York Alpine Club Blog

Due to an imminent change of lifestyle, I was desperate to get in a big climbing trip whilst I still had some freedom. The plan had been to get a core group of 4 together to simplify decisions and arrangements, then open it out to the rest of the club. Unfortunately due to my inability to organise a piss up in a brewery, there were still no firm arrangements a […] Read the rest

At the beginning of May I went on a mountain biking trip to Ibiza. We were a party of eight including two from York Alpine Club.

The trip started well when the author narrowly missed having coffee poured over him twice but did not miss out, along with the other 100+ passengers, when when one of our party managed to delay our departure from Leeds Bradford Airport by three quarters […] Read the rest

The June weekend meet saw nine of the club members heading to North Wales to stay in the really nice, if a little quirky Chester Mountaineering Club hut located part way up the main tourist path from Llanberis to the Snowdon summit.

With the recent dry weather all the mountain routes and generally damp north-facing mountains and crags were in fine condition.

Saturday Peri and Dave W took on the […] Read the rest

Given the forecast was for more hot weather and it had been dry for weeks we decided to hit Raven’s Scar for a bit of north facing action. There were four of us: Simon, Paul G, Paul D and Adam, a new member. The weather was perfect, hot but enough breeze to keep the midges at bay, even when they came out at sunset. The evening was a round of […] Read the rest

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