For the first time in years we drove to the Alps. No more paring the gear down to the Easyjet 20 kg. limit. Just throw it all in! After a day and a half of driving we arrived in the Zinal Valley. A five hour walk trough thunder, lightening and rain to the hut was rewarded the next day with fine weather. Our luck ran out there though. After the usual Alpine start, an unwelcome 5.00 am breakfast we headed off for a 780m AD climb on Besso just to the rear of the hut only to get completley exhausted by boulders and glacial morraine without actually setting foot on the mountain.  We headed back to the valley with our tails between our legs. Continue reading ALPS 2012 →

Hopeful of fair weather, five of us headed up to the Roaches on Sunday to get a spot of climbing done.  Only four of the Famous Five actually managed any climbing though as the rock was still too cold for my hands.  (Grr! When will someone invent a rock heating device?  The sun was doing its best but the howling wind was whipping away any warmth it produced.)  I guess that made me Anne for the day but who was going to own up to being Dick?  🙂 Continue reading Roaches day trip →

The one where: Muffin learnt to order a pint in Welsh, we had to rescue some lambs from a cattle grid, the party tent blew away, we invented bike treasure hunting, we nearly suffered from the meat sweats and our faff to walk ratio hit an all time high.

Last bank holiday saw the hardy souls in the club head up to Bala despite the rather dodgy weather forecast.  Some members (*cough* CJ, Sarah and Ben) decided it was going to be too chilly and chose to stay home instead.  Little did they realise how nice the weather would actually be and that the extra bodily warmth would have been much appreciated by some. (Muffin and HD in particular were looking for a ‘Gayza’ strip to provide a non-male heat source in their tent.)

Saturday saw us heading up Aran Fawdwwy in a walk that involved nearly as much time spent stationary as we were walking!  Although as SH pointed out, “It’s not faff as we aren’t actually doing anything.” Fair point and I guess I should be grateful that his plans for the weekend included more standing around chatting than mammoth route marches like last time.   🙂 Continue reading Bala Bank Holiday →

We’d long been waiting for a weekend when Huw could tear himself away from his DIY to come out to play and finally the chance materialised this weekend.  (In fact he came out to play in the evening as well so I can only assume that he’d run out of paint and/or sandpaper and found himself at a loose end. :)) Continue reading Challenge Tom →

Jon Massey was heard to pass the above comment after a second day of good weather in Wales.
We drove to the foot of Tryfan on the Saturday morning and after slogging up to Heather Terrace proceeded to make a start on Second Pinnacle Rib. However some twenty feet up I was most unhappy. The cry of “This is never a v diff.!” was made and I hastily backed off. Moving along the terrace we settled for First Pinnacle Rib and made much better progress. Continue reading ” Basically it was awesome ! “ →

Last weekend saw me heading up to Braemar with SH and two of his mates to stay at the Rucksacks bunkhouse with the aim of getting some cross country skiing done.  Unfortunately the snow levels weren’t enough to allow for the skiing so Chris will be going off to join SH on his Icelandic adventure having never put a pair of skis on his feet before!  Brave chap. 🙂 Continue reading Bra-emar winter sun report 10th-13th Feb →

Early last Saturday Ian Archer and I headed south down the M5 bound for the Brecon Beacons intent on climbing a winter route on Pen Y Fan.
The are five gully climbs between grade 1 and 3 and a rib at grade 2. An hour and a half of sweat and toil brought me to the foot of the mountain. Ian, the youngster, on the other hand had skipped along easily.

Continue reading Pen Y Fan →

Having not slept during the night  because it was so cold in the room, I really wasn’t too keen to get up when the alarm went off at 6.30am.  There wasn’t time for a lie in though and the adventure started straight away as during the night we’d used up all the money in the electricity meter so I had to grab the torch and a £1 before I could even start to think about putting the kettle on.

Most of the others were soon up and about as TG,RP, JM and AW were heading off to do Broad Gully on Pen y Ole Wen and needed an equally early start.

Saturday 28^th January

On the Friday evening inspired by a reasonable forecast Alan Hardie, Jon Massey  and Iain Carter headed up over the border for a weekend raid in Glencoe.

We slept inside and outside the car at Loch Lomond and after a good four hours sleep continued onwards arriving at eight. The objective was Summit Gully a 450 metre grade 1 snow and ice climb, a worthy tick in anyone’s book. Continue reading Summit Gully, Stob Coire nam Beith →