Froggatt day trip 25th March 2012

Due to unfortunate circumstances involving minibuses the originally planned weekend in the peak district was shortened to a day trip. The destination was Froggatt with a start of 7am :(. Not especially nice the day after the clocks go forward. After Wiil had arrived to take me and Amelia we picked up Inga and Jim then headed to Sainsbury’s to fill up the tank. When we arrived at the petrol station the bus had already left ... Challenge accepted. We filled up and left for the motorway aiming to catch up. 7 junctions later we managed to catch up and overtake the minibus. After we overtook we just kept on going, no reason to slow down and go with the bus. We got to the roadside car park for Froggatt and walked in. The walk in was a lot longer than I remembered it to be but we got to see some impressive landscape pictures. Or more accurately, a large amount of fog that blanketed everything below us. The mist/fog was still at the height of the crag when we descended to sunset slab for the start of the day.
As a quick background for my plan, Wiil had told me of a day he had at Froggatt when he did Sunset Slab, Tody's Wall and 3 Pebble Slab in a day. This was my aim. Given the style of route that sunset slab is I decided to solo it rather than lead. Despite the moving mist the rock was dry and grippy. Once I got to the flakes Wiil pointed out a pocket that takes a slider which more than likely changes the grade to VS. I topped out just as everyone else was arriving. The groups were divided and started to split. I didn't get to see many people after this point so I shall try to run through my knowledge of their days now :)

Josh, Lillian, Harry and David - Leading practice using Slab and Crack by Sunset Slab and then first leads on Soft Option. Josh also onsighted 3 pebble slab after a quick lunch break.

Jim and James - Sunset crack from Jim then a rescued attempt at 3 Pebble Slab from James then Chequers Crack with whippers from, I believe both of them, and a nice finale on Chequers Buttress from Jim.

Lidiya and Richard - Lidiya soloed Sunset Slab at the start but beyond that and a 3 Pebble Slab lead I have no idea what else they did :(

Matt Lally and Amelia - Amelia started with Heather Wall and had a slight bit of trouble with running out of gear. The top set up was a slight epic too. Matt had a mini-epic on Allen’s' Slab with gear as well. From what I have heard he ended up borrowing cams from another climber to finish the traverse.

The group I was with was technically several. Myself and Inga were paired, as was Matt Harris with Wiil and Frosty appeared for the day. We left Sunset Slab with the intention of Tody's Wall. I nabbed the first lead and got more stuck getting onto the block than on the crux. Once I had managed to get onto the perched block, without whaling :D, I swapped the cams in the upper and lower break and psyched myself up for the crux. A few test pulls later and I was grunting my way through the rock-over. The jaunt up to the crack was scary but before long I had a massively overcammed red dragon in the crack. This proved my last piece of gear as I ran out the rest to the top. Inga and Matt seconded up leaving the gear in place for Wiil to lead through. Both of them had trouble getting onto the block and with the crux. Inga even did the crux with a high left foot. When Wiil led through my gear he replaced the red cam to a much better placement a few inches higher. The ironic part of this was that when it was to be removed it had walked almost too far to be removed. My placement was worse but came out a lot easier :P. After Tody's Wall we went a bit further right to try 3 Pebble. Surprisingly this was nowhere near as scary as I thought it would be. Out of the 2 pieces of gear I placed only 1 was placed with confidence, the small purple cam was placed a bit out of my sight and was level with my feet one move later. Upon inspection from Wiil who seconded after Inga and Matt again, it was pushed into the pocket enough to stop camming and become a passive piece of protection. Not something I had expected to happen when I placed it. In conversation with people while on the route I was told I was at the crux twice, but then both moves were the same really just with different holds. Despite rumours from Wiil about the route lacking the famous '3 pebbles' (apparently one had chipped) I found them and was glad of the highly chalked one furthest to the left as a .. thumbing down hold?? . The last slab however was rather scary and each move eeked a bit more sound from me before I had topped out on my third HVS of the day. After this was probably the biggest stretch of loose time that we had. We all just milled around at the base of 3 pebble having lunch and talking.

A while later I belayed Lidiya on her lead of 3 Pebble Slab, as Wiil, Frosty, Inga and Matt left for diamond crack. When Lidiya topped out and was safe I left myself to catch up with the rest. Instead of diamond crack however I found them about to start Chequers Crack, a HVS 5c that was a massive stamina fest. The crux was low and pumpy and while Wiil put in a stellar effort getting almost to the break and placing gear along the way, getting into the cave was just too much. This was the first of two awkward lead falls I saw from this route. Once he had stopped moving Wiil was straddling the ropes with a fair amount of pain. The uppermost piece of gear was the infamous yellow cam, again in a bad placement (although this was a lot better than at Rivelin). Despite this it held both Wiil and Frosty's falls. Frosty racked up shortly after Wiil untied and lead with just the first nut (reachable from the ground) clipped. He made it to the yellow cam with little trouble and managed to get to the lip of the cave. Unfortunately for frosty the cave was not large or flat. So he somehow put his arm in a hole in the rock and looked for some gear. To his credit the blue cam he placed was bomber and he placed it in about 2 seconds. The worst bit about Frosty's attempt was that when he was trying to clip the cam he pulled up the blue rope (the rope that ran through the previous high point), so when he fell, literally seconds after placing the cam, and when he had the rope by the karabiner on the cam the rope that would have held his fall had about 2 meters more slack than wanted. Frosty hit the ground about as luckily as he could; landing on the grass and rolling backward onto flat rocks, rather than forward to pointy and sticking up rocks. Overall however the oddest part of this attempt was the remainder of Wiil's hands after holding the fall. As Frosty fell he took in what he could with his right hand, and pulled down on the blue rope with his left. You can argue over the effect of this but we think this at least slowed frosty down. The rope apparently melted the skin on Wiil's hand. Grooves can be felt in the fingers but the best/worse/most weird bit was the laceration below the finger. It's hard to describe but it was a very clean cut and not something you would expect a rope to do to you. I didn’t want a repeat of Rivelin and the route was harder than I had really done but somehow I persuaded myself that I wanted to do it and about 10 minutes after Wiil had taken his whipper I was tied in and ready to go. My ascent was a true yoyo, having left both the nut and yellow cam clipped. Beyond that however I had merely the blue cam placed and then it was back to conventional leading. The first section was indeed technical and pumpy and when I got to the lip of the cave I was pretty scared I was going to fall, but I managed to clip the blue cam and grovel my way into the cave. From this point it was ‘easy’ ground to the top, but the level of pump I had was worrying so I hung around in the cave for a bit, placed two pieces of gear and the lip of the roof and tried to shake out. When I decided I had reached the point of diminishing returns with resting I pushed out into the initial layback before the jams that followed to the top. The combined effect of both sections however had taken its toll; at the very top, barely a move from topping out I got confused and pumped. I managed to get a cam in and compose myself before committing to the final move and boom, I had topped out the route that Wiil and Frosty had fallen off and in my personal eyes led 5c tech on true trad gear .. slate doesn’t really count when it’s bolted. Wiil came up as the first second, and despite a good attempt from a persuaded Inga the second person to follow me was Frosty. Frosty did display some skill in catching a nut key thrown from Wiil while situated in the cave. We both agreed that the top section while easy is a fantastic climb and well worth an attempt.

As the day began to draw to a close and the minibus had left we went to the far left of Froggatt to try initially two routes; Strapiombante and Strapedictomy. Upon visual inspection however, the crux move of Strapedictomy was a much bigger reach than we had anticipated, the start looked horrendous and the top section got pretty nasty pretty fast. I still remain slightly unsure as to why I decided to try Strapiombante, but try it I did. Several alterations to my rack later I was stating with a rack of only cams. The holds were all good and every placement I did was ‘ok’ to pretty good, but as I got to the arête I was already getting pumped and barely halfway through the route. Unfortunately the route never lets up so despite the early section being no harder than 4b I was pumped out of my brains as I looked at my final moves. I am arguably most happy with my performance on this route due to this next part. Despite being massively pumped and facing a 5b mantle, I pushed on and slapped out for a left hold which was not even close to what I wanted, tried to adjust my hands for the mantle and … logged my first air miles on a trad route. I even almost had a Gaia Hard Grit moment with the arête. After a bit of a rest I got back on with some ‘encouragement’ from Wiil and managed to get to the top ledge. I got lucky and found a ‘good’ hold, cut loose and got my heel up. A good powerscream later and I had topped out my first grit E1 lead. Yes I fell off, Yes I didn’t do it ground up after the fall, but I’m still happy with the effort given how close I got and the fact I actually took the fall. The belay was probably the most bomber I have ever done off one anchor. I wrapped the rope around a pretty large boulder on top and made an overhand :P. A good end to an amazing day.

I think this may be my longest post yet, and it was for a single day :S damn. Catch you on the flipside. J

BUCS competition 17th March and Varsity 21 March 2012

The day of BUCS began for Captain Grunt's motley crew fairly early. However for Team Brad it dawned much earlier. Getting on a train at 6ish is not something that anyone wants to do. Somehow we all arrived at pretty much the same time. Despite the works being cold on a previous visit it was pretty warm ... must have been the several hundred people there. There was an initial mix-up with our lanyard tags - being given 'official' ones rather than 'competitors'. The groups split and started to warm up and look at routes for the beta. After a bit of a look around we went to the front desk for the briefing. Minutes later we were bouldering. The 6 of us seemed to naturally split into pairs; Brad and Jim, Amy and Lidiya, Josh and Myself. Pretty much every route there was inventive and awesome :). Some right corkers were present in difficulty and general fun. Typically the hardest routes were on the Berghaus Competition wall, but then that is what you expect :P. Several routes looked initially hard but turned out much easier, as is the way with many competitions. Everyone did well and overall we improved on last years performance which is what the university wants. :)

Then varsity :). It may have started slightly late but there was enough turnout to make it worthwhile. All the routes again were interesting with some awkward overhanging routes on the arch. Everyone fought hard and as the time limit neared the end people from both DMU and Leicester had racked up a fair count of points and were trying the hardest routes present, the most obvious being a heinous cave route that required some awkward toe hooking while compressing on crimps. To my knowledge no one has done the route at all and my personal grade of it would be >V6. When the points were tallied we found just how close the competition was DMU: 132, Leicester 147. Leicester triumphed again but it was a lot closer. Next year should be interesting. I would congratulate the top scorers but I am unsure of them so I shall abstain from this part. Congratulations to the ULMC and commiserations to DMU's counterpart. Well done to everyone who took part; there was some serious bouldering that occurred.

I think that’s a pretty good summation for the time this was written. They will get better ... honest. Catch you on the flipside

Capel Curig meet 9-11 March 2012

Capel Curig. This post shall at least be on time. An even more packed bus this time, with only 2 seats for 13 people’s gear. A rather tight squeeze indeed. The stop at Telford came quickly and faster than expected we were in Wales and at the hut. This may be due to me sleeping a fair bit but that’s beside the point. After beds were chosen and the committee bunk formed we sat in the ‘common room’ and tried to decide the plan for the next day. Milestone buttress seemed to be the preference so after people started to get bored we went to bed.

Saturday started a bit drizzly but it could have been a lot worse. Being a slab, Milestone is hell in the rain and at the start of the day the rock was wet, with some precipitation falling. Split into 4 teams we started on our routes. I had Pulpit Route on the far right, Lidiya and Sarah swinging leads on Rowan Route the left, with Brad and Josh on Ordinary Route further left. Josh had initially wanted to climb Super Direct Route (HVS 4c, 4c, 4a, 5a), but backed down after an assessment of a sketchy section that his seconds, Ben and Eleri would be unlikely to be able to climb. Halfway through the second pitch or so however the rock dried up nicely and the rain stopped. The wind was consistent throughout the day helping to dry the rock. By this time the other climbers were out of my sight so I just continued up with my seconds Jake and Joe. Several checks of the topo from a photo on my phone kept me on the right path, compared to the last time I led – with Frosty in the rain. The final pitch which was most definitely not a Diff went up a chimney that was green and slipped. The holds weren’t bad, just a bit spaced and I did get a bit scared. At the top of the chimney I placed my best hold of the day, a hex that resisted almost all attempts of removal, so much so that I had to abseil down and get it out myself. From the top of the chimney I made some interesting and exposed moves to pull over a perched block and onto the tip on an arête. I unfortunately topped our 3^rd, but despite this I abseiled down last. I helped Lidiya’s group get down and then gave the same help to Josh’s team shortly afterwards. By the time I got down it was around 5 and the bus had already dropped half of the group at the hut, so there was no option for extra routes. We returned to the hut and stayed there for the rest of the night. A long game of Pass-Out was played with a brief interval of hanging from slings and roof beams. Much jokes ensued and after a fair amount of water and alcohol had been consumed we headed to bed. The last few of us up decided on Little Tryfan as the crag for Sunday.

Sunday dawned the best day I have seen on a meet this year. It’s not you Amy, honest. We woke a bit later than planned, well I did at least and decided that to get the most of the weather we should climb early and then tidy the hut in the evening. So we left nice and early for a good days climbing. Despite the reputation that Little Tryfan has for attracting groups there was barely anyone there apart from us. It took us a while to work out where the routes were from the guidebook but shortly after arriving all 5 leaders (Lidiya, Josh, Sarah, Brad and Myself) were on our routes. The routine started to set in, leaders lead, belay lead more, top out and pick another route. After I came down from my second the urge to solo overcame me, but I ended up simul-climbing a route with Josh, swinging the lead halfway through. After this I came down to find Lidiya, Jake and Joe planning a trip to the top of Tryfan. I’m not sure what persuaded me to join in but I ended up tagging along. We walked to the north face and ascended further up some sketchy gulleys. An hour or so after we got to the north face we were approaching what we thought to be the summit. Unfortunately Tryfan has 3 and we were after the furthest south. Some technical scrambling later we were next to Adam and Eve; the two blocks perched on the top of Tryfan. We all jumped between them with photo and video evidence and quickly started back to the hut so we could leave and make it back to Leicester before it was too late. The downward scramble led to a long scree slope and a nice path to the road. Before long the bus had been packed, more organised this time so it was less of a squeeze and ordered for removal. We got lost once or twice in Leicester but other than that nothing that eventful happened. Well apart from the massive chav meeting at Telford. Twas ridiculous, it even had a registration plate recognising police car parked in the car park.

Overall a pretty epic meet, and I’m glad I was there J

Yorkshire Meet March 2-4 2012

Well this is a bit late..

Yorkshire started relatively uneventfully packing the minibus pretty full. I ended up secluded from everyone by a boulder mat. When we got to the hut we unloaded and the banter started. A plan for the next day was thought up and much fun was had socialising. A few people ended up without beds but overall everyone had a good night to my knowledge.

Saturday – Hutton Roof. The weather was pretty dull and dismal. We had hopes however as we set off to the crag that no-one really knew the location of. Once we managed to find it we parked and unloaded. Unfortunately it was raining when we arrived so hopes weren’t massively high and chances of climbing weren’t the best. A few leaders did some easy routes while others were taught to place gear at ground level. After an hour or so the rain stopped and the limestone started to dry out. This led the way for some ‘actual’ climbing. Without a guidebook we ran off the memory of people who had been there before, and just plain guessing. So I looked at the original routes I had backed off due to the weather and decided on a nice route up a crack before an overhanging finish. Checking after the trip confirmed the main route to be VS 5a. The early crack was technical and fingery but good nonetheless. A low and badly protected crux move led to easier ground and a nice rest at mid height. Since all my gear had popped I took the opportunity to place 2 solid nuts before moving. I left the official route but considering I was guessing it seemed good. I moved left to massive jugs in an exposed position and finished a bit run-out. The route seemed rather popular with Amy seconding me, Ben Baxter and Matt Harris top roping it after. Brad and Jim then both led it following the official route. Around 2/3 ish the large spell of sun that we had started to disappear. Lidiya and Myself started a traverse from the top of the crag to the end. Barring an overhang/roof we didn’t go over the top we stayed on the rock the entire way through several 4b/c moves and ¼ of the final roof. Frosty managed to do the roof right to left (the opposite way to us) before we left, a boulder problem around V3/4 I think. As we got to the end of the traverse it started to rain and a decision was made at the top of the crag to head back. The night was eventful to say the least. After a trip to Booths and a meal for everyone the alcohol was broken out. I can now say I have fulfilled the necessary tradition of a naked hut run, it’s surprisingly freeing. Bullock may also now be in possession of an interesting photo of me and Amy but I shall not spoil it for anyone who has been told yet, ‘what happens on the meet stays on the meet’ J The night was pretty long but as we left the crag ‘early’ we ended up starting the staggered leaving for bed from about 12ish.

Sunday was worse overall weather-wise. We woke to rain and while throughout the day it stopped, it never got massively good. The wet weather plan we adopted was to walk to Malham Cove and Gordale Scar. No one took a rope or quickdraws so despite several people eyeing up a 7a at Malham no routes were sentL. On the top of Malham at the limestone pavement an idea was bandied around about an abseil which would have been epic but no one had any gear so the set up would have involved people getting stuff from the bus and bringing it up so the idea was canned. Gordale scar involved a quick scramble up a waterfall and over a large hill. The group ended up split up by speed and we all regrouped nearby a refreshments van. A quick return to the bus before a packed journey back to Leicester, unfortunately with the bin bags that we failed to drop off at a tip. Despite the relatively bad weather it was a good weekend at a good hut J