CMBuckley.co.uk :: Blog :: Climbing

I went on holiday this weekend to Pickering with my parents and Geoff and Gwen. Okay, it’s not that far away — one might argue that it’s not a holiday if the Coastliner goes past the camp site — but we had a really great time, despite the rain on Friday!

While we were there, we went to the Dalby Forest to check out Bridestones, a small set of bouldering problems about 5 minutes’ walk from the forest drive. We didn’t even try to get Geoff on Go Ape, having failed at getting him to go on the jet boat out of Whitby harbour!

View pictures of the holiday

We got back yesterday, and in the evening I went over to the Angel. A large number failed to turn up for a number of reasons; shame on you! Congratulations to Caitlin for turning up for once! We had a rather feeble go at the quiz, and after the Angel shut we went over to the Queen — the first time I’d been. Imagine a Wetherspoon’s about as large as a living room and you’d be pretty close…

The weather was more suited for getting out to a crag somewhere, but since we couldn’t manage that we decided to visit the Leeds Wall — and since it was such a nice day, it was quite quiet!

Jay, Lara, Georgina and myself spent a full day at the wall, using some of the existing top-ropes but running the HBMC club rope when required. Jay had to prove himself as a competent belayer before being allowed to join!

We ran a number of tricky routes as well as some of the all holds routes — Lara and Georgina proving themselves exceptionally good at climbing! Feel like I need to get some more practice in now!

I now can’t work out if I ache from climbing or football yesterday!

View pictures of the day.

The Clubs & Socs formal at Hild Bede is always a great event, with much celebration of attending the best college at Durham (true fact — ask Andy), and this year’s was no exception! Our table had by far the best balloon, a fact proven by a jealous girl with a knife in the bar afterwards…

After the inevitable debate about which coin merits consumption of one’s drink, the wine pretty much disappeared before the food arrived. The awards after the food were predictably average and the Vernon beckoned, but Matt, who was standing outside, was prevented from going to the bar!

Finally, the speeches were over, and we made it for a drink… And even after such a great meal, it’s still mandatory to get a burger (Hild Bede special with bacon, of course) from Alan and Pauline!

View pictures of the evening.

And off to Summerhill the next morning! Everyone seemed fine from last night, and up for our first outdoor climb of the year (damn this unpredictable weather). We went over to Summerhill near Hartlepool — we could see the sea!

Note to self — next time, take the bouldering mat… and some more sustenance!

View the full trip information, or the photos from the trip.

Wednesday’s climbing was interesting, to say the least…

Jay managed to dislocate his knee after slipping on a challenging route. He didn’t look very happy! Thankfully it relocated itself swiftly, but that did mean he missed out on the laughing gas the supervisor brought over! Painkillers and drink solved the problem once at home, and he is now hobbling at a mediocre pace.

On a personal note, I managed a few nice routes both on the roped section and on the bouldering wall. Hopefully my improvements indoors will map nicely to real rock!

Climbing again tomorrow, followed by Casino Royale — can’t wait for that!

I finally managed to make the Leap of Faith!

I tried it on Friday, and managed to touch the pocket, something I’d never thought possible until that moment! So today, I just went for it, and managed to keep hold before finishing the route.

As is the way with these things, the video of the second attempt wasn’t half as smooth as the first, but you can still get an idea. On that videos page is another pockets route that had evaded me since first year, and after that I was so pleased with myself that I decided to mess around (video 3)!

View pictures of the day

I have just installed and started playing with Firefox 2.0. I’m afraid to say that the first thing I did is install the Winestripe theme, which is essentially the FF1.5 default theme — I wasn’t impressed with the 2.0 default!

Looks aside, the rest of the changes seem about right — they finally got round to including a search engine manager as standard, and the previewing of web feeds works rather nicely — though I did just finish writing the XSL for my news feed! Bah…

Hopefully we can go climbing outside tomorrow, though I’m not sure we have enough kit. The shoes alone might be an issue…

Yesterday we took the new HBMC members to Sunderland Wall. It was a big turn-out, requiring four cars in total — our biggest turn-out yet, I think!

Most of the new members thoroughly enjoyed the trip, and we found some exceptional climbers as well as many with great potential… Looks like we won’t have to worry about handing the club over at the end of this year after all!

Tonight we’re off over to Newcastle to see The Automatic over at Newcastle University… Should be amazing!

Yesterday saw the legendary Tad Run being completed in excellent style by a number of us. We started at the Falcon for a bit of lunch (the usual Brit doesn’t do food on a Monday), and working an interesting route around to finish at the Angel in plenty of time. All in all, a very respectable Run, with minor closing hiccups being dealt with promptly!

Pictures of the Run

Against all odds, Booth and I managed to get out climbing today, for a few introductory routes over at Caley Crag. A good way to clear the head after a heavy day of drinking, and a good way to start climbing after a fairly long break!