The Exec
Send List 2024
Ayup, we’re rejuvenating the send list from the days of yore. This is where we celebrate the cool outings of our members past and present; from comps to winter mountaineering, and everything in between. Previous write-ups can be found on the Facebook page.
If you keep a UKC log, do add ‘LUMC’ as a partner, so we can keep an eye out for what you’ve been climbing. If you know of something cool, let us know in the brand-new form here: https://forms.gle/UwGcDQCTh5ka1RU27. We can only share the tales that we know about! With folk sharing their highlights of the year in the chat, we’ve decided to collate some here:
Sam Mccloughlin has come a long way in the last year; with his first lead of Yew Tree Climb (VD), at Castle Rock of Trierman in February, he quickly built up plenty of mileage, leading his first of many VSs in March (his 2nd being the nails Hawk’s Nest Crack, at Froggatt), before eventually getting sandbagged even harder in June by Chris Brown with Concrete Chimney (HVS 5a) in Gogarth’s mighty Wen Zawn. An exciting route for his first of the grade, it covers wild terrain surrounded by some of North Wales’ most impressive rock architecture. This was followed by breaking into the Extreme grades in December with the altogether less intimidating slate classics of Seams the Same and Looning the Tube.
Newly-weds Jana & Bertie Purkiss headed out to the outer hebrides for their honeymoon, spending a day sampling some of Lewis’ fantastic Gneiss at Folded Wall, with the aptly-named number 3 (look closely!):
Having discovered trad climbing via the club’s winter skills courses, Will Macdonald has been steadily working his way through the grades in spite of a minimal rack with a mere handful of cams. Despite this, he still manages to try pretty hard (and even survive falling off!!) on cam dependent routes such as Flying Buttress Direct (E1 5b), Wilton’s Wombat Chimney (E2 5b) and the tricky Trowbarrow testpiece, Izzy the Push (E2 5c). He’s also been working his way through the classic Scottish -ach Scrambles, such as the Aonach Eagach, Liathach, and An Teallach (good luck pronouncing these!). Alongside Jake Tyson & Chloe Barker (and possibly some other folk, we can’t remember!), Will’s highlight of the year was a solid attempt at the Cuillin ridge, called off only due to high winds the following day. Here, descending off the Inaccessible Pinnacle:
Kirsten Spencer has also gone full wad. Her highlights include an ascent of the glorious Needle Ridge (VD) - accompanied with the altogether more awkward Napes Needle - the Wainstones classic Sphinx Nose Traverse (S) on a misty outing with Ishbel and a tick of slate classic the Seamstress, her first of several VSs.
Former President Becky Spiers also continued her mastery of Llanberis slate, leading her first E1 onsight with Looning the tube, having previously dispatched Fool’s Gold & Seems the Same in 2023. On Lakes Slate, Becky even climbed her first ‘7a’, at Runestone Quarry, with an ascent of Three Cheers for Boris!, even if Boris is a wanker.
Meanwhile, LUMC’s current President Lydia Kind’s highlight of the year was Seacliffs; climbing several classics down in the South-West, at Bosigran, Lands End and Baggy Point (pictured) - but not Gurnards’ Head, where judgemental seals scared both herself and Matt Rose off Right Angle (HS 4b). Lyd also led her first (of several) HVSs this year, with impressive same-day onsights of Razorback and Digital Delectation, in the Llanberis slate quarries, and even survived the alps with Matt.
Our Vice-President & Safety Officer Chris Morris’ highlight of the year proved to be a trip to Pembroke just before Easter. With the campsite not yet fully open for the season - the weather had been too naff - optimism was running low but many routes were still climbed, even between rest days enforced by the weather and leaving early to avoid more rain. Classics included Cool for Cats (E1) and Deranged (E2). A few weeks later, a visit to Swirl Crags meant Chris skipped several E-grades with a headpoint ascent of the brilliant Breakfast in America (E4 6a) - of which the other Chris Brown made a very impressive flash ascent.
On that note, Chris Brown’s highlight proved to be a deep-water solo ascent of the Berry Head classic traverse, the Magical Mystery Tour (E1 / 6a+ S0), in a team of 5 during a trip to the south-west. This route takes in 300 or so metres of sea-level traversing (and some swimming, for the unlucky…) and sounds like a magical experience indeed. Despite having been climbing forever with his dad, Chris’s climbing has skyrocketed since starting at Lancaster, and this year has been a strong one, getting thoroughly established at E4 & E5, bouldering 7B+ and onsighting sport 7b+. There are however no photos of the magical mystery tour; instead, have a Brocken Spectre captured by Chris on the Isle of Arran during a trip this easter. The main highlight (or at least entertainment) from the trip was survival, after existing only on Brazil nuts for 2 days after forgetting all their gas. The realisation that this can cause selenium poisoning was made far too late, although not too many adverse effects have been noticed yet!
Meanwhile, alumnus and all-round fit cat Matt Fleming’s highlight was a round of the Lakes Classic Rock routes. Soloing 15 of some of the Lakes’ best routes up to the grade of VS, Matt and fellow alumni and plastic entrepreneur Martin Paley ran between them all, finishing on the Shepherds crag classic Little Chamonix (VD) with a time of 19h 50 mins. Matt also had a productive year across the disciplines, with an impressive onsight of the Gouther crag testpiece One Step Beyond (E4 6a), and in winter, his first grade VI, with Fallout Corner up on Cairn Lochan, alongside a bunch of Dry Tooling stuff, that nobody else but med student Calum really understands (but does look very cool).
Fellow Matt’s - this time of the Rose variety - highlight of the year was climbing the Wen Zawn ultra-classic A Dream of White Horses (HVS 5a), as part of a team of three, alongside climbing royalty Prince (or at least, he complains like one) Tom Waddy and twin Brendan.Despite chucking a good proportion of their kit in the sea, and forgetting to bring any cams in the first place, they avoided getting the coastguard called on them, unlike alumni big-waller Steve Wright and MCI Ed Brown (whilst on a club trip, no less…). Here we have the trio on the wild final pitch, with Twaddy all but soloing (spot his rope!):
Even more impressive, Matt & Brendan scored high on the UKC Christmas quiz for their 2nd year running!
In the world of hardish trad climbing Prince Tom Waddy has been living up to his name with more E points this year than anybody can be bothered to count (even with his usual down-grading). Some notable ascents include Tales of Yankee Power (E5 6a) at High Tor, Raven Crag ODG’s Trilogy (E5 6a) in Langdale, basically everything in Pembroke’s Huntsman’s Leap and of course what Tom described as “probably the best route in the country, possibly the world”, Lockwood’s Chimney (D).
Not to be outdone by the big grades - with his first lead of Tango Crack (VD) only at the end of 2023 - Devon-obsessed James Parsons opted to skip all the (irrelevant) grades of E1, E2, E3 and E4 by attempting to headpoint Cones and Current (E5 6b) at Shropshire’s premier crag, Nesscliffe (sorry Llanymynech fans). Coming just a few centimetres too short of the route’s victory jug, James took a big ride, cheese wiring a small part of the crag on the way down. JP was again unlucky at the end of the year in Spain’s El Chorro, where his epic battle for Redders (7a) was thwarted by a bird flying out at him, just before reaching another final victory jug; if only he had one of his precious blue hexes!
All-round mega wad, astrophysics alumnus & Met office forecaster Ishbel Strathdee has been tearing it up across any and all mountain activity you can think of this year, qualifying and then subsequently winning a bronze medal in the World Cross Triathlon Championships! She also had lots of excellent results in XC cycling races across the UK. Even with all this madness, Ish has still managed to squeeze in a large number of excellent rock climbs, including an impressive ascent of The Needle (E1 5b), a Hard Rock tick on the imposing Shelterstone Crag, in the Cairngorms. If the weather plays ball on Winter Skills, some of us might catch a glimpse.
Moving away from climbing for at least a paragraph, Kate McCullough’s highlight of the year has been steadily working her way through the Wainwrights; with the best of the lot proving to be a day on the troutbeck round, covering the fells east of the Kirkstone pass, one valley over from the kentmere horseshoe (and close to the mythical Raven Crag, Thresthwaite Cove). Here we have a selection of shots from her assorted days out. Shoutout also to Kate for some solid early indoor leads this year!
Despite still not having been to Raven Thresthwaite, Will Rhodes has also had a good year. Even with a trip to the Dolomites with Chris Morris & Jamie O’Brien, his highlights of the year landed closer to home, with a late-september day up on Scafell, ticking off classics Ichabod (E2 5c), Roaring Silence (E3 5c) and The White Wizard (E3 5c) with Tom Wharram, having slept in a bush in Wasdale the night before. Another highlight was a trip up to Scotland, again with Tom, ticking the very adventurous Direct Nose Route (E1 5b) on Sgurr An Fhidhleir, and the stunning Sumo (E3 5c) up on Beinn Eighe’s Far East Wall, in Coire Mhic Fhearchair - well worth its four stars! The 2nd photo shows Tom making Sumo’s crux lunge to a thank-god quartz jug, with plenty of space below.
Aurora: It was a year of several quite spectacular displays of aurora above Lancaster and the Lake District, with it being seen by folk bivvying under Dow crag, up at Thorn crag in the Forest of Bowland and even the centre of town! If you want to know how the aurora works just ask our resident MPhys Physics with Astrophysics First Class Honours with Psych Will Rhodes and he will be very pleased to explain.
Clouds: With the peculiar fog that swamped the UK after Christmas, all but the high ground was immersed. A handful of our members managed to make the most of this and got treated to some stunning cloud inversions. James Eadie headed to the Malverns (and bumped into the reet character that is Johnny Dawes):
Whilst Will Rhodes found himself up at the Roaches with occasional LUMC-er and manufacturer of trains Matt Baker (the bright spot in the last two photos is Venus!):
Meanwhile, Lydia Kind captured some special Norwegian clouds, which may be called ‘Polar Stratospheric Clouds’, according to the internet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_stratospheric_cloud ); Ishbel may well know better!
Warnscale Bothy:
So it seems that the clubs favourite Bothy is the one found at the top of the Honister Pass (and one of only a handful in the lakes - with bothies generally being a Scottish thing), with cracking views down into buttermere, when the cloud isn’t down!
An assortment of club members spent the final hours of 2021 up here, surrounded by assorted drunk / high seshheads and a grumpy polish dude who’s trousers someone (not to be named) had accidentally melted a hole into, before making a distinctly cold ascent of the classic Gillercombe buttress (as a team of 7) the following morning.
No-longer-quite-so-barefoot, but still definitely hard as nails, Rory Hebel also made good use of the Bothy recently, making the most of the resident’s hospitality to dry out his many boots:It’ll come as no surprise to those familiar with the man that the clubs’ very own Cumbrian Sam McCloughlin has also spent time up there, but so too has similarly cool runner Maddie Clark, having stayed recently (and also swagged flammable material off Strangers, nice!):
Trip reports:
If anyone fancies reading more about the recent adventures of Twad, Chris, James, Sam, Jono, and Matt in El Chorro, you can check out James’s account of the trip here: http://ramblingsaboutrocks.blogspot.com/2024/12/el-chorro-24.html
Alumni Notes:
Dex Williamson & Ben Cianchi are attempting to row across the atlantic. You can check out their instagram, @atlanticseadonkeys. Entertainingly, after Chris Brown and Prince Waddy bailed off Dream/Liberator (E3 6a) in Great Zawn - easier said than done given the committing nature of the cliff - it was Dex who found and hence returned their kit. Unlike twaddy’s long and whiney UKC log declaring it to be E5 6b, Dex’s contained only one word: ‘soft’.
John Hartley (who told Aidan Roberts about the bloc that would become Spots of Time) and gang - most importantly Bob the dog - have established a bunch of new boulder problems, with classics from 6B+ to 7B, up on Black Wars, high on the shady side of Pike of Blisco. Video of their problems, and bob, here, and topo here. John has had a strong year, with several font 8As and many sport 8s, culminating with a send of Aladdin 8c at Gigg North’s Hollywood Bowl. Fair going!