The event to be at this month is our annual dinner - there is nothing to beat a "clan gathering" of Oreads eating and drinking together, celebrating the enduring friendship of our club, our passion for mountains and our sense of fun. The annual dinner is a watershed - the drabness of autumn is waning and the crispness of winter frosts and the Bullstones is within our horizon. And this year we have an additional treat - our Photo Competition, like a phoenix has risen in a digital guise, I hope you can join in as entrants or audience. The event is full of promise.
Sorry not to get this notice into the October newsletter. I'm not sure whether the November edition will precede or follow the Dash, but in any case you all know how to do it! More (especially last minute) from me or on the Dash website - www.dovedaledash.co.uk/ Some interesting photos of the first race in 1952 were added a couple of weeks ago. AFTER the Dash, please let me have your finish position. There are some obsessives in the club ("you looking at me?") for whom these things are important!! Enjoy your run. Rob Tresidder
Pete Scott and Richard Hopkinson are doing a digital double act. Definitely not to be missed! Richard will talk on his recent climbing in Colgne, whilst Pete will talk about his exploits in the Tafroute area of Morocco.
You are cordially invited to the Annual Dinner, to be held in the Arkwright Suite, the Lion Hotel Belper on Saturday 18th November 2006 at 8.00 p.m Please refer to last month's newsletter for details of the menu and the form which instructs your choice of menu and payment. Please contact me if you have any difficulties with the paperwork. All cheques to be in by 8th November! Neil Weatherstone
The walk will start from the Carsington Resevoir car park on the Carsington bypass. (GR248528)(NOTE-car parking is free here, but the car park is locked at dusk, there is a sign giving the time at the entrance) I plan to leave at about 10.30 and we will walk via Brassington and Aldwark to the Hollybush at Grangemill for lunch (They do Sunday roasts, soup and chip cobs, or bring your own sandwiches) The route back to Carsington will depend on the weather, time and the amount of alcohol consumed. Please get in touch if you have any queries. Richard.
This meet has unavoidably shrunk to a Sunday walk and scramble. With Bullstones looming, one day of this should be enough. We shall meet at SK042947 where the Doctor's Gate track runs into Old Glossop, setting out at 9.30am for a traverse of the Bleaklow climbing grounds: Shelf Benches, Yellowslacks, Shining Clough, Rollick Stones, Torside and back over Cock Hill in the gathering gloom. For the ill-equipped a useful ploy would be to follow the aeroplanes, eventually to end up in Manchester - or Majorca ......
This will be our first competition for nearly a decade. It will be 100% digital; however if you have shots taken on a conventional film camera, you could have them scanned onto a CD. We will (this time) stick with the tried and tested Oread formula of four categories: aesthetic at home, aesthetic abroad, action at home and action abroad. Some of you will groaningly remember the old "club interest" section. I suppose we shall have to have that as well!! Limit of three entries per category please. All entries on a CD in my hand or via snail-mail. Sadly, I cannot accept entries submitted by email. Please arrange your images in clearly labelled folders appropriate to the category for which they are entered. To get the best fit of image to screen, please re-size your images to 1024 pixels wide for landscape format and 768 pixels high for portrait. This roughly equates to a jpeg file size of 4Mb. If you don't understand any of this, be reassured, I don't either! This is something of a seat of the pants operation: I have received a lot of of advice, some of it conflicting, from several different sources. Please write your name on the crystal case or a piece of paper but do not mark the CD. This will assist the anonymisation process. Closing date for entries is 24 November. Our judge for the evening will be the professional photographer and former Oread, Richard Freestone. Knowing what he does, he is a brave man who is doing me a great favour!
I believe the old competition died when Oreads stopped taking slides and moved over to prints. The switch to digital by so many climbers now gives us the opportunity to revive this ancient tradition, so come on get inside your computer and sort out your best shots. There is a magnificent trophy at stake.Rob Tresidder
We shall meet in the Golden Lion in Horton in Ribblesdale on the Friday evening. Parking is available behind the pub, for the small price of £2. After that things will happen in the way they do on the Bullstones, i.e.. probably not according to plan. After sufficient pre-hydration, we may head north along the Pennine Way to find a suitable bivvy site somewhere around Old Ing or Birkwith Moor, or maybe in the woods. From there, along the ridge between Langstrothdale and Littondale. This is unpathed, but it is now access land so we shouldn't have too many problems. Things after that are more vague. Further refreshment may be called for, or we may wish to solo up those easy routes at Kilnsey. Somehow, we will doubtless arrive in Kirby Malham, where we will be sleeping in the Parish Hall (which is next door to the pub). I'm thinking of a more direct route back on the Sunday, over Fountains Fell and Penyghent, returning to the Golden Lion for lunch. Come one, come all. If you've not been on a Bullstones meet before, it's an experience not to be missed. Do get in touch if you've any questions or want to share transport. Simon Pape
Advance notice of the Oread's only official night meet! I intend to go to Black Rocks on the Saturday afternoon before the meet (9 Dec.) for a bit of a clean-up. The crag can become a bit beset by barbecue trays, cans and bottles. It's bound to be wet, cold and greasy on the night; let's try and make sure it isn't filthy as well! I would welcome some help with this. Please try and contact me beforehand, though of course, casual assistance will also be welcome. Rob Tresidder
Limestone country farmland rolls by the van window, it feels like being at home in Derbyshire. A group of us are heading for the 'Lost World' in the capable hands of local guides. Not being a caver, I have no idea what's ahead. We change in a very large shed into heavy duty wet suits and I start the session well, impressing everybody by putting it on inside out. A quick lesson on how to attach to harness and fixed lines using lanyards allows me to rebuild my image, as I can answer the questions and help other clients. Practice starts in earnest with a scramble down to the abseil platform, 100 metres above the pot bottom, I'm the only client who has abseiled before. On individual ropes we are tethered to the guide at first, until eventually he lets 2 of us go and I am off, easily reaching the bottom first.
It's a long way down into a deep gorge, where a small river runs through it. The banks are wide enough to land on dry ground and we start with dinner, plenty of sandwiches and hot drink to go round, the guides feeding the eels in the river. I eat too much and feel stuffed as we head off upstream into the cave. Easy scrambling over rocks and along bank side gets us into the darkness, with the last glimpse of light for several hours. In front 2 kilometres of underground river to be explored. The moment of truth soon comes, the only way forward being to wade into the river bed. Its not as cold as I imagined, the wetsuit doing its job, but others whoop and holler as they hit water. For a few hundred metres we wade on firm floor, but the passage narrows and the water deepens, no choice now but to swim or pull your self along by gripping the limestone walls. Its easy enough with good buoyancy from the suit, but the water is cold as it runs into the top of the suit and down the chest for the first time. Occasionally there is a need to cross side streams coming in, which requires a strong launch across the deepness, with the inevitable head wetting. It goes on like this for a long time, stopping often to allow the slower members time to catch up, alternating scrambling, wading and swimming. The ceiling of the cave is mostly very high, with the occasional lowering due to an intricate labyrinth system or massive jammed boulders. It is of course dark, the deep space testing the efficiency of the head torches and noisy from the flow of the river.
We arrive at a fixed hand rope through the cave, just where the cave becomes very narrow with smooth side walls. The flow is faster, there are no side holds and the rope is the only way to make progress hand over hand. The guides sprint ahead to set a belay for crossing 'The Cauldron' but I am right behind them. The Cauldron is a smooth bowl in the cave where the aerated water swirls and thrashes its way through. Aerated water is not buoyant and can't be breathed so its important not to get trapped in the bottom. One by one we are top roped across the waters, back and footing across the gap on glass smooth rock. There are no mishaps, though the wait is too long, and we continue to the waterfall pitch. There's a galvanized steel ladder up this section, about 10 metres in all, but we are offered the option of climbing the fall with a jump into the depths. We take the gauntlet and its hard work bridging the sides on smooth slopers with the water rushing into the face. There are a few failures who finally take the ladder, but then comes the jump of several metres into the depths. The guide lights the spot to land and yep the full immersion is wet, but you soon come bobbing up like a cork. A brief chocolate bar stop and we are 'about half way' and feelings of sufficient adventure for today are creeping in. In reality the second half is mostly wading and scrambling. The finale is a stop in the dark, lights turned off, to look at the glow worm display, which is good. Within a few hundred metres we are out and on the river bank, with just a 20 minute walk through limestone dales between us, the shed, a hot shower and a barbeque of fresh Aberdeen Angus steak, sausages and salad. I knew the guides would come into their own eventually.
There are no meet reports this month. I hope Tony will tell us something of the Curry Meet and what adventures were had on what was from verbal reports a better than average weekend in terms of its weather.
So far I have had few photos from meets and the write-ups have been brief. If there were more photos and longer write-ups these could form the basis of an (Annual) Journal. Please send in your views about a Journal and what content might be appropriate. I would be willing to edit a Journal in 12 months time so long as a supply of appropriate articles and photos were be available. Please let me have your thoughts. Stephen