The first ICMC trip of the decade was to the hallowed gritstone crags of the peak district, and it was mega. Hopes were low when we arrived at The Nelson Arms on Friday evening, with drizzle making any climbing over the weekend look unlikely. Nevertheless, Ed managed to convince Ben to get everyone up before the sun had even risen in hope of getting a full day of climbing. Such a move is unprecedented in recent ICMC history, and perhaps marks the start of a new era of climbing hard (and possibly even eating lard?). Over the course of the previous week I had also been pestering Ben to take us to Millstone, an old gritstone quarry famous for its cracks and arêtes. Ben didn’t need much convincing, fresh from tearing up the Westway crack every Wednesday.
On arriving at Millstone, we were surprised to find it relatively dry. We were even more surprised to find an almost new big purple Black Diamond Camalot overcammed halfway up a VS offwidth. Ciaran was fastest to set up an abseil onto it and got to work trying to get it out. It took him almost 2 hours to get it, breaking a nut key in the process, but at last he claimed it. Whilst was doing this, everyone else got climbing. Mike Chan, who had driven down from Edinburgh the night before, banished any illusion of fatigue by warming up on Regent’s Street (E2 5c). At the same time Jake, Stu, Martha and I were shamefully doing some bouldering. Technical Master (f6b+) went down for Ciaran, Anna, Mike and me over the course of the day. After this the real climbing began, sort of. Jake immediately got shut down by the “polished and shit” classic Embankment 1 (VS 4c), barely making it off the ground. I then dogged my way up Embankment 3 (E1 5b) and Anna also dogged up the much easier Embankment 4 (E1 5b). Ben had a good attempt of seconding up Embankment 3, before struggling to get his sausage fingers into the pin scars. Apparently ICMC doesn’t do well on cracks without the ice axes. Although no one could feel their hands due to the cold, somehow the pain of finger jamming could still be felt as much as, if not more than usual.
Our fortunes turned after Lunch however, with Ciaran and Ed leading the super classic Great North Road (HVS 5a), Anna managing to do Embankment 3, and Ed and Ben teaching trad to the less experienced people by setting up practice leads on top rope. Mike produced one of the scarier leads of the trip. When he latched the top of Tea for Two (E4 6a), he was facing a monster fall of at least 10m if he failed to negotiate the crux. Ben and Jake were looking on seemingly more scared than Mike.
Martha had a nice nap on a bouldering pad, and might have put her shoes on once, but no one saw. It was Burn’s night that evening, so we had an authentic Scottish meal of haggis, neaps and taties. Ciaran even addressed the haggis before we ate it.
The second day was the antithesis of the first. We knew it would piss with rain most of the day, and somehow Anna managed to convince Ben to take us to the half falling apart, half underwater, 100% nails sport crag called Rubicon. I thought it sacrilegious to go to a limestone crag whilst in the peaks, and my fears were realised when we saw that most of the climbs had deep pits of mud underneath them. No pit of mud was as deep as the one underneath Rubicon (F7a), the classic of the crag. Hanging belays just above the ground were discussed as options to prevent climbing shoes being covered in mud, but eventually a rope bag was sacrificed. Anna was the first to attempt it, easily negotiating the 4m to the first bolt above the safety net of the mud, however couldn’t get the clean lead due to reachy moves on damp holds. Ed, Martha and Stu all had similar experiences on it, but all got to the top. The others who were inspired enough to put their shoes on by the choss worked on a f6b+ boulder, which was done by Anna, Ben and Jake. Ciaran spent all his energy working it out, but his heavy day of pulling on the stuck cam yesterday left him unable to get it before a wet streak reached the crucial holds.
For everyone else it was a day of less than productive activities. That being said two interesting games did come out of it. Firstly, dynamic nut placements were practiced by Ciaran and me, with Jake’s nuts. After about 10 minutes of jumping and at full stretch swinging the nut at the placement, we had got it in and we weren’t going to get it out again, much to Jake’s annoyance.
The second game will go down as a classic of ICMC history; ‘Danger Jug’. It was said that the crag wasn’t that bad because ‘you could take home all your favourite holds with you’. This was true for a particularly loose jug low in a cave under Rubicon. We all took turns to do pull ups off the jug, occasionally giving it a wobble or adding an extra person’s weight, until it came off. On the final attempts Ben even wore a helmet over his face to stop it breaking his nose if it came off. The jug has since gone to where all good rock should go; hung up in stores for people to train on for years to come.
Despite all this the greatest achievement happened on the way home, with Jake managing to finish two meat junctions on his first attempt. Such a feat calls into question the possibility of the audacious triple meat junction. For sure this is one of the last great problems of life, and would bring worldwide attention to that most famous Loughborough institution.