Ok, so it’s been quite a while since my last post. We spent a week in Val Daone concentrating more of my efforts on building camp fires on an evening than I did to my climbing. The area has a lot of climbing but unfortunately it didn’t look too inspiring. I found a few cool looking lines but psyche was running quite low, following on from Val Masino’s grades everything felt quite hard too! I spotted a very impressive looking line up a 30 degree wall full of crimps, it was given 8b but looked possible given that it was all my strong points; a lot of moves through tiny crimps on a wall just steep enough to make things interesting. I finally plucked up the energy to give it a good go and spent a good hour working the moves. I managed every move and just had one section left to link; so happy with my efforts for the day I decided on one more attempt to get the link and call it a day, sharp crimps had my skin in bits so a day’s rest before a go at the full send would have been perfect. Typically on that final attempt I hit a climber’s worst nightmare… I got the link but burst a fingertip. Not just a slight hole but I pulled hard enough to put the crimp straight through my tip, making a very deep hole with blood dripping down my hand. That put an end to Val Daone : ( we had planned to leave in the next few days so it wasn’t too bad but meant the 8b had slipped away when I felt so close.