The true test is the first real
meet.
It didn't exactly start well in my
head. When the list got taken down there were 14 people on the list but
unfortunately 3 people had to drop out through various reasons. So with a 15
seat minibus and a van for gear we prepared to take 11 people to Pembroke. If
that wasn't bad enough we had to wait for half an hour for the last 3 people to
turn up :(.
Still once we actually set off it
was going well. We were going to stop for food/shopping in Newport so we
followed the motorways down south. About halfway to wales I got a phone call
from Amy. It was spurred on by a bit of texting I had been doing with herself
and Lidiya. In short the large contingent of old boys that were intending to go
to Pembroke had bailed out :(. Instead of our smallish group of students and
large group of experienced old boys it was just us students. The talk however
did reveal the situation in full.
Yes we did have only 11. Yes we had
no freshers. BUT ... we had no freshers. With all the crags we were going to
visit needing an abseil in having a more experienced group would just make
everything easier. The psych level started to rise.
And then we started to realise how bad we were
blowing it.
The van made a mistake at the M6
ending up on the toll road going north, then followed a different path to us
via the countryside of wales. This meant they pretty much bypassed Newport and
our stop. For the longest time they were behind us and when we were about to
leave Newport I got a call from Jim asking us to get them food. We decided to
not go back into the shop quickly and instead to go to another supermarket in Swansea.
That was when we started really
blowing it. We came off a junction early and got back on the wrong side. After
we turned around we worked out way back down the M4 to the correct junction we
got a call to find out that the van had arrived. We were easily an hour away
once we had got back to the motorway. And the supermarket was shut .....
We gave up on the food shopping and
just went to the campsite arriving around 1am. Thankfully Cole, Brad and Jim
and put the tents up for us so we just had to get our sleeping gear and crash
:)
Saturday
My first alarm went off at 7.30 and
I woke to hear pretty heavy rain on the tent. Considering I had an alarm set
for 8 I decided to sleep a bit more :P. Luckily shortly after 8 when I started
waking/getting up Jim, who was awake, out of his tent and getting restless ,
gave a good report on the weather. Once we started getting everyone up and
getting ready it just started getting better too. We all moved slowly but by
10am we had left and were using the sat nav to find our car park near Saddle
Head. While there was a large bank of cloud hanging over us it looked promising
and as the day progressed it actually became a pretty awesome day :).
Once we got the abseil set up we
pretty much let everyone roam free. With the ratio of leaders to seconds at
least 1:1 we started TEACHING trad. On the first meet of the year! While some
of the less experienced members were attempting easier routes the Sea mist wall
saw a fair bit of action. Brad and Jim both onsighted Pink-Un, Cole backing off
in the wet lower section and me actually finishing it :). Sea Mist saw several
ascents from various people including Jim, Cole, Brad and Tanner. There may be
more but it wasn't the focus of my attention. About half-way through the day
Kimber turned up which was awesome :). The big ginger bear returned. I must now
give a massive thanks as he helped out with the management of the group and
with teaching people the top-setup.
Probably the next most notable
thing was performed by Jim. For some reason he decided to attempt the E1
eliminate up the Sea Mist wall. The First section is apparently gear-less and
the rest of the route isn't much better...
As I was still belaying Ali up
Pink-Un I didn't pay full attention until Jim was nearly at the top slab but
even then the route wasn't over...
But he managed to power through the
run out gear in most places to top out (Photo 100-3198) his first true E1 lead
... the swine.
But someone had to second .. And
this time I was in position for photos so I'll overload you guys with this :)
After this Jim led Sea Mist but
overall we just finished up our routes and packed up the gear. After packing up
we went back to the campsite for a bit before moving to the pub for a bit of
food/drink. At the pub we discussed the plans for the next day. Becks point was
the initial plan, but given the nature of our group a change was open to
discussion. Mother Careys was a possibility but after a fair amount of
discussion and looking in the guidebook, we settled on St Govans head instead.
It had a better amount of lower grade routes and seemed the better option
overall.
Sunday
We woke a bit later and moved
slowly but it didn’t take a long time for us to be ready to go. The weather was
looking interesting … it could be could but had the potential to be really
nasty.
As we were setting up the abseil and
sending people down it started to drizzle, and got close to rain but never got
truly bad. Despite climbing on limestone we were hardy and stuck to it. Tanner
and Brad started up some VS cracks that were nowhere near as dry as they
wanted. Brad’s route was pretty thrutchy by all accounts as well :S. Around the
corner the rest of us were attempting some pretty high in the grade routes. For
example the VS I was on, was a 4c boulder problem before you hit gear. The
severe just on the left wasn’t much better either. Most of us bumbled around in
the area for a bit. Before too long however my attention was drawn to an E1
aréte I had scouted before deciding on the VS. It looked like a 1 move wonder a
bit above gear so I managed to whip up the courage for it under slight
competition with Jim. In my newfound climbing morals I shall merely say that it
was a one move wonder and while scary was pretty much over once you are
standing on the ledge on the arête. This was what I was banking on when I
started off. Weirdly though the scariest part for me was the start. Brad kindly
belayed and seconded for me so all I had to worry about was the sending issue.
After both me and Jim onsighting an E1 Tanner got pretty psyched, so we had
another attempt on the cards. Annoyingly so he waltzed up it like it was
nothing, placing less gear and moving more smoothly. All I can take for myself
is that he didn’t do the massively committing, completely unnecessary heelhook
:D. To save Jim’s onsight and Brad’s strength, Tanner abbed down the route to
clean it before joining me to commentate Jim’s attempt. This was of course
because Jim could not be outdone in climbing terms on this meet :P. Despite
destroying the E1 the previous day, bouldering 5b with no gear and a bad
landing, he got a bit freaked by the crux move on this route. After doing the
pogo a few times however he finally found the hold that Tanner and I thought he
had every time he started the crux. From this he quickly finished and topped
out. Brad seconded in his awesome style.
4 E1 lead ascents by 3 different
people is probably the hardest climbing meet in a long time :P. Shortly after
this we were packed up and leaving. I shall merely mention that for some
unknown reason I thought it would be a good idea to jug out of the area. Last
time I make that mistake :P.
The journey back was pretty
uneventful as Matt took my seat in the front and navigated back. We did however
end up emptying and cleaning the bus in front of the queue to get into the
union. It was then that the van peeps told us about a grading scale they came
up with to link stereotypical male behavior and climbing grades. Hilarity was
ensued as we quoted climbing grades and descriptions to each other while drunk
people walked past us.
Overall it could have gone worse.
Given the lack of freshers as well it went pretty well. A nice weekend of hard
climbing with a surprise visit from the big ginger bear :D.
Roll on Bowderstone.
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