I managed to fall off an 18m project of mine on the second last hold on the weekend. Isn’t that a fun experience. The final hold is a flat undercling above your head that you push up into then reach up to a sloper to clip the anchors off. On its own its not a particularly hard move but when you’re a bit pumped it’s a killer for me. It comes after doing the crux moves at about half height of the route and then a grade 23/24 head wall to reach it.
I seem to have a habit of falling of routes above traditional ‘cruxes’ and very close to anchors. It can be very frustrating experience but quite often it motivates me more to actually do a bit of training and work on my weaknesses.
Interestingly before I set off on this particular attempt I was very nervous as well. To the point I was actually shaking a little nad had to focus my breathing to calm down. This hasn’t really happened to me before on a sport route and i think it may have been a little performance anxiety? Weird.
Either way the route certainly has me hooked (as if it didn’t already before now) and my motivation to do it is very high. I know I can do the route. Ive just got to hold on for one more move, although there is still one more hold on the route I havn’t yet fallen off….
here is a pretty bad pic of me starting the crux sequence