A year in review, a warm welcome to the SUMC Journal 2013-2014

This year has been exciting with many developments made possible with the fantastic committee, I would like to say thanks for everything they gave and their unre- lenting psyche and dedication making this club so good!

Robin, even after busting his ankle on fresher’s meet 1, was still wholeheartedly striving to get us outside crutch- es in tow! This man was hard to keep down, battling with unprecedented rain working hard to keep us climbing. Alex’s Christmas trip was a huge success and from what I hear was truly amazing. We had massive interest and most importantly encouraged lots of people to climb out- side the UK for their first time, even at the cost of a cou- ple of hire cars. Steph shined for socials keeping every- one entertained with the brilliant sumo suits and inevita- ble B-entertainment, sorry about the fence! Pitting you against each other on the inflatables then bringing you together for the quiz and so many great nights out, thanks!

Ben raised the indoor and email bar immensely, he should consider becoming a bard for his efforts keeping psyche sky-high! His enthusiasm saw our best ever scores at LUBE and BUCS. Roger our gear sec has kept the best climbing club functioning. Thank him for our new hel- mets, harnesses and hardware keeping us climbing, man- aging this often thankless task with trouble free finesse. Those we mustn’t forget with a less visible role are Mr Money Bags Sam who secured the clubs financial future, battled for more funding than ever and subsidised events incredibly. Andy kept us safe and running through thick and thin, one thing I’ll gladly pass on is late night accident calls! Lucy has continually promoted infections psyche and bubbliness and Sky has continually strived for the website and graced us with yoga pant gymnastics.

I must thank those volunteering with little recognition; Robin Head and Mike Spooner are puppet masters to the AU devils. They lead the way to the bouldering wall rede- velopment which I know all a grateful for. Everyone’s contributions have meant this year was possible so thank you again for a great year and so many great experiences. I thoroughly enjoyed being SUMC president and wish the club the best for the future!

Steve—President 2013-2014

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DINNER MEET March 2013

My first Dinner meet began with epic bus-faff, a port- challenge victory and an unsuccessful attempt at urinat- ing out the minibus on the motorway. To say I was psyched was an understatement! Upon arrival the mood was relaxed with a diverse mix of new and old SUMC members. T’was my first time in north Wales and climb- ing was on my mind beginning with an early morning.

The porridge, oh the porridge, it was so damn good! Ben and Jerry’s porridge served in ice cream cones oh I ate so much I nearly exploded. Our group headed to Llanberis Pass and before long I was staring up at the Rhyolite spectacle of Dinas Cromlech trying not to let the fear Koo-koo-ka-choo, Miss creep up on me. Marching up the steep scree we were high above the pass staring at these not so blank but no Thompson so featured walls housing trad routes of the highest cali- bre. I was ambitious reading the guides and trawling UKC but when I saw Left Wall I was intimidated to the max!

I settled for the classic Cemetary Gates E1 5b and got a shuffle on this 45m beast. What a climb, what a climb! It was mesmerising to say the least and was climbing per- fection. Towards the top I placed my last nut with The lovely meal pumped arms and sprinted for the top. With my fingers curling open I topped out elbows first and belayed Ben up this stunning pitch. Apparently the direct finish is The Grim Jim E2, wahey!

Then I belayed Ben on Left Wall and watched him ascend this beautiful menacing crack-line with relative ease. Fol- lowing him up I found it fairly tricky and pumpy but for- tunately being northern could rest using jams. Towards The awards the top the crack and your gear runs thin and your next hold is staring at you out left only a few tentative moves away. Pumped and scared I darted across and headed up to the belay to end another absolute gem of a pitch.

By the end of the day I had had my fill of Britain’s best trad for the day and was ready for the evening’s antics. Later that evening everyone was suited, booted and abso- lutely stunning. Not only are we the best mountaineering club but we are the sexiest fo-sho! Of all of us though, I Touch the cup had my eye on the scantily dressed Miss Thompson whose outfit left little for the imagination.

A lovely meal, some awesome awards and a great evening

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at Cobden’s saw us on the buses back to the hut for a little bit of madness. The fish came out, oh it smelled real- ly bad and was slippery and slimey and fishy and horrible. The order was given and the president was escorted to the floor to await his fishy finale. I remember the look he gave me as I pinned his arm back as the fish was placed on his chest, I felt so bad, but it was his destiny! Chaos ensued and Steve went mental, the fish went fucking eve- rywhere and it was grim. After what felt like a safe amount of time everyone resumed with the socialising and having a good time. At one point I remember seeing Ollie’s knob more than usual, a wine fight and an epic game of touch the cup. Good times!

The morning was a nasty made better with a full English before heading off to the slate. Dreams do come true as mine did because slate is as good as it sounds! A 6c sport route had a nails start and then later I followed Ben up his amazing first E5 lead. This route was bold with two cruxes, first an unprotected psychological crux 6m up. The first bit of gear was a lowly, rusty spike 10m up fol- lowed by a bolt next to the technical crux.

It looked well’ard and Ben did the crux by falling side- ways onto a one hand crimp then busting out a one armed pull-up. I saw that and abandoned all hope of climbing this route, so with dregs of enthusiasm I tied in and set off. Making the first crux I couldn’t believe I was still hanging on, my feet hurt like hell as did my fingers and I still had hard climbing between me and the tech- nical crux.

Arriving next to it I saw it for what it wasn’t. It wasn’t anything; there was nothing, no holds, no feet, nothing. I lie, there was a generous toe smear about half a centime- tre deep and not at all flat, also there was a plentiful crimp about a third of a fingertip wide. Not contemplating Ben’s beta I searched for other holds and managed to find a barely useable sidepull way above which was enough to get my weight onto the smear but left me completely sideways to the wall. I poked my right foot blindly and managed to reach up to better holds. I’d done it! The day was up and the long journey home began, it was the best meet ever!

Thanks, Banksy.

Llanberis —Dinner meet 3

DINNER MEET March 2013

Just to give a flavour of the variety of awesomeness that occurred in Llanberis, I also pitched in to give my account of my first dinner meet. After my somewhat harrowing Fresher’s meet experience, this would be my 3rd ever meet with the club.

Having shared the same epic minibus journey as Banksy, I was witness to the epic port challenge victory, and also Spooner’s shameful attempts at cheating (that still result- ed in an ignominious defeat). However, this also meant by the time we arrived at the hut, all the beds had been well and truly taken (learning point for next year). Team psyched! (Plus Caitlyn taking the photo) This is where my tale differs, as upon reaching the crag on the Saturday morning, I was overcome by a cata- strophic lack of psyche; possibly due to too much Ben & Jerry’s porridge this morning. Thankfully, I was not alone in this predicament and thus, instead of climbing for the day, 5 of us decided to hike up Snowdon instead.

In truth, this turned out to be more of an adventure than initially intended, as the majority of the trail leading up to the summit was largely frozen over, making footing very treacherous in places. It did mean though, that we also got to play in the snow! Childish instinct took over, and much of the upward journey was slowed by constantly running up and sliding back down steep slopes covered in the lovely stuff.

Highlight of the morning however, had to Bambi attempt- ing to re-enact a scene from vertical limit, after a slight path detour left us stranded in front of a steep slope. Af- ter replacing the film’s 2 requisite ice axes with the first 2 rocks he could find, he boldly threw himself out onto the snow. To no-one’s particular surprise he proceeded to accelerate down the slope and possibly to his doom had it not been for the intervention of a kind walker using the actual path a few metres below.

After much tripping, stumbling and sliding, we eventually The path to the summit, cur- made it to the top of our beloved mountain, where we rently resembling a really poor- met Spooner and Henry, who had been attempting some ly maintained ice rink, cunning ice climbing up a slightly more direct route up the side. placed on an incline After taking some mandatory silly photos at the top, we then followed Spooner’s advice to take the slightly more

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adventurous route of Crib Goch back down. Turns out slightly more adventurous consisted of staring at sheer drops and almost certain death on either side while walk- ing on a sketchy, extremely icy spine of rock for several miles. Yeah, thanks Spoon.

Following the Saturday night’s celebrations and merri- ment, I was equally underpsyched to the concept of climbing anything on the Sunday. However, this time it was likely due to the minor sensation akin to being hit in the head with a small freight train that I woke up with for some strange reason.

Anyway, we eventually ended up at the slate mines where I was coerced into leading a couple of the slightly easier sport routes in the area, before collapsing at the bottom of the crag in a nice sunny spot to watch better At the summit, perched climbers than me ace some harder looking routes. on a rock possibly not designed for 4 people Overall, was a fantastic trip despite the lack of personal climbing actually achieved. Was an excellent end to the year’s committee and left me excited to see how next year’s would do in their place.

Cheers, Peach

Crib Goch— It’ll be fine he said… Nothing to worry about he said...

Llanberis —Dinner meet 5

PEMBROKE March 2013

The preparations had gone well, campsite and bus booked, e-mails sent and directions sorted. What I had never banked on though, was that wasn’t going to be enough psyche for Pembroke?!?! With only one person confirmed for the bus by Monday evening a week of fran- tic facebooking and (completely truthful) proclamations of how amazing Pembroke ensued; not helped by my phone being out of action due to Vodafone’s falcongate. In the end though all the effort paid off and we left with a full bus, a car and Spooner’s super psyched early car.

After an eventful drive including some of Sian’s interest- As you can see by the ing driving, nearly parking in someone’s garden and a CD rolled up trousers. The player that you could actually fix by hitting it; we arrived weather was better than to find the port addled early car and a much more sober expected. Very pem- Vicky and Steve. Tents were erected and so much fuss brokey. was made about who would sleep where that Andy decid- ed that tents were far too stressful and would only make him Andry. He thereby resigned himself to a cold night bivying making his empty £250 tent nothing more than deadweight on the bus.

The next morning we awoke to glorious Pembrokeshire sunshine and after the faff of breakfast, no-one having any money on them to pay for the trip and the heated debate on who had the best stove, we strolled on down to the crags. In doing this I managed to get me, Peach and the two newcomers, Chris and Neil lost for an hour. Still not sure how that happened; however the climbing was perfection, the weather could only be described as Span- Spectating. A very im- ish. It even made Spooner go his favourite shade of lob- ster though factor 50. We got a few send trains going on portant pastime on the likes of Limbo, VS, with an awesome juggy traverse meets. and for the more hardcore (Ben), the photogenic Cool for Cats, E1.

After the climbing we returned to camp to BBQ and boil are dinners. At least most of us did, Spooner only suc- ceeded in spending 3 hours building a barbeque that was only good for warmth and instantaneously converting sausages into charcoal. We then spent the evening learn- ing about each other’s genitalia, Gramps’ being big, Will’s being several words I need a dictionary for and Banksy proudly claiming his as magnificent. Ben was speechless from this point on, though possibly for other reasons. This then descended (yes it can get lower) to us replacing

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the word fire with penis, which was funny, I promise... you had to be there.

I think Spooner summed up the next morning best, we went to bed in Pembroke and woke up in Wales, it was grey cold and windy and psyche was low. It went through the floor when it started raining; and hit the basement for Vicky, Steve and Hannah who simply packed up and went home. Their loss though, they missed out on an epic day of kite flying and beach football. Surprisingly it turned out that Andy has star striker potential as a goal hanging one kick wonder and unsurprisingly it turned out I’m as terrible on sand as I am grass.

We then retired to a very cosy pub to dry off, enjoy a pint and some chips. Me and the other old men of the group then went to lose a few quid to the pub quiz machine Ben showing off on ‘Cool whilst a heated game of scrabble went on behind us to for Cats’ which ended with draw brought on by some controversial beta from Sion with the word ‘fuelant’. Which I have just found out word doesn’t believe to exist, so Ben and Bam- bam you probably did win after all.

So all in all, despite the rain I think my first meet was a pretty big success.

With thanks, Princess

The views on the first day were spectacular. Not so great on the second day unfortunately.

Pembroke 7

SOUTHAMPTON TO SHEFFIELD IN 20.5 HOURS

The ‘Ben Effect’ is the second most dangerous substance in existence, only ‘The Jake Effect’ is considered more potent. Symptoms include overpsyche leading to fearless- ness, superhuman irrationality and an overestimation of one’s abilities.

A how-to-guide for a gentle cycle

Equipment required • GPS with not enough battery life • Buckets of overpsyche • All the Vaseline in the world • A step-by-step print out of all directions you will take, in completely the wrong order Equipment not required Setting off after no sleep • A map but loads of psyche!

Preparation • The trick here is to not ride your bike too much, one training ride should be enough • Plan your route the night before you leave • Upload your route onto the simplest GPS device possible. The less it tells you about where you’re going the better • Take apart your wheels and lose a ball bearing just before leaving • Sleep for no more than three hours the night be- fore

Here’s how it went for us...

One of millions of Pit-stops for a wee, a dollop of Vase- line and some grub

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We set off at 0425 on Friday 15th March 2013 and we were PSYCHED! Settling into a rhythm we pounded out the early miles whilst regularly whipping our bananas out (the edible kind). One puncture after 10 miles was fixed as the sun rose majestically over us. Our water was laced with carbohydrate and salt powders which made us wee ridiculously often, to save time we had a couple of goes at weeing whilst cycling. It took a few tries and some damp shoes but success soon followed.

7 hours and 76 miles in we stopped in Oxford and first on the agenda was sourcing more Vaseline as we had used up our entire supply already! Our legs felt good and we were still psyched but we also knew we were burning fuel consumed since leaving Southampton now. The race was on!

During the second stage rain pelted us for its entirety. Tub no:2 and not even Mile after mile of rain coupled with getting lost several half way times had our tempers wearing thin. Worst of all we were starving-raving-mad for chip butties and as a result headed off-route into Rugby to fuel our butty rampage. This detour cost us 11 miles! Around 5pm and 125 miles in and we found our chip butties, the pub we sheltered in from the rain had hot food, warm radiators to dry our clothes and soft settees to catch a power nap. It was truly a lifesaver at that point.

It was past 6pm so off we went with directions from the bar staff to get back on route. Derby here we come! Despite being the shortest stage, we wouldn’t dare think beyond the next 10 miles; doing so was crushing to our psyche knowing we still had so far to go. Just outside Oxford we were looking to be in Sheffield by 8pm which was a blistering pace! But getting lost be- tween Oxford and Rugby pushed that back, worse was to come as the GPS ran dead and the printed directions proved completely and utterly useless. Bums, knees, necks and backs, everything hurt now. On one cheery note we had granola in our pockets to eat on the go, this was tasty stuff and really cheered us up. Pub No:1 for a much needed chip butty and I have never wanted to be in Derby so much during that power nap. Fortunately third stage; it took eternity to get there as we were con- tinually lost, losing hope in the process. Top tip, don’t get they turned up the heat- excited when you see signs saying 10 miles to Derby, you ing and let us dry off. are not close and are actually fucking miles away. Diving into another pub we crashed for 45 minutes, ate our re-

Southampton, Oxford, Rugby, Derby, Sheffield 9

maining food and asked the bar staff for directions to Sheffield. This was the final push, but as found it was also where the physical and mental tests were turned up to 11. Just past 10pm we set off into the dark wet abyss.

Dual carriageways are no place for cyclists as it turns out. Why we hopped onto one in the dark and the rain with zero visibility I do not know. Maybe it was the comfort of the lack of lights, no hard shoulder and no cycle lane that attracted us. Once committed we realised we were at the mercy of the heavy haulage that couldn’t even see us until only feet away. The next exit was over 10 miles away, we soldiered on. We took the first exit we could fearing any more of that road would be our last, but alas there was no route home for us here. Only the same road that wanted to kill us provided any route home. We were out of psyche by now, The dreaded A38, picture but mustered up what we could. Some courage here, a pinch of bravery there and a smidgen of insanity, it was this at 11pm on a cold enough for a final push. rainy night after 18 hours cycling and an arse like a Only a mile back on saw Ben come a cropper to a 3m steel wizards sleeve... girder blocking his path. The girder was angled into traf- fic and sent him flying! Instantly though he veered back and smashed into the Armco, flying over his bars and sliding limply over the sharp barrier edge. Fortunately, being made of old boots, he was fine with only his clothes sliced. His bike was worse off with a bent wheel and jammed brakes.

10 miles on at 0130 in the morning with 197 miles covered in 20.5 hours an angel appeared through the rainy night in the form of Ben’s mum. Near hypothermic it took Banks a minute to realise Ben was trying to tell him something. ‘We could quit now or we could carry on for 14 miles more.’ At that point we had cycled farther than it should have taken us and we were well within 24 hours. It was over, we had won!

The outcome • We didn’t make it One bent front axle after • What we achieved was completely pointless • We risked our lives meeting the crash barrier • Ben suffered a numb knob for 3 weeks after head on • In all, it was totally and completely worth it!

Ben Corbey and Alex banks 1, Over psyche 0

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FONTAINEBLEAU Easter 2013

A tale of Boulders, Blunders and Brioche

Prologue

I am getting old(er) and my memory is fading, I have also been to Fontainebleau so many times that individual trips are starting to become a bit of a Bleau. However I hope to suc- cessfully outline the key events of this particularly eventful trip to Font over the Easter long weekend of 2013.

Wednesday

Picture the scene: 9pm, The Gordon Arms Pub, freezing rain falling outside, 7 climbers huddled round 3 pints of beer, the topic of discussion: France. A country of outstanding natural beauty and diversity that unfortunately is inhabited by the French who had de- cided they did not enjoy being French anymore and had gone on strike. This meant no ferries would be running and we were trapped in England for the whole Easter Weekend. Merde!!

After searching the internet for last minute flights to Mallorca we decided we would instead spend four days being cold and miserable in Sheffield. Spirits were low but we hoped to make the best of a bad situation and soon went home to bed and dreams of Stanage.

Thursday

Around 11am while I was pretending to work I received an excited call from Ollie saying that the French had decided to cancel the strike and we would be going to Font! The In- vasion was back on!

Ollie had previously offered to drive his car (a small Peugeot with a very squeaky rear wheel). Somehow we got myself, Ollie Brend, Ben Corbey, Sam Snell, Hannah Saunders, two Bouldering mats plus all our equipment and tents in to this small car (!!!!) and headed east to Dover. I don’t remember much of the journey, partly because I had little room to breathe and partly because Ollie is an excellent driver who did not fall asleep or get lost even once. Ed Hastrop was driving his car and managed to set off the same speed cam- era twice (once with cake in his hand as he had just stopped at the first patisserie he saw which I am sure resulted in two great photos, moments apart).

Friday

Most of the cars managed to make it to the camp site before daybreak and attempted to set up tents in the dark in any spare plot of land they could find. Alex “the Scout” Banks also turned up but had completely forgotten his tent poles which made putting up his tent basically impossible. Luckily Tom Bushall had brought a tent of such size and mag- nificence it could easily accommodate the whole club. If you are reading this while at the Dinner Meet look around at the hut, then imagine a tent in which the hut could easily fit

Southampton, Oxford, Rugby, Derby, Sheffield 11

inside and you have some idea about the size of his tent.

Tom’s massive tent (bigger on the inside)

After a few hours’ sleep we got up, moved all our tents around to where they were meant to be located, and set off eager to find a Patisserie. I got two pain au chocolate and a croissant as well as my baguette, Vive La France! After some really amazing bouldering and a few crag naps we headed back to the campsite and played Mafia and drank wine. Unfortunately Becky Bellworthy was rather unwell (not related to wine or Mafia or France) and we had to get the paramedics out to take her to hospital. I was busy narrat- ing a game of Mafia while all this was going on and was quite shocked when real para- medics turned up from nowhere, I had only asked for the Nurse! Ollie had offered to go with Becky to the hospital and had the chance to Ambulance chase though France at 2am, running red lights and feeling super important. Ollie, Ben, Josh, Tom and anyone else who helped Becky you did an amazing job! True SUMC spirit in action!

Saturday

The next day we (they) were all fairly exhausted after the previous night’s drama. But we soon headed out to climb and enjoy the French sunshine. I suffered from overpsyche and soon got bad arm “Wang” and ate most of Ollie’s Paracetamol until I could get to a phar- macy and eat most of theirs instead. After climbing all we could climb we headed back to the campsite and relaxed round our campfire. James Docherty and the other cool kids / big guns had managed to arrive sometime the previous week and were busy having a party of huge proportions nearby. Unfortunately I was too tired to join in for long but from the stories I've heard it sounded very “boisterous” and I am sure would make a good journal article in its own right.

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Sunday

I forget where we climbed on Sunday but I am sure it was amazing, if you have not been to Font it really is an incredible place filled with more rocks than you could climb in a lifetime and endless nice people to climb with from all over the world! That night we had our own party and I drank far too much cheap red wine and presumably made a fool out of myself (?).

Ed tops out while Jo checks out his ass Monday

Monday dawned and with it began the most chaotic English retreat from France since Dunkirk. Jo, Sian and Ed’s cars decided to forgo climbing in order to make sure they made it to the ferry in plenty of time. This proved to be a mistake.

Ollie’s car decided to make a bee line for Bas Cuvier and get a final few problem’s in be- fore heading home. We spent a while playing around on the very first 7a problem to be done in the forest “La Joker”. Ben was getting close but could not quite get it, when out of nowhere a small French man looking very much like a Pixie appeared and, in very broken English, gave Ben the perfect beta. He then disappeared as quickly as he ap- peared; presumably back in to his woodland realm deep in the forest. Ben proceeded to crush, all thanks to the magic beta pixie! With spirits high we unpacked and repacked the car a few times and set of home squeaking all the way to Southampton.

Meanwhile the other cars were having less luck: Becky was unfortunately taken ill again and Ed’s car needed to wait at the side of the road for the paramedics to come and take

Fontainebleau 13

her to hospital, this caused them to miss the ferry, Sian Gardeners car managed to crash in to the rear of Jo Davidsons car at a junction thus causing her to miss the ferry! One thing we do know how to do is have fun!

Epilogue

Everyone did survive and eventually make it back to England. I am also sure many will one day gather enough courage to attempt another trip to the wrong side of the channel and once again enter the Forest of Dreams.

Yours Humbly, Le Gramps

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ALPAMAYO, PERU June 2013

THE CULMINATION OF TWO MONTHS’ WANDERINGS IN PERU

If by chance you were to ever find yourself in the Peruvian Andes, and ever consider using bivvy bags at your advance camp at 5,500m I have one piece of advice for you. Just don’t. Trust me, when you’re digging yourself a grave shaped trench in which to spend the next three days the novelty of not having to carry a tent very quickly wears off.

On the morning of our third day we awoke (gave up trying to sleep) at seven in the morning to be greeted by a perfect, windless sunny day. Struggling to make out the bright white world around us, a lone Chilean climber slowly came into view, perched at the end of our trench taking photos of us. Perhaps he was seeking to document the sad demise of the two smart-arse English climbers who thought they were being clever climbing without a tent. Whatever his motives, he seemed very surprised to see us slowly emerging from our frozen cocoons.

After slogging ourselves to death up the face of neighboring Quitaraju (6040m) the day before, we had given up hope of summiting Alpamayo. Three days of minimal sleep, food and water had begun to take its toll. Due to a spot of sunburn the day before I also had to carefully peel my face away from the inside of my sleeping bag, doing my best not to leave too much skin behind. We were both feeling very sorry for ourselves. None- theless, as soon we saw the sun glinting off the face of the peak on this perfect July morning all this despondency was instantly overwhelmed by a renewed sense of deter- mination. We had to get there! The ice that covered our bivvy bags both inside and out had also succeeded in turning our boots to iron, and for what seemed like an age we waddled around our little trench unable to force them onto our feet. It was not until after ten that we finally reached the start of the route.

At this stage I find it necessary to offer a second piece of advice. When you reach the base of Alpamayo it is likely that you will gaze up the face and appreciate that it is a very long way to the summit. You may then find it necessary to make a small deposit before commencing the climb. This far from straightforward task completed, you may then experience a small pang of guilt at your desecration of such a beautiful peak. When this final thought occurs, and you attempt to maneuver your creation into a cre- vasse with your ice axe, beware than the cold will instantly freeze it to the pick, making for a very awkward situation.

While this drama played out below Ed had succeeded in overcoming the bergschrund and begun his ascent up the inviting central fluting. Our late start had left the route clear of rival teams, and only one pair could be seen on the final section before the sum- mit. We made steady progress, moving together with ice screw and abalokov runners strewn along the full sixty meters of rope. Above us the sun glinted menacingly off the fast array of seracs marshaled all around. Each the size of a small bus, it would only take one to wipe us off the face of the mountain. In 2003 a collapse had killed eight climbers when the fluting funneled debris towards them. Suddenly our lazy start didn’t

Alpamayo, Peru 15

look quite so clever. By this time ‘summit fever’ had well and truly set it, however, and we weren’t turning back for anything.

By 1400hrs we had reached the base of the final steep section below the summit. Here we caught up with two way American climbers on their way down from the summit. We had climbed Quitarju with Tom the day before and it was a great reunion so close to the summit. I continued upwards, following a well trodden set of footholds up the final piece of fluting. After a while I became aware that I had been repeating “I’ve got to get there” out loud all the way up.

Twenty metres of marginally steep climbing and I was Bivvy seflie! there. After completely giving up hope the day before it was an overwhelming feeling to reach the summit, a pre- carious knife edge straddling the two faces. Before us stretched the entire mountain range, nothing but bright blue sky and snow capped peaks extending in every di- rection. We shook hands and snapped a couple of manda- tory selfies before beginning our decent. It was now 1500hrs and the sun was shining on the face with its full intensity.

A small stake buried in the snow mushroom provided the only escape from the summit, a lengthy abseil back down the face. With our ropes in place I began abbing down the first section of fluting. For some reason every time I squeezed my prussic I came flying down the rope at an Seracs above us uncontrollable speed before coming to an abrupt halt. I continued this ‘controlled falling’ until i reached the set of knots at the end of the rope, and it was only then that I realised the cause of my difficulties. I’d somehow neglect- ed to thread the ropes through my belay device and was abseiling solely on the prussic!

We travelled back down the face in good time, using a number of in-situ abalokovs as anchors. A couple of times I had to yell down at Ed begging him to try and abseil more smoothly, watching with mild horror as the abalokovs creaked and stretched under his weight. The only tat available in Huaraz was sold by street vendors and looked far from legit, and our own cord had been pur- chased from a seven year old girl. Fortunately all the an- chors held and we were delivered safely to the bottom, utterly wiped out by the day’s exertion.

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As we trudged back towards our trench for another mis- erable night in the snow, the sun had begun setting against the peak. We instantly forgot our fatigue, it was almost worth another night in our icebox just for the amazing spectacle.

When we were done with the mountains we spent a week sport climbing on a half rope in the crazy landscape of Hatun Machay, which is stone forest 2km in diameter where giant towers of rock (up to 90m) protrude out of the ground for seemingly no reason. The place had a great feeling as climbers who wanted a break from the moun- tains gathered to enjoy some hard sport and relative lux- ury (there was a kitchen).

After a final blow out night in Huaraz (we ate at sex- burger and then Tom chundered everywah) we headed back to Lima and the tourist trap of Huacachina where we experienced deep mountain withdrawal that rivaled any symptoms of AMS we had felt. Even wine tasting at local vineyards, sand boarding and dune buggy tours did little to lift our spirits. Although they seem to love it, I could not recommend Peruvian wine to anybody. Finally then our journey had come to an end amongst the inter- minable sea of dullness that constitutes the capital Lima, it was a far cry from the mountains we had become ac- customed to waking up to.

So all in all we spent 8 weeks and 2 day in the beautiful Peruvian Andes, we climbed 5 mountains, befriended 8 Ecuadorians, a German, a Czech, an Estonian and a few Americans, we ate raw fish and danced in a Peruvian night club, we rented donkeys (burros), ate guinea pigs and alpacas, we went caca-loca more than once, we got lost and found our way again, we froze and baked our- selves, we stuffed our faces in the finest establishments and lost weight in the mountains. We had the most in- credible time and if you ever have the chance to go to Huaraz, or go on a similar trip, you absolutely must! Un- less it’s with Tom because he farts a lot and they really smell.

Top Mountaineering Tips: Sunset @ Alpamayo

• Don’t attempt to sleep at 5,500 m without a tent • If you do, don’t leave your boots outside your bivvy bag

Alpamayo, Peru 17

• Bananas do not make good high altitude food • Don’t start long ice routes at 10am • Hammocks make great presents but they’re a nightmare to bring on intercontinental flights • Don’t eat ‘rare’ alpaca burgers before heading into the mountains • Don’t attempt to move faeces with your ice tool • Do claim routes with big brown log at the top • Don’t overtake guided parties on the down climb and look like idiots getting lost • Apply sun cream whether it’s sunny or not, or risk your face falling off

Tom Bushell and Ed Hastrop

Ed reaching the summit

Summit selfie!

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Hatun Machay

Ed being a beast *rawr*

Alpamayo —Peru 19

THE SHELTERSTONE June 2013

**The following account is a barely disguised exercise in name-dropping. Although the rest of the telling does bear some merit, the authors underlying purpose is undoubtedly to recount (yet again...) his encounter with the well known climber Dave Birkett. The editors would also like to inform the readers of the authors occasional difficulty in dif- ferentiating between ‘truth’ and ‘a good story’, and would recommend reading the fol- lowing account with a pinch of salt, pepper, basil, and possibly some thyme.**

The Shelterstone

The great granite bastion of the Shelterstone lies in the heart of the Scottish Cairn- gorms, looming above the boulders which give the crag its name and the shores of Loch Avon beyond. At around 4 hours walk in, and up to six hours to the more distant Creag a’choire Etchachan, the Shelterstone is the epitome of the wild, remote mountain crag. Having explored the area as a kid I had often found myself at the base of the cliff, likely pissing on another Scottish 4-star classic. However, with the advent of my climbing apprenticeship, the crag had taken on a whole new meaning for me. And so, when the opportunity came to make a brief 300mi detour to the Cairngorms with club strongman Rodge, I seized it.

Our journey north had begun a week earlier, in the company of three others, with the aim of cycling our way round most of Mull and Skye. However mine and Rodge’s ulterior motives soon became clear as the added weight of half ropes, shoes, harnesses and a skeleton rack took their toll on the first few hills. “Why the fuck do I have twelve of your clippy-clips and a bundle of... What are these? Christmas decorations? At the bot- tom of my pannier...” exclaimed Arj at the end of a particularly gruesome days ride. “Oh..uh... climbing gear? Cheers Arj.”

The mighty Shelterstone and Rodge Lodge below.

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Despite the difficulties of cycling with half a rack and a couple of bouldering mats we passed a beautiful week on the West Coast, even getting some beach bouldering in at Ardnamurchan (sand-balling?) and a few gorgeous pitches at Elgol, before striking off on our own for Aviemore and the Cairngorms.

Our unruly neighbours in the Loch Avon basin. Caught still wearing his winter pyjamas.

One train, 3 packets of jelly babies and a 50 mi cycle later and we were in Nethy Bridge. We stayed the night with my grandparents, me taking care of supplies, Rodge enduring Gran’s grand inquisition. We started early the following day with a lift up to the base of the mountain from the grandparents. The sun beat down, hard as any Scottish sun could, as we trudged our way up. The last of the season’s snow still lay about the plateau only adding to the alpine feel of our approach. The Shelterstone came into view round the last hill; a great monolith, 300m high, rising from its broad base and becoming steeper and more tapered towards the top. We tried in vain to spot the two routes we had looked at doing as we descended towards the lake and the boulder-field beneath, however the scale of the rock made all but the most obvious features indistinct. As we approached the boulder-field though our focus moved to the more immediate task of finding our home for the night.

Notes on house hunting in the Loch A’an Basin (from the Cairngorm Buyers Guide 2013): “The key factors when searching for a property in the Shelterstone neighbourhood are space, access, and damp. Affordability is rarely an issue when looking at real-estate and the lookout/position of most properties are second to none. The local residents are gen- erally mild mannered and quiet, however the area is known to be frequented by more unsavoury elements including “hill-walkers”, and the downright objectionable presence of rock-grubbing “climbers” during both summer and winter months.”

The Shelterstone—Cairngorms 21

We soon found ourselves digs for the night. Rodge picked a modest, top-floor single flat with a balcony and views across the loch, whilst I went for the more spacious, but slight- ly more primitive, “hole under a rock”. By the late afternoon we were set up and rested, so we stashed what we could and set off deeper into the mountains for a couple of easy pitches to get into the groove for the next day. Creag a’choire Etchachan was about an hour further on from the Shelterstone, situated at the head of the nearby Glen Etchachan. A great slab of red/pink granite offered dozens of multi-starred routes; and we were soon setting off on our first route of the trip. We chose an easy angled VS, Scab- bard, which followed an exposed rib up the centre of the buttress, to start off with. The climbing was lovely, following a set of parallel grooves up the ‘scabbard’ before pushing up through overlaps to the final abseil point and our descent. However the position was the real prize, with views of the glen opening up below as we climbed ever higher.

One of a number of Shelterstones at the base of the crag, and home for the night. They offer refuge in both winter and summer and often contain small emergency kits inside (fuel, light, blanket and emergency rations).

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Rodge picked the second route, a striking crackline which split the face of slab for 40m, hoping to squeeze it in before the light finally left us. The crack turned out to be an E1, Stilletto, sustained but with ‘plentiful gear’, according to the holy book. Could a guide- book writer be done for manslaughter? Its cases like this where you wonder.

Dodge started up strongly, though finding little in the way of protection in the decep- tively flared crack. As things steepened the situation became more worrying. Rodge smeared unconvincingly with his left foot, trying to keep as much weight as possible off the creaking flake on his right.

The micro sat happily 5ft below his feet, gently swaying in the breeze. A lone cry ech- oed from down the glen. “The eagles!” I cried. “Watch! Me!” roared Rodge. Pushing off nothing and pulling off less he crawled his way up the final 30ft. I soon followed, des- perately smearing and lay-backing off slopes and crystals, and shuddering at the rounded, shallow groove that looked so enticing from afar. I would have guessed at E3 5c, and I still think it is the hardest route I have ever followed. After looking it up at home it also turns out to have been Danger Dodges first E2 having been re-assessed since our guide! Elated, though dazed, we abbed off and made our way back to camp, refuelled on pasta an’ red, then retired to our burrows for the night.

Endless seas of granite! Rodge setting off on the first pitch.

The Shelterstone—Cairngorms 23

I emerged to glorious sunshine, startling a few Ptarmigan as I stumbled my way over to the Rodge Lodge for breakfast. We ate and prepared unhurried, one of the advantages of bivvying on-site, and soon headed up to the base of the Shelterstone. The route that we were aiming to do was, by all accounts, a classic. The Needle climbed the height of the main cliff, 8 pitches and 350m of glorious pink granite, ending in the famous Needle crack and the Needle’s Eye above. We started at 0900h, setting sail into a sea of granite. The first pitch was gentle and we soaked in the sun, the scenery, and the great expanse of rock above us as we climbed. The next few pitches however were more technical, the first following a pair of delicate grooves up sun warmed rock, and another following a more thuggish line through the overlapping slabs.

We were half way up face when we saw the first team appear at the bottom of the cliff. Ahead ramps and cracks filtered out in all directions through the granite, and we checked the guide constantly trying to pinpoint one “obvious crack” from another. We agreed on a route, up, and headed off once more, arriving at a large ledge a moment later and staring incredulously at the great corner above us. “Wow...” we both probably said. Or maybe “Hnnngghhaa...” It was magnificent. A perfect, right angle, open book corner, perched 200m above the basin below. One last check of the guide. E1 5a huh...

Fingers deep in pink granite I pulled hard on the layback, urgently plunging cam after cam in. Five meters.. Ten... An old hex gets clipped, as does what looks like a wedged tin of spam. I turn back to catch a flying jelly baby from Rodge and see them, the team had already caught up! I watched the leader work, every move so sure, so swift. In seconds he had a belay set, a single cam and his massive balls all the protection he and his partner needed.

I turned back to the task in hand, pushing worn out arms and weary legs up the final 15m of the corner. Rodge entertained the man and his wife as I set up the belay before getting on with the climb. A moment later I looked down in shock as the climber set off behind Rodge. I watched in dismay as Rodge seconded, the grizzly old climbers flat-cap occasionally brushing against Rodge’s rack. A few pebbles tumbled towards the tail-gate as I grumbled about the conduct of climbers today, savouring the thought of a good UKC rant when I got home. Thoughts of passive-aggressive vengeance disappeared though as Rodge reached the ledge. We sat back and relaxed, soaking it all in and exchanged pleas- antries with the old goat beside us. I picked out a few words from amongst the Cumbri- an; something about sheep, dry-walls and arthritis. Our chat was brief, his wife soon ap- pearing, and the two of them blasted up the next pitch in no time. And so it was that Dave Birkett walked out of our lives without us ever having known.

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Seven hours after having left the ground we reached the top of Shel- terstone, battered, bruised. The final pitch had been tough, not technically difficult, but with arms like lead and hands rubbed raw it had taken every last jelly baby to get us to the top. Nonetheless, as we looked down on the glen, the lake, and our shel- ters below, I felt a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction as great as any I have known. Inci- dentally it turns out we had not quite climbed what we had set out to climb. I had wondered about the Needle crack earlier and we soon con- firmed our suspicions. The corner was not in fact the Needle, but the Steeple. With a higher grade this did little to dampen our spirits. What it did mean how- ever was someday soon we would have to return. I couldn’t have planned it better myself.

Our last night in the Cairngorms had been a beauty. A feast of pasta, chorizo and picnic bars in the last of the sum- mer sun.

Looking out from the base of the Shelterstone, with the boul- der-field and Loch Avon beyond.

The Shelterstone—Cairngorms 25

We crawled our way back to the car park the next day. My body screamed in half a doz- en places as ten days of cycling and climbing took their toll; we’d even managed to squeeze in one final climb that morning, Magic Crack HVS 5a, another local classic. We limped on, passing an old timer on his way down to the Needle. “Fifty years today I first climbed it!” He wobbled in what I presume was excitement, and with that shouldered his bag and rope; and Rodger and I watched as our future selves headed on, up the glen.

Alex Thomson

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THE CALL OF THE MOUNTAIN Answering the call of the mountain goat: a comprehensive guide

Having spent some time dirtbagging around the place over the last year it has come to my attention that a basic courtesy must be taken when toileting in the outdoors. A blasé attitude in which people seem to think they can just relieve themselves wherever they like can result in limited access to crags, dirty shoes, and a serious risk to public health. There are a number of nasty diseases and infections such as giardiasis (beaver fever) which are easily transmitted by the fecal-oral route. Often, it is down to contaminated water sources that people and animals are in- fected and symptoms include painful and explosive foul-smelling diarrhea and vomiting lasting up to 21 days.

Bad etiquette is a pretty common problem and lots of environment agencies and climbing associations have written their own articles on the issue. If you want to witness the disgusting consequences of careless pooing for yourselves just take a walk through Bas Cuvier area in Fontainebleau, for example. I chal- lenge you to keep your shoes clean. Littered with toilet paper, the woods are a faecal mine field.

Of course we should try not to defecate outside at all and to minimise the chances of having to do so, everyone should try to squeeze one out before leaving home or make use of public toilets. Failing this we should try to hold it in but sometimes the urge is too much even for the best of bum-clenchers. Including people who would never dream of squatting in the bushes, anyone may be caught unawares by an urgent phone call from the ambassador and if everyone involved in outdoor pursuits possessed a basic awareness and was prepared to follow a simple procedure then the aforementioned issues would di- minish. Below is information about how to responsibly dispose of your waste:

You will need:

A poo kit: toilet paper lighter or matches hand sanitizer trowel/ sturdy stick/ good sized rock/ ice axe

The Call of the Mountain 27

Method:

1. Don’t ignore the urge At the very first signs you need to begin preparation. Locate your diplomatic bag and ensure you are equipped with all necessary items. You don’t want to reach DEFCON 1 alert state before you’re ready to squat. Urgency reduces efficiency whereas a calm ap- proach allows you carry out each stage of the process appropriately. 2. Choose a location You are looking for somewhere that is nowhere near any water sources, footpaths or campsites. Ideally the soil needs to be soft so that you can dig a good hole. 3. Dig the hole Use your chosen tool to dig a hole at least 15 cm deep and 10 cm across. This size of hole is generally accepted to be deep enough to aid decomposition and keep the substances away from animals and humans so the bacteria cannot be spread. 4. Assume the position

Whatever works for you. Might need some practice. (Note: baggy trousers are not advised) 5. Wipe clean Ideally, use moss, leaves, rocks (ooch) or other natural materials to wipe your bum. This is not always possible and rarely desirable so toilet paper is acceptable. This, then, must be burned which is not as simple as you may think as it doesn’t always want to catch light. Use a stick to open it out encouraging oxygen onto the flames so that all the paper is consumed. Again, this does take some prac- tice to get right. If you are in a fire risk area DO NOT BURN THE PAPER!!! You must pack it into a bag and take it away to dispose of it properly. This is not weird – just pack it well and don’t confuse it with your sandwiches. 6. Stir and bury Use a stick to stir the poo into the bottom of the hole and it greatly reduces the de- composition time (remember to hold your breath). Cover the hole with soil and vegetation ensuring all paper ash, poo and stick are well buried so that animal and human activity are not likely to uncover anything. 7. Sanitize Use the hand sanitizer (even if you don’t mind ingesting your own faecal bacteria I don’t think anyone else wants to).

.

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If you are sea cliff climbing like at Swanage and everywhere is rock all you need to do is find a nice flat medium sized rock , poo on it, carefully pick it up, and throw it into the sea shouting ‘I’M THROWING MY POO INTO THE SEAAAAA’ or something. Don’t forget to burn the paper and sanitize.

NOTE What do I do if I can’t dig a hole? If you are sea cliff climbing like at Swanage and everywhere is rock all you need to do is find a nice flat medium sized rock , poo on it, carefully pick it up, and throw it into the sea shouting ‘I’M THROWING MY POO INTO THE SEAAAAA’ or something. Don’t forget to burn the paper and sanitize.

By the power of Mr Hanky – may the squat be with you

God knows where... 29

SAAS-GRUND, SWITZERLAND Sep 2013 or One Direction and the Mysterious Mind-Penis Visit the Mountains

In September 2013 a ragged band of elite alpine heroes embarked on an adventure to bag some late season alpine action. The aim: to bag a series of peaks in the Saas valley and follow it up with an attempt on the mighty Matter- horn, a longstanding wet-dream of mine. The team, con- sisting of Mike ‘Moley’ Spooner, Rog ‘the Reach’ Kirke, Sam Husband and Princess ‘Robin Uren’ Cockface, set off in my beloved car Cassandra for the deeply unpleasant 16-hour drive to Sass-Grund.

The first lesson of this cautionary tale, don’t set off on long journeys at 1 in the morning after zero sleep. Fortu- nately, thanks to Roger’s carcolepsy and obscene amounts of coffee for me, we arrived safely in Saas-Grund without crashing into a ditch and with only one minor car breakdown on the way (an ominous sign of things to come).

The Saas valley is surrounded by 4000m peaks, with the impressive Dom, the highest peak in Switzerland tower- ing over the village. The area boasts a massive collection of proper, big alpine ridge routes and most importantly in summer all the lifts are free!

Camping Mischabel near Saas-Grund is probably the best campsite in the world for an alpine holiday, not expensive by Swiss standards, plenty of trees for slacklines and

Slacklining Beatles (Ringo took the photo)

30 Southampton University Mountaineering Club Journal 2013/14

Rog and Spoon’s arse halfway up Egginer most importantly its own crag! The routes were actually pretty impressive and good quality, with Super Fly (6a), Liberte (6b+) and Sadam (6c+) seeing many attempts. Rog was especially keen on this, prompting groans every evening by suggesting we go sport climbing having just got down off the mountain.

We quickly got into bagging as many big routes as we could, which is pretty easy when the lifts don’t cost any- thing. After a day practising skills on the glacier, we headed up to have a crack at our first peak, Egginer (3,367 m). We hit the South-South-West Ridge (AD) a really cool wandering rock ridge leading right up from the lift sta- tion to the summit. Despite some minor route-finding difficulties, including having to reverse a pitch or two, we made the summit it good time marking the first Alpine peak for Rog and Princess.

Our route-finding problems in the morning however were Princess on the scrambly nothing compared to the fuck-ups of the descent. After uppoer section of Egginer successfully finding the bolted abseil station, we descend- ed down to what we thought was the descent ridge. We found ourselves, however, on the most sketchy steep scree slope, hanging over a huge drop into the valley be- low. With no safe way back up, we were forced to sketch it across the slope to try and reach the ridge. Footholds were crumbling beneath us, no gear placements inspired any confidence and microwave-sized blocks were coming off in our hands and tumbling terrifyingly down to the valley below.

After at least an hour and a half of pure terror, we some- how gained the descent ridge. We had missed all the last lifts down, had run out of water and had a couple of hours Everyone on the summit of stomp back into the village, but we’d had a taste of the Weissmies Alps and were psyched for more!

Following a ‘rest’ day at the campsite crag, we hit the normal route on the Weissmies (4,017 m), a beautiful PD

Saas-Grund, Switzerland 31

Sunrise over the Valais Alps plod through some ominous but beautiful looking seracs. The weather was perfect, and we beasted up in a couple of hours overtaking a couple of guided parties and were greeted with the most spectacular views of what felt like the whole of the Alps. We were down by the afternoon, giving plenty of time for more ‘resting’, involving more slacklining and Rog getting on his nemeses at the crag.

We’d successfully broken the 4,000 m barrier and were keen to get on it some more, so the next day we headed up for an alpine bivvy. We picked a perfect spot just off the side of the Hohlaub glacier and after brewing up set- tled down to a sunset game of Scrabble (Messner would have been proud) and discussions on the appropriate use of your mind-penis. The night was clear and cold, with The snowy ridge up to the perfect views of the night sky, so sleep didn’t come easy. summit of Weissmies Lesson number 2 – always spoon!

We were woken by parties passing us who had spent the night in the hut, so we got up quick and heading up to- wards the Hohlaubgrat, a long AD ridge culminating in the summit of the Allalinhorn (4,027 m). We gained the crest of the snowy ridge just in time to see the sun rise over the east of the Valais Alps – awesome! Less awesome was the view Princess was about to see about half an hour later.

I had finished off some water that hadn’t quite boiled be- Our sweet bivvy spot. fore the fuel ran out the night before, and this had subse- quently disagreed with me. I was hit with a sudden burst of the shits and barely had time to get my harness off and dig a hole in the snow, let alone warn poor Princess who

32 Southampton University Mountaineering Club Journal 2013/14

was tied to me. Princess has subsequently required months of therapy to get over the trauma. Lesson num- ber 3 – don’t drink melt-water that hasn’t boiled properly!

After the drama had abated, we managed to soldier on and ascended the rock band that leads to the summit. After the obligatory photos and standing around in awe of life, we descended, the perfect wild alpine overnight ruined somewhat by having to dodge hundreds of skiers on the high summer pistes above the lift station. After seeing the same 5 year-olds race past us several times Rog and Sam on the Allalin- before we hit the bottom, we all decided that we needed horn summit. to learn to ski.

Having had a couple of snowy adventures, we decided to brave hitting the rock again. We headed to the Jegihorn (3,206 m) to climb one of the routes on its South-East face, apparently going at D (with pitches up to VS). As it turned out, following our 20+ year-old guidebook was pretty tricky and we ended up getting hopelessly lost. The two teams took different lines; Sam and Rog traversed right too early and ended up abseiling off.

Princess and I pressed on upwards, successfully finding a couple of pitches that read like the guidebook description! These soon disappeared and we found ourselves lost Princess and Spoon skirt the again. I had to lead up out of a horribly loose groove, with crevasses descending the Allalinhorn most of my gear falling out on the way and pulling off multiple handholds, which we later found out were rain- ing down on Sam and Rog below. After a sketchy belay off a large rock sticking out of a scree slope (not sure if it was attached to the mountain or not) we managed to hit a final bolted pitch. This turned out to be the top pitch of a fully bolted route taking a line to our left, which might have made for a less sketchy day out, but maybe also less satisfying.

Having proved our badass trad credentials, Princess and I topped out at the summit. Not content with just our route -finding fiasco, we decided (nobly we thought) to forgo catching the last lift down to wait on the summit for Sam and Rog. After an hour and a half of peering and shouting down the face, we decided they’d either abbed off or were horribly injured so decided it was best to descend. Sure enough we found them back at the campsite having al- Looking across the Saas valley, ready eaten and wondering where the hell we’d got to. Egginer is in the foreground Rog was particularly annoyed as he wanted to go sport climbing and it was getting dark. Lesson number 4 – re-

Saas-Grund, Switzerland 33

member to save the rest of teh group’s phone numbers in your special alpine phone.

After an unbelievably successful first week, sadly the weather turned, probably inevitable after 8 days of blaz- ing sunshine. We spent a day hoping it would clear up, exhausting the entertainment that could be had in a bouldering wall built in someone’s attic and a weird to- boggan/rollercoaster thing, but with a crap forecast for the rest of the week, mountaineering and upsettingly the Matterhorn attempt, was off.

Not to be put off though we swiftly came up with plan B, Font! We packed up our luxury camp and sped north through the rain, stopping off en-route buy the worst bouldering mat money can buy. We reassembled our camp at Greasy Loins and headed out into le forêt. We had no guidebook and based our venue choices on Sam and Rog’s memories and a map on which the lady at the Rog strutting his stuff in Font campsite had kindly added some vague splodges for climbing areas.

Sadly, their memories were not enough, and we spent most of the first morning wandering round the forest trying to find Franchard Isatis. After a long while wander- ing in circles and getting laughed at by some French woman who told the group of kids she was with hat they’d found One Direction, we gave up. Luckily, someone remembered Bas Cuvier was pretty close to a road and by some miracle we actually found it! After a solid after- noon’s bouldering made sure to find a McDonald’s for some wifi, and we sat with a McFlurry making a map with all the climbing areas for the rest of our stay.

After a successfully finding Franchard on the 2nd day we were pretty pleased with our well-salvaged holiday. On our last day we decided to head for Les Trois Pignons, and got up super early, keen to get a full day in. Sadly this all Spoon doing the same, less came to an abrupt end just 5 minutes out from the successfully campsite. With no warning at all Cassandra choked a few times, before giving out altogether and grinding to a halt by the side of the road. Ruing my cheap breakdown cover, we waited to ages to be rescued and spent the day in a garage in Fontainebleau, struggling to communicate both with the French mechanics and the Breakdown people back home.

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The prognosis wasn’t good and, distraught, we had to find a bus back to Greasy Loins. We’d lost the whole of our last day in the garage, and it was about to get a whole lot worse. Cassandra had to stay in France, roof box full of everyone’s climbing gear, and we somehow had to get home. We sat miserably in our tent in the pouring rain, waiting for news on how we’d get there.

And so the next morning, the journey from hell began. First was a long taxi ride through the Paris traffic to hit Charles de Gaulle airport, the driver wasn’t too happy about filling his car with our sopping wet camping gear. Next was a hire car to Calais, where we had to get on the ferry as foot passengers. This was an interesting experi- ence, having to carry a soaking wet 8-man tent, stove, pans, chairs and all our other glamping gear by hand.

Lesson number 5 – apparently ferries have airport-style security for foot passengers. We learnt this the hard way, our cooking knives were confiscated and I was made to sit on the naughty step outside the French security office as they decided whether I was a terrorist for trying to walk on carrying a 5 kg gas bottle. Finally, with special permission from the captain no less, they let us on!

The other side, we had the faff of collecting one more hire car, an executive Vauxhall Insignia that wasn’t so execu- tive after it was filled with damp tent and smelly climber. Eventually, a good 12 hours after leaving Font, we made it home exhausted; a pretty traumatic end to what was a sick two weeks!

Spoon

Poor Cassandra, a sad end to the holiday

Saas-Grund, Switzerland 35

FRESHERS MEET 1—THE PEAK Oct 2013

T’was a Friday evening and sweet anticipation was in the air. An eclectic mix of old and fresher club members set sail for the Peak, the land of hopes, dreams and grit-rash. Fortunately for the bus I was on no tires exploded on the motorway. Upon arrival those that had driven in cars were comfortable and warm in their beer jackets, the hut was nice with upstairs sections to sleep and avoid the inevitable chunk river rapids.

In the morning porridge was served with tea that tasted Ali leading at costa del right for the northern water. We headed to Stanage Popu- Froggatt lar; my group had a busy day climbing classic routes with jamming, laybacking and slopey slabs. From belay I could see the buzz surrounding Flying Buttress Direct (FBD). Earlier Gemma slipped on the initial moves of a route, hurting her ankle pretty badly. However, not to be seen as a wimp she finished the route with gusto and badasse- rie.

After Spooner cruised the roof and danced over the lip of FBD Princess took a turn to host the gun show. Hauling ass through the roof and he over the lip he found solitude between two breaks in probably the most exposed place at Stanage. Then he suffered the misfortune of a monu- mental rope faff-party. Not to be outdone by Gemma he soldiered on until his ropes caught and he was sent on a rapid tour of his route. He fell a long way, ripped gear and finished bruised at the bottom.

After a delightful successful day SUMC (M for Maiming) Princess post flight on headed back to the hut for a lovely carbonara. The even- Flying Buttress Direct. ing was as good as all and classic games were played in- cluding Touch the Cup and table traverse. The latter be- came the scene of god-like table traversing. Try this your- self but don’t sue me when you split in two. Traverse the long way round a table using the two short ends and no sides. Refrain from pooing oneself when performing the final mantelshelf to become a god among table- traversers.

On Sunday we headed to Froggatt and had another lovely day’s climbing. I got hit on the head by a rock, I saw a bright white light getting closer and figured I was done Martin seconding at Frog- for… Fortunately this brightness was caused only by a gatt topless Spooner. The trip was successful despite the inju- ries, here’s to the next one! Love, Banksy.

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FRESHERS MEET 2—BL Oct 2013 Fresher’s meet 2!!!!!With 3 minibuses and several cars jam packed with food, trad gear, matts, shoes, harness- es and somewhere in the mix climbers, there is much excitement as we head down to Sheffield for many people’s first experience of climbing. We listen and desperately try to understand about nuts, hexes, cams (lots of excitement from oldies comparing at this point), slings, knots...then we are completely baffled by anchors but hey we are super excited and in Ben’s The beautiful peaks... some- childhood scout hut we spend our first night being initiated to SUMC game shenanigans and of course where beyond the rain touch the cup. Here once again all the fresher’s were totally at a loss and at the mercy of the super experi- enced oldies, but no one “won” although some came pretty close before mercifully running out of booze.

The next morning we groggily wake up ridiculously early to the sound of pounding rain, but at least we get breakfast in bed with a brew and sickly sweet innocent smoothie mango and passion fruit porridge... The group then splits into two, where some people decide to brave the weather and try to experience a bit of the peaks, while the others head off to one of Sheffield’s many climbing centres.

The walking group get thoroughly SOAKED and after We still managed some an hour of admiring just how thick fog can be and how “bouldering” little of the peaks you can actually therefore see, we have lunch in a cafe and then head to join the indoor group.

For our second evening we have an incredible dinner for 40, then descend into massive games of mafia and touch the cup, we built a fire in the rain and tied Ben and Dougie up and left them to try and untangle for 30 minutes before helping and then running away...

Day two proved equally wet although a Ferrero Rocher porridge psyched everyone to the max and we headed down to Sheffield’s brand new climbing centre, with easily graded climbs resulting in some perhaps mis- guided and overly-confident fresher’s now super keen for some proper outdoor climbing next time :)

Cecil Bolt Ben and Dougie mid coitus

Freshers Meets—Peak District 37

THE GOWER Oct 2013 After the previous storm trip and forecast for - lets face it - the whole year looking poo- ey only the hardcore decided to venture to Gower for the second meet of the year. As it turns out the forecast was actually good, and in our very spacious hut there were even enough radiator spots for everyone so psyche was super high. Spooner also demon- strates his version of breakfast in bed.

Rising early we decide to head down to Boiler Slab, where a group of us got a little lost and had an amazing scenic hike before arriving to the slab, perhaps fulfilling the ‘mountaineering’ part of SUMC. From VD to E1, everyone had a great day climbing in the sun, but just as it started to get colder and the day draw to a close martin had a fall on lead resulting in a nice gash on his shin. (Team first aid) Cecil and Spooner put their skills to the test, and then had the most delight- ful time in minor injuries waiting room as mar- tin got his stitches. We experienced a fine ex- ample of the deep welsh population; an oddly hairy, large, smelly, and toothless woman, and her boyfriend who advised Spooner on how to pull girls, much to Cecil’s amusement.

To top off the super amazing day we had the most delicious meal ever...with people lovingly making pastry to chef spooner masterminding the filling, we had the best chicken pie with real chicken!!! Spooner you out did yourself and totally made up for Cornwall’s day off. The evening of course then descended into games of traversing anything, the inevitably gay place the beer can as far as box game where Lucy only just outdid theyou can, creative after eight games, and the cardboard injured martin...

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Day two ended up being just as sunny and we headed down to Rhossili bay where three multipitch teams climbed worms head and everyone had much beach fun waiting for the tide before then getting lots of slab climbing in before a beautiful sunset. I’m afraid I struggle to remember what I eat for breakfast (except of course if its SUMC porridge – we had jammy dodger and banoffee pie inspirations) so don’t remember what people specifically got up to, but know we all had a great time!

Cecil Bolt

The Gower 39

MOROCCO October 2013

Marrakesh

We (Andy, Jen, Rich and Sarp) got to Marrakesh in the evening of Oct 18th after dark. Gramps had booked us a 4-person room in presumably the 8th best hostel in the world. We were greeted by dodgy hash dealers outside and incompetent staff inside who were preoccupied with getting it on with tourist girls high on hash (predators!). Our room consisted of 4 beds against 4 walls with no window or fan. The door didn’t lock, but that wasn’t an issue as it couldn’t even be shut all the way. We left our belongings to the mercy of the fellow guests and went to check out the famous square of Jemaa el Fna. It came to life after dark when hundreds of food vendors set up tables side-by-side over a few hectares. This open-air restaurant was flanked by street performers, snake charm- ers and various sorts of entertainers. We ate our first Moroccan meal on the square. It was mediocre and expensive. We returned to the hostel to try to get some sleep, but the room was too hot. Sarp resorted to several cold showers during the night.

The group stirred by sunrise. Gramps was the last one up setting a trend for the re- mainder of the trip. After breakfast, we began our exploration of the city. Armed with a map useless in the labyrinthine alleys of the city, we checked out a few recommended historic buildings. We eventually ended up in the tannery district where we got lured into a tannery. It smelled awful. There were carcasses and skins of sheep lying every- where. We didn’t stay long and returned to the main square from where we took a taxi to a neighborhood with car hire companies. More than an hour of walking in the 30C heat yielded nothing. Finally, we found an open office and got a functional, beat-up se- dan for 30quid a day. According to Jen, the car had only a 3-star safety rating. After get- ting the car, we split in two. While Jen was shopping, the men returned to the main square. There, Sarp tried to sneakily take pictures of the snakes and got caught by 2 snake charmers who ran toward him with snakes and had them hanging from his face. Then they tried to extort £20, he dropped 10.. After this significant loss of capital, Sarp resorted to eating someone else’s leftover chips and meat at the terrace of a restaurant. Andy also joined in. The evening was spent futility searching a restaurant that had closed. We finally settled on a cheap place that made traditional Western food. Back in Hostel Hash, more cold showers were needed in order to fall asleep.

The road: to Tafroute via the Dades Gorge

The next morning (Oct 20th), we headed S.E from Marrakesh over the Atlas Mountains. The road was quite narrow and windy and full of fearless local drivers who didn’t hesi- tate to overtake while rounding a bend. Paranoid, but determined, we eventually ar- rived to Ourzazate and checked out its famous Kasbah (ancient castle). Then we took the road E-NE and entered the Dades Valley. We managed to get to the Dades Gorge an hour before sunset. As we drove in we marveled at the countless ruined Kasbahs towered by sandstone walls and formations, all glowing orange in the evening light.

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The gorge walls rose a few hundred meters. We followed the sinuous road up and out of the gorge onto the other side then turned around. We found a small, nice guest house. Jen sent Sarp in to “work his magic”. He used her as bait to get a discount from the own- er who was a musician. He was very friendly and his cook prepared us an amazing Tagine meal. He was smitten by Jen and he chatted mostly with her. Later on, he tried to get her to go to his secret place to compose in the moonlight with him, but she didn’t fall for it. For the night, we had two rooms with double beds in each so somebody was going to have to “sleep with Jen”. It was up to her to pick her companion for the night and she chose Andy. It also didn’t help that the bathrooms had Western saloon style double doors so one could easily peep. It was Andy and Jen’s first night together so it was somewhat awkward for them. Andy slept in all his clothes using a towel as a cover. In the morning, he buried himself under all the covers to make sure he didn’t accidental- ly see her showering. We took a 4-hour guided walk that took us to a small Berber no- mad camp where we had lunch and adored the baby goats who tried to eat our food. Finally around 2pm, we got en route. West of Ourzazate, we stopped at the awesome Kasbah of Ait-Benhaddou. This UNESCO World Heritage site was definitely the best Kas- bah of the trip. Later on, we stopped in Talouine for the night. Talouine is the saffron capital of the world. Here saffron was about 10 times cheaper than in the UK. This gave me the idea to become a saffron trader from Talouine (like a Tusken raider from Ta- taouine). We got a one room for all 4 of us with one double and 2 singles. Sarp and Gramps took the double. Talouine wasn’t much of a town, The dinner was subpar and chips and hot dogs proved to be a wise choice .

The next day, we followed a shortcut SW. Gramps was driving and almost ran over a massive black snake, maybe 3m in length! Around noon, we got within an hour’s drive to Tafraoute, but headed straight for a “roadside” crag. This one was the nearest to Tafra- oute described in our guidebook. The routes were 30m in length. We all led 3 to 4 routes each. Sarp made a point of using his size-6 cam on a VS. Its placement was “legit” enough for Andy to want to use it as well. The drive back was nerve-racking. The road was too narrow for 2 cars to pass so one car always had to yield to the other. Somehow even in the dark, the locals had a way of telling that we were foreigners too concerned with not dying so it was always us who lost this ever-repeating game of chicken. So Gramps spent most of the drive back constantly pulling to the side.

At a junction, the police pulled us over. Gramps rolled his window down and busted out a friendly tourist “Bon-jour!!” with a big smile on his face. The officer waved us off with a disgusted look on his face. We got to Tafraoute after dark and found a 4-bed room. It had 1 double and 2 single beds. For the sake of awkwardness, it was agreed that Andy and Jen should continue sleeping together. For dinner, we found a nice looking restaurant that made damn good tagines. Back in the room, Andy built The Great Wall of Blankets between him and Jen to minimize the chances of accidental spooning.

The Climbing Days

Morocco 41

The Climbing Days

Day1: We chose a craggy mountain (Adrar Iffran) that offered nearly 200m of climbing. We didn’t get up as early as some of us had hoped and a casual breakfast didn’t help. The drive took over an hour then we had to brave a very rough gravel track for another ten minutes. We left the car in a small village and began the approach in the heat of the day. Andy and Sarp went for a 190m HVS/5a called Oriental Orbits. Jen and Gramps decided to put up something new. The climbing was mostly on solid rock with sparse opportunities for protection, but with nice big ledges for belays. The duo finished the route in the af- ternoon and waited on the summit for the other two for a long time. But Gramps and Jen never showed up so Sarp assumed that “they is dead yo” and prepared himself for a body -searching mission to retrieve the car keys. About 45 minutes before sunset, they began the descent down the back side of the mountain. As they came around the front, they spotted the dead climbers making their way down by downclimbing! Their new route proved too hard to continue all the way to the top and they were reluctant to sacrifice hardware for abseils. Another half-an-hour saw the group in the car. During the drive back, Sarp revealed a much needed nickname for Andy. As “olds”, we knew 3 other Andy’s: Strong, Tall and Baby so Andy needed a way to be distinguished. Sarp declared him “Killer” Andy. He just had that killer look in his eyes. Shortly after, Andy simply be- came “The Killer”.

We finished the night with another dinner at our favorite local restaurant. Everyone got tagines once again. According to an old Moroccan proverb: “You can never have too much tagine”. The awesome meal was complimented nicely with glass bottles of coke.

Day 2: We wanted to climb bigger walls. After much deliberation we settled on Lower Eagle Crag with nearly 300m long routes. An attempt at an early start failed once again, but the breakfast was so good! Sarp and Andy teamed up again to take on a 260m E1/5a called The Great White. After their newrouting epic of the previous day, Gramps and Jen picked the neighboring route called Donkey Serenades VDiff. The routes were right next to each other so the team did the approach together through the thick, thorny wall of bushes. Sarp and Gramps left their XL rucksacks at the bottom of the crag. Mistake!

Sarp and Andy’s route was a bit dirty at first with large sections of rock covered in black, dead moss. The crux pitch was the headwall, a 50m buttress of vertical rock 200m off the deck. Sarp led this tough pitch. There seemed to be no protection for the 10m diagonally rising traverse leading into the crux sequence. After trying a few options and not com- mitting, he finally found a solid small nut placement then fired off through the crux heading for the life-saving layback flake. The rest of the pitch was less nerve-racking and he finished in a nice bird’s nest like niche. Meanwhile Jen and Gramps had realized that they had been too cautious with their route choice, The VDiff was not much more than a scramble. The two teams finished their respective routes within few minutes of each other. At the summit, they ate a leisurely lunch. The way down was a fairly obvious trail. At the bottom of the crag, Gramps and Sarp had to retrieve their rucksacks by trav- ersing the cliff bottom. The wall of bushes and thickets proved to be nearly an impasse forcing them to often crawl on the ground. Fortunately, there were no encounters with snakes.

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Day 3: On this morning Sarp discovered that the car was leaking petrol. While Jen went shopping, the men sat by the car and waited till it got fixed. This only took an hour and cost 10 quid. It was during this time that the guys witnessed a magic trick. A local guy they had met a few days ago waved at them as he passed by in a Land Rover. About 3 seconds later, he waved again as he rode in the opposite direction in a moped! Our only conclusion was that there must’ve been more than one of him. For the last full climbing day, the team saw it fit to go to a crag that was more road-side. This was Ksar rock, a 150m tall monolith with a 5-minute approach. Jen and Sarp climbed one of the 4-star, 2- pitch routes (VS 4c) then continued to the top via another quality route (HVS 5a). The rock was solid, the protection bomber and the cracks seemingly endless. After about half-an-hour spent at the summit, they walked down and soon climbed a 4-star, 30m offwidth crack (HVS 5a). Sarp got to use both his size 5 and size 6 cams and he was over- joyed. So was Jen. Meanwhile Gramps and Andy finished a 2-pitch E1. On their way down, Andy must’ve brushed up against a prickly pear because he was covered in nee- dles. Back in the room, Jen helped Andy remove the prickles. She just bent him over and went to work. Then we all had one final Tagine + coke dinner.

The West Coast and Closing The Loop

We drove NW toward Agadir on the coast. Once there, we continued N along the West coast. This was surf country where wave after wave endlessly battered the shore. We stopped to spend the night in a surfing village called Sidi Kaouki. We stayed in a quaint looking bed&breakfast. Dinner came with hungry kittens. They tried so hard to get food that Gramps and Sarp caved in and fed them in their laps. The Killer was unmoved and had that killer look in his eyes. The waiter nicknamed Sarp Ali Baba because of his graying beard. The next morning, we headed for the nearby historic town Essaouira. On our way in, Jen got pulled over for running a stop sign that she actually didn’t see. The cop seemed angry and occupied himself first with two guys who looked like complete douchebags. Then he dealt with us. While he showed Jen the unseen sign Sarp chatted up the cop’s 2 civilian friends in French. Soon, the 5 of them were having laughs. The cop approved of Sarp’s beard. The friends nicknamed him Mohammed and told him that he looked like a welder with his glacier goggles on. The cop liked us because we were respectful, spoke French and, most importantly, were not douchebags. He let Jen off the hook then invited us for coffee, which we politely declined. Essaouira was pretty, inter- esting and historic. The next day we returned to Marrakesh. We dropped off the rental car then Jen got driven to the airport in it by the “agency’s” driver. She later told us that he had already declared her his wife and that he was coming with her to England. She saved herself by bolting out of the car at the airport.

Money-making schemes Gramps & Sarp came up with during the trip:

(1) Mile High Airlines with Cloud 9 Rewards Program, (2) Warlord of the Upper Dades Gorge, (3) Saffron Trader of Talouine (Tajine the Hut), (4) Whatever Floats Your Boat Cruise line, (5) Pink House climbing hut by Ksar Rock, (6) Jen the pancake lady, (7) Strippers selling Nutella crepes on Uni campus

Sarp Akcay

Morocco 43

Cell in Hostel Hash

Snakes on Sarp!

44 Southampton University Mountaineering Club Journal 2013/14

GETTING LOST AND STROPPY - MONTSERRAT

If I could sum up my life so far, it could be reduced down to one basic decision, to climb or to work. So when my dearly beloved Hannah asked me if I would sack off uni for a week and head to Spain, I couldn’t say no. Needless to say my unbelief that she would ask me to do such a thing after my infallible track record at university caused everything to be booked just 1 ½ days in advance.

The heart of Cataluña they said, the location of the holy grail, immortalized by an Arthurian myth- it certainly has Montserrat in the mist some hype. And before long we saw it and long before that it saw us. A bad haircut/hedgehogs back of spiky pink conglomerate towering over Barcelona with views of the Pyrenees and beyond. Photos really don’t do it justice; it’s striking, beautiful and unique.

We were very excited about our first shop and glibly went around chucking anything and everything yummy into an every growing trolley. Our initial abstemious na- ture had meant we had only brought £40 euros to do the weeks shopping, and on reaching the cashier she soon told us a price of which we couldn’t afford. All hell broke loose then, because Hannah gave away the biscuits to screams of my dis-contempt, manic arm waving and thrusting motions of anything I could find towards the cashier’s general direction. Seriously Hannah! Anything but the famous Spanish biscuits.

Since I’d had the honours of booking everything I took certain liberties, one of which resembled a beautiful little Refugio atop a conglomerate blob on the west side of the national park. We had no map, no rock climbing guide, but 8 litres of water, sleeping bags/mats, clothing and all the makeup and climbing gear in the world. Once parked, I went about preparing our packs only to notice the non- presence of Hannah 5 minutes later. Had I left her at the supermarket? Given her to the cashier in exchange for biscuits? Oh no, she had curled up on the front seats of The elegant Cavall Ber- the car like a cat, heating on, and downie deployed. nat.

Montserrat 45

After what seemed an age of walking in the very vague direction of a hunch, I could just make out, nestled in the clouds our little Refugio. Unbelievable! On arriving we were greeted by a pretty Spanish student eager to show us around her fairy-tale house. All the comfort you could need: solar powered electricity (a whole 10 minutes a day), a toilet, a cat, a balcony with an amazing view, an adja- cent room adorned with comfy bunks and a big central The view from the balco- stove with a chimney through the roof. After collecting ny of Refugio Agulles. some wood and admiring our surroundings, we set about painting their floor with horrible cheap passata (a good ketchup substitute) and miraculously the freezing room was turned into a sauna. I swept the floor whilst “the cats” impersonated each other in front of the fire.

Our Accommodation for next 5 days was in the village Montserrat itself- a Benedictine monastery, many statues and crosses, and a few houses, clinging to the rock face at 900m. After wading through a sea of noodle munchers we arrived at the entrance to be greeted by a very posh look- ing 4 star hotel! “This looks alright doesn’t it”, she’ll never know I paid £15 a night I thought smugly. After paying, we started toward the lift only to hear the receptionist Hannah gazing on shattering my sense of smugness immediately. “Your Monserrat village and the room isn’t in the hotel; it’s in the block down the road.” It Pyrenees beyond. wasn’t that bad, we even had our own kitchen with a caf- etiere!

Although having someone’s trust placed on oneself is very flattering, sometimes it’s pretty conducive to that person forgetting the only climbing related thing they had to remember- an English guide book to Montserrat. As such, we spent considerable time pissing off a shop owner trying to decipher which guide book would be the most suitable/easiest to use. With good guidance from our guide book we then spent the next three days getting totally and utterly lost.

There are some stunning rocks in Montserrat not least the The Cavall Bernat (1 111 m) and I had my heart set on it. 240m of perfect slab leading to a “steep pitch on tiny holds” topped with a last pitch described as “beautiful big potatoes”. Who wouldn’t want to climb that! But after 2.5 Hannah being blown to hours into a 35 minute approach of scrambling up a hor- her knees on a windy rendous gully, we found ourselves above the tree line walk. looking across at the next gully and the immaculate slab we should have been climbing.... Still the height ad- vantage was taken advantage of and we met up with the

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path leading to Sant Jeroni, Montserrat’s summit at 1226m. The views from here were simply breath-taking! Not least because my rucksack still contained 25kg’s of climbing gear.

The next day we set out to find another multi-pitch that we had got lost trying to find a few days before - Trem- pant T’empaito 6c 130m. Montserrat is very unique. Reli- gious with both Jesus and the climbing, and crosses or The view from our apart- statues of saints sit atop most of the blobs. This gives you ment in Montserrat the opportunity to literally abseil if Jesus if you should wish! So long as he is willing to hang around for half an hour whilst you make your trusting decent. The rock is a sedimentary conglomerate of pebbles glued together with what can only be described as puff pastry. This leads to some interesting climbing, either, you pinch a pebble and hope it won’t explode in your face, or you try desperately to hold the slopey pocket left when the last person had one explode in there face. When Hannah wasn’t preoccu- pied worrying about the sounds of rock fall all around her, I’m pretty sure she was giggling away at my desper- ate terrified comments such as;” I’m not rocking over on The view from Sant Jeroni that”! Or “I’d really like a bolt now” or “please don’t break, please don’t break”. Perhaps I’m not being quite fair, as I only managed to break 2 holds for the duration of the holiday, but I’d still recommend, if you ever find yourself there, that you take helmets with you! The route was fan- tastic and actually pretty well bolted for the harder parts and we found ourselves admiring yet another stunning view atop a blob in no time. We left Montserrat feeling that we really had experienced a unique place but we still had a night in Barcelona to come!.

We ditched the hire car and caught the bus to the centre praying that the walk wouldn’t be too far, knowledge of the several kilos of chocolate spread and biscuits weigh- ing heavily on my mind and my arm. And after success- fully avoiding the tramp stood on the door step by press- ing the buzzer with Hannah, we were greeted with the cleanest and best equipped hostel I’ve ever stayed in. It Hannah and I atop our felt like a 5 star hotel with catering facilities- my smug- ness returned. successful multipitch ‘Trempant T’empaito ‘ I’m not usually a fan of cities but there’s a lot going on in Barcelona. We hit the beach, marvelled at Gaudi’s wonky pieces of architecture and mingled in the fantastic market off la rambla, but not before Hannah had managed to cov- er our hostel room room in 3 inches of water, I’m not kid- ding! I found her on her ringing out the 20th towel gig-

Montserrat 47

catering facilities- my smugness returned.

I’m not usually a fan of cities but there’s a lot going on in Barcelona. We hit the beach, marvelled at Gaudi’s wonky pieces of architecture and mingled in the fantastic market off la rambla, but not before Hannah had managed to cov- er our hostel room room in 3 inches of water, I’m not kid- Hannah modelling on the ding! I found her on her ringing out the 20th towel gig- beach in Barcelona. gling to herself. It was time to win some man points, and I had other incentives as I was desperate to eat the most Spanish of Spanish things. Paella! It was Valentines even- ing, and we soon found ourselves eating ludicrous amounts of fresh seafood paella under the stars in a fan- tastic seafront restaurant. Finally, A stroll along the pier under those stars drinking it all in and I had Nailed it! Still, I probably did need to make up for the last two years of missed valentine dates though.

48 Southampton University Mountaineering Club Journal 2013/14 Issue 69, Dec 2013

Cost: Priceless

57 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR FIST JAM GT WHY YOU SHOULD ALWAYS USE PRO- TECTION

ROBIN ‘PRINCESS’ UREN GAY CHICKEN. WHEN IS IT JUST GAY?

BEN CORBEY ESSENTIAL OILY MASSAGE TIPS

ALEX BANKS WITH A TALE OF LYCRA, EXCESSIVE 49 USEPAGE OF NAME VASELINE AND VERY SORE BUMS

MALLORCA December 2013

Well since I’m new to rock climbing I had to go on the SUMC trip to Mallorca and it was beyond expectation, it was amazing. The date finally came and set off excited and psyched to Mallorca. We arrived to a huge villa, it was a mansion!

My first great experience was the first dinner; that was some good pizza!!! From this point on the trip was getting better and only better. The next morning everyone packed up for the first climbs of the trip. I ran and got a place in Quiche’s car as he was always the first to leave from the villa. Arriving Dougie crushed a 6a to warm up, I gave it a go after and it wasn’t hard at all. It turned out Dougie was reading the wrong page of the guide book and the climb was a 4+ instead. All moments that followed and all days were just perfect.

The day that really stood out for me was my birthday on the 18th of December. I wanted to do something different, the night before me and Ryu planned to climb a multi- pitch called “La Ley Del Deseo”. I had mixed feelings that night… I was exited but also a bit scared of climbing 175 meters for my first time. The next morning came, we had our breakfast and started our journey. To cut one of the best climbing experiences of my life down to a snippet, it was amazing. After returning home the group organised surprise birthday cake and epic massage trains, drunken- ness and partying! I couldn’t ask for more.

Overall the trip was amazing and for sure I don’t regret any second or any penny that I spent on that trip, we had so much fun. Those days will always stay in my memory. Thanks SUMC! Love Evangelos

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This is an unedited account of the trip written through the tired eyes of a fresher unaccustomed to climbing. As a newcomer to SUMC (“sum-kuh”) with little real experience this entry is highly subjective and slightly biased towards my own achievements – sorry Lepers.

Day 1

I lost my boarding card but everyone at the airport was really cheery! Yummy Xmas dinner sandwich and the Rya- 3 out of 4 brave lepers nair plane landed on time and in a jolly fashion. Troubled navigation to the villa but on arrival everything good. We (the Becky Jay gang, subsequently known as the Lepers) got assigned to the leper house with an unknown male inhabitant who got scared and left. Everyone was over the moon about the niceness of the villa — complete with pool and table tennis — until we realised there was no food. Nicole leapt to the rescue, brought back mountain of piz- zas that we happily chugged our way through. No skinny dipping occurred. Nicole flirted her way to 8 bottles of Lambrusco for the club. Becky mastered the TV. Everyone was psyched for the day ahead.

Day 2 – L’Estret

Leper house residents not woken up by everyone else. The niceness of the villa Hugely disappointed. Pleasantly surprised by lack of tropi- cal flavoured porridge. Quick cereal/lunch, then Gramps chauffeured us “willingly” to l’Estret without getting lost! Nicole on death’s door. Other Lepers shimmied up some 4+/5 slabs. Harriet got stuck in a bush. Josh Bamsey taught us the proper way to tank up those jugs and gave private tuition on the stripping of the route. Admiration of Becky’s frog pose, followed by Harriet’s drama on cliff which was cancelled out by use of tactical nose. Outcome: sick lead climbing qualifications. Movement to the sunny slabs, sadly sunny no more. Tori nails a 5+, followed by Becky who had been hindered by a brief war with Harriet. In the meantime, Nicole powered through the Hunger Games and notched up some vital page counts. Words added to our climbing vocab – tanking, jugging, stripping, dogging, flashing. Good day. Then coerced Gramps into a Carrefour trip, had trolley difficulties but found materials adequate for hip-flask and Dino Biscuits. Drank victory beers. Villa, shower rapidly, massage line during Ben Corbey’s informative chair-based

Mallorca 51

lecture on multi-pitch threading. Concentration dimin- ished as massage intensified. Becky a big fan of back click- ing. Tori reveals pro massage skillz. Christmas jumpers emerged from Ces and Spoon. Mass approval from the Lepers who simultaneously don the Christmas legging. Festive fun widespread. Team Leper split to aid integra- tion in the club. Femininity dominated. Josh ‘Snow White’ Bamsey led his 7 dwarves in a yoga session which culmi- nated in guy-on-guy acrobatics. Several pairs of trousers were lost in the act. Meanwhile in the kitchen onions were chopped, carrots were sliced and garlic was crushed, only one pair of goggles was supplied to valiant garlic ninja Hat.

Dinner good. Garlic received positive comments. After “Let’s all stand on this dinner entertainment commenced with hand slappy rock” games which quickly morphed into HWAH. Team Granby superior in every way. Poor effort from twitchy-hand Rog- er and ‘let’s over complicate this’ Spooner. Becky’s vegeta- ble tie-breaker ridiculed but later embraced by all. Chef Banks’ platter of olives and special old ham indescribably good. Corbey shone in olive-targetting exercise. Hat and Becky coughed at each other. Tired. Sleep. Snore. Discov- ery of heater in Leper house! Everyone was psyched for the day ahead.

Day 3 – Sa Gubia

Successfully wake up in time, excellent cereal selection, tea! Storming colds from me and Hat. End up split be- tween Spoon and Corbey’s car which was fine at first but It was a sunny day to be then realised Nicole had Becky’s harness. Error. After much wandering and hassling bewildered Spanish fami- waiting for a harness in Sa lies, we found the elusive Pataje Espanyol. Swanned up 4s Gubia and 5s, led a 4. Peaches coined the term ‘mermaiding’ in a magnificent bunny hop up a crag. In the meantime Ben and Hannah took on a trad multipitch and lots of others did the modestly named “Laws of Desire”, a big beautiful sunny multi. Meanwhile down below, heel hook action took over with Dan, Devon, Peaches, Rob, Becky and Grace getting in on the action. Leading debut from Tori, followed by speed climb races between Spoon and Alex ‘Mad Dog’ Madjarov who whittled their time down from 49 seconds to a gravitationally defiant 36 seconds. Trotted off home only to find four cars in the carpark

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and zero drivers. Cue fun and games to while away the hours. Three drivers came to the rescue after a mere 2 hours, happy to head home. Showers cold, Ben and Han- nah missing so rescue mission sent out. Gramps and Spoon’s offroading followed by the ingenuity of a fin- gertaped message onto a drinks bottle: “BEN HAV BAG AT CAR” saved the two of them from a hypothermic night on the mountains. Luckily everything was the guidebook’s fault and the two intrepid climbers were found and wel- comed back with a yummy fajita and salsa mix! Chilled night, excellent stretching/massage sesh accompanied by Epic Hunger Games reading when we got tired. Went to bed. Reading recommenced in old married fashion. Oli was welcomed into the SUMC pack. Everyone was psyched for the day ahead.

Gemma ‘Power’ Powell

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From here we follow the account of Becky Jay’s diary

Day 4 – Puig de Garrafa

Lepers pressured all drivers into going to Puig, went in convoy of 5 ford fiestas Italian job style, led by Spoon’s capable navigation skills. Brief hike to crag. Bitch of a 4+ led by Becky, freak out near top. Hat and Tori defeated Pre-okanoka Oli so took lunch and Becky hammed it up a technical 5+. Spooner labelled “incapable” by Harriet as he can’t belay and supply comedy at the same time. Head to Solarium for easier sunnier waters. It was an enjoyable hike. We arrive at destination, admire beaut view, flake rope, har- ness up, rack up - oh wait, no quickdraws. Stumped for what to do, we carry out a photoshoot instead. Several attempts and nudity involved. Headed back to base where they were packing up, home time, coldish show- ers and early dinner (tuna pasta and GREEN VEG!!). Table tennis showdown. Hat earns her place among the lads. Irish snap, massage circle, hand-tap game with strict game master Josh. Pub quiz proposed and approved. Executed with success. Bell proves to be a much needed addition. Must remember to read over questions and have wine to hand next time. Though triumphant in quiz, ironically Spooner fails at the kitchen utensil round. Losing team in pool. Everyone in pool. Grace’s Beast of a 5+ thunder dramatically stolen. Angly dangly introduced, Hat and Nicole comic duo rampage, plotting of Okanoka scheme. Tampon chat scatters all. Everyone generally drunk but happy, theft of Becky’s wine causes her to dunk out early. Everyone else was psyched for the day ahead.

Day 5

Road side crag. Dan blew tire. Twat. Exchange with Mal- lorcan driver, admire view, Gemma leads a beast of a 5+ followed by Becky and Hannah with some extreme heel- hooking action and bloody technical knee. Tori, Hat and Nicole didn’t make the pumpy route but made up for it with a bombing 6a/6a+. Journal entries ceased at this point due to the extreme amounts of fun we were expe- riencing with the rest of the SUMC pack.

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I’ll carry on the last few days here:

Not taking a rest day yet I went multi-pitching for two days In a row! Firstly me and Tim Christian did a 7 pitch 6a route up the main arête of ‘Sa Gubia’ which was spec- tacularly good. The day after me and Peaches set off on the sustained and exposed 150m 6a called ‘Princessa Orig- inal’, this route was something else! It was steep from the word go and there were no ledges for belays just an end- less wall of thin feet, crozzly crimps and hanging belays. Towards the top Peaches went off route and was way above his last clip. He pushed on but was spat off the wall taking a huge whipper! 12m down he was a little shaken but otherwise okay. I reversed lead from his high point Atop Sa Gubia — A beau- and we began the long abseil down. tiful place

On my rest day I went with a group atop a mountain to a super nails crag called ‘Fraguel’ where the hard-climbers Dougie, Chris, Dan, Ryu, Oli, Ben, Fiona and Gemma got busy crushing and looking awesome. As well as the climbing we found a caterpillar, Johnny littered and we made a homemade chair rope swing which was super cool.

With only a few days left of the trip we tried to climb where the sun shone but the rain thwarted us a little too much for comfort. Not to be a party pooper we had an impromptu rave in the car-park which was sick!

On the day most flew home me, Ben and Hannah stayed for our flight back to Manchester. That day was spent climbing and sleeping at the crag followed by a comfy stay in a mountain Refugio. On our last day we set off early, headed to a crag close to the airport and had a bril- liant day full of climbing on super thin slabs and tech- nical walls. In the airport Ben forgot to put his knife into Chair-swing for funsies his hold luggage. I volunteered to put it in my carry-on bag not really thinking through the consequences of get- ting caught! Despite being searched by a 7 foot giant the knife was unseen by the scanners! Ignoring the urges to hijack the plane we arrived in Manchester and said our goodbyes with heavy hearts knowing the trip was truly over

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Yet again I finished a Christmas trip with feelings of utter satisfaction, love, happiness and sadness. The sheer amount of SUMC love feels like a warm blanket and the memories from the trip are some of the best I have and will be hard to beat. I can’t say thanks enough to every- one who came, as Vice President the amount of gratitude I got for organising the trip was at times overwhelming, but always appreciated. In the end I was still there just to have a good time and I couldn’t have done that without everyone else making it happen. Thanks a fucking bundle!

Banksy

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By Peach

A cheap, plain biscuit dunked in the Carrefour value range chocolate spread to create the most awesome crag snack in existence. A strange phenomenon that always seems to crop up time and again around the time of the Christmas trip, power biscuits prove to be a vital piece of equipment to many members of SUMC at this time of year. It is rumoured that the power of said biscuits is so great, it can cure any ailment known to man (broken limbs included), or fire up the most psyche deprived climber into fearlessly throwing themselves at the crag. Advantages: Disadvantages:

• Adequate replacement for any • Once off the crag, immediately meal (breakfast/lunch/dinner) revert to tasting of cheap choco- whilst at the crag/on a route. late and regret

• Proven fact that a single biscuit • Don’t seem to work in the UK will improve climbing strength by at least 2 grades. • Can end up in the situation where the chocolate at the bot- • Instant source of the vital nutrient tom is unreachable (this is PITFALLS TO AVOID...

Though indisputably Premade biscuit sandwiches are the Just...no. awesome, this stuff veggie bacon of the power biscuits is somewhat expen- world May look all flashy, but it’s just sive on the continent. not the real thing.

POWAHH!!!! 57

COGNE, ITALY February 2014

Ice climbing is an unusual breed of climbing. Unlike bouldering, where you can develop impeccable technique, sport climbing, where you can create superhuman endurance or trad climbing, where you can grow colossal balls, ice climbing is a generally monoto- nous game of relentlessly throwing ice down at angry Italians in the pursuit of an unri- valled profile picture. With this in mind our elite team of cross continental mountain- eers packed our bags full of psyche and went to join the circus. Arriving at Gatwick our first problem is the incapacitated Ed Hastrop, As one of our most mentally unstable members and after global domination of the Peruvian Andes, expectation had been high on him hacking his way precariously up something vaguely hard in order for the rest of us to tentatively follow and gain that crucial profile pic- ture. However in his unrelenting attempts to replace Jade impress women, he has liter- ally ruptured his arse heel hooking at the local climbing wall. Despite this we stagger through check-in on time and sooner than you can say ‘EasyJet what is this large brown thing floating in my coffee’ we touch down in the home of pizza, bunga bunga parties and the Eurozone recession. As the majority of the team now have full time jobs we had decided to splash out on some Italian automotive heritage and heading of to the Gran Paradisio National park in a blaze of tyre smoke, our Fiat Punto’s struggle to keep the power of more than one horse on the road. After cruising through Cogne with Ollie exclaiming ‘Babe’ or ‘Fuuuuuucck’ at anything vaguely female we arrive at our flat, or perhaps palace as it should have been known. Poor attempts at Italian (apparently French is not the universal language of all foreign places) confirm that this modernist, granite laden splendour is in fact solely ours and not shared with any other humans. In fervent excitement Ollie and Robin make the most of this by going climbing (?) whereas the remaining, more refined members of the

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group decide to force Nespresso capsules into an unwilling coffee machine and throw snowballs at passing Nuns. In order to avoid repetitive descriptions of pieces of frozen water I shall make the fol- lowing statement now—on all of the remaining days we went climbing. Consulting with my UKC logbook I can also confirm that all of the routes were named in Italian, formed of ice and were not very hard. Eventful things that happened in vaguely chron- ological order include: • We went to climb a Waterfall called Lausson and discovered two facts that would define our trip: a lot of the ice was melting and it had been snowing quite signifi- cantly in recent weeks. These factors occurred concurrently, but with limited accuracy, as a small, ice laden, avalanche narrowly missed Ollie and Robin. • We ordered pizza.

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• We discovered a large and growing hole in the centre of the first pitch of the ‘Cascades de Lillaz’ . After avoiding this via a sketchy solo up a snowy ramp (involving ascending a tricky boulder buried under 6ft of snow!) and completing the remaining five pitches a team senior citizens informed us how easy pitch 1 was! Having been goaded by a 70 year old women Robin returned to the base to lead pitch 1, likely the hardest of the whole trip, topping out over a genuinely ter- rifying rift in the ice. • We ordered Pizza and also gained newfound respect for the abilities of 70 year old female ice climbers. • During a game of touch the cup, in which he was by all accounts being a massive tart, Rob accepted a forfeit of one naked run to the tourist office (and apparently police station). Resembling a scared Neanderthal, with a impressively thorough plumage of back/crack hair, he completed the task only find himself locked out in the snow. Later that night he announced himself victorious and promptly turned this virgin snow a peculiar shade of ochre.

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• We climbed two waterfalls with a significant amount of snowfall on them, after backing of one due to a worrying cracking sound Tom looked down from the sec- ond and identified an unusually large pile of snow. Realising that this snowy gully may in fact, in the prevailing heavy snow conditions, be subject to one or two avalanches we promptly ran away only to uncover the next day these waterfalls had large red exclamation marks next to them at the guides office. • Ed made arguably the greatest meal of all time consisting of much unidentified Italian meat, and large quantities potatoes cooked in the fat of unidentified Italian meat. • We failed to rest on our rest day, going climbing about two in the afternoon and then had to rest the following day. We did however create a plan for the best day in the weuuurrrrlldd. • We walked round many restaurants, trying to avoid eating Pizza and then ordered Pizza. • Probably the best day… In the WEEEUURRRLLDD: We rose at five to beat the crowds and walked in under starlight to the base of El Tutto Relativo, a popular 3* route outside of Lillaz. After climbing the route under the rising sun we proceed- ed to bum slide down around 700 m of pre-compacted tracks in the snow that resembled olympic toboggan runs, descending a 5 hour climb in around 10 minutes. We then returned to our palace, bathed ourselves, cracked on the coffee & bacon and spent the afternoon watching the six nations, before heading out to a local restaurant. Ollie declared his love to the local waitress (who had in fact led him on significantly), Rob had to be carried home and we reflected upon another fine alpine adventure. (Things that could not be included due to this draconian two page limit: sledging, throw- ing knives, falling Germans, pizza descriptions, the kids meal, photos (unless Banksy gives me another page!), snow chains, snow cats, eagles, the truth, eloquent description and crag poos). “Sam H with Rob, Robin,, Ed, Tom & Ollie ”

Cogne — Italy 61

ROACHES March 2014

I think this meet should win the award for having the most committed SUMC members. Although I’m not exact- ly sure we’ve all paid our membership. (Princess: They did, honest Sam)

My case is this: aside from the Christmas Trip, how many other SUMC events can claim to have had not one, but five people fly in for their enjoyment? Maybe it was be- cause it was the first meet Spooner has missed EVER!

Anyway, there I was, jet lagged and dragged off in a bus from Southampton to somewhere debatably in the Mid- Teaching in the morning lands. And it wasn’t raining! (Princess: I finally sacrificed mist. enough virgins) The weather in the UK was better than Spain. Global warming, eh? (Princess: Caitlin please look up difference between weather and climate before I have to disown you) Or just sheer luck.

Anyway, we arrived at the hut. There were no beams for dangerous climbing stunts like last year, but there was a large table and two reasonably-sized teapots. Let the tea drinking begin!

A sleepless night on far-too-creaky beds, was followed by a grim and drizzly morning, only to be brightened up by fruity apricot and something-else-orange (Princess: man- darin) porridge! Great if you like apricots…

We all crowded into the minibus and Dan’s teeny tiny car and headed off with our sandwiches to The Roaches! As Princess’ first benight- there were more than a couple of climbing freshers, with little to no experience of climbing ever, we started off not ment. on The Sloth or Valkyrie (the best climbs), but on some small distant bit of crag (Princess: a minute walk from Valkyrie is hardly distant, you are so lazy) which looked good for teaching.

Jack ‘Evil Bastard’ Westall, then suggested a route for me and Dan to take some freshers up. What he failed to men- tion was that this route was the infamous ‘Sifta’s Quid’. After one back off, twenty minutes of screaming, grunt- ing and shrieking, we were born again. That is, Dan and I were. Abi and Emma sensibly chose a different route for their first trad. Since then, I have been plotting Jack’s downfall. If anyone knows of any good hit men/bad belay- ers let me know.

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The rest of the day was spent on a variety of horrible well -starred grit routes. Grit is horrible (Princess: What the how could ***‘Long list of expletives regarding this sinful statement was deleted so the journal could retain its PG13 rating*** grit is amazing). Grit is scary, but I managed my first lead in six months without dying, so I’m happy.

After lunch the boulder team returned from the tea-shop to bask in their knitted helmets in the March sunshine and to everyone’s surprise Little Chris was actually seen climbing trad! The day ended with a benightment of Prin- cess and Ryu which was very entertaining (and totally worth it that route was awesome), till we lost sight of them through the darkness.

Now we come to the big problem of the trip. La cuisine. Due to lack of a certain ex-president, no one was sure Smile your on camera for what was meant to happen in the kitchen. Who was Head sunny Sunday in the Chef? Who would give the instructions? (Princess: you say this like bossing people around a kitchen is something new to you)

This of course ended in an edible curry, but not to the usual club standard, with under cooked rice. Oops. But everyone smiled and cracked open their alcohol to wash it down merrily. Princess: (Caitlin it was excellent don’t be so hard on yourself)

Day Two started off with porridge you could peel off plates (Princess: I swear it was fine as long you got up before it cooled down too much…), a lack of broom and dilute mud being mopped around the hut, followed by a casual day at the crag. Routes were climbed, first leads were lead and boulders were conquered. A glorious end to week- Then it was a run down the hill to the ice-cream van be- end in the roaches with fore piling into the bus to head on down to Southampton fun had by all town.

High fives go to Ajeeth and Liam for flying in from Penn- sylvania and Prem and Carina for coming all the way from Germany. In comparison, Spain is just around the corner!

By Caitlin (Edited in a mean way by Princess because he was procrastinating from work)

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