By the editor, Rich Marshall.

A journal of ICMC activity from 1997/98 by Rich Marshall, titled “Jammin’Crack”.

The original cover featured a bra attached to someone’s buttocks, and was omitted as a reflection of the change in the club since that era.

The full document can be found here: Click here to download

Transcription

Editorial: I MADE THIS

As far as I can deduce this happens to be only the third journal in 29 years, the last being printed in 1974! Amazingly this relic from the past contains stories the traditional last meet of the first tern (Bosigran!), the dinner meet, an expedition in the Bolivian Andes (with 23 routes climbed, some potentially 15 ascents!) and talks by Doug Scott (I" ascent of Everest’s north face!) Has the club changed over the years, I ask myself? Well to be honest, NO. There are enough of stories of stopping for “spew stops” and disappearing off to far flung corners of the globe with union money only to end up drinking and pulling to realise we’re probably doing them proud! May it continue!

In writing the editorial and having to put the journal together in the first place 16 1S usual to grip about the hassle and stress of the job. My predecessor described it as “one of the lowest orders of the alhatros” next to “grodpole holder”! I can assure you however that after one has experienced all emotional states between fussing (over picture choice) and mad panic (when word crashes again!), this is not the case. Combine this with a picture of me trying to explain to my Greek female ottice mate exactly why. have a picture of a bum in a bra on my computer screen and you’ll understand that this has been far tron boring.

I’m now only have my thankyous to left to say. Firstly thanks must go to the exec this year whos hard work has been reflected through the success of the club, well done. Secondly thanks to Megan who: bright smile followed by swift punch in the groin has “encouraged” many people to contribute! Alsc thanks to Rich Marr who sorted out all the pictures, aren’t they cool! A short note of thanks to my supervisor for not pointing out the obvious fact that I haven’t done any work fOr the last two weeks anc finally thanks to the contributors. without whom I would have been shafted good and proper

Dinner meet: Dave makes a speech

“You’ll never get me p*ssed” says Dave, as we set off in the bus to the Lake District… 24 hrs later, after a bottle of whiskey the fact that he can still stand amazes most people, although getting dressed proved a little tricky with others having to help out. Mucn amusement coming mom Dave assuring Us n6 can put on his tie himself, yeah right. Anyway, we arrive for the dinner and ask the waitress for a bucket just in case. Phil Wicken: makes THE quote, offending the waitresses to the degree that they refuse to serve his table /Typical caver. Ed./. Dave gets up and makes his speech , which was remarkable coherent considering the whiskey, Although nobody can remember what he said, was it the bottle of Tequila? I’m just guessing here. We did however get him to read out the following. Like wot? Where do I put mi hands now? No No No No No! Sivams I didn’t fit in the crack. You I never get me p#ssed The dinner finished swiftly with the elections followed by the first of many chats on the big white telephone. Dave (*5), Rich Marr and Martin amongst the fallen on the battle scene with the another 10 or so casualties the following morning. The few trying to get away with a sneaky vomi didn’t manage it. vou will be remembered. Those who managed courageously to keen their stomach lininas. throuchout the previous night fell at the last post, breakfast. The biggest greasy spoon you have ever seen was served up by the owners of the hut. Consequently many posts were abandoned in the rush to save respectability, and thanks to the unknown person adding diced carrots to the, much used, dunking trough. The best excuse going AWOL came from Graham who tried to get away with blaming it on thi Tequila worm he’d eaten, until he realised someone else had drunk it! Remember the worm 1S out there.. By Graham Cooper and Phil Mayers (Translated into English by the Ed.]

Exiled to S&G for being silly

Some people over the last year have done some very silly things, haven’t they? We all know what happens to you if you do that don’t we? Yes, you’re exiled to S&G (and if that doesn’t teach you a lesson, nothing will!)

El chorro ‘97: Bolt clippers sunbathe and do brave stuff

It all started one afternoon above a betting shop on Fulham Road. A collection of alcoholics watching an evening of British cinema including The Italian Job’ and Monty Python’s .and now for something completely different. This unbounded of Stupidity was to set the atmosphere for the entire holidav. A Taxi ride at breakneck speed in the wee small hours took us to Gatwick airport. where the more enthusiastic of us raced in luggage trolleys across the deserted terminal. A plane and a train later we found ourselves in El Chorro (the centre of nownere) onlv to tind an automobile driver I by our gracious host, and rally-driver wannabie Jean, ready to take us further away tron anvwhere. The climbing started immediately (although some more relaxed members of the club decided that they wanted to acclimatise to the nice weather betore doing anything too strenuous, 1e sunbathing). El Chorro is a small town on the train line between Malaga and Seville and is a popular venue for climbers from all around Europe. The gorge (through which the train line winds its way) provides varied routes of all grades for beginners and hard-core climbers alike. with routes anvwhere from 20ft to 400ft in length. In addition to climbing, the surrounding hills are excellent for mountain biking. A 70 vear old steel cable, stretchina diagonallv across the gorge provided entertainment and photo opportunities as thre members of the club travelled across (at this point please bear in mind that the cable is over 100m above a white-water river and is 150m long). Surprisingly enough there were no serious casualties during the trip, (and all of the minor injuries seemed to be focused on James a rock fell on me’ Philips). Our honoured treasurer did some rather impressive shit, and we all cheered. He also fell off, and we cheered again and threw beans at him Arguably the most epic climb of the trip was a route named El Amptrax, graded French 6a (where 8c is about the hardest climbable). Amptrax was a route that went up the highest part of the rock and took the entire day for two pairs of climbers to complete, and included a dramatic overhang on the final pitch Not all Of our time was spent being macho, tanned, hard-bodj types. We also spent some time walking in the hills absorbing the beautifu scenery (yean right), as well as swimming naked in the reservoir just north of the upper gorge (no seriously we did, apart form the naked bit, I lied about that) / and the bar, Ed. J. At this point I would like to say that Belay bunny only had chips (SOrry a personal joke, It’s very tunny, trust me). Al the end or the week we were loath to leave, but with shortening tunas and looming exams we returned home, with improved personal bests and some nice tans.

Les alpes: Sam’s epic

Quite a few people managed to get out to the Alps this summer (Graham, Ian, James, sJam Myself and others/ completing many routes despite the appalling weather experienced. The most notable assents being the Tour Noir, Aig. L’M and the Aig. De Perseverance. With such a large number of climbs completed the reports from the Alps could have potentially filled the entire journal, so I had to restrict the number of entries to a single arucie. My reason for choosing this over other potential candidates is simply that it was an epic. It also nappened to De the same route that the du anoteep the quotes section. / came trom 2 weeks later when they followed me up the route. ha. ha. ha. So over to Sam… Finally! The weather forecast from the “Office de Haute Montagne” in Chamonix, predicted a Clear sunny day. Vur chance had come to do a route on the Aiguille de I’M. My climbing partner, Ben and I set off early from the campsite to catch the cable car from the town at 7am to reach the Plan du ‘Aiguille. We had decided to do a relatively low route (a maximum altitude of 2844m) to avoid the snow that had built up, but there was still up to a foot of snow on the lower slopes. We trekked for two hours across small snowfields and glacial moraine. The route we had planned to do had a bit of snow and ice on it and looked very bad. We had crampons and ice axes with us, but w decided to do an easier route which Should be in better condition with more sun facing it. After another trek we finally began climbing the NNE ridge of the M. The route was better, but still had snow coverer ledges, and climbing in rock shoes made getting over these difficult. A couple of other climbers started to follow us up, and they turned out to be British. The first pitches of the climb were alright, but they began to get harder. We soon reached a large ledge which had lots of snow on it, and I got my feet cold and wet. The next pitch was a small chimner but it had ice on the inside, which made it difficult to gel up. Ben lead the ditch and I managed to scramble un it By the time I reached the top I was thoroughly tired, anc the weather Was Star ung to close in. I was temnted to call it a day and abseil off, but we decided it should be easier to Keep going to the top, and find the easy walk ont from there. we could see the English couple were struggling. but persevering. We continued to the ton, and now the clouds had come in and it was starting to snow. It was also getting late and we were in danger of missing the last cable car down. Finally we reached the top and coulc nardlv see a counle of metres in front of us Worse still we couldn’t find the route off the top, as there was so much snow, and it looked too dangerous to try We were soon joined by the other climbers, Roger and Michelle (trom Barnsley), who were alsc very tired and unsure of the ‘walk out’ route. Ben and I decided to abseil off the way we had climbed up, as at least we knew the way. The chance of us catching the cable car was now very slim. We had onlv: single 50m rope with us so it would take several abseils to get down. We had to leave bits of sling and cord behind tied around spikes to thread the rope through. We saw the others following us down, but they were using two 50m ropes tied together. We reached the large ledge about a third of the way down, when we heard shouts from above. We stopped and looked up to see Michelle shouting down to us that they had got their ropes jammed, anC couldn’t budge them. Roger was trying to free them but without any luck. He was about half way down hi. ropes and quite stuck. While we waited he managed to cut his rope and retie it to abseil dowr ) where Michelle was waiting. They managed to absell and scramble down to where we were waiting. They only had two pieces of rope left, about one third of their original length. It was starting to get dark now, and was still snowing. The four of us abseiled down our rope off the rest of the mountain. By the time we reached the base, it was black and we had missed the cable car down by hours. There was nothing for it but to walk down to the valley, 1500m below us. We only had a few torches with us, and the ground was very difficult with snow to start with leading onto the glacial moraine, large lumps of granite which are hard to cross. After several hours wt managed to find a path which eventually led to a track through the forest. We were all extremely exhausted and stumbling along these rough tracks, often tripping up over rocks and roots. Our torch batteries were beginning to fade. We kept on going, even though I was tempted just to find a nice bush and go to sleep under it. We could see the town lights, but they never seemed to get closer. At 2am We finally reached the campsite and just flopped into bed.

By Sam Downer.

Ireland: sea stacks, don’t jump

Having conquered the Alps a couple of weeks previously, the Spacevan then travelled off to SW Ireland with Graham and I in it. Having bored the f*ck out of Graham looking for my ancestral home in Cork, we finally managed to climb a handful of stunning pitches near Killarney in Cr Kerrv. Even though this part holds the highest mountain in Ireland (Carrantouhill), the amount of rock climbing is quite limited compared to the northern and eastern areas (e.g. Wicklow) - which I encourage vou to visit in the not too distant titure The highlight of the trip was when Graham almost killed himself jumping 18m off a sea stack. Soloing up the 30m high stack (about V Diff was nevertless superb. However, one morning whilst culturing around Dingle in Kerry, I discovered the true magic of freshly made Irish Soda Bread. I have recently discovered a scientific explanation for this magic - it 1: in the acidity of the buttermilk which reacts with the alkalinity of the soda making it rise even better! Grabam was not impressed - luckily he didn’t have to suffer this decadence as he had remembered to bring his own strange variety of bread all the way from the co-op in Devon

By James “NICE” Carter

Postcard from Lyon: Graham Cooper on Tour

Dear Club, being a keen student, I naturally took the opportunity of spending a year in France at a college in Lyon as to broaden my horizons and learn the French way of engineering. It had nothing to do witl the close proximity of the Alps and endless possibilities of routes on rock, snow and ice to explore. The mountaineering club in Lyon are a good crowd who I met at the year’s hirst pss up, and who then decided it would be a laugh to invite some English psshead, to do some climbing with them. The year started well with a few easy warm up peaks ( Pic de l’tendard, and the Alberon) which gave me chance to overcome some quite important communication difficulties. These routes were simple glacie: walks although a little steep in places for the Alberon. After that, before it got too cold we did one weekend of big rock routes in the Erins massif. this was one of the best weekends I’ve had this year and we did one route high up graded D, and one route the next day of 350m at a level around 6a, quoter ID/ID+. You hardcore nutter. Ed. I Unfortunately after that there were lots of parties so I stayed in Lyon. (Two coachloads of students spending a whole day visiting wine caves accompanied by a less than sober brass band being one Delore Christmas however, I did manage to spend 5 davs near Chamonix (Cluses’ doing some big rock routes (not too high up because it was cold) and a weekend in the Calanques (set cliffs near Marseilles: reminded me of Devon) After Christmas the ice chimbing season begins. We are but mortal men, so interspersed with some climbing a group of us had a go at that to. By halt term we were getting quite reasonable and hadn'1 yet had any fatal injuries, but then one dark night while descending I tripped over and cut my finger. Fully recovered by half term I did a bit more including Chere Couloir on Mont Blanc du Tacul. /A route I car personally recommend, Ed./ Finally on the last day I did my first bit of vertical ice which was a cigar of about 10 meters followed by other smaller vertical passages. [NICE, Ed.] After that all the ice falls fell down, sometimes with people on them, so we stopped climbing them. Since half term I’ve done a few other things, some skung and ski trekking but what I really want to do is an approach on skis, then an iced up gully then decent on skis, but the weather hasn’t beer so that will have to walt. That’s about all. I hope you’ve had a cool year, and if any one wants to come out to the Alps al Easter or in the summer, I shall be there all the time. Hope you have a good dinner meet, (worms aren’t good for you). Also if it’s not too late I’d like to give the presidents spot a go, so don’t forget to vote for me. cheers Graham Cooper world reputed second rate mountaineer P.S. This is the longest mail I’ve ever written in my life . If it f*cks up and doesn’t send I will kill myself. Sounas like a promise to me, Ed. l By Graham Cooper (Translated by the editor (again), Ed.].

Cornwall 1: belays lob

Apparently, it’s traditional to go to Cornwall for the last trip of the Winter term - and as far as I’m concerned it’s a bloody good one! The trip started with having our normal early hours arrival at thr Count House which was complete with regimented lines of drawing pins, and more rules than a nunnery. We emerged from our sleeping bags, later that morning (about 4 hours later to be precise) only tc realise that we had picked the one weekend in the entire Cornish winter that had seen any sun! The weather outside even managed to motivate Garth to emerge from his bag with less than the customar: seven thousand curses, insults and threats of death. After a breaktast of porridge/concrete (no one was toc sure) which really hit the spot (in the bin we were prepared for the long walk into the crag. Hive ministe later we were basking in the morning sun and several members of the club wel re contemplauna takinc there trousers off (well Rob had seen some prime lamb).

A day of decadent climbing followed, with Megan and Ruth forming the women’s liberation front climbing corps and deciding that all men were bastards on the way up Door-post /I told you not t let them out of the kitchen, Ed. J. The old school boys managed to find a few routes that they hadn’t done at least twenty times before, while everyone else sampled all the treats Bosigran had in store. Rob jogger up Anvil Chorus and hauled James P up the last pitch atter him he then announced that VSs were going OK so he’d try an El (Suicide Wall) While Rob and Al started Suicide Wall, Ian and myself decided to do the awesome Anvil chorus - the first pitches were pure climbing pleasure anc then we got to the infamous layback crack. It was all going fine and I was about 2/3rds of the way up the crack when I saw the top and went for It. A purely instinctive reaction, two layback moves (now with a left leg thal wouldn’t have been out of place in an Elvis dance routine) later and I was covering some serious air miles.. One of my bits of gear decided that it didn" particularly like being in the rock, in fact it didn’t even like being on the rope and duly detached itself from it, the second held and I bounced on the rope about and inch or two below the belay ledge Remarkably lan managed to sustain the worst injury (I was fine) with a nice little burn mark across his belaying hand (cheers lan). After establishing that my left leg was now having problems sticking to the ground, let alone the rock (due to unwanted vibrations that a Union van would be proud of), I decided to ab. down later to get my bit of gear out. I spent the rest of the day trying to find my bit of projectile gear and seconding up a lovely slab routt with Al. While James “Nice C and his sous-chet Ruth, worked their magic with a saucepan, we all buggered off down the pub… on return we discovered a meal fit for a King, in fact about 500 kings, and we all tucked in. A night of drinking, smoking and pulling ourselves along the floor with some professional climbers ensued. followed by another cats chorus (which I’m sure the other inhabitants of the hut appreciated). The next day was spent in pretty much the same fashion as the first, with me getting my confidence back and everyone else basking in the second day of lovely sun. We prepared to leave with a great deal of reluctance, Megan providing entertainment for Sam and Garth - Sam attempting to drown her in the shower and Gareth performing the first steps of some bizarre mating ritual by wiping a dirty T towel in her face (whatever turns you on ’ehh Megan!). James and Al. sped off in the space-mobile (mark I while the rest of us chugged back in the van

• content after vet another corker of a trio

By Belav “fancy a sweaty little bov” Bunnv.

North Wales 2 ‘98: Sheep and lots of them

Last weekend ICMC embarked on their second trip of the year to North Wales. Although just before the trip the thought of spending two grim days in what I expected to be a very wet and cold Wales didn’t fill me with joy, it turned out to be on of the best weekends ever We didn’t get the weekend off to a great start with most of Friday evening spent waiting for the AA in our traditional stop at Lutterworth. We were at least kept entertained by watching the locals smashing up cars and trying to kill each other, a typical notherners Friday night entertainment After arriving at the hut fairly late we got off to a typical start, 1.. slept in till the afternoor When we did get up we went off to the pass and did some great routes, with Simon coming close tr getting a few more Air Miles (as if he doesn’t have enough already). The general feature of most of the routes was mud and cr*p, inspiring Sam to do a new route and naming it “Sam’s grassy plateau”, nc Drizes for guessing what that consisted of.

Later it was back to the hut to consume a fantastic meal prepared by James Carter along with vas amounts of beer/What even you? Ed]. The rest of the evening was spent planning how best to use the spare keys to S&G’s minibus which we had somehow acquired! Suggestions included ram raiding the Snowden Honey farm, unfortunately everyone was ta: to sone to carry anv or them our Sunday we split up, half climb in Treamadog and the rest go up to Snowden via the Crib Goch ridge with continuos sunshine ensuring both parties enjoyed themselves. The day ended with a complete tour of London on the way back as Dan tried to remembe exactly where he lived, pronouncing “I must live near Wembley, I can see the stadium from my house” to much hilarity from withir the bus!

By Megan “Mancy-Lancy hotpot” Bradley.

Lob of the day: the ants

Three ants carrying a piece of bread slipped on an overhang, although one of them held onto the rock. the bread and the other two ants. / Climoing in El Chorro is really hard core as you can see, Ea.)

By unknown

Scotty ‘98: proper mountaineering

I’m sitting in a Scottish hut watching Dam busters waiting for the others to arrive. The weather being an absolute pig has been blasting the Scottish bills for the last three days with a ferocity greater thar Jack Russell with a firework up its butt, filing me with a sense of foreboding. The others duly arrive, a motley crew composed of ICMC and S&G members. Ahhhbh it’s a joint trip with S&G I hear you cry, well you’ll just have to bean be later! Antoine, of burning water fame, gets underway with organising the kitchen whilst the Gear (Alan) organises the gear! All the other S&Gites loaf about getting in the way with one exception, Hideous Buggar, who manages to do it with such professionalism others start to question his parentage An earlv start (up at 6:30! was folled by the weather dumping several inches of snow on the roac closing giving us half an hour of hilarity watching incompetent skiers mess around. On arriving annE Cairngorm car park and trekking in the conditions were found to be excellent leading to many ascenti over the next few days. These included The Runnel (RH variation), Aladdin’s Couloir, Red Gully, Fiacle Ridge, Broken Gully and Jacobs ladder. The hardest route of the week, Invernookie (LIL/IV) was completed by the mountaineers, Of course. Chosen because the guide book describes it as a route that changes little with conditions. A phrase I now consider to be the biggest lie I’ve ever heard, including the excuses for not writing articles! The first pitch (out of condition) consisted of using 3 lumps of turf to climb 20m of iceless slab. second pitch (out of condition), lead by Julian consisted of levitating up s “powder’ steps without knocking them down on me. The third pitch (out of condition) should have been a near vertical pitch in kind of broken chimney, ho ho ho what a joke. Instead it involved hooking iceaxes on overhanging rocks to the left whilst using ice smears for your feet, a technique I learnt very quickly! This was followed by : small powder filled offwidth with an overhanging wall to the left trine to push vou onto a totally blant face on the right. How we laughed. tears in our eves. The pitch can only be best characterised by the amount of swearing Julian managed in one breath along with the number of times he forcefully suggestec I was a f*cking psycho. The only comfort from this was a sudden heat wave ensured no more routes could be done, topping the last one would be tricky! This meant the last few days merged into a series of distillery trip: and bimbling, we had to play along with S&G a little. End of week celebrations gave Antoine the opportunity to surpass himself with a whiskey a haggis evening to beat all others along with Alan Claiming a pot prize for managing to pull, something I have never witnessed on a mountaineering trir hefore

By Rich Marshall.

P.S. Best wishes to Julian Rickard in the Himalavas this summer

Cornwall 2 ‘98: NICE

It was a pretty cool weekend - on arriving at 2 in the morning we camped next to the “No Camping” sign in the Chair ladder car park we couldn’t be arsed to find anywhere else! After discovering that most of the tents had certain essential bits missing, we managed to erect some vaguely tent like tents and collapse into them only to be evicted in the morning by a pointy head with a dog which wanted to get into James bivvy bag with him! However it did get going nice and early, we were climbing at Sennen by about 9.30! Sennen was pretty nifty, the routes are quite hard and exposed for their grade. I did two HSs, on the first I had to place a bit of pro whilst using an undercut to reach over an overhang (then proceed lc pull over the overhang!!). On the second I had to swing out onto a large flake, hand traverse along it with smears for feet and then mantle shelf onto it - with no hand holds to pull on. Phoar, can 1 have your children? Ed. / It was excellent! I think I might go back in the summer cause it would be gorgeous without a force 10 gale!! We managed to find a valid campsite after climbing, despite James’ cained protestations that we should go to St Ives “cause it was NICE”!! The site owner however was a old pointy headed female with the site itself not being much better. Since all the proper sites were shut however it was a pretty good, cheap place to camp, with a dub up the road. Sunday we went to Bosigran and while Daffy launched up Door post I sat about getting rained or by intermittent showers contemplating whether I could be arsed to climb a very slimy Ding. I decided I couldn’t and went for a hard core bimble (hard core since I was carving a 30-40 pound sack!!)/No excuse join S&G, Ed.I. Of course this was the cue for the sun to arrive for the rest of the day, so when I found a nice secluded beach in the blazing sun I couldn’t resist a quick dip. This, of course, caused the entire bas to suddenly be filled with parents and small children leaving me to run back to my bag (half way up the beach) in my wet boxers in front of a crowd Wembley would be proud of!! The others, by all accounts went bouldering in a cove round the corner. After that Alex did his Nigel Mansell impression and drove all the way back - getting us back before midnight

By Simon “fancy a sweaty little boy” Judge

Baldric the sausage

Once upon a time there was a little sausage named Baldric and he lived happily ever after.

Nicked by Rich Marr, dedicated to Simon Judge.

Swanny ‘98 (13th-15th feb): NICE

By far and away one of the best weekends despite a rather low turnout. Upon arriving in Lanator Matravers, we headed for a rendezvous with Sam in The King’s Arms. This turned out to be a counle o barrels of ale in someone’s living room, and we almost apologised for bursting into the landlord’s home before we realised it was the local pub. Our local guide arrived before closing time with the news that Old Tom’s Field was closed, so we set up for the night in Young Sam’s Lounge. This is a highly recommender camp site, but watch out for Sam’s chocolate logs. Many thanks to the wardens for the use of their well mamtamned faculties. The following morning we took the ferry across to Swanage, a surreal experience in the dense morning fog and eerily silent and calm waters. After breakfast at Ricky’s we checked out the local shop and agreed to meet back at the bus. As per tradition, we lost Al K and almost left him behind. We chose to go for the climbs at Winspit because they offered a good range of climbs in some fabulou: surroundings. Al P and I decided to try a well polished HVS 5b ammonite but by the end of the day it had managed to defeat all of us. Meanwhile Daffy tackled an excellent VS and Ruth, Sam and Al P had a go at some bolted E’s (blot wendies, Ed.] which were far too exciting. Cursing the bad design of ancient sea creatures, Al P and I went to try the trad routes by the sea but found them to be a bit wet (and there was : lot of water too). We returned to the Juarrvman’s Wall to nav on the bolted routes instead. At the end of the day Daffy lobbed fantastically on an HVS he was trying to lead, and Ruth and Al P found a trad route in the quarry that wasn’t apparently in the guide book, and promptly named it Lard Arse. As the night drew in we decided to head back into Swanage to find a pub. We encountered some particularly odd locais in The Anchor (even odder than us), and decided to hide from them in the back oi the pub. However they probably thought Ruth was pretty odd [and who wouldn’t, Ed.] when they heard her announce that she “alwavs noticed when it was in front of her. but didn’t notice it from behind” and that “doing it forwards is much worse that doing it backwards” - abselling of course. We decided to cros: quickly over to The Swan where we dined and danced the night away to the live music from the rocking and totally un-valentines band. Finally we staggered back up the hill to camp out under the glittering stars and sweeping bear of the lighthouse… or on a log if Daffy had anything to do with putting up the tent! The next morning we arrived at the country park before the crack of dawn (So that’ll be Llish then? Ed.J. As the sun rose we knew we were in for a fabulous day at the Subluminal cliffs. Al K promptly established our presence at the cliffs by setting up the “Abseil Rope Of Doom” just east of the popular Balcony route. A number of friendly climbers who politely asked to make use of the rope were seen to struggle back up over the edge of the cliff a few hours later, in an obviously less friendly mood. The bottom of the abseil involved a lovely near-inverted, “don’t wanna break my skull’, free-fall finish fo added amusement factor - thanks Al. This provided excellent practice for those in the group (previously) not keen on the activity, and prepped us for some excellent climbs on possibly the best coastal crags in the country. The easier severe route Gangway provided valuable trad gear leading experience for both Daffy and myself. Later in the day we were joined by other members of ICMC. James took Megan on the climbs near face, and lan et al. disappeared to look for some nice hard routes /located in the pub perchance: Ed.J. Ruth, Daffy and Al P tried a mixed up combination of Highstreet and Bypass, and later Megan made a leisurely lead up the Highstreet (trust a woman to spend ages on the highstreet). When Al K and I got rudely blocked off an HS route by some other climbers we decided to take a break, but Daffy and Al F carried on by tackling first Corner. As the day came to its inevitable but unnecessary end, Ruth finishec off by leading Damo up Curving Crack and after Al K finished his billionth cigry and went to rescue the infamous ab rope. Of course, he managed to make another spectacular cock-up of the entire operation anc almost ended up taking a swim (sorry Al but it’s true)! He forgot his prusick (essential for ascending), anc we suspect he used fart power from the previous night’s Skull-ache bitter to get back un. Overall an entertaining day to round off a perfect trip. Many thanks to Al P for his excellent driving through the fog-scaped nights and WOCdt Woody for organising the trip (And the Banana Joke). BV Dan