Journey to the Peak District
This year’s fresher’s trip was another record breaker for number of members attending, 3 full minibuses and a car were required with many former members meeting us in the Peak District. Preparations for the trip were impressive with Joel organising a visit to Costco to buy vast quantities of cheap food before the trip which saved considerable amounts of money, so much so that we saw the return of bacon to ICMC. Loading of the 3 buses began at about 4 which allowed for departure before 6 for one of the buses and the other 2 were on the road before 7. The car driver was last to arrive and picked up the remaining people. The usual argument of the best way out of London ensued with everyone apparently taking different routes to eventually get to the M1.
Heading north on the M1 was exceedingly boring this year with no major incidents resulting in an early arrival at the village hall. The bus driven by Murray and Caroline (and not Fails) had been given 2 different sets of directions on how to get to the hall, one by Joel which directed them to Derby and one set by Kip which directed them to the village hall. The directions from Kip were chosen so as it was suspected that Joel just wanted everyone to go to Derby again. Arriving at the village hall, it was discovered that the minibus which left first had arrived first and gone to the pub after shotgunning all the matts to sleep on, the car had also arrived ages before due to not being limited to 100kph.
After letting the freshers stretch their legs a bit and play with some of the toys left in the village hall by other users they were put to bed by Joel who then retired to a private room with Stefan. Several freshers were fighting over who gets to sleep on the bouldering pads. This was allowed to continue until a winner was decided at which point an older member went over and informed them that sleeping on the pads was banned as it damages them. Freshers were sad until they were given a roll mat, all of which had been taken out the bus this year.
Day 1 – Froggatt Edge
Joel and Stefan were first up in the morning and spent an hour cooking bacon and eggs for people before waking everyone else up. Joel was enjoying the opportunity to model his ICMC braded clothing in the kitchen which looked fabulous. Once breakfast was ready everyone got out of their sleeping bags very quickly only to discover an unreasonable bread ration was being enforced of only 4 Green eggs and ham slices per day. Unfortunately Joel’s clothing clashed with the peculiarly coloured eggs, it seemed that Joel had bought the eggs rather a while ago and they were not the expected colour. The green eggs and ham were still eaten by many to make up for the shortages of other food. Loading the bus was another faff with people getting confused about which bus they were getting on. The first bus to leave left with an empty seat as they didn’t wait for everyone but karma caught up with them as they took the trap signpost to the village instead of the crag and lost their time advantage. Fortunately the car had a spare seat so nobody was left behind.
Leaving first with all the equipment meant the first bus also had lots of fun caring everything to the crag while those who were last to arrive didn’t have to carry must at all. Amusing antics by the other 2 minibuses mean’t the first bus was also completely blocked in.
Taking 50 people to a crag, even one as large as Frogatt would be a silly idea and would probably upset the locals, so half the trip carried on along the path to Curbar and Trackside. This venture was all bouldering and many boulders were climbed on. The people remaining at Froggatt all went trad climbing in groups of 3 which had been pre-allocated by Joel, another improvement on last years trip. However due this did cause some upset members who wanted to climb with their friends and those who wanted good belayers for harder climbs later in the day.
Initially many easy climbs were done to let the new climbers get up a few things. No top ropes were set up by ICMC at all meaning that there was no route hogging which so many people get upset by. Additionally we avoided some of the 3 star classics as there tends to be a big queue for them and we didn’t want to add to this. There were 4 other university groups there as well which caused some confusion due to mistaken identity. One of the groups was from
Loughbourgh and had previously been encountered in Fontainebleau, the notorious “Rapey Dave” was rumoured to be at the crag but was not found.
Joel enjoyed the ultra-classic Toddy’s Wall (HVS) which it’s ridiculous cock over and overall outstanding quality. 2 ascents of three Pebble Slab (HVS) were attempted by Ben and Murray with Ben asking for a rope to be rescued and Murray manning up and finishing it. Tom climbed another mega classic called Chequers Buttress after camping at the bottom for 5 other people to go up it. Kip climbed his first E1 Strapiombante which was incredibly pumpy and no other clean ascents were made, even by his second. Murray did try it but fell off/pusseyed out on the last move. Kips victory is in addition to using his band new aliens which did not explode when used which is an impressive feet in its own right.
Not everyone had such a productive day out. Andy fell off one of his climbs during the crux and managed to rip out 2 pieces of gear, one came out because the rock exploded. Fortunately he had been placing many pieces of good gear before this point so only had a small fall. Other people at the crag who are in no way affiliated with ICMC faired much worse. One person managed to kick out his gear on an E2 and then almost hit the deck. While a different person fell off of the extremely run out Browns Eliminate which has gear just below half height, he inverted and hit the floor. The guy’s helmet took the impact and was destroyed, but this took all of the force and he was fine. A number of other groups set up top ropes of classic climbs and then dogged up them polishing the holds a little more.
It was decided that once the sun started to set it was probably time to leave the crag. After packing up and picking up everybody else’s litter people headed back to the bus. Older members had head torches as they knew that we never leave the crag until it’s too dark to see and they helped everybody else back to the bus. Returning to the village hall dinner was started, learning from last year it was cooked in several small batches. A few beers were had by most people and silly antics ensued. Joel and Murray decided to play a game involving a rope, they both ended up half naked with Joel using his thighs to squeeze Murray’s head so his sock could be removed. Eventually people headed to bed.
Day 2 – Stannage Edge
Again Joel and Stefan got up early to cook breakfast for everyone. More issues ensued with the eggs as it became apparent that some of the eggs were a bit more red than might be expected, after being reminded that eggs are essentially chicken periods everyone decided to eat them anyway. Packing up everyone’s stuff and leaving the hall was also a speedy affair meaning that we got to the crag very early. People ran off to do different things all along Stannage. As a regular club place to visit many people had projects and climbs on their tick lists that they wanted to get done. There was a lot more easy bouldering than the previous day so many of the freshers had a go at that.
Ali and Murray spent a while trying to do Deliverance, Ali had spent many a day falling off the impressive dyno and spent much of this day doing the same. Lizzie climbed both the left and right unconquerables (E1 and HVS respectively), Murray wanted to climb these as well but pulled a tendon in his elbow so decided not to. Ben crushed some E2 climbs and many other routes were done by people. The day was a bit warm for particularly hard climbs as the friction gets worse with heat.
Martin had a minor accident while bouldering, he jumped off a climb but there was a small rock under the bouldering pad which resulted in a twisted ankle. First aid was given and this opportunity was taken to crack out the ICMC SAM splints which made the injury look much more severe than it was. Murray gave his professional diagnosis of “defiantly not broken” which will hopefully break his 100% rate of incorrect diagnosis. Martin was helped home by Amy and the two of them were given places in the car so that they could get back to London earlier and be dropped home to avoid any need to walk.
Joel started getting everyone to pack up and head to the bus at 4 o’clock. This was considered very early by a number of older members, particularly 3 ex-presidents and Fresher who decided to stage a mutiny. Unfortunately 3 out of the 4 people on the mutiny were not taking the buses back to London so noting really happened as a result of this. There was some considerable debate amongst members as to which bus they wanted to go home in and with which drivers. Eventually the unpopular driver was put in the unpopular bus and filled with people who were unaware of the reasons for them being unpopular; fortunately no incidents occurred on the way home.
On the journey home each bus stopped at the Pizza place in Loughborough arriving just as the previous bus was finishing so the pizza place was not totally overwhelmed. During the journey home BBC Radio 1’s Sunday Surgery was put on to entertain the drivers with other people’s misfortune. The surgery was rather boring with people mostly complaining about their weight. The final person to call up was called Mr Baggins-Mendes had a slightly more interesting story about a gay friend who kept hitting on him. Mr Baggins-Mendes kept refusing the other gentleman’s advances on the pretence that he was straight however he secretly has feelings for the gentleman but is unsure about coming out. The Surgery suggested that Me Baggins-Mendes bite the bullet and go for it however he remained unconvinced.
The buses arrived back at the union outrageously early and managed to unpack and get everything away in time for people to catch the tube home, a rare occasion for an ICMC trip. Overall everyone seemed to enjoy the trip with many people climbing outside for their first time and several others doing their best climbing ever. No freshers were recorded missing which is yet another impressive achievement for the new president.
