With a very poor forecast Nick and I agreed we would get more out of the day if we started with a coffee and a cake at the Ice Factor. This led on to us spending the whole day indoors watching the rain and wind beat of the windows of the old aluminium smelting building. Powered by coffee, we launched onto the rock walls looking at how Nick could up his game and move away from 6a's and move into the realms of 6b and above. From here, still buzzing from our strong latte's, we navigated our way into the ice wall where we looked at a wide range of techniques that would get us pumped but more importantly, avoid the pump. The ice wall is great for ice technique, there are lots of ways to make it very inventive. From here we took a baring over to the cafe for some chicken and chips and more importantly another latte. Fed and wired we picked up where we left up on the rock walls and Nick proved that what I had said had been sinking in. With arms starting to fatigue we headed for the bolts, built multiple belays, all skills nick wanted to get even slicker at, the one handed clove hitch is child's play for Nick now. From the bolts we finished ourselves off with some dry tooling coaching in the bouldering wall before getting so pumped we could hardly remember our own names. A great productive day indoors and legs are rested for tomorrow.
