Wales

I got a phone call at 415 on friday offering me a last minute place on a climbing trip. I literally ran home (good job I had sports gear with me!), threw some stuff in a bag and went. It was brilliant- I've missed the people and the climbing so much, but when I was depressed and tired, it always seemed like too much of an effort to go. The hut we stayed in was right at the foot of Tryfan, and when I got up on saturday I was blown away by the view. We were surrounded by hills, every colour of autum and dusted with snow. Once all the hungover people had managed to get out of bed, make a sandwich and throw some gear into a rucksack, we left. A couple of groups went off to hike and play in the snow, and the rest of us went off to search for some crags in tremadoc that were in a reasonable condition. I eneded up climbign as part of a group of six- we had 2 leaders and 4 seconds. It was freezing cold, and the bottom section of the climb was very polished and damp. Eventually we alll managed to get up it though. It was 10 minutes of pure bliis- a really classic climb. I had to use virtually every style of climbing move I've ever learned, and it was tough enouh to be rewarding, but not frightening. We got to the second pitch, and the light was begining to go. I belayed Steve, and he had a few problems- apparently our nice , challeniging severe topped out as an E1. He managed it, and Laura started up after him. I waited patiently on the tiny ledge for my turn. I never got it- Laura struggled for ages on the nasty pitch, and eventually backed off. We ended up with five of us on the ledge, with steve having to absail back down to us, retrieving his gear, and freeing Felix's stuck rope on the way down. All 6 of us had to ab off the ledge in the dark. I've only absailed once before, and I was on a safety line, and it was 2 years ago. It was pretty hairy doing it for real, in the dark, down through bushes and slippy patches of wet rock. We had a bit of an adventure though, and it ws fun. The rest of the climbers had ended up backing off theri crag because it was too slippy- so they had spent the rest of the day in a cafe waiting for us to finish.

We didn't get to climb sunday- we drove to a different crag at tremadoc, but as the guys were setting upa rope for us, it started to piss down. We went back down, and poked around a gear shop, drank hot chocolate and went back to clean the hut. I was a bit dossapointed, but you can't try climbing in n wales in novermber and expect a dry weekend!

I'm back now, exhausted and with my esk still a freezeframe of all the things I was in the middle of when I rushed off on friday!