Friday night, anticipation grew for the
weekend ahead with a very full…over filled (Adam forgive me for your bed
situation) some might say! However more the merrier and with our 2 cars and
minibus convoy of 20 people we set off from Leicester. Jack Knight (the weekend
birthday boy) was first to arrive at the hut, several hours before our arrival
– “preparing it for us” even though after a good two hour inspection not
finding the huge lounge within the hut. Charlie’s car arrived shortly followed
by mine (Callum) and quickly settled into our drinks with Katie’s minibus
arriving an hour later. Drinks flowed until
the early hours and only after Jack jubilantly informed the group
they had 5 ½ hours till they had to get up did people scurry to bed - many of
them unaware of ULMCs traditionally ‘early’ starts (nothing compared to a
proper alpine start as I’m sure Remy will inform you).
7.32am came and so did Remy…creeping into
my room delicately asking me if we were getting up in that beautifully calm way
that only Remy can. I whispered back from beneath my the layers of my sleeping
bag “it’s cool Rem Rem, I gave us an extra 10 minutes”. “Okay baby”, he
replied.
Everyone slowly awoke except for a sleepy
Marie who had forgotten we were getting up and unbeknownst to her whilst in a
deep slumber I helped her wake up by ‘relocating’ her to the floor from her
bed… Apparently she was in a deep sleep (7.55am), with my relocation turning
her dreams into the stuff of nightmares…I have no regrets.
Everyone seemed super psyched for the wet
walk I had planned and were incredibly prepared for the elements. Special
mentions go to Tom Beedle’s leisurely wake up, Campbell’s lack of layers and
Paddy’s jogging bottoms/technical softshells for the wet mountain day ahead.
Once all the vehicles had found and arrived
at the cottage at Idwal we made a slow ascent from our vehicles to the outside
world. With Jack and myself in great spirits ready for a proper QMD (Quality
Mountain Day for the uninitiated) we lead the way up towards Llyn Idwal,
following the lake for a short while. Heading up past sub-cneifion, with the
awesome Idwal Slabs and Devil’s Kitchen in the backdrop, we headed for steeper
ground. The rain was constant but not demoralizing (…well maybe for some),
people were wet but keeping a great pace (generally). We followed numerous rivers and
waterfalls, ‘cutting steps’ to make the steep sections easier, and when the
occasional ‘jug’ appeared the line of members made sure that everyone else was
aware of said jug. Group safety was top notch – careful map reading, dynamic
risk assessments, the full works! Finally we could see the mighty Cneifion
arête hiding in the clouds. After a quick re-gathering behind a sub-optimum
height boulder and a bearing check we all headed back towards the cottage and
began our descent. Saving the easier path for the decent one would presume all
the obstacles of the walk were behind us. Oh no.
Part
II The crossing of the river – Through the eyes of a DROWNED RAT (Connor Ackroyd)
By now things were looking bleak, morale
waned with each passing minute as we gradually descended down the cut. The
frequent gusts of wind whipped and whistled and several smaller members briefly
caught flight. As the group continued around the corner, the challenge began to
reveal itself, a river raging rapids of white water. As I looked around there
was a sea of blank faces, and a sensible solution seemed to evade us, but fear
not! For the ULMC possesses a Remy, the sturdy beast planted himself broadside
in the torrent, with legs like the roots of an ancient oak brave Remy offered
his services to the club. One by one members were gracefully launched across
the abyss, landing peacefully on the other side. The system was working well,
and spirits were high as Charlie stepped up to mark. One! Two! Three! And Shit!
Charlie’s in! With a stumble the poor comrade got across, with feet now twice
as cold and boots thrice as heavy. (For the record Megan also stacked it – I
saw it if no one else did). All in all it was a fantastic display, had we been
an accounting firm on a “team building exercise” we would have passed with
flying colors. Bravo.
Fast forward to arrival back at the hut…
Part
III: The Saturday Showdown
After showers and the
re-ignition of Chernobyl it was approaching 4pm and time to drown ourselves on
the inside with various forms of fermented fruit. It got to about 6pm things
were still looking well ordered, blissfully unaware of the ticking time bomb
Alcohol had hidden for us, when Toby got the games going. (I would like to make
it clear that from this moment forward I can’t remember all the events in the
exact order, it’s going to be a bit of a medley of events but whatever). I
believe things started with the ‘Roaches flip the bottle cap and make a rule
board game’ and naturally the rules began steady, ‘drink one finger’, ‘keep
your chin on the table’. However this is the ULMC, and soon beer, wine and rum
began to unshackle the cravings for nudity, and once the ‘beast’ as it were was
released, the slope got slippery. Within a matter of minutes we had Jack Knight
in a crop top, looking like the worst stripper Blackpool has to offer, and
Charlie with a pair of jeans on her head. It seemed though that clothes
swapping was not enough, and things got weird, Chris got enough feels to the
crotch to turn his bollocks blue and the rule of ‘Callum gets naked’ got called
suspiciously frequently. Callum then went upstairs for bit and later re-emerged
looking bit flustered, red faced and hair a bit ruffled, perhaps you can ‘fill
us in’ (yes indeed) about that Callum?
The Roaches game was
stopped, probably a good thing, I’d seen enough back, sack and crack to last a
lifetime, but the evening still had a bit more in store. Again Toby hit us with
another game, ‘mushroom’ kind of like buckaroo meets kerplunk, but if you lose
it’s a dirty pint for you. As the cards were, one by one, delicately arranged
around the pint glass people began to feel the crunch, wincing as they placed
their cards. With the cards leaning precariously over the edge, Toby makes his
move, but it was disaster, some cards fell, and the pint loomed. I guess
inspired by the earlier game, it was declared Toby would drink it naked and he
duly obliged, he stood on the table and went for it, displaying a hint of
scrotum just for a crowd’s pleasure.
 |
| Glorious. Majestic, Note Chris' look of wonderment. |
I can say that once
Toby got dressed again, his clothes, thankfully did stay on, as did everyone
else’s I think?
Time was getting on,
and after a solid few hours on the ale a lot of people were looking a little
worse for wear, and when the news of the 7:30am start came through, there were
a few protests to say the least. Il Capitano was not going to budge on his wake
up time though, and soon people began to trudge up to bed, but for some people,
they wouldn’t get the chance. Yes when Callum and Sophie did disappear they
politely latched the door, and when they left the dorm, they left the latch on
and oops, locked themselves and everyone else in that dorm out. It was going to
be a cold night for them! No sleeping bags looked grim, and Chris sported two
down jackets as he sulked off downstairs. Unlucky to those guys, I think you
are owed some compensation.
After straining my
mind to remember what happened, I still can’t make any sense of it, and I don’t
think I want to either, I think it’s best if we just leave the past to be the
past.
CJA
Charlie’s
account of Sunday
Sunday morning was one
of the slower exits of a hut I have ever experienced, somewhat due to a certain
incident from the night before involving Callum and Sophie (I think you can
guess what I mean!) leaving their bedroom (and Toby and Chris'!) locked from
the outside. Various phone calls to the warden eventually ended in getting the
door open, but this meant that those four still had to pack all their stuff,
clean their teeth, get dressed, and generally sort themselves out. That meant
it was left to me to start getting everyone out of the hut, but after a night
of debauchery people were in no hurry to move and we didn't leave the hut until
after 10am! After a quick discussion about the pros and cons of a day on the
Slate and deciding the gale force winds made it somewhat less than desirable,
my car headed off in the direction of The Boardroom with the minibus and other
car following behind. Only 5 minutes from reaching our destination we received
a phone call saying that the others were going to check out the conditions at
Castle Inn. A quick survey around my car suggested that everyone was more than
happy to go inside whether it was dry there or not, so we carried on to the
wall and met up with Jack. All impressed by the psicoblock, we quickly got on
having our induction for it, having fun falling onto the ridiculously cloud
like matting. Marie nestled up on a sofa and got to work while the rest of us
decided to start on the bouldering. A call from Katie told us that the others
(bar her and Connor!) were psyched for some real rock and so they were staying
at Castle Inn despite the high winds, but as me and Jack had already climbed
out the crag at our respective grades, Marie was already settled into her work,
and Chris and Jo were more than happy pulling on plastic, we felt like we'd
made the right decision. It sounded like Katie and Connor wished they were with
us as they had set up camp in the minibus for the day! After a while
bouldering, Chris and Jack both decided that they would see if they could
manage one of the blue problems, graded V8+. Both attempting it in their own
styles - Chris jumping between holds and Jack lanking between them full stretch
- they both managed to get considerably far. To the disgust of Chris, Jack
managed to get further than him by being a lanky git and managing pretty much
all of the moves statically, but sadly came off with only a fleeting stroke of
the last hold with one hand. Marie was evidently fed up of work by this point
and decided to come and join us bouldering, although by this point we were all
pretty knackered! Me and Jack shared the leftovers of his absolutely delicious
(I hear it was made by some incredibly talented people!) birthday cake for a
last burst of energy, but by 4pm we were all flagging hard and decided to head
home. Jack got in his car to make his annoyingly short journey home, while the
rest of us piled into mine for a considerably longer journey. Despite the fact
we had heard from the others a while ago that the rain had hit them and so they
were making their escape, we managed to make it home quite a bit before the
others appeared!
……………………………..
Back to Callum
Sunday morning. 7.30 and I’m cold as shit,
completely deserved. The struggle of getting everyone up was real. Usually one
goes straight to check up on whether Connor has arisen but this time I was
greeted by his sleeping mask with the words ‘fuck off’ stamped across it so
thought it best to leave him to it. After getting in touch with the warden room
‘Snowdon’ was unlocked and the hut was cleaned.
Fast forward to enroute to The Boardroom.
The sun is out, blue skies, it’s beautiful. We haven’t passed castle inn yet…
let’s go. I go to phone Remy and at that very point, low and behold, the man’s
beaten me to it. “Callum it’s so sunny let’s climb some shitting rock for once
please! Ohmagerd this weathers turning me on!!!”, “Yes Rem Rem, let’s do this
shit.”
“Paddy it looks a bit spaced, have you
forgotten to clip the last bolt?”
“It’s
cool I’m about to place some gear”
“Cool…
…wait what???!?!!”
I have a closer inspection and I see a trad
rack hanging from his gear loops and it dawns on me. Only Paddy would rock up
to a fantastic sports crag with his first route of the day being an esoteric VS
4c trad route. I respect the man for his enthusiastic approach to life. Thankfully
he leads it in great style (albeit forgetting top set up gear as he presumed
because it was a sport venue that a trad route wouldn’t need the kit!)
 |
| Paddy tradding it up at the sport crag |
 |
| Almost there... |
Remy had Sophie and Megan, dragging them up
the first few routes – one of which I tagged onto, enjoying a quick toppie in
my plimsoles. Sophie then lead a f3 and a f4 confidently with new-ish member
Megan following in good style! Toby lead and taught Campbell and James to lead
belay, scaring the crap out of Campbell on some of his first outdoor climbs! Mo,
after valiantly falling 3 times on one of the longer routes to the right (not
sure of the climb sorry) successfully got to the top of his route just in time
for the arrival of the rain. The same cannot be said for Adam who got rained
off his route, having to lower off one of the resin bolts mid-climb to escape
the elements. Don’t worry! We’ve all been there! After getting rained off around
3 we decided to head home, having got more than our moneys worth considering
the weather forecast! Oh and there was barely any wind!
 |
| Castle Inn towards the end of the day |
Thanks everyone for an awesome weekend,
Pembroke’s going to be sickkkkkkk!
