Milton Keynes Mountaineering Club

Selection of new pictures in gallery of the August Bank Holiday camping meet in Capel North Wales.

Meet Report to follow……………….hopefully…. 🙂

The September club trip to the Peak District is only a few weeks away. We’ll be based at Hardhurst farm in Hope Valley. Free hot showers, cooked breakfast served every morning and a pub around the corner for £5 a night.

Plenty to keep you busy whatever the weather on the rock, walking, biking or on the water.  Call the camp site on 01433 620001 to book a pitch and let me know if you need a lift or have room for others.

Contact Ant for more details: ant@mkmountaineering.org

Friday 26^th: Stuart, Kent, Alkesh and Glen did a couple of routes at Shorn Cliff in the early evening: Stuart led Acoustic (VDiff) and Gargoyle (HS) with Alkesh; Kent and Glen also climbed Acoustic. It was Stuart’s first time leading on limestone and despite the guidebook suggesting that the only protection needed was a set of small wires and a few slings, he found himself cursing the fact he’d left his hexed and biggest cams on the ground for Acoustic. Needless to say, he racked them and used them on the next route. Dan, Chrissy and their dog Mollie, and Ambrose and Rebecca went for a short walk early evening to Devil’s Pulpit and back.  Dan and Chrissy had arrived on the Thursday, and went canoeing earlier on the Friday. Everyone arrived by sundown, and Patrick and Lynne joined us for drinks around the fire in the centre of the tent circle, after various food escapades.

Saturday 27^th: Jason, Gavin and Stuart went over to Wintour’s Leap to have a go at a multi-pitch route; they chose Corner Buttress Route 2 (VDiff). They accessed the base of the crag via what the guidebook called the easy way down – not that easy in places, especially with a bag full of gear.  Once at the bottom, they found the start of the route with a little help from some local climbers and set off upwards again.  The climbing would have been easy had it not been for the fact that both Jason and Stuart had packed far more gear than they could have ever sensibly used.  Despite that, they made steady progress alternating leads, with Gavin seconding every pitch. Once back at the top, they decided to venture just round the corner to Ban-y-Gor for a bit of sport climbing.  Without photo-topos the guidebook was almost useless so they took some advice from a group already climbing and did a couple of short-ish 5/5+ routes before Gavin set his sights a little higher and they headed around the corner to try Join the Union Jack (6b+).  Gavin tied on and right on cue the heavens opened.  Fortunately the route had a fairly big roof only a few metres up, so Jason and Stuart stayed relatively dry, but as soon as Gavin reached the second bolt he was faced with a hard pull up on a sharp flake in torrential rain.  He took a couple of falls working the move before a short rest and a final pull to make the move before a comparatively easy finish. Stuart tied on to second the route and immediately discovered why it was a 6b+.  The holds were small, sharp and usually just out of reach for him.  After a couple of falls they decided to call it a day and headed back to get changed into some dry clothes before meeting the others at the pub for dinner. Meanwhile, Ambrose, Rebecca, Kent, Glen, Dan, Alkesh and Patreick went climbing just nearby; Ange, Monica, Chrissy and Lynne watched – and now might start some indoor climbing as a result. They all then went to the pub as rain stopped play early afternoon!

Sunday 28^th: Sunday was altogether more relaxed. Stuart, Jason, Ambrose and Becky went for a short walk along the river while the others went to get lunch. Everyone then went paddling downstream in canoes and kayaks on the River Wye for about two hours, including a break about half way for ice creams.

You know what they say about bank holiday weekends (awful weather). As it turned out the weather was OK, but someone did have some bad luck!

Heading North from MK on Friday the motorway traffic was really heavy, and it was 5 hours later that we finally arrived at our accommodation for the weekend. Emma had booked the local village hall at Kirkby Malham, just a stone’s throw away from Malham.

Saturday dawned with an unexpected golden glow in the Eastern sky. The consensus from the group was to visit the limestone paradise of Malham Cove, just a short hop down the road. We climbed on the left wing for a while before heading over to the right wing. As the evening drew on cream teas were on everyone’s mind, but calamity! Nowhere sold cream teas and over-priced alternatives were purchased. A rather disgruntled group of climbers headed back to The Cove to try a spot of sport climbing. While we were struggling to get off the ground attempting “Begozi and the ledge lizards” F6a+, Steve McClure was successfully redpointing a new route, Batman F9a+.

Sunday – off to Rylstone, a gritstone crag and a complete change of character from yesterday’s limestone. Once we’d located the parking spot it was then a 30 minute walk across the moors. The scenery was wonderful, as was the climbing. Stuart used his shiny new equipment and did his first ever lead (President’s Slab) in excellent style.

Monday – Having packed and left the accommodation looking spick and span we were down to just 5 climbers (Bob, Stuart, Alan, Ian R and Ingo). The consensus was to head to Rocky Valley, Ilkley. Alan was keen to lead “The Flake Climb” – a top 50 climb – but as there was already a team on it he went off to do “Three Slabs Route” just to the left. Ian hung around, and as soon as the other team had finished started up “The Flake Climb”. Disaster – A huge block within the rock face itself was dislodged and fell on his arm pinning it, and Ian, to the rock. It was obvious that there was little we could do and the emergency services were called.

Once Ian had been rescued & air lifted off to hospital our appetite for any further climbing was squashed, and we headed off to Leeds General to visit the patient. Fortunately Ian was in good spirits and no serious damage was evident. After an overnight stay in hospital for observations he was discharged the following morning.

MKMC members attending: Emma (organiser), Ingo, Ian R, Alan, Stuart, Fiona, James, Fraser and Bob.