I believe climbing or starting a climbing trip on the 1st day of the year brings more climbing all year around :-) So much so that I saw myself driving up to Scotland on yet another UKC blind date with William, a young soldier I met through one of the many forums.
I took a train to Colchester where his barrack is based, literally 100km away of any possible climbing area in UK and we soon hit the road. Cool chap, tall, and fairly young on his early 20s. The thing with climbing with young guys is that either strong or not, they are psyched wether my regular partners are getting softer by the minute. With a massive New Year hangover I tried to call and convince him to change the trip for the next day but he sounded so disappointed in running the risk of loosing the forecasted best day of the week that I had to get up and pack.
We drove all night, slept minimum miserable hours in the car and as soon as there was light started up towards Coire an t'Sneachda.
There was loads of shit powder snow and we did only one route before deciding to call it short and find a hostel to stay which turns out to be a good choice since we took the last couple of empty beds in the whole Aviemore.
02/01/14 Hidden Chimney II/III
The following day we woke up with the wind howling strong but you know these young chaps, eternally optimistic so we decided to drive up and check it out. At the ski station I could barely open the car's door so strong were the gusts, and when I did manage to leave, the wind kept punching me to the ground so we went back to bed and later on a bit of tea drinking and window gear shopping.
Following day we again woke even earlier, 5am. This time we had a promise of better weather late in the day so even though it was a miserable start (scottish miserable = pitch black, cold, gusty and raining) we hiked up socked to the bones, manage to find the crag in the whiteout and soon it did clear and I even manage to feel psyched. We did 3 lines which considering the amount of snow and digging around was quite good.
04/01/14 The Haston Line III/4
04/01/14 Opening Break IV/5
04/01/14 Hidden Chimney Direct IV/5
Sunday we woke up around 7am and since we both had family stuff going on later in the day we happily drove back to London under another miserable weather which helps in making you feel not so guilty for loosing a Sunday's day of climbing.
I took a train to Colchester where his barrack is based, literally 100km away of any possible climbing area in UK and we soon hit the road. Cool chap, tall, and fairly young on his early 20s. The thing with climbing with young guys is that either strong or not, they are psyched wether my regular partners are getting softer by the minute. With a massive New Year hangover I tried to call and convince him to change the trip for the next day but he sounded so disappointed in running the risk of loosing the forecasted best day of the week that I had to get up and pack.
We drove all night, slept minimum miserable hours in the car and as soon as there was light started up towards Coire an t'Sneachda.
There was loads of shit powder snow and we did only one route before deciding to call it short and find a hostel to stay which turns out to be a good choice since we took the last couple of empty beds in the whole Aviemore.
02/01/14 Hidden Chimney II/III
The following day we woke up with the wind howling strong but you know these young chaps, eternally optimistic so we decided to drive up and check it out. At the ski station I could barely open the car's door so strong were the gusts, and when I did manage to leave, the wind kept punching me to the ground so we went back to bed and later on a bit of tea drinking and window gear shopping.
Following day we again woke even earlier, 5am. This time we had a promise of better weather late in the day so even though it was a miserable start (scottish miserable = pitch black, cold, gusty and raining) we hiked up socked to the bones, manage to find the crag in the whiteout and soon it did clear and I even manage to feel psyched. We did 3 lines which considering the amount of snow and digging around was quite good.
04/01/14 The Haston Line III/4
04/01/14 Opening Break IV/5
04/01/14 Hidden Chimney Direct IV/5
Sunday we woke up around 7am and since we both had family stuff going on later in the day we happily drove back to London under another miserable weather which helps in making you feel not so guilty for loosing a Sunday's day of climbing.
