Trip to the Peak District

Yesterday I went climbing in the Peak District with CUMC, which was a little bit of an adventure, but was overall good. I got up at about 6:15, and was out the door at about 6:58, needing to meet people at 7. I was kind of tired because I had gone to the college "bop" the night before, but hadn't stayed too late at that. (My favorite moment of the bop was when a German kid I knew at Darwin came up to me and said "wow, you're very big!" (I was wearing high heels.))

So the email had told me to meet at "Queen's Road" at 7, which it had described as being the first right off of Silver Street. So where I was thinking of meeting people was Queen's Lane, the first right off of Silver Street, a tiny road about 5 minutes from my house. When I got there, no one was there. Just then, two people came past on bikes who looked as if they were going to go climbing, so I waited to see where they went. However, they zoomed past, and it was extremely foggy, and I lost track of them. Uh oh. Now it's time to panic. So I try to call the only girl in the club who's number I know (who also happens to be in my car), and she doesn't answer. I send her a text message. Then another kid comes zooming by on a bike and I don't let him stop. "Are you with CUMC!" "Umm, yes." "Oh good." So I make him show me where we're going. Turns out that Queen's Road is a bigger road that is technically the second right off of Silver Street, and is not the same as Queen's Lane. Also, it's the same street that I live on. So now I know the name of the street I live on.

So we meet our driver there. All the other drivers have left. He seems a little cranky that we're so late, but I don't feel bad because he's the one who wrote the "first right" email and the other kid was late even though he knew where he was going. Luckily, the late kid was in the same car as me. The girl I had texted isn't there yet, but that's on purpose. We're picking her up on the way out because she goes to Girton, which is a college that is way, way, way out of town. So she does manage to call me once I've already found the car. I answer, "HiHelenthisisNikathanksforcallingIfoundthecarthoughandwe'reonourwaytopickyouuprightnowbutsothankyouanyway!"
She says okay.

So then we have Helen and the ride up is relatively uneventful. We drive through major patches of fog, but we also drive through very blue sky. Interesting. The late kid and the driver decide that they will climb together, since they decide they both want to do HVS's and E1's, so I'll be climbing with Helen. I sort of know how Helen climbs already since she was in charge of the Jesus Gym night I went to on Friday. So I know she's okay, but not great. And she also says she hasn't done a lot of trad climbing yet, but does have a rack. Fine, whatever, I'm prepared for what climbing in England is going to be like.

So we get there and even though it's more-or-less sunny, but with haze, the walk-in is muddy. My Sportiva approach shoes are also very very unwaterproof. Oh well, I mostly avoid most of the mud.

When we get to Stanage, the crag is mostly south-facing, but the sun is still low-enough in the East (even though it's like 10am at this point -- England is already having very short days) that a lot of it isn't quite in the sun yet. Also, Helen doesn't have a guidebook so we decide to stick to the other two guys in the car who do have a guidebook. So we start at some little area at the right-hand end of the crag where Helend decides to lead a S 4a. That all goes fine. She is one of those people who YANK YANK YANKS nuts in, though. When I see her do that to the first one, I say, "oh by the way, could you please clip that nut tool on your harness to that first piece for me to use, please." So I quickly second it -- except for the time I take to wrestle with the nuts. I eventually get them all out, though. I also know that it's standard to walk off all the climbs here, so I bring up flipflops to use for that. I thought that was quite clever of me. Nick claims it's a newbie thing to do, but I think it's ridiculous that everyone is traipsing off the top through big mud puddles in their climbing shoes.

So then Helen says I should lead something if I want to. I'm encouraged by the fact that she does have cams (her rack is still quite new) in addition to hexes, so I say yes. (She's got like all the ones .4 - 3, BD, which is encouraging -- she managed to get them fairly cheaply off of eBay as a set.) (Oh, she also has the nice DMM biners on a lot of her draws that she got as cosmetic seconds at the factory in Llanberis. Well, except a couple of the draws had those stupid Revolver biners on them.) So I say yes, and I hunt down the two guys with the guidebook, and see that there are some appropriate looking HSs nearby. As I go to look at them with my eyes, someone says "Is that Nika?" behind me.

I turn around, and it's Geoff from OUMC. So I shriek "GEOFF!" loud enough for most of Stanage to hear, and am very excited. He's with three people I don't know, including another girl who joined OUMC after I left named Elie. After Geoff and I say hi, Elie says "I know we haven't met yet, but are you Nika? You fit all the descriptions I've heard of you." So that intrigued me, but I laughed and said yeah. So it was fun to see them. I didn't actually climb with them that day, but I did see them several more times and we kept catching up, which was fun. They claimed that another kid I knew from OUMC was there, too, but I didn't see him and then later on they said he'd left. I also found out after I got back that another girl from OUMC was there, too, and Geoff & Co. had stumbled across her, too, but I didn't see her either, which was sad.

Then the rest of the day was pretty good. I found an HS 4c to lead, which pretty much goes fine. Helen falls off seconding it (she's pretty new to gritstone climbing, apparently), but makes it up. Then we go to find the two guys from our car, but in the meantime come across two others from CUMC and look at their guidebook instead.

The guy in that pair, Kane, is interesting. He has just started a Ph.D. at Darwin, but he did his undergrad at Cambridge as well, at Emmanuel. He took a gap year in between, mostly to travel/climb, and he's pretty good. In fact, did the Nose during the gap year. So that pair lets me second the E1 5b he's just led, which goes pretty easily for me.

Then they start talking about new freshers at Cambridge, and apparently there's a hotshot American boulderer named Ben from Boulder who's shown up for some stuff (but is not there that weekend). They tell me his last name, which sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't figure it out. Kane mentions that he actually knew Ben's sister a few years ago because she had spent time at Emmanuel. Then it all clicks -- two years ago, Ben's sister Steph was working in Cambridge, MA, and I climbed with her a number of times at MetroRock. I had known that she had a good younger brother, too. Steph had also gone to Harvard for undergrad, which made sense because Kane said she was the "Harvard scholar" at Emma. So it all comes together. So now I'm interested to meet the brother -- I did a quick Google and it looks like he's legitimately good. Which probably means he'll have nothing to do with a university climbing club.

Anyways, then Helen successfully leads a HS 4b stemming crack that allows her to place more big gear, which she says she needs practice on. Thankfully, she uses some cams which she can yank all she wants -- they're still easy to get out. I'm slightly concerned about the fact that she placed some hexes, too, but I get 2 out of the 3 out easily, and the third out with a little struggle.

Then we continue on down in the same direction as Kane and his partner and find another climb for me to do. This one is a VS 5a, which is harder for me. There's a tricky crack section that does want a hand-jam or two, but I am more-or-less able to do them these days. But I'm nervous about my gear, so I look kind of shaky. But I do it okay. I placed all of her cams on that route -- and they're the only pieces I use. 5 go on route, and 1 goes in at the anchor (also slung a boulder for part of the anchor -- all the Brit climbers have superlong slings for boulder-slinging). She hangs at the tricky part while seconding, too.

Then we continue on and watch another CUMC climber trying to do an E4. He's kind of sketching all over the place and hanging on marginal-looking gear, so I don't particularly want to watch too much of that. (He ends up doing the crux but not finishing the route.) So then we see the other two from our car -- they've been working on an E1 nearby. Neither have sent, both have taken some dramatic falls, and now they're trying to get the nut out that they've apparently welded into place. No success on that either. Eventually Kane decides to rap down to try to take one more try at rescuing their nut from him -- and he pops it out with one yank. "You boys need to learn how to take out nuts!"

Then we finish up on one little buttress there by following Kane on two routes. The first is a fairly classic HVS 5a that is basically laybacking one fairly big flake. The flake, which is at least 4 inches thick, sounds extremely hollow as I'm pulling on it, which makes me a little nervous -- it's a big piece of rock. But it's fine. Helen seconds it as well and has trouble with the smearing (she's wearing weird shoes from the Czech Republic that apparently fit her feet really well -- but I'm ubconvinced by their rubber). But she eventually makes it up after some pendulum-style falls (the route traverses a bit, and the guy led it on doubles, which meant that there were more pendulum opportunities than had it been done on a single). Then the guy finishes by leading an E2 5b, which we both second. Again, I do it without too much trouble (well, except for flopping around for a while on the awkward mantle at the top -- but I do it). Helen actually does quite well on the climb, and almost sends -- but comes off on the mantle at the top.

But so overall, things were good. As we were packing up to go, I also got to try on Helen's harness. I liked it. Can't decide if it's worth the extra money over the Selena, but it might be. The material is extremely skinny.

So we drive back to Cambridge, deciding that we don't really want to stop for dinner (some cars did, some didn't -- I was happy just going back to Cambridge). Pretty uneventful. I got a pancake that the house had cooked earlier in the day when I got back, which was good.

So it was pretty much good. The driver says he'll send an email about how much gas was, and says we should pay him by internet transfer. I told him I would as soon as I had a bank account. Which, by the way, isn't going well. I got up early specially just to go to Barclays first thing, who had promised they'd have "account details" for me today. They didn't have them yet (after I waited in the waiting area for 20 minutes and at the woman's desk for 10 more while she searched for them), and swore I could pick them up this afternoon. They did take a cheque from me to deposit, telling me they'd give me a receipt. So after they took the cheque, they said "okay, we'll write your account details on the receipt and give you the receipt this afternoon." So now they have the cheque and the receipt. Right. And I'm paying L5/month for this?