The winter in the Grampians has been a little hit and miss. With questionable weather and a series of injuries for the first time in a decade my climbing has been a little limited. I have managed to get a bunch of things done, including some cool new problems, but have not really been able to push myself fully as I was hoping would be the case this year. I’m back on the fingerboard now and should be back on the blocs in the next couple of weeks, so hopefully the year will improve. I will be aiming to peak in time for a 6 week visit to Europe over Christmas, so I have plenty of training to do if I am to put some old projects to bed.

Anyway, back to the holidays. With my mates Matt and Liam visiting from New Zealand and my local buds the Raven and Big Dave also on holidays, there was a reasonable sized crew to tackle a bunch of problems and a few of the higher and less pleasant landings. First up was Etch-a-Sketch, a long V11 with a dreadful landing. Myself and Matt were both really close, after only a couple of shots, but Matt’s lack of climbing in the last couple of months showed and he gassed out before being able to send, whilst I managed to put it to bed, straight after tearing a huge flapper in my finger. I added a new problem to Andersons, called Vendetta. An awesome 5 move power fest up a cool feature, it weighs in at about V10. There are a couple of other lines nearby to go as well, which I should be back to in the next couple of weeks.  We all sent a heap of other lines, did a load of repeats and generally had a great time. Only 8 more weeks to the next lot of holidays now…