Sally's Bank Holiday weekend

Last weekend was a stunner. I spent it in the lakes catching up with old friends and climbing classics.

Saturday started off rainy, miserable and pretty horrible so we elected to go for a jaunt up Launchy Ghyll in Thirlmere. A smasher of a grade 3 scramble; you are guaranteed to get wet from head to toe and no walk in. I introduced the guys (Russ and Gillie) to the joys of socks over your shoes - i for some unknown reason had a about 4 pairs of old holey ones in the car... We didn't take many photos because, well, it was rather wet.

Afterwards we warmed up, changed our clothes and had some great coffee with warm chocolate muffins at Good Taste in Keswick. Then we wandered over the Borrowdale to see how dry Black crag was looking. Well, it kind of drizzled but mostly it was warm and sunny, but we still popped up Troutdale Pinnacle and there wasn't a queue. Lovely stuff.

After a boogietastic night out in Ambleside we staggered to Shepherd's crag on Sunday (after about 3 hours snooze) where we proceeded to have all sorts of fun. I thrashed my way in bad style up behind Ed's graceful and smooth ascent of M.G.C. The sun blazed down on us all day.

Then on Monday as the weather just kept on giving - sunburnt shoulders and freckles galore - we headed to Langdale for a bit of easy classic fun on Gimmer (the last time I had been there I had been dragged up numb hands in the wet up Intern...brrr.). We popped up via Middlefell buttress, wandered across and bagged Ash Tree Slabs and D Route. I truly enjoyed D Route - what a fab severe!

Later that evening we discovered an amazing veggie restaurant (and i'm no fan of no meat) called Fellini's in Ambleside. And the joy's of an up and coming Red wine (grape: nero d'avola) from Sicily, wow. I was sold.

I'm sun browned, food sated and blissed out. Good times.

Sally B

Sally is interviewed.

I would like to report, albeit a tad tardily, that Sally has been interviewed by the Herald for winning an award from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. Click on the photo for a larger image.

Six days at PYB

Plas Y Brenin is a fantastic place with great instructors, Carlo, Tamsin and Paul but the most impressive thing of all was the wonderful spread of food supplied to us. Forgetting the training a regular day consisted of up at 8 for toast and tea followed by a full English (2 sausage, 2 bacon, 2 hash brown, 2 fried eggs and some backed beans) and then some cereal. 9.15 We would look at the weather and decided where we were going to go. 11ish would be mid morning snack provided by pyb in packed lunch form, we would then sporadically snack on the left over till about 2. 5 was the glorious tea and cake time, no matter what we were doing we always made it back for tea and cakes before a de brief and some class room based revision. At 7 diner was served, the started was a home made soup with bread rolls followed by the main course and pudding. To finish the day I would go bouldering with some guys from the group, Alex, Charlie, John, Neil, Ian and Richard. If the weather was nice we went to RAC boulders or if it was bad at pyb’s wall which had a free duke box and a friendly atmosphere. So even before we talk about getting into the hills there was a lot to fit into a day and the work on the hills was invaluable and most of all enjoyable.

The only way is up.

Eddy

Thanks to the Mount Everest Foundation

Sally has managed to persude the Mount Everest Foundation to give the expedition some gratefully received funding. Thank-you to all the folk at the MEF, we promise not to spend (all) the money on beer.

In return we will deliver a report to the MEF, which will appear on their website around 2010.

Sally's Feet!

Just couldn't help myself. Check out this link to see my feet earning a new gortex jacket in the Dolomites. It is the first of the new promotional stuff - I think that there is some sort campaign launching in June; but until then, let these 2 photos whet your fancy!