5-7th April
By Matt
MKMC Attending: Matt, Ella, Emma, Greg, Kieran, Laura, Liam, Naomi, Nat, Ollie, Simon, Peter & Kathy.
On Friday morning we packed 2 cars full of people and gear and dashed up to the Outside.co.uk cafe in Hathersage for a nice lunch. After we had purchased the majority of the stock from the shop, we drove over to Horseshoe Quarry to squeeze in some afternoon climbing whilst the weather held. We started at Star Trek Wall in the top quarry where everyone had a go on Uranus, Luke Skywalker and Klingon. The top anchors here were the more modern “Rams Horns” design so threading was simple. We headed back to the hut for around 6ish where we tucked into some veggie chilli and waited for the stragglers to arrive.
Uranus 3c on the Star Trek Wall
On Saturday we rose early to be back at the quarry for 9 am. We separated into 2 groups, with some wanting to complete more in the top quarry whilst others started on the slightly more difficult routes situated in The Toilet. After a spot of lunch, we moved further around the quarry to the Chocolate Blancmange Wall where our RCI for the weekend, Simon, took Emma & Laura (Team Scozzi) up the 4a/5a Men at Work multipitch!
After basking in the sun all afternoon we returned to the hut to celebrate the day’s successes, and Liam’s impending birthday, with a mix of Fish, Chips, Curry and cake.
On Sunday we cleaned the hut down and headed to Birchen Edge to squeeze in an introduction to seconding a trad route. We headed to Emma’s Slab where we set up lines on Emma’s Dilemma, Emma’s Temptation and Emma’s Delusion.
After lunch the wind came in so we decided to pack up and head home. Overall we had a very successful meet, introducing lots of new people to outside climbing in both Sport & Trad formats. Those already climbing at a higher grade were able to push a little bit further with some of the longer routes.
Over the 2 nights and 3 days, the 12 of us managed to recycle the majority of our rubbish, taking home all dry recyclables + glass and producing slightly less than one full bin bag of unrecyclable waste, not bad going really.
MK to Stoney Middleton is around 115 miles, meaning our travel footprint could have been up to 1380 miles, had we all travelled separately. Through some careful lift planning, we had one car of 4, one car of 3, two cars of 2 and one car of 1. This brought our group mileage down to 575 miles and an average car share ratio of 2.4 people.
Nice! Shows you can never predict the weather
Was an absolutely great weekend. Plenty of fun to have been had by all.