President's Hot Pot & Photo Comp (DATE CHANGED)

Hotpot & Photographic competition:-

Members Present: A goodly number.

Potential Members: Yes.

A good turnout for the evening, with 30+ members and guests partaking of the Hotpot and Apple Pie or the Globe’s bar menu.

Paul Evans kindly agreed to judge this year’s photo competition. The winners and runners up, which are now on the web, were:

Climbing Action:

1. Sean Kelly
2. Roger Dyke
3. Dave Shotton

Mountain Action:

1. Sean Kelly
2. Michelle Harvie
3. Andy Stratford

Mountain Landscape:

1. Pete Walker
2. Alan L Jones
3. Sean Kelly

Human Interest:

1. Midge Castick
2. Colin Maddison
3. Dave Shotton

See the pictures here.

Mark Garrod

President's Hot Pot & Photo Comp (DATE CHANGED)

The Climbing

Ten turned up for the climbing activity at New Mills with two rebels (Colin & Bob) visiting Castle Naze: 'a proper crag'.

Members: Gareth Williams, Lucie Crouch, Jim Symon, Paul Evans, Andy Stratford, Dave Dillon, Mark Ashley, Al Metelko, Roger Dyke.

Guests: Chris.

 

Decent weather ensured a good turnout despite the shaded location.

The recently bolted bridge Pillars provide good, if a little bizarre, 'dressed gritstone sport climbing'. There is even a topo and route names! Paul led up The Thin End F6b leaving quickdraws in for others and was duly followed by Gareth, Jim, Andy and Dave. The F6a+ route on the other arete, using the same bolts and draws, was ascended by many others. The other end of the bridge pillar got the same treatment with a variety of leads and top-roping from most of the party on F6b+ and F6a climbs. The best named route ''Revenge of the Grit Bolting Antichrist'' F6b didn't see an ascent!!

On the Trad, Andy got stuck into Alcove Crack HVS 5a followed by Jim. Gareth led the hardest route of the day - a clean onsight ascent of Mather Crack E2 5b followed not quite as cleanly by Andy!

King of the Swingers E1 5b provided the best entertainment of the day with a fine lead of the first two sections by Paul, who then escaped leftwards from the super steep and green upper section. Both Jim & Andy, following on Paul’s ropes, made valiant attempts on the upper section but were beaten back.

Mark provided the day’s danger moment when a hold snapped on Deception HVS 5a, showering Dave with sizeable debris. All in all a good day on one of the more esoteric crags of the Peak.

Andy Stratford

President's Hot Pot & Photo Comp (DATE CHANGED)

The Walk

Members present: Michelle Harvie, Mark Garrod, Dave Wylie, Dave Shotton, Kate Harvey.

Prospective Member: Simon Robertshaw.

 

The select team of 6 had a very select walk ahead of the Hotpot. We covered approx. 9 miles of hard terrain over Bleaklow in 5 hours, on a lovely mainly sunny day, with excellent visibility, and saw absolutely no-one all day on the hill – quite amazing!

The ascent of Wildboar Clough onto Bleaklow was entertaining, with sufficient scrambling to keep the interest, along with sunshine, snowflakes in the air, ice on some rocks, and frozen grass in the shadows. Once up the clough, we continued along the rock pavement of the stream bed for a few hundred metres, then struck off-piste SSE heading for Bleaklow Rocks. A late lunch was called for when we had views of almost to the east coast, coupled with a hazy Snowdonia in the west. Our route doubled back from Bleaklow Rocks to Wainstones – dangerously close to the path at times, then cut the corner between the two descent options to Torside Clough, where we finally admitted defeat in our off-track venture to following the Pennine Way back down to Longendale. We just missed Pete and Alan who did half of our walk, and finished 20 minutes ahead of us. Great half-day out, although rather tiring for most of the party (including the leader).

Mark Garrod