York Alpine Club Blog

The Marmot24 is a 24-hour mountain marathon, though with a 12-hour option available. Open to pairs, solo runners, or teams of 4, this year both courses started together at noon on Saturday, with the 12-hour finishing at midnight and the 24-hour at noon Sunday. It's a score course, so you can visit as many controls as we wanted, each one scoring the same, 10 points. Finishing late incurred minor penalties […] Read the rest

4 of us made it to the LCCC hut in Tanygrisiau (but only 3 sleeping bags - Doh) for an off-calendar YAC trip. I travelled over with Mike Shaw, and Luke came from the dark side and Peri made her way in her van and met us there (eventually).

Hey all, spent a lovely sunny afternoon bouldering at a new crag. Just over an hour from york, lovely moorland surroundings, tons of low to mid grade routes, none too high, all in superb frictiony gritstone with less polish than Mrs Brown, and soft bilberry and turf landings. "Where is this unspoilt gem? " I hear you all cry (except for Simon Caldwell who's muttering "bloody bouldering"). Ah, but to […] Read the rest

so it's time to stop moaning about the cold and start complaining about the heat. Which is what we duly did at Wharncliff on Tuesday.

We started with a few obscurities – Ladder Crack (Diff), Biffo (S) and Wobbly Block (VD, though I made it look much harder), before returning to the beaten track. Richard led Hell Gate (VDiff – but felt harder with the polish); we all soloed Hell […] Read the rest

With no other takers for climbing yesterday evening, David and I had a plan for Highcliff Nab near Guisborough.  After a pleasant walk up through the woods, the crag soon came into sight and we headed for the central ‘picnic block’ to survey the scene.  Our current climbing standard dictated that we ignore the shaded but apparently very good north face (if you are climbing E grades), so we turned […] Read the rest

With westerly gales forecast we decided to head for something east facing, and after much reading of guidebooks decided on the northern edges of Kinder – specifically, Chinese Wall. A beautiful walk in up the valley led to the crag. Unfortunately, although it was out of the worst of the wind, some of it was channelled round the sides of the crag, so it wasn't quite the sheltered spot we'd […] Read the rest

Ignoring the indifferent forecast, an initially small group of us headed for the Shrewsbury MC hut in Deiniolen last Friday evening.

As is traditional for Bank Holiday weekends, the weather was truly awful on the Saturday.  The more masochistic members of the club (Simon, Carmen and Mike) went scrambling near Idwal Slabs and encountered more snow and ice than they were expecting for the time of year.  Peter, Annie and […] Read the rest

YAC Meet 13th to 15th March in Little Langdale at YRC Hut.
Those attending:
• Simon Caldwell
• Carmen Elphick
• Alan Kitchener
• Karl Claxton
• Donal Griffin
• Sarah Johnson
• Russ Walker
• Michael Brauss
• Michael Shaw
• Jamie Brown
• Dave Wiffen
• David Dickinson
Weather was good. 3 Shires pub nearby. Hut was good (with gentlemen’s observatory in separate room across the road).
Saturday: […] Read the rest

Ok, so I'm not saying the following account is in any way influence by my recent choice of reading material (Psychovertical by Andy K.) but three and a half hours and a lot of hanging on gear to climb an 18 m route is perhaps a little on the epic side!

Rob and I went to Brimham, I had my eye on Picnic Variation (HVS 5a), we romped up about […] Read the rest

An impromtu session at the red goat (York's premier bouldering establishment) on Saturday morning had a good turn out by club members. After warming up on the yellows, some of which are quite stiff for the grade, and ticking off the remaining blues, still one to do that requires insane amounts of body tension to overcome a roof, we turned our attention to the green routes.