ULMC Portland Meet 2016
Thursday - Toby
Exams finished, for most (Lol Chris), we were ready for the freedom that Portland brings and excited to get back to what we love most… Mincing hard! The thursday bus set off nice and early, with Adam at the helm giving us smooth sailing all the way. Upon arrival at the campsite, I jumped out the van to notify them that we were here and to finalise details of how many/how long etc and was told to come back as we left. After a speedy erection of camp (hehe) we were off to the ULMC standard Thursday destination of the cuttings. However, not before checking in at reception, where after a good hour, they were still trying to decipher their own pricing system while Paddy stood there waiting for them to realise his presence at the desk. This was a lost cause however as many algorithms and equations go into that system and require full attention, so Paddy decided to leave them to it.
We pulled into the car park and immediately had almost fucked it… I stress almost! Thankfully Adam knows how to deal with wet muddy patches like the one we parked on top of, and slowly slowly reversed us out, and into a much more sensible parking spot. The short and easy walk-in never ceases to surprise in comparison to almost every other crag that we go to. Not having to walk up a huge hill or tackle a sketchy downclimb is always nice. This being Phoebe’s first time climbing with ropes, I took the time to introduce her to everything she’d need for the trip ahead: tying in, belaying, lowering off the anchor. It felt a bit odd on the last meet of the year to be introducing someone new to roped climbing, but it ended up being very successful with Phoebe completing her first lead by the end of the trip.
To get Phoebe started, I headed up the juggiest route I could see, so that I could ease her into it. Halfway up the route however, I began to hear the faint sound of chirping. “There must be some birds nesting on the top of the cliff”, I thought to myself, before pulling on the mother of all jugs to find myself face to face with the most unexpected sight. This was no ordinary jug, but the origin of the chirping and the home of five baby blue tits! I did my best to pass them by in peace and not to disturb them, but not long after me and Phoebe had made our ascents the unimaginable happened…
It came as a flash past our eyes, mistaken as a falling rock to many, but not to our eagle eyed Emma Yates, who spotted its true identity as one of the very same baby birds lost from its brethren! All at action station! The bird had to be returned! We needed a strong climber who could one handed, climb from the lower ledge who we could pass the bird to, up to the hole that was the nest. Callum being the honourable captain that he was, declined to help this poor defenceless fledgling, as there was the mention of some razor sharp crimps on a small bit of rock round the corner that he would rather split his fingers on (which subsequently almost happened to both Howie and Jake). So it was Paddy to the rescue! He quickly bound up to the ledge and the human chain could begin, Emma to me, then me to Paddy. Upon placing the chick in Paddy’s hand he let out a series of girlish yelps! Apparently he wasn’t expecting the living bird to move in his hand and was ‘freaked out’ by the ordeal. Gladly he managed to place the baby back into the hole with its siblings. Not convinced with the safety of Paddy’s placement (as if that’s the first time that’s ever been said) Ellie sauntered up to double check, giving it a slight poke in as our fears were confirmed.
To finish up the day Remy and Paddy decided to jump on ‘The Sod,’ a well renowned climb within the club and quoted by Callum as being ‘the hardest route in the world’. Being 5+ it was the start to the hard climbing that they wished to carry on the rest of the trip with, unfortunately this did not go to plan. Then, after a tough layback that neither of the two could quite make, they transitioned to the next section of the route, with Paddy taking a couple falls. However, Remy managed to master this move eventually, although not without struggling with a fast onset of the giggles fuelled by the comments of the many onlookers not helping with his progress. The fit of laughter got the better of him and he dogged his way up onto the upper ledge to finish the route.
As the sun began to lower in the sky we headed back to camp for dinner and a good night sleep. Dinner was made all the more delicious for me and Adam with the addition of 25 profiteroles with chocolate dipping sauce, which we made runny once again with Paddy’s MSR Windburner. Cheers mate.
Friday
Friday everyone headed to the gleaming white faces of battleship, we clambered down to Battleship back cliff. Due to Adam’s hatred of early morning down climbs there was a lot of back and forth as Adam faffed around to try and find another route that wasn’t a steep descend. Defeated, Adam proceeded to down climb, but not before throwing his bottle down, narrowly missing poor Phoebe and Emma.
Aforementioned down climb
Sophie, repping full ULMC merch, was keen to start looking for routes worthy of her waddiness:
Wad in her natural habitat
Emma, Phoebe, Adam and I started on some easier routes to warm up for the day; Braer Rabbit (4a) and This is This (4c*) on battleship bloc slab. Meanwhile the club tradition of ascending Dream of White Porsches had begun. Throughout the day Remy, Paddy, and Sophie amongst others, on-sighted it, as well as Toby who dragged Phoebe up it to second it. Sufficiently warmed up, Phoebe, who prior to Thursday in Portland had never climbed outside other than bouldering in font, decided she was ready to tackle her first lead after casually seconding Dream. She coolly lead Dr Sole and Mr Sole at the Veranda. I think it’s safe to say Phoebe bossed sport, giving everything a fearless go and impressing everyone.
Phoebe's First lead, Dr Sole and Mr Sole
As the day progressed, the sun began to shine and clearing the clouds and increasing psych for climbing for those at the veranda. The mincing commenced: Sophie, Callum (any excuse to take your top off) and I took the view of ‘why climb when you can work on your tan?’ This mood spread, especially when Jake arrived with beers and music, resulting in most of us basking and napping. This was briefly interrupted by cries of horror from the pasties of the group (Emma, Toby and Adam) who discovered they had been using factor 20 instead of 50. They then proceeded to shrink away to the shade before they melted or burnt. Toby has a beautiful vest tan line to show for it. There was however some hard climbing being done elsewhere, Ellie’s account:
After negotiating the slightly tricky decent to Battleship, Jake and I headed over to the far end, to where the land fell away due to the massive landslide. After warming up there, Jake speedily returned to his favourite habitat: the bouldering mat. A bit later on I persuaded him to leave his chilling spot to put the draws in No Man is An Island for me. An attempted onsight of this demonstrated to me that I was sadly '2 inches not strong enough' for the strengthy reach through the first overlap. After doing the rest of the route, I figured out a start that involved all sorts of flagging and terrible holds and was ‘well harder than 6c’ but I was determined not to get shut down by short-person issues! Then Jake put the clips in Zinc Oxide Mountain a pumpy 7c+ while I belayed Paddy on an onsight attempt of the classic Bouys will be Bouys, 6b+. He gave it a great effort and took some good falls! In the end it proved too sunny and he left it for later in the trip. Paddy then returned the belay favour for me and I nearly onsighted Jurrassic Shift. After working the midheight stopper move, I decided to leave the baking hot wall for another day too! It had turned into a lovely hot sunny day so a fair bit of chilling and mincing was in order!
Soon after arriving back to camp in the evening we heard the second bus had broken down just outside oxford. The bus had been making odd noises. They’d pulled over to find that the wheel nuts had fallen out. The camp promptly became a buzzing team trying to rescue the bus and get them on their way here...only to find shitty self-drive buses gave nothing but dead-end numbers Out of the frenzy Paddy emerged cool and collected, “I’ve got a guy. He’ll sort it”. Yes! We all thought, Paddy’s saved the day again... until his guy arrived and promptly announced the holes for the nuts were fucked and therefore so was the bus. So sadly, no heroic ending, everyone on the second bus had to wait to be taxied back to Leicester or towed. Worse still, as a result I didn’t get the cookies I’d asked for the second bus to get for me.
Saturday from Paddy’s perspective
Neil Howitt joined us on Saturday and with him, Ellie and Jack spent the day redpointing “Is Vic There?” (7a) and Wolfgang Forever (7a). Late in the day the send train left the station as they each managed successful consecutive leads.
Ellie redpointing “Is Vic There?”
Remy took some of the group down to Blacknor Beach where some serious mincing occurred interspaced by ascents on the Diamond Slabs and in Lunar Park. The descent down there was an unpleasant scree slope which got significantly more unpleasant if you tried to take a “shortcut” and scramble up straight to Blacknor North.
Emma on Diamond Solitaire with Phoebe
Jake continued to impress us all by onsighting England’s Dreaming (7a+). A superb top 50 route on flowstone.
Jake on England’s Dreaming (7a+)
Toby and I got to work on Cake Walk (6a) before setting our sights on the largest arete on the island, Pregnant Pause (6a+). Unfortunately being a top 50 polish route (as Remy would say), it was occupied with a three person queue so we started on Go With The Flow (6a). I would like to be able to say I breezed up it but in reality I fell off after getting my feet in a mess after stepping over the route's namesake, a spot with permanent seepage. Toby managed to second it cleanly and afterwards we headed back to Pregnant Pause, forgetting absolutely nothing at the base of our last climb. I thought Pregnant Pause was fairly straightforward climbing, a view not shared by the New Zealanders before us or Jake after us, perhaps due to me being able to reach past all the hard climbing at the top.
Afterwards, Toby and I returned to Blacknor North. I wanted to do the route that resulted in a heli-rescue for Callum last year, Reptile Smile (6a+). We didn’t have a guide book but Toby remembered the route well and he was sure about the line. After I got half way up it, Jake wandered over and informed us both that I was not on Reptile Smile but instead on Talking Smack (5+), so much for Toby’s assurances. I finished the route and it was Toby’s turn to tie in to the sharp end of the rope.
We still did not have a guide book, but Toby was really really sure that he knew the line for this next endeavor. He started to lead Slings Shot (5) but right near the top, fell off and took the Whipper Of The WeekTM, stopping a few feet short of a sizable ledge. After getting very angry with himself for falling on a 5, he was informed once again by Jake that the route finding had gone amiss once again and he had in fact not fallen on a 5, but had deviated to Crocadilia (6a). After realizing his mistake and getting on the right route, Toby completed Slings Shot, but not before terrifying everybody at ground level by spending several minutes with his legs behind the rope, perhaps paying homage to Callum’s fun day out the previous year.
The day was topped off by a mammoth fish and chips order from “The Codfather” (4+) which served the answer to the question “Why is there an obesity crisis?”.
Remy’s account of Sunday
Sunday morning came around slightly later than it should have and everyone rose with the 8 o’clock alarm for the only full day’s climbing both convoys would get together. Sadly however, I had overlooked the slight issue of the 5 club tents that needed to be taken down before the days climbing. After a rather long slow and convoluted ‘group’ packing effort, interrupted by several showers, a long breakfast and a many a confused discussion about which tent’s would be taken down and where everything was going, we were eventually packed and ready to go.
With Psych levels high we finally arrived at the crag carpark. In true Adam style, he casually squeezed the mini bus between a couple for blocks of limestone (gypsy traps?) and found a comfortable parking spot. Everyone unpacked the van and were about to set off to the crag when Howie informs us that we are in fact at the wrong car park. The van promptly repacked, Adam squeezed back through the gypsy trap and drove 100 meters down to the road to Howies “much better car park”, where Adam promptly took the last remaining parking spot. Callum and Jake were then directed down the car park towards the crag, before realising there was no way Callums heavily ladened gear car was going to fit anywhere. Callum then attempted a maneuver that will be henceforth referred to as ‘Clutchy burny uphilly thing’ (need more be said…). Callum took one for the team and royally fucked it, with the smell of burnt out clutch, an engine you could cook a sunday roast on, and donation of oil to the carpark floor that could probably lubricate [Insert word/s of choice ;)]. It was not nearly 11 o’clock and everyone’s long awaited full day at the crag was looking very short with the departure to the DWS set for 2:30. The rest of the club then proceeded to bugger off to get some climbing done leaving me, Natalie and Callum (the most mechanically competent??) to “sort out” the car. After sitting and watching the car intently for 30 minutes, not sure what we were looking for, we decided it was still indeed a car, and Callum managed to start it up and find another parking spot.
When we eventually made it down to the crag (Cheyne Wears), we found everyone had been very busy. Chris had got stuck in climbing his first ever lead, Wave Warrior (4c), before following it up with Jasper, Jody Sunshine and Valerie's Patio Outdoors, showing off his topless towseled mountain goat look. Phoebe impressively climbed a tough 4+ (Kung Fu Panda 4a) finishing with an interesting jug I had recently filled with my blood.
Several hours into the climbing, Howie came hopping over the boulders calling for us to help, as Ali just fainted. Just as Howie was about to completed the crux move of ‘The Accelerator’ 6c+, his belayer, Ali had told Howie that he was about to collapse. Ali had lowered Howie to the ground and promptly keeled over. As Howie recounted this story, it became apparent that Howie was, in fact, a tirant slave-driver who had forced poor sick Ally to belay him. Thankfully Ali was able to escape just in time, and with some water, food and rehydration sachet was able to get back to his belaying.
DWS
Sticking with the punctual theme of the trip (and the day), we left to the Deep water soloing (DWS) 30 minutes later than intended. However, we were able to catch the tide just right for a mega sessions! Committee started off the session with Paddy, Toby, Maddy, Will and myself going first.
Committee looking awesome… (Photo by Charlie Low)
Toby and Maddy took the first falla, with slightly different descriptions of the water’s temperature (with Toby’s “quite nice” and Maddy’s “fucking freezing”). Chris W-T, Charlie, Ellie, Jack, Callum, Sam followed swiftly behind, before Jake, Paddy and Jack began messing around on a number of variants starting from the same ledge. Sophie put in a solid effort, being one of the first girls to send the traverse in her first year! This was put to shame shortly after when Pheobe, who also joined the club this year, putting in an exciting performance with a massive cut loose on one hand. The DWS session was finished of by large scale club ascent of Temporary Lifestyle and a group photo...after negotiation access rights with the local fishing lads.
Pheobe’s one armer… (Photo by Charlie Low)
After a brief stop at the campsite, we then set off back to Leicester, hoping we could make it back on four wheels... The drive back was punctuated by serious game of drink when you see a road sign, involving Maddy’s ecstatic cries of ‘Drink’ every 20 seconds and Adam’s boredom racing of other equally weighted vehicles (Callum’s car and the remnants of its clutch, and a large family car weighed down with 3 generations and a bored father)
Monday: William
Monday morning started rather bleakly and with my hayfever acting up, I for one had no psych for climbing. We packed up the tents after breakfast and after quite a bit of Tetris on the parts of the drivers, we managed to fit everything in the cars. The plan for the day was fairly flexible as, depending on who you talked to, rain was in the forecast. About half the group was intending on returning to Battleship as there were some unfinished routes, but the other planned on going to wallsend north.after a short trip across the bridge, we arrived at the top of the crag.
The weather was starting to look up at this point, the sun started shining and the clouds had all disappeared. This was my first time at Battleship so the approach was awesome. Walking along the top of the cliff, you come across a collapsed cliff that if you look at just right, looks like the citadel and prow of a battleship. A short scramble down a fixed rope lands us in the gap between the ship and the cliff. Nice and shaded, we set about finding our routes.
Ellie picked a 7a ‘Jurassic Shift’ and Charlie picked a 6b+ ’Buoys will be Buoys’ to work on. As the day progressed the Sun started to burn away the shade on the face we were climbing forcing both Ellie and Charlie to complete their routes, or suffer the sunburn. ‘Buoys will be Buoys’ was also completed by Paddy, Jack and Jake and Charlie did ‘Wake up, Time to Die’ 6a+, as the day progressed. Jake chose a 7b+ 'Zinc Oxide Mountain' to project for the day however after a couple of whippers and the scorching sun on the wall, he decided to leave it to another day.
Despite my runny nose, Chris managed to drag me up 4’s to start the day including ‘Hate the sin, Love the sinner’ apparently the hardest 4c in the world, ‘‘This is This’ 4c, 'Like a Drowning Man' 4a and 'I'm Doing it Anyway' 4a. Other notable climbs include ‘Wiggi and Mopoke’s Excellent New Hilti’ 5c and ‘Dreams of White Porsches’ 5a which Marie and Charlie also did. To round out the day Chris and I moved to the Veranda to climb 'Days of Heaven' 4c and ‘Absent Friends, Here’s to Them’ 5c, a total of 9 climbs and great work for his first weekend leading.
Katie and Anthony, climbing at wallsend north, climbed a number of 4s and 5s before top roped a 6a+ before retiring to the cliff top to do some yoga
At about 6 we decided to head home, tired, probably a little sweaty but I think satisfied with the weekend's climbing.
