Another trip to wales with my old uni. I met them at Ben's Bunkhouse located between Llanberis and Nant Peris. If I've not sang the praises of Ben's Bunkhouse before then I should have. All it was lacking last time was a drying room, but that's not been finished off. The bunkhouse itself is well situated, with three rooms for people to sleep in and a lounge for a sort of overflow. The kitchen forms a bit of a focal point, was a little small for our needs. As I said though, it's a pretty good place to stay.
On the way down I'd had the fun of changing a headlight on my car, which really didn't want to happen and I resorted to the good old favourite... duct tape. I had to pick Andy up at Junction 38 on the M6 which wasn't so bad seeing as I was driving from the Lake District after spending the day on a Geography Field Course with work. Having said that I was pretty tired as I'd been on the road for something silly like 7/8 hours. For some reason I volunteered to be part of the breakfast crew in the morning.
So I wok up with a headache and stumbled into the kitchen to start the fun task of cooking breakfast for 30 people. I wasn't alone though and we had a right laugh getting it all done. Then off for some climbing! I'd managed to get a group of people wanting to climb for the day through no fault of my own and headed down to Tremadog with a cliff in mind (Craig Pant Ifan, Upper Tier). As we pulled up at the classic single pitch location to my dismay there where 4 minibuses parked up. I'm not going to lie but I panicked. I'd just dragged 20 people on a 40 minute drive for no good reason. I scrambled for the guidebook and thumbed through it looking for a suitable crag. I hit on Moel y Gest. This isn't the quarry you can see on the hill that over looks Porthmadog, but the other side that faces the ocean. Back in the car and off we went.
We managed to fit all the cars in a tiny little lay by and confidently set off in the wrong direction before I realised where I was going. I also messed up the scale completely of the walk in diagram and it took a good 40 minutes uphill before we arrived, but we'd arrived at least. Then it started raining and I'd found out I'd forgotten my waterproof. What a n00b! I had to spend the rest of my day in my softshell but thankfully the rain wasn't so bad. It came over 2 or 3 times during the day and was gone as quickly as it came, overall we had a dry day.
So what did we get up so. I took a sketchy scramble to place a top-rope on a line that was somewhere between 5b route and 4c route. Immediately 3 freshers jumped on it and after some brief instruction how it all worked and a reassurance that it was all safe off they went. Tim and Andy set off leading some routes to bring groups of freshers up and Alex and Scott got people kitted out. A couple of the second/third years also grabbed the guidebook and head off up some routes. I know Ronnie spent along time on what looked like an awful VS 4c.
As the day moved on we eventually pulled the top-rope and moved it over to a rather more interesting VS 4c line on the other buttress and I managed to sneak in a couple of lead of the choice lines on the crag. The first was Oh capitan, My captain (E1 5b) which took a shallow groove to a little over lap on almost bad gear. It was a little run out but the rock was good. I was in my older, larger climbing shoes because I thought I wouldn't get any climbing don't so I didn't feel so secure on my feet. Scott seconded me and flash it. Later in the afternoon I jumped on Shiver me timbers (E1 5b) which literally had no gear worth a damn on it till you got about 20 metres up. This wasn't so bad because I got a lot of RP's and other shoddy "confidence" gear in but none of it would have held. Instead I just didn't fall off and James and Nat seconded me up it.
I even got to teach some leading. Nat (a second year) fancied leading a VD line that was well within her climbing capability so I had to a play around on a quick ascending system (gri-gri/jumar rig) to climb up the rope with her to help her out as she climbed. She actually really appreciated it and said that it was much easier leading with someone to ask questions with as apposed to someone shouting from the ground.
The only mess up with had with the day was on the walk back in the dark we all broke up into several parties and Ronnie's party manged to miss the track back and got a little lost in the forest. We did find them. James then lost his car keys so after tearing the hut apart for them, I drove him to SPAR and they'd been handed in there. Silly James. Evening games prevailed back at the hut with Ronnie knocking up a great lemon chicken dish, a good quiz and some rough and tumble silliness late into the night.
The Sunday morning is always a mad panic to get everything cleaned, emptied and packed into the cars that we all managed without the normal fuss. Seeing as everyone wanted to climb we went back to Tremadog to attempt Craig Pant Ifan upper tier... again. We arrived with the whole club this time to the dismay of 2 minibuses and a host of cars. I wasn't impressed again but Tim said we should just go up anyway. When we did arrived there was about 30 OTC there and 15 BUMS (Bangor Uni) all with ropes set up. I genuinely was at a loss of what to do then I remembered that there was some bouldering around the back of the crag. Ronnie, Alex and Stuart took pretty much everyone off bouldering leaving the rest of us to decided on something to do.
When some of us went to see if there was any space free for a couple of top-ropes at the top of the crag I met the OTC leader who was stripping out all the routes, giving us over half the crag. What random and good luck. We quickly set up 2 tp's on the VS lines and a few of the 2nd/3rd and ex members started leading the other routes. I managed to get another couple of leads in one of Madog (VS 5a) and at the end of the day I snuck in a quick lead on Myomancy (HVS 5b). I've done both routes before and had no problems on Madog, but Myomancy was a different matter. I had a right mare the first time I did it (didn't fall off though) and though the route was really hard for the grade. After going back and having a tiny yellow cam which fits just under the roof I can see that the grades fair and it's really a wicked route. It's a little short lived, but is a strong contender for my favourite route on the upper tier.
Then came the time to repack everything, and start the grade walk back and drive home. Considering the weather report we managed to get a load of climbing in over the weekend. The committee and new members all pulled their weight and I think everyone had a great weekend. Personally even though I said to myself I wasn't going to do the whole "instructor" thing, I did. I went straight into it without realising and before I could stop I was rigging top-ropes and running around worrying about every bodies safety. I actually loved it as well because everyone there was psyched to climb. There was no moaning, whining or bitching about the climbing and people just got on with it and helped each other out. I look forward to climbing with this bunch of guys again and taking them on some multipitch adventures.
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