Next Event: BMC Leading Ladder
The first major club trip of the year has passed without too many disasters!
After several people dropping out last minute due to uni work or illness, the numbers were depleted from 24 to 18, but after a bit of mumbling from the grumpy old pres, the convoy of minibus and two cars left Fulton House for the south coast. We enjoyed a bit of The Who and Phantom of the Opera (well some more than others!) on the journey. It helped to pass the time of day while we took 5 hours to reach our destination (via a diversion and lots of traffic). On arriving in Weymouth our accommodation proved to be a little hard to find. The convoy did a bit of going round in circles near the wrong hospital, before finally finding a road name we recognised from our instructions and some very good spotting, at 11ish we rolled into the scout hut, our base camp for the weekend. The evening was passed with card games, drinks and chatting all round. By this time we were all quite fed up of the number of coughing symphonies going on, but what can you do (apart from kill Tim, which we resisted temptation).
On Saturday after a prompt start, which James assisted with by cooking everyone bacon butties, we headed for Portland. We climbed at Blacknor, one party starting at the south, one at the north. Everyone had a good day by all accounts, the 6 who headed north, Jacky, James, Simon, Jon, Connor and Laith went to a great little area called 'Reptile Smile', with the classic 6a 'reptile smile' and 6c 'downtown julie brown', everyone enjoyed most of the routes, although Jacky and James found the flowstone a little scary (but funky!). Jon started the falling trend and Connor took the first big whipper, from which point we decided everyone in our group should take at least 2 falls (for practice and to stop yourself getting scared!). Jacky spend lots of time falling on the classic 6c which left both her and James quite knackered. The others, Jon, Simon, Laith and Connor carried on to the 'Portland Heights' area via a few other routes. Most of the other guys started at triple slap and the other two slabs, before trying some of the higher walls on 'Portland heights' area. Gareth, Dave, Eirik and Ruben have to be mentioned for their climbing of a 27 metre route with a 50m rope, followed by ingenious two rope belaying! As 6pm dawned we all headed back to the bus, tired but happy from a hard days climbing (Mel really was tired and had taken to curling up at the top of routes!). We were all in one piece apart from Tom D with a bloodied shin from the slab which starts 4 ft from the ground, and Iain with a bloody finger (thanks for the bloody picture at the top of the route!). We had a nice evening of curry (very yummy), which was Ruben's first Indian curry experience followed by chilling at the scout hut. Some games and ladder climbing were had, followed by many card games, talk of Mallora, and some interesting sleeping by Gareth and Eirik (hee hee). The evening continued with people drifting off to their sleeping bags, and Jacky finished the night by keeping everyone awake with loud and painful coughing fits!
The next day Dave did the duties with the bacon sandwiches while most people slept in (the rain had started). Following some negotiation and weather checking we decided to head for Cardiff indoor wall on the way home. The journey back was much quicker than going and we arrived in Cardiff for a good 3 hours of climbing on the new wall. Everyone had a good time, with some steeper routes and bouldering being enjoyed. Finally we headed home for showers and sleeping, after being kicked out of the wall at closing time.
Thanks to all that came, hope everyone else had a great weekend.