being around 30m, the highlight being ‘Humpty Dumpty’ F6c+ ***. Sunday was spent at the short power endurance crag of Dinbren, a really nice natural limestone crag on top of a hill. Here I managed to flash the classic ‘The Bandits’ F7b+*** and RP ‘Elite Syncopations’ F8a ***, a great end to the weekend.
A flash trip back to Bristol for a days work and Ben and I were back on the road to North Wales. We had 4 days in the Llandudno area, conditions were not great for LPT so we ended up checking out a few of the A55 crags too. Llanddulas Cave being the best of the lot, we also visited Waterfall Crag… Surprise surprise it was wet!
We did get a couple of visits down to LPT over the 4 day trip, where I redpointed ‘I’ve Been a Bad, Bad Boy’ F7c+ *** (for the short) and on our last day somehow just about slapped my way up ‘Mussel Beach’ F8a ***.
A week of back pain followed, not surprising really! And then we were in with a weeks wall building at UCR. We made a few alterations to the bouldering room and a couple of volumes.
The Ingleton Waterfall Trail walk
Apparently it’s good luck in Yorkshire to hammer coins into dead, fallen tree’s!
3 days later Prajak + family, Aimee and I headed up to Yorkshire for a weeks camping in the rain! Having not climbed at all since North Wales I was pretty weak and tyered and we didn’t manage to do much climbing all week. Our last evening staying at Malham campsite Jak and I went for a quick evening session on a few short F7a/F7b’s and back to camp for a Thai curry dinner.
The most impressive waterfall of the walk
So not the most productive 2 months where climbing’s concerned and now we’re 5 weeks away from our Sirurana trip. I was hoping to be in really good shape right now and to keep the fitness up. Unfortunatly that is not the case… so… time to work my normal hours again, attempt to get back injury free and get fit again, without over doing it. Hmm… how would one go about that I wonder!?
Matt Cox 