Monty

After a few false starts I entered my first bouldering competition, not entirely sure if I was going to end up an embarrassing failure.  In the end, it was more fun than I had at a climbing wall for many years.  I went for the "Easy" option which meant 20 climbs to do.  I flashed 17 of them, did one on my second attempt and failed two of them.  I doubt if I had the time to do the 30 climbs in the "Hard" option.  And absolutely no way would I have flashed all of them; as managed by the evening's eventual winner.  I later found out he's one of the UK's best climbers, probably the best for his age, but it's still a pretty unbelievable accomplishment.

I also ended up doing a pile of photography for the organiser, which gave me another good excuse for sticking to the "Easy" option.

This action shot is of someone who did manage one of the routes that I had failed.  We all described it as more like a circus trapeze act than a "proper" climbing route.