This blog is an amalgamation of both mine and Anthony’s work,
with anything funny being courtesy of Anthony’s literary genius.
The final job before setting off to Yorkshire nearly through
a spanner into the works, and definitely put fear in my heart. On arriving to
pick up the keys at 16:00 hours from the Student Union I found that the office
was empty, which resulted in me dashing about the student union with my heart
in my mouth in search someone to help. Much to my relief, I eventually found
the necessary people sitting comfortably in the union Dinner with a few bottles
of wine, saying their farewells to Ian Read.
We departed from Leicester with a depleted force of 11 due
to the Bucs competition, but our compatriots were due to arrive Saturday night.
Despite the usual 50 speed limits the journey sped by with no other issues
other than Peate’s less than satisfactory choice of supermarket stop, and we
arrived at the swanky hut that is Lowstern at 23:00. We lit a fire, sat around
and prepared for the day ahead of us.
Saturday Crag
The morning promised a nice day. Blue with only wisps of
cloud, our view from the crag from the majority of the day was this:
After some navigational issues en route to Crookrise, we set
off slogging up to the crag as a small ‘elite’ group. With a lengthy separation
from the grit there was an initial genuine psyche to get on it. James Thyng and
Jack marched off together to spend the day ‘not having fun’ and only climbing
hard. Thyng and Knight stuck by their mantra of hard climbing for all of 15 minutes,
before Knight came galloping back to the main group, with the wind in his hair
and fire in his heart in search of a first aid kit as Thyng had taken a fall
and subsequently hurt his ankle. Here is a photo of him relaxing after said
fall:
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| James having fun, but not sending hard |
Shortly after having some tea with James, Anthony began to
walk away when his attention was turned by a voice not unlike Knight, ‘Fuck.
I’m stuck.’ Indeed he was:
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| "Fuck. I'm stuck" |
Being unable to climb due to injury, Anthony spent most of
my time taking photos, offering encouragement and walking between groups to see
how everyone was doing i.e. mincing. I decided to climb with Jamie and after
hearing Callum say he wanted to do Long Climb, but being in no particular rush
to go and do it, I decided to beat him to it. The route was really fun ‘thrutchy’
climbing, but the further up the route I got the more my psyche dropped as the
bones in my fingers began to feel the cold. I topped out to see Marie’s
cheerful grin having cruised up yet another severe called Octopus. Once my
belay was set up Jamie unfortunately struggled with the awkward first moves and
instead Lianne gurned her way the crack, as I became increasingly cold at the
top. Callum climbed a jammy and slightly green route parallel to me called The
Forager with Remy following in toe. Under the guidance of Callum, Jane added
another Vdiff to her tick list with Jamie in toe. Once I had finally re-joined
the others at the bottom and started tucking into Remy’s tea and my pork pies,
Jack and James hobbled over to chat. Mincing ensued as the pair, and those who
were there to witness, regaled us with the hilarity of Jack becoming really
very stuck in the initial crack on James’ route .Despite a lack of climbing, a
group of us whiled away a few hours having some fun again; some of which
revolved around Jane’s effing and jeffing.
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| Hard at work doing what we do best |
Undeterred by the cold Jim had been
dragging a somewhat reluctant Joel around the crag ticking off a HVS (The Sole)
and an E1 (Hovis). During some lunch he began eyeing up the E2 ‘The Shelf’, and
with the mincing crew all keen to watch him struggle from the comfort of their
down jackets. As a result of Joel’s lack of psyche, I was recruited to second.
My style of ascent was unsurprisingly poor as the cold numbed my hands, but it
was a super fun route. Failing to take into account Jim’s superior down
climbing abilities I followed him down a sketchy route, and 10metres from the
bottom of the down climb, I decided to climb back up and find a safe way down. Around this time Remy climbed Long Climb, as
did Callum which involved ropes getting jammed and stuck, whilst Marie ticked
another severe called Buster.
The warming sun did not stay around as long as we would have
liked. On the horizon was spotted a less than savoury looking cloud. Before long it was upon us:
Yet nothing could diminish Jim’s spirits.
What fell from the sky was more akin to Styrofoam than snow,
nevertheless the cold was bitter and only a few more routes were climbed before
the group headed back down to the bus.
(Minus Knight and Thyng who left when the snow hit). With the day drawing to a close Jack and James began what
was to be a lengthy retreat to the van. Upon arrival it turns out that Jack and
James has only been sitting there for 15 minutes tops, despite having left quite
some time before the rest of us. All of us looking forward to a roaring fire,
dinner and a beer, we headed back to the hut.
Upon return to the hut, the fire was already lit by Brad. We
warmed ourselves up and began preparing dinner in drips and drabs, Jane
preparing a feast of Sushi that looked amazing for us all to pick at. We
awaited our BUCS companions, hearing early news of success. They arrived at
around 9pm to warm greetings and jubilation. Drinks were had and merriment was
made – and The Table made its appearance. The apparent record for 21 traverses
of The Table held by Frosty was challenged Ellie being the most competent of
current members reaching 22(?):
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| Our resident table traverse wad |
Sunday at the Foundry from Anthony’s perspective:
“Sunday and the forecast was awful. Splitting up seemed to
be the only option, a shame, considering we had only just been reunited. Being
unable to walk long distances, and the outdoor routes being far beyond my
league I was allowed to join Charlie’s car for indoor activities at The
Foundry, Sheffield with Jane, Emily and James.
After a relatively simple 90-minute journey, we arrived and
enjoyed ourselves. Despite James being unable to participate physically he kept
up good spirits. Charlie and Emily did a few leads but mainly kept to the
already set up top ropes. Jane had managed to complete a sport lead whilst I
mainly took it slow on the traverse wall, flexing muscles and fingers than had
seen little use for 3 months.
As an establishment, The Foundry is quite impressive with
multiple routes suitable for every level of climber. After a cup of tea in the
mid-afternoon, we got back on it for a few hours before heading home around 6,
to make it home at a reasonable hour. We did not stop for customary KFC to my
disappointment.”
Sunday Walk from Peate’s perspective:
Those of us who decided we didn't leave Leicester only to go
indoor climbing, but neither did we want to spend the day sitting round at
Malham Cove. We followed the easy winding path that brought us into the hugely
impressive gorge that leads to Gordale Scar, enjoying the opportunity to
ridicule Marie’s hangover. One can confirm that climbing up Gordale Scar in
relatively not windy conditions is more fun easier than doing it in reverse,
with high wind speeds. After ‘topping out’ the scar we stood around eying up
routes in the gorge and taking in the sites.
We ambled along in the vague
direction of the Pennine way, as the weather began to pick up with snow blowing
in from behind us; we hid behind a wall to have a quick bit of ‘scran’ as
Connor would put it. After a quick respite, the snow had really started to
settle and the clouds had rolled in leaving little visibility.We all ogled the map in an attempt to locate a vague path
which by not would be covered in snow. I decided to follow what could sort of
look like a path and began marching across the Dale. With the wind in our faces
now, despite Marie’s complaint, we did regular map practice. Eventually our
combined map reading abilities found us in the safety of Malham tarn.
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| two children writing their names in the snow |
An enjoyable stroll around the tarn brought us onto the
Pennine way and a car park of fresh snow, which was the scene of a ‘who could
draw the largest snow cock’ competition. We finally reached the Limestone
walkway at the top of Malham Cove and strolled down to watch Jim attempting
Rose Coronary. We made it to the pub for cheesy chips and a pint just before
the heavens opened!
Sunday Malham Cove from Jim’s perspective:
“As the weather looked like it was going to turn decidedly
shit around midday on the Sunday, myself and Jack were psyched to join Frosty
and Price for some cranking at Malham. Others were also psyched for steep,
bulgy, sidepully rock, or just didn’t fancy a walk, and so Ellie, Maya, Amy and
Steve came along as well. With Frosty apparently knowing where he was going the
bus and cars followed- however, he got too enthused about the routes we were
talking about and missed several turnings to Malham before eventually we took
the right one- this was certainly not the quickest way!
Having parked we set off to the crag and spent a good 10
minutes on arrival trying to work out where the holds were on the super steep
crag. Frost set off up Consenting Adults 7a, the classic ‘warm up’ route for
the crag, which made sense given that he had done it several times and knew
where it was. It only took a few clips for Frost to work out that he was in
fact on the wrong line, the 7a+ next door; we were losing faith in his guidebook
abilities rapidly. Fortunately Price turned up with a proper guidebook shortly
afterwards! I set off up Rose Coronary, the other 7a, to get the clips in, bolt
to bolting it and working out the moves. While Jack and Ellie got stuck into
Consenting Adults, Steve had a toppy on Rose and did all the moves apart from
the very technical layaway crux.
Meanwhile, the weather had turned quite unpleasant and
thoughts turned (with a mixture of hilarity and concern) to how the walking
group were getting on as the rain and snow fell about 2 metres away leaving
bone dry, if freezing cold rock. Brad and Lianne turned up having bailed off
the walk and Brad belayed me on my first lead attempt on Rose, where I fell off
at the lower off due to not being able to feel my fingers and got the worst hot
aches ever. After an abortive top rope on Consenting, Maya, Amy and Steve
decided they would have more fun in the pub and headed off into the snow, while
myself, Ellie and Jack watched Price attempt Raindogs (8a). After two more failed
lead attempts on Rose from me despite taking a hand warmer with me and Jack and
Ellie failing to do the moves they had done earlier in the day we pulled the
ropes and got ready to go, just leaving time for me to have a quick top rope of
Raindogs for the future. Needless to say, it was desperate and I won’t be
getting up it anytime soon- what Price termed ‘the jug on the route was in fact
a slightly sloping flattie! Good to try to get an idea of what the next level
is like- 8a is hard!
Having packed up we headed down to the pub, where we bought
the world most expensive pint before piling into the bus for the trip home.”
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