Swanage - April 2023
The Swanage trip started with a number of club members heading down early on the Friday full of hope, given some not very promising weather conditions.
Jamie, Dan and Challum arrived at Winspit Quarry at midday Friday and got a few sport routes under their belt early in the weekend, before enjoying a famous Square and Compasses sausage roll and meeting the rest of the club at the campsite that night.
Early Saturday Tony and Louise strolled down to Cormorant Ledge and Kat and Kev went to Boulder Ruckle.
Keen to get in one of their first trad outings in a while, Tony and Louise set up their ab and headed for Quality Street HVS 4c (which Tony previously snapped a hold off and subsequently fell off 3 years ago). After successfully topping out they then completed Black Jack HVS 5a, a lovely route with a traverse, a roof and a tonne of gear opportunities. At which point they were forced to retreat to Cattle troughs due to the tide.
In the meantime Kat and Kev had played rock, paper scissors for first lead which Kat won and set off to lead Lighting Wall HVS 5a with Glenn and Kev in tow. They then moved on to Finale Groove HVS 4c, although only 4c it felt like 45m of constant 4c and very pumpy; Elysium E1 5b, a splendid route with a nice crimpy mid-section and Strongbow E1 5b for the last route of the day. This felt like 5m of pumpy climbing, followed by 40m of more pumpy climbing. A fantastic day for the two with 4 x Top 50 routes ticked and two very pumped arms.
At Cattle Troughs Kate, Paula, Dan, Jamie and Challum who had spent the morning getting back to familiarity tackling VDiffs (and seeing great improvements in themselves since their last swanage visit) and Glenn joined to introduce Helen to the great world of Trad!
Brad joined in the afternoon to steal Glenn to tackle a few Severes ending on Hangover and Balcony to up the grades. The day was topped off by finding a spot in the Kings Arms for dinner, drinks and a good catch up about the day's activities.
We woke up Sunday to some very patchy looking weather which luckily cleared up to be a glorious afternoon. This had the group split up between Subliminal and Dancing Ledge.
Within the group that chose Subliminal Trad, Glenn and Brad paired up again Sunday and had a very wet outing on First Corner before taking a few more long Severes at a slower pace. Tony and Louise climbed a range of S, HS bad VS routes and Kev and Josh climbed a range of VSs and HVSs, the highlight of which was Baboon HVS 5b. Described as ‘a one move wonder of a route but an outrageous undignified move requiring plenty of knees and plenty of f*cks to get up it’.
For the remainder that headed for some Sport at Dancing Ledge, the grades were surprisingly tough and some of the routes had a glass polish to them making even getting off the ground tricky. Luckily in true CMC fashion, we were able to make friends with some more prepared climbers with a clip stick! Kate and Dan took this opportunity to push themselves to their limits with a 6a+ and definitely earnt their pints later that night.
On the final day, those that chose to stay were rewarded with another day of glorious sunshine from the offset. We all split off and headed for our various routes with multiple teams pushing their grades. Kate and Imogen got a great range of VDiffs to HSs in. Brad, Challum and Jamie Swung leads. Paual and Helen teamed up to tackle some classics. Josh, Kat and Dan set their sights for some adventurous routes which proved a mental and physical challenge and then Brad and Imogen managed to sneak in some final routes before the sun went down.
All in all with the CMC sunshine luck and a great mix of new and old members putting face to names, the Swanage trip was a great success of a weekend.