York Alpine Club Blog

Herding cats must be easier than sorting out a venue sometimes. Eventually, on the hottest day of the year (31 C in places) we headed for a south facing full in the sun crag with black rocks!

Wharncliffe is a long but easy drive and one we usually visit around this time to get the most of the daylight. No change there, arriving at about 6.30 we climbed until nearly […] Read the rest

Mike and I headed to Crookrise (via the A59 diversion) on what turned out to be a glorious day, Jamie joined us after a leisurely breakfast or two. Free parking, easy approach and a huge collection of quality routes on a new crag for Mike had made the decision.

We played on the initial slab before meandering along, alternates leads and a few solos and admiring the views. By about […] Read the rest

Mike met Jamie and I at Whitestone Cliff after work -and he picked up a speeding ticket 🙁

As usual, we were alone and the nettles had not started in anger nor the midges. The sun was warm but the trees kept it cool at the base.

Mike smashed out Countdown Direct (HVS 5a) a couple of tricky moves with good gear (threads) but steep and pumpy on good rock. […] Read the rest

After a quick email exchange with Dave W a plan was hatched to have a look at Eagle Front in the Lakes, a three star VS on Eagle Crag.

After some last minute shenanigans five of us headed of early for the lakes, myself, Dave W, Russ, Danny and Jamie, blue skies and sunshine awaited.

The crag faces North but with the recent good weather we were hoping the route […] Read the rest

Rob and I headed across to the Lakes to stay at grange, the weather forecast was good (for Saturday at least). The plan was to try some of the other crags in Borrowdale (i.e. not Shepards) and tick off some routes on the 25 best VS/HVS in Borrowdale list. We opted for some stared routes on Lower Falcon Crag. The crag is a short walk from the parking (10 […] Read the rest

Having given it a sufficiently long time for the memories of previous visits to Crookrise to fade a few of us headed there (Russ, Carmen, Simon, Peri, Jamie and Paul) to try out luck with an average weather forecast. As it turned out the weather was glorious, warm with lovely blue skies. The routes turned out to be tougher and bolder than remembered, with plenty of them offering little gear […] Read the rest

Inspired by the conditions reported by Rob and Will we set off to try and get a last lakeland winter route in at Great End. As it turned out Jamie and I weren’t the only ones inspired, the place was heaving and Window Gully had a cue of at least 3 people, after gearing up this had increased to 6 and counting. As an alternative we headed up South East […] Read the rest

The Scottish trip in February saw us heading to Glen Clova in the southern Cairngorms, keen to make the most of a good forecast and hopefully some great conditions. Axes and crampons were sharpened, skis dusted off and way too much food packed as we made our way to the newly refurbished Braedownie hut, which is owned by the Carn Dearg MC.

A few keen members had gone up early […] Read the rest

... but we didn't, we went to Brown Cove Crags. On a stunning Mike (being only slightly ill) & I (Rob being only slightly stupid and be awoken at 6.30 in PJs) responded to Dave W's call to hills and headed over to the Lakes. Parking in the layby we walked through Swirls car park - which is now free (well the machine has been busted for months apparently) and upto the cove in improving weather.

On Sat. Peri, Mike, and Rob did the early(ish) start and drive to the Lakes to check out Blea Water for some winter climbing ..... The walk-in should take about an hour to the tarn and large snow deposits had made the hills very pretty but the walking awkward, the snow was soft and deep a but fortunately, there was a trail to follow...