UMC's Soggy, Squelchy, Stormy Weekend

Another interesting Mountaineering Club weekend, due to the weather mainly which if people have been out and about know that it is currently disgusting!!!!!

The trip down began rather uneventfully, a few new faces which was quite refreshing as new people keep popping up through out the months and keeps me on my toes. We travelled down in a mob of two cars and a van arriving at the White Horse Inn around dinnertime settling into our stable accommodation for the weekend. No I'm not kidding the bunkhouse is converted stables which I thought was quaint and awesome and proved nice and snug.

We settled in and headed down to the pub naturally and began our laugh of a weekend (as I assumed the weather would restrict us activity wise). Bear met us there, fire heated Lake District pub his natural setting and chatted about the weekend. Being an old person I retired early ensuring people knew the time I wanted them up, there was no way I was going around and waking people up again, I felt a bit mean doing it last time.

We went off to bed and prepared for the coming morning and the predicted torrential rain.....


SATURDAY- SCAFELL PIKE
The day began really well everyone was up and raring to go which made me feel better because I hate waiting around for people so it was great we were able to hit the ground running.

We drove through Keswick and traversed Derwent water ending up at Seathwaite Farm to park up and get ready, the rain was hammering so getting out of the car took quite a bit of effort, however once I was out with wet feet (my shoes regrettably have holes) there wasn't much hope of staying dry. We gathered up and set off following Bear along the path up past the falls and up into the hills. The whole time the clouds were down so visibility were poor, and the rain was falling with a vengeance from the skies. The walk itself I felt was really good, a really gradual incline and the few breaks in the cloud we had were excellent views and there was a mix of path and scrambly rocky sections. We followed the corridor route and it really surprised me at one point because we came around a corner and there was a huge gorge in front of us that seemed very steep with water falling down into it which I'm assuming is a relic of the glacier and crevasse dashed history of the Lake District (don't laugh I'm not a geologist).

We tramped in the wind across the plateau to the summit of Scafell Pike and took hasty photos on the top and quickly walked off again as the wind was strong and blowing us over. I think the photo shows wonderfully how water-logged we all are and blasted by the wind.

We scurried away from the summit and down the slopes back to the path, heading back to Seathwaite Farm with an aim of getting back for dinner, this thought burned in my head on the way down as we had been dangerous and began talking about juicy Cumberland sausages and creamy mashed potato with proper gravy mmmmmmm.

The others were weird and opted for generic fish and chips whilst Saffie and I headed to the White Horse for food and showers which were heavenly after a soggy day, the food was everything we hoped (although my mash was slightly lumpy, devil is in the detail). When everyone was back and showered as I'm sure we stank of wet dog we all had a drink in the pub and then it was back to our warm cosy beds.

SUNDAY- POOLEY BRIDGE
Sunday morning and people were noticeably more sluggish getting out of bed which I think had something to with some alcohol consumption, however we got everyone moving and paced and back into the cars. Bear had decided to go up to Pooley Bridge and do a flat walk with a focus on navigation because of the rain, wind and cold temperatures forecast. We got there and off out we went the walk was quite good. We were on a path going through flat boggy ground with great views of the mountains around Ullswater. We walked to several peculiar holes in the ground which looked almost as if a bomb had dropped there; however Bear informed us there were actually primitive house whereby people had dug the holes in pre-neolithic times I think he said placed log beams inside to hold up a roof. I found this interesting but the rest of the group looked quite cold and wet (of course it was still raining) so after a bit more walking around it was back to the cars and back home.

Introducing People to my Outdoor Madness

As Chair of the Uclan Mountaineering Club my job is to organise awesome experiences for people so to kick off the year I started with the Fresher's trip to Snowdonia, involving a day up Snowdon and a day at Tremadog. I managed to get everything booked and sorted and all the places filled up after days of going out collect deposits and money like a dodgy drug dealer.

We all got to the bunkhouse around 8pm to find Bear and Jimbo chilling with wine by the fire typical. So we got the night kicked off with a few drinks and food well unless you're Mike and you casually fry up some heart and stilton cheese don't ask me, I don't even know why.

In the morning I played mum urging everyone to get moving and sorted for the day before we headed off into Llanberis to Pete's Eat's for breakfast, me being me I just sat impatiently dying to get out on
the hill; we eventually got up the Pen Y Pass however parking!! We were unable to park at the bottom of the path so we ended up at a car park and got driven back up to Pen Y Pass by Mike to set off with everyone. Or so we thought......

Having waited for a long time we all set off eagerly, I waited for a girl from the toilets and then wandered off down the path; after a little while the penny started to drop that Jasmine was missing. Me and Rob sprinted back down to find Jasmine walk casually down the path towards us happy as larry while I was panicking. Finally relaxed that we had everyone we could finally start the day properly and we enjoyed a good walk along the lake, up to Lliwedd and along the ridge. I walked at the back the entire way so I assumed everyone was all happy and enjoying themselves up front but we were definitely pretty
happy in our slow walkers gang. To be fair I was pretty impressed as Alyson's hip caused her a lot of jip but she carried on despite the pain which I wouldn't have done, I would have whined a whole lot more.

We all rejoiced when we got to the top as I knew it was the first mountain for a lot of our group so we queued up for the summit. Wait what?! That's what I said, queued! On the highest point of England and Wales us British will queue and wait patiently to go stand on the constructed summit to get a picture what absurd people we are.

Unfortunately there wasn't much of a view as the clouds had came down so we walked almost all the way down in grey haze, something happened that touched my heart on the trudge down. We were about to walk under one of the railway bridges and we heard music and saw people pulling rope and I thought what the hell? Until around the corner a guy in a wheelchair appeared with about 6 people pulling him along. I thought it was awesome as they were already about two thirds of the way up and looking knackered, I wasn't sure what it was for, a charity or something but good on them anyway.

Finally we got the bottom out of the cloud and squeezed into the minibus as Mike was AWOL before heading back and out again for dinner.

Sunday morning and a few people were hanging so it was slightly harder to get people moving and packed, we headed off to the crag early and got some ropes set up and got people climbing when they all arrived; feeling like my job was done for the mean time I escaped for a bit with Mike to the lower tier of Tremadog to do Christmas Curry. We did have to do a different route than intended as some
arseholes made us wait for ages. But we still had a good climb on Merlin Direct which took longer than necessary due to the arseholes, we had to sprint back to the upper tier to get everyone packed up. However by the time we had climbed a few fences, walls and scrambled through trees an bushes to get back everyone had sorted themselves out and chased after them back down the hill to the minibus.

Talking to people they all had a good climb, for many the first time they had ever climbed on rock before which was nice and they all seemed really eager for future trips so I have my work cut out for me. Being able to organise that for people and allow them that space to have these new experiences and introduce them to the amazing world of the outdoors was really rewarding, sharing the way I see the outdoors around me was quite fulfilling and made the hard work organising worth it. I would like the thank the weather for holding out, it was absolutely glorious; I would also recommend Eric's cafe which we visited and met the man himself a rather ordinary looking old man until you know what he's accomplished but he was absolutely lovely!

Snowdon Horseshoe A La Mike

Definitely not a couple to do things the traditional ways Mike added his own personal twist onto the classic Snowdon horseshoe (Crib Goch, Garnedd Ugain, Snowdon, Lliwedd).

Just a fraction of the people that were on the mountain

Having started from our beloved viewpoint camp site we walked up the valley to the Pen Y Pass car park to meet Mike’s uncle, Richard and his kids who were doing Snowdon. We all walked along the Miners Track until me and Mike cut off up the slope to gain the ridge to Crib Goch. We climbed Crib Goch amongst quite a few people going up and down, it was a Saturday and a beautiful day so people were out in hordes not to mention there was some dog charity event going on as well as the rat race which itself brought 1500 people up Snowdon that day!(Mike’s friend Tom explained the route and it sounded horrendous don’t ever do it) Almost unimaginable isn’t it?

Once at the top and bored of seeing and hearing people everywhere we ditched the whole lot and walked down the north ridge of Crib Goch and down into Cwm Uchaf, crossing this we found the base of our intended route (that’s after I had to endure the smell of Mike’s sardines as we ate lunch). The climb we were going to do was Clogwyn Y Person Arete (moderate) and started just around the very identifiable Parson’s Nose.

It was quite a good scramble we kept losing each other as I skirted around to easier sections and Mike opted for the trickier bolder bits, the one time I did follow him we ended up on a tiny sloping ledge needing to do a little off-width climb to get to the next ledge. Mike loved it but me? Not so much having not really done anything off-width (a crack that is too wide for hand jamming needing one to use all of their limbs to jam in and shuffle your way up) I was a little nervous and the drop beneath us didn’t help therefore I wussed out and got the rope to secure me. It helped a lot however still found it pretty tricky I’ve definitely not elevated to Mike’s monkey climbing level yet, it may take a while.

After that effort it was easy peasy lemon squeasy clambering up and we eventually got to the top of Garnedd Ugain and from there a gentle walk around the ridge (dodging the many other people) up to Snowdon.

Unhappy face as this was the bold bit

We glided our way down the criss-crossing paths and headed for Lliwedd but no!!! Mike had other plans instead of walking up and over Lliwedd as was traditional neither of us could really be bothered so we opted for the short and pleasant scramble down Cribau ridge and back to the Miners Track with the sun still shining on our backs tempting us into the very blue water of the lake. But damn I knew how cold it would be so we resisted.

And so ended our escapades to Wales for the time being so we treated ourselves to a 5 star restaurant (MacDonalds) and drove back to Worcester to sleep in an actual bed for the first time in 4 days, it was heavenly!!!

Going Sc - Rambling Mad

We had a slow start to the day, we had wanted to do some climbs at Dinas Cromlech after our two long days however the weather wasn’t playing ball it was drizzly and the clouds were low and not budging. Climbing in the drizzle wasn’t a cheerful prospect so on a Mike whim we drove around to the Ogwen valley to do a climb just up from Llyn Idwal, Sub Cneifion Rib V-Diff.

The climb wasn’t too spectacular but enjoyable, it got annoying when I almost couldn’t get some of Mike’s gear out of a crack again (I had been forced to leave some up Lliwedd whoops) however the climb was still better than trudging up the steep slope to the scramble. We got to the top and wondered across to begin the scramble Cneifion Arete Diff. Mike had said that it was a grade 3 scramble…. Actually the guidebook made no mention of that and it was an actual graded route only a diff but still. We crept up the ridge, well Mike did, his purest ethic showing itself again. I took the easier sections to climb up as it felt quite intense, feeling very vertical and the rock was wet so I was completely relieved and satisfied when we made it to the top.

From there because we’d decided we hadn’t had enough scrambling for the day we walked up and onto Gribin ridge which is a grade 1 scramble it was pretty enjoyable even though by this point we couldn’t see much as we were completely within the cloud. The ridge ended on the top of Bwlch Y Ddwy and then we….walk is not the right word because the whole of the Glyder summits are a like a huge fortress of jumbled stone, we were more like ants scuttling over cracked paving stones as we scrambled up and down towers of stone over the summit of Castell y Gwynt and finally up onto Glyder Fach.

It wasn’t immediate straight down after the summit we found the famous Cantilever first and then we began our descent. Mike had thought to go down by way of Bristly Ridge (grade 1 scramble) but I was quite tired being the party pooper I am and I knew it take me a while to climb down the ridge so we settled for the very loose scree slope to the side where we popped out next to Tryfan. We plodded our way down the path heading back to Ogwen Cottage accompanied by a few men who apparently were from the new Surf Snowdonia surf lake just built at Dolgarrog. They were slightly bigheaded bragging how they had planned to go up Bristly Ridge and do all the Glyders and Y Garn blah blah but the weather had came in so they went to Glyder Fach and back down; bearing in mind it was around 5pm that must have taken them ages. They liked to talk quite loudly on the way down behind us of various sections of Tryfan trying to sound like know-it-alls if you’re reading this guys we weren’t so impressed!

Our bad hair-dos at the top!!!

We raced back to the car for a well-earned tin of chicken korma in my case, 3 tins of various things for Mike (I’m pretty sure he could have eaten more as well!!!) and another reclined car seat camp out at the Snowdon viewpoint.

It was 12 what?!

Being cheap skates amongst the many tourists pouring onto Snowdon we refused to pay £10 for the Pen Y Pass car park thus meaning we parked in a lay-by on the other side of Lliwedd. Doing this gave us an extra-long walk in requiring us to walk up to the ridge leading up to Lliwedd and go down the other side to gain access to our 12 pitch climb.

I said it 12 pitches!! Mike estimated 6 hours to do the route as the guidebook warned how easy it was to get benighted up the cliff, accidentally sleeping in squeezed our time frame slightly as we needed to walk up about 600m up and over in the valley to the base of the cliff. However we managed it getting there in the knick of time as it were (due to my extreme slowness when walking up hill whoops!).

We found the base of the route and shot up the 1st pitch easily however on the so called 2nd pitch we couldn’t identify certain features described in the guidebook therefore we abseiled back down realising we had started a little too far over and restarted. We knew we’d hit the right spot then, Mike lead the 1st and 2nd pitches in one. Doing this saved a lot of time so Mike repeated the process with the 3^rd and 4^th pitches which included a grotty wet section over a quartz lip that stumped me for a while as it was slightly overhanging so I wussed around on it for a while. Mike hard mountain man as he is (I have a theory he’s descended from mountain goats) had pretty much shot up the whole thing in his calm collected way of climbing.

The 5^th and 6^th pitches were easy grassy rocky slopes and it was here we were posed with a question, to carry on up the next 6 pitches to the top or take the scramble escape route. We decided to carry on as we’d made a bit of time clubbing the pitches together. The 7^th pitch looked tricky as Mike went up but I managed it happily enough at the this point this was the longest multi-pitch climb I’d ever done; I’ve never really suffered from vertigo but looking down from that high it was enough to make you feel a little nervous when in a seemingly precarious position. Especially when a mountain rescue helicopter was circling around and inspected us a few times. However the 8^th pitch was worth it, a really fun and interesting climb that we thoroughly enjoyed.

At this point we had 4 more pitches to do and it was getting towards dinner time, when Mike lead up he went out of sight but I knew he must have gone far because he used up the whole of the 60m rope at my feet so when I climbed up to him and he told me we had 5 metres left I was ecstatic!! The last 5m pitch at Severe was the hardest graded piece of the route but knowing we were at the top made it totally enjoyable on the tiny foot and crimpy handholds. So Mike topped out into the sun for the first time that day and I messily followed characteristically scuffing my knees and shins as I shimmied my way up.

It felt amazing to get to the top after what felt like a long time on the cliff, I could partly appreciate why all these big wall climbers spend days on end hanging off the edge of the world. That feeling at the top of achievement and relief is so great and is the main reason I haul my butt up mountains and follow Mike up these wacky routes.

That said the best feeling of all was not the success but the bag of jelly babies we had saved!! (and stealing Mike's fleece mwahahaa)

After that it was a rather sedentary plod back down the Watkin path into the gloom.

We started around half 8 and finished at half 9 so 12 pitches and 13 hours later we drove back to our viewpoint that had been designated a our sleeping spot and crawled into our sleeping bags for a well earned rest.

Playing Snakes & Ladders with our lives

So you all thought you’d had enough of me, well I think not! After a summer spent in the flatlands of Oxfordshire it was past time to get out for the peaks and adventures of North Wales when once again reunited with my crazy about all things mountainous boyfriend Mike.

So naturally the first thing on the list was a real life game of Snakes and Ladders through the tunnels ladders and deserted pits of the mines in Llanberis. After driving up from Worcester we parked at Bus Stop Quarry and marched along the path to find the beginning of the route which our guide annoyingly was particularly vague about. Starting in Dali’s Hole area we crept along a tunnel into California (somehow the mines possessed transportation through space properties). 

First up was the trickiest part of the adventure a 20m haul up a rusty old chain dubiously connected to the mouth of another tunnel reinforced by tat rope. So of course Mike went first and scrambled up to the top. However me lacking the necessary forearm capabilities of my other half winched myself up on a pulley Mike concocted, unfortunately I didn’t get off easily pulling the rope to heave myself up inch by inch with my puny arm strength.

Once up at the top we clambered down the next tunnel to arrive low and behold where we started back in Dali’s Hole area, the next task was to search for a well- hidden shaft entrance (which I found and got suitably wedged in), after slithering our way in we tiptoed towards the light into Tasmania (once again transporting ourselves across the world).

Scrambling over rocks and scree up and out of Tasmania we were in Australia to get to the real iconic part of this little adventure the ladders!! Mike went up the first rickety ladder which I wisely avoided as it was connected only by a chain attached to a bush but Mike has a very pure ethic when it comes to routes so no skipping out for him. The next three ladders weren’t quite so bad but enough to make one question the insanity of the decisions leading up to why clambering up 50 year old ladders scarcely bolted to the rocks with missing rungs and rusty connections was a good idea.

We went for a little explore of the miners buildings once over that sketchy moment to find knick knacks like shoes and banged up tea pots inside as well as considerable amounts of sheep poo which became a theme of our week; finding sheep poo in extreme places like halfway up difficult scrambles.

We abseiled down into Lost World pause for a brief interlude of Bilberry snacking (for those unaware of bilberries shame on you!! They look like blueberries but taste much sweeter and are only found on the wet slopes of our beautiful mountainous places). Deep in Lost World we stumbled along a tunnel into Mordor, now our transportation powers are taking us into fictional lands, just gets better and better; from there it was up the last and most iffy ladder to escape the clutches of Mordor.

 

Waiting for us at the top…. Horror!!! Mike’s beloved suspended railway had met its end and died a droopy death, regrettably this was what he had looked forward to all day and unable to believe rumours it had finally broken was grief stricken seeing it despairingly hanging from its hinges.

We circumnavigated the dilapidated bridge and walked down the slate staircase towards the main pathway and back to the car to spend a night sleeping on the reclined seats, still grieving the fallen bridge.

Access to the mines is restricted so just be careful if you want to do this route as I can’t guarantee all the ladders will last much longer but good luck tee hee!