19-21 September – Beeches Farm campsite
September saw a group of us in the Wye Valley for the weekend with bold plans to climb all weekend despite an unfavourable weather forecast.
Naomi, Alan and Henry met up at Ban-Y-Gor Rocks on Friday and completed five climbs. This was the only fair weather day in the forecast so they made the most of it.
Saturday as predicted was rather wet and windy. Josh and Dom braved the elements and did some climbing at Woodcroft Quarry in the morning, then went to The Church climbing centre in Bristol for the afternoon.
The rest of the group decided to go for a walk. We did a circular from Beeches Farm, walking down through the woods to Tintern, across the river and turned right following interesting signs to Station Tea Rooms where we hoped we would find coffee and cake, essential carbs and caffeine. Station Tea Rooms was fabulous, built in an old railway station with a railway carriage visitors centre and inside / outside seating. We replenished our calories and the group split up, Sarah, Henry and Alan did a 13.8 mile loop and the rest of us (Gill, Loz, Naomi, Keith and Ange) headed back across the river and back up the hill to Beeches Farm. The group split again because some of us weren’t satisfied with only coffee and cake, we needed ice cream as well. So we continued on to Chase Farm via a local trip point and some cows. The ice cream group did 10.5 miles. We were lucky, most of the heavy rain held off until after we got back.
On Saturday evening we went to The Rising Sun where we had excellent service and very nice food.
Sunday was unexpectedly sunny and warm, and the whole group went sport climbing at Wynd Cliff Quarry, joined by Brad who came for the day. Loz led and stripped his first ever sport climb. Gill led and stripped her second. Ange had never sport climbed before and said she wasn’t keen to climb outside but with a little gentle persuasion she was successfully getting up all the routes on top rope and had a great time with us. We climbed all day at Upper Lift Right, including Banarama, The Banana Splits, Nice Thicket, Simples and Hooting, to name a few of the climbs. Josh, Dom and Brad did harder stuff.
A very nice weekend, thanks to all for joining us.
Great trip and some quality climbs. And some extensive abseil practise!