YRC JOURNAL Exploration, mountaineering and caving - issue 23 Series 13 1892 - 2017 125 years of outdoor adventure Activities all over the planet 1 The Yorkshire Ramblers Club - Established 1892 The Mountaineering, Exploration and Caving Club The aims of the Club are to organise walking, skiing and mountaineering excursions; to encourage the exploration of caves and pot-holes; to conduct expeditions to remote parts of the planet; the pursuit of other similar outdoor activities and the gathering and promotion of knowledge of natural history, archaeology, geology, folklore and other kindred subjects. Published October 6th 2017 Compiled and edited by Roy J Denney, Honorary Editor 33 Clovelly Road, Glenfield, Leicestershire LE3 8AE [email protected] © Photographs by members of the Club These may not be reproduced for any purpose without the express permission of the Club which will approach the photographers on request. Journals occasionally include material from non-members who are happy for us to reproduce their work but we may not be able to pass these on in electronic form or show them on the website due to copyright considerations. Similarly where members retain copyright it will be indicated and items may not be reproduced without their express permission and will not appear on the website. Members can be contacted via the Secretary and other authors via the Editor. The current series 13 of the journals goes back to Summer 2006. Series 12 was published under the title of the 'Yorkshire Rambler' and goes back to summer 1994. Both these series are held in electronic form. Earlier journals can be accessed for information and go back to the formation of the club in 1892 Articles and items appearing are written by the Editor unless otherwise attributed. The opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the YRC or its Officers. © Yorkshire Ramblers Club 2017 The text from this book may be reproduced for any purpose other than for sale, providing that the Club is given proper acknowledgement. The copyright does however remain with the Club. Lodged with the British Library - Publisher ID L-42592 Printed by Alfred Willday & Son Ltd, Unit 1, Dunns Lane, Leicester LE3 5LX - 0116 251 8478 Contents 4 - Introduction. 7 - Trekking, Recent History. 13 - Upper Dolpo to Mustang Mick Borroff 26 - The Travels of John Middleton. 28 - Mangystau. John & Valerie Middleton 39 - Jura, snowshoeing Mick Borroff 50 - Norway Skiing Michael Smith 53 - Doodling 54 - The Club Underground 58 - Echo Pot - David Matthews & Ged Campion 59 - Chippings 63 - Digital Navigation Mick Borroff 72 - Natural History 79 - El Chorro meet 85 - Sierras Tejeda Mick Borroff 89 - Editors Challenges 90 - Chinese glaciers 90 - Strange Man on the Moors Alan Linford 91 - UK meets 109 - Obituaries and Appreciations 113 - Roll of Honour 115 - Nonagenarians 117 - Index page 3 In the beginning This will be the last journal in the present series and marks the 125th anniversary of the formation of the Club. The photograph on the front cover is of our first ever meet. When it was formed it was far from easy to get to remote mountain areas even in the UK, never mind around the world. Twenty two years before the advent of commercial flying, a few stalwarts got together to form a club to provide mutual assistance in pushing the boundaries both above and below ground and exploring such parts of the world as could be accessed. Thirteen members were elected at the inaugural meeting at the Skyrack Inn, Headingley, Leeds in October 1892 and they soon became twenty. Nowadays with cheap flights and commercial trekking companies it is easy to forget just how hard it was in those early days. The very name the RAMBLERS undersells their activities in modern parlance. Back in those Victorian days to ramble was thought to mean to wander at will, not as in today’s interpretation as ‘to take gentle strolls’. This anomaly was well summed up in Punch magazine in 1952. Reprinted in the 1954 Journal Series 8 No 27: “THE significance of the word ‘rambler’ appears to have changed considerably since the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club was formed. It has had ample time to do so. That body is celebrating this year the Diamond Jubilee of its foundation. It has spent the sixty glorious years since 1892 in indefatigably clinging by its teeth to overhanging crags, swarming up wholly inaccessible pinnacles and plunging through torrents of cold water into vertical abysses. There is only one thing it has failed to do in those sixty years; it has never, in any normally accepted sense of the term, rambled.” The term has apparently meant many things over the centuries, not all of them polite. If you trawl through the early journals, great names from the early pioneering days of caving and climbing jump out all over the place. In 1892 Edward Whymper was made our first in a long line of renowned honorary members including Dr Norman Collie, William Cecil Slingsby, Ernest Roberts, Geoffrey Winthrop Young and many others including in 2014 Alan Hinks O.B.E. In 1898 a YRC member became only the second person to stand on the floor of Gaping Gill and the Club went from strength to strength, bottoming one pothole after another including Sell Gill Holes, Pillar Holes, Meregill Hole, Rowten Pot, Cross Pot, Old Ing Cave and Boggarts Roaring Holes. This was the start of a great tradition with Yorkshire Ramblers the driving force behind the growth of potholing in this country. Our cavers are still looking for new holes here and more often abroad and are doing great things. For some years now they have been helping Chinese authorities explore massive cave systems over there. Members also take rock climbing in their stride and numerous routes bear their names. Between the world wars members were active in almost every corner of the world but WW2 took its toll. In the 1930s Frank Smythe was doing some great climbs including the first ascent of Kamet (25,446 ft) in 1931. He took part in Everest expeditions in ‘33, ‘36, and ‘38. After the war the surviving members took up the challenge again and were soon going further and further afield. In 1957 the YRC was the first Club to mount its own expedition to the Himalayas which unfortunately involved three fatalities. Opportunities now abound for those of an adventurous spirit and either on formal Club expeditions, informal groupings of members or as individuals; the YRC can be bumped into almost anywhere, as the index of recent editions of the journal shows. As the Club has evolved we have seen a great deal of change. In 1886 Karl Benz produced the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, accepted as being the first ‘modern’ car but it was another 25 years before they really started to become available to the wealthy few. YRC Journal page 4 Moon walks and space stations were the stuff of science fiction. By then the Club had been going for almost 20 years even though getting to mountain country was something of an epic and probably really an option for only those of considerable means and with plenty of spare time. Tales of informal rides on goods trains and days walking in, perhaps explains why our early members did most of their climbing underground in the deep holes they were finding close to home. Equipment was also primitive if somewhat more elegant than today. Leather boots, plus-fours, tweed jackets and candles atop bowler hats is not a sight to be seen these days and our modern cavers do not have to carry in hundreds of feet of heavy hemp ladders (even heavier when wet coming back). Many members still going down holes in the ground can remember using rope ladders and acetylene torches before technology brought on new equipment in leaps and bounds. Things have been a lot easier in some ways over recent years. We now have our own properties where we can both store kit and stay overnight. Weekend meets have become the norm with several longer gatherings in the UK each year and normally at least one overseas expedition. We may now have some creature comforts both in our own properties and those of other clubs where we have reciprocal rights, but the better equipment just challenges us to do even harder things. Cecil Slingsby is still renowned throughout Norway for his work in that country and we still have reciprocal arrangements over there. Easier travel abroad has opened up many new meet venues; not just Scotland, Ireland and the Alps but places like the Himalayas, the Andes, the Arctic, Africa and the countries around the Mediterranean. Following a serious accident in 1934, the Cave Rescue Organisation was formed headed by a redoubtable pair of YRC members, Ernest Roberts, who became the first chairman and Cliff Downham the first secretary. Both were outstanding members and Presidents of the YRC. George Spenceley was part of the team which first mapped South Georgia; was reputably the oldest man to have reached the Annapurna Sanctuary and canoed most of the way across Canada and down the length of the Danube. When the overland route to the Himalayas was disrupted by political activity the Club turned its attention to Morocco, having a number of trips there for mountaineering, trekking, climbing and scrambling. Over the decades since its formation, the Club and its members have pursued their interests all over the globe and continue to do so. This can involve climbing mountains or going down caves but is often trekking through areas largely unknown to the participants. Usually organised by the members themselves using local guides where necessary, these offer much more of a challenge than using trekking companies and on some occasions the expeditions are full blown exploration of areas little known to any outsiders.