By Ruth Lawson
First day - Friday (8th March 2013)
17:41 – and the bus is off! Fully packed and we only forgot the map and first aid kit. Our impressive start was only foiled slightly by traffic jams and we managed to make it to Milkins’ house by midnight. Luxurious conditions were experienced by all, mostly Ruth and Rosanna who were assigned a ‘girls’ room
Murray declined his invitation. Ben, Sam and Will couldn’t decide which of them should be thrown out of the double bed and had an uncomfortable night’s sleep with minimal spooning.
Second day – Saturday
6:15 – porridge making begins! Blinkers were put on by all trip attendees with possibly the quickest departure ever for a morning… all in vain as by the time we got to Brimham Rocks (after a brief pause to remove a bag of sick [courtesy of Andy Moore] from the bus) it was snowing sideways and the rock could have been described as ‘a bit damp’.
Milkins climbed a stream (VDiff) whilst everyone else had a walk around and a bit of a boulder on the 2m of dry wall. After an hour or so the decision was made to go to The Depot indoor bouldering wall in Leeds. Much fun was had by all and we met up with Alumni! Then went to the pub. Tasty chilli was made in record time ready for the evening premier – ‘Vertical Limit’ a highly accurate documentary about mountain rescue.
Third day – Sunday
After the overly keen wake up time and late bed time Ruth decided to have a lie in (07:30), but we still managed to have a highly efficient departure with the bouldering pads being loaded onto the roof (controversial and effective) no one was sick on the way to the crag! Almscliff offered dry rock, snow flurries and occasional sunshine with first leads from Sietse who found some amusing gear placements (in a good way) and Harry who found a place for Bens big cam (size5?); Jakov and Rosanna learning how to lead belay with halves; Kip pretending to be a seal (see photo) and getting hot aches;
Tim successfully leading the famous Yorkshire grade of MVS; Davie, Ben, Ali and Will doing some hard bouldering (some Joeling involved);Phil, Nicolau and
Sam getting some routes in (Ruth checking gear/anchors); Murray and Johan getting some trad on with Murray having to break through the ice in a puddle to top out a rather tricky looking route at the end of the day. The drive home was relatively uneventful with some unexpected snow driving around Derby, pizzas in Lugabaruga arriving back in the union for 12:15.
Thanks to everyone for coming on this trip, it was a pleasure to run.
Trip list
- Ruth Lawson
- Andrew Wilkins
- Murray
- James Lawson
- Rosana Nichols
- Ben Coope
- Will Macleod
- Jakov Marlevic
- Tim Seers
- Phill Burling
- Sietse Braakman
- Nicolau Sarquis Aiex
- Harry Stewart Smith
- Sam Cockman
- Andrew Moore
Alumni: (met at the crag)
- Lisa
- Ali
- David
- Johan
