Bit of a late post...
Was the Michaelmas North Wales meet over the weekend of the 1st of November. Fantastic weekend climbing, and a number of important firsts for me!
Drove up friday night and stayed in a hut somewhere in North Wales. We were hiring a London based club's hut. OUMC actually does have their own; there are records of it, but its been lost. Some time over the last century, it seems, a committee failed to pass down important information regarding its location to the next years committee. Its probable that they didn't do this due to damage to the hut, e.g. loss of a roof or similar. Apparently someone has worked out its location to maybe 10 square miles, but no one really knows...
Was pretty comfortable in the hut and very cosy, everyone was sleeping in big, but overfilled, bunks:
Was pretty fun.
Next day I went off to Llanberris with 5 others to do some slate sport climbing. Was my first time sport climbing and so my first sport climb was also my first sport lead. Was on a very easy F4a called 'Binky Bonk Central':
Binky Bonk Central - F4a
Spent most of the rest of the day climbing more slate climbs. I did nothing overly difficult, (at least grade wise) and once again it was a case of getting used to a different style of climbing. Lots of technical slabs.
Sunday was my first trad day! Went to a place called Little Tryfan, which is a big slab. There are no hard climbs there, but it was a good place to practise gear placement and anchor building. I led two trad routes, neither of which was difficult, but was great to practise the technical aspect!
This weekend just gone was also a meet weekend, this time to the Lakes. I didn't go because I had too much work, which really sucked. I'm definitely going to go on the next one, which will be the weekend after next, to Dartmoor. Really want to try leading some harder trad routes... Did get to do a bit of climbing indoors this weekend though, and it went well! Finally knocked off a route which I've been stuggeling with. Did it by missing out the last quickdraw before the lower off. Was a real pain to clip. Thought it was a 6B+, but was happy to learn after climing it that it had been upgraded to 6C!
Oh and also, I think I put in an earlier post about a bouldering competition I was going to do on the 8th November... Unfortuantly I had to miss it due to a tutorial...
