By James Lawson (Kip)

The Journey

After a near miss with a taxi food was collected for our first winter outing and despite mutterings of poor conditions departure expedited. Sam’s mum phoned in to say the only thing on the mountains was slush. Approaching Birmingham the conspicuous absence of snow supported the poor conditions report. On arrival at the hut (1:30AM) it wasn’t even cold (~5c) the prospects of any winter climbing looked slim.

Day 1

We all headed off to Parisella’s cave and Split Infinity for some winter bouldering. Looking quite silly attired in salopettes or in the case of one loud blonde Yorkshire man, a little authoritarian. The bouldering was good with everyone apart from Fresher completing the V3 traverse in split infinity and Rock Bottom (V6) flashed by Sam and declared “soft” by Alistair.

Day 2

The older guys + Murray headed off to Tremadog for some trad action while everyone else headed back to the Cave. The bouldering was excellent with many of the easier cave problems climbed. Sam spent most of the day trying the high left wall traverse which looked nails; Alistair worked a problem with a silly last move. Myself Lisa and Adrian completed the end of the left wall traverse (V5) which had a very seapy polished sloper as its crux.