Climbing!

A Climbing Update!

Now that the weather is brightening up a little, and the temperature is reaching a point where you can feel your fingers again, the keen climbing constituent of UBES are donning their harnesses and getting a lot more climbing done outside!

A well-attended Ropes Skills session in the Union hopefully cleared up some of the more technical aspects of climbing. Some abstract horizontal climbing, roaming cracks in the rock and knot-tying practise was all in preparation for the Peak District climbing the following weekend. You could say we were dealing with the nitty-gritty skills before going out to hit the grit.

The number of UBESters who are choosing to get a little more vertical with their hill walking and scrambling is steadily increasing year to year, with our most recent Peak District Climbing Trip being the biggest climbing trip we’ve run to date. 33 people, ranging from never having climbed outside before to dyno-ing an HVS in ability, all had the opportunity to get climbing outside and push their own personal limits. A particular big shout out to all those who got in their first trad lead!

A happy UBESter in the Peak District! Jono displays colour-coordinated chiq: make sure your belay jacket always matches the rope. (Photo credit: Laurence Falconer)

More climbers means more equipment, and we’ve recently invested in some more gear so that we can cater to the fantastic enth-ubes-iasm for all things outdoorsy. Thanks to the Union Group Grant, we’ve been able to buy 10 more harnesses. This helps out a great deal at our weekly indoor sessions at Redpoint Climbing Centre, not to mention our huge Peaks Trip wouldn’t have been possible without them.

Some gnarly moves made by Ben Caley (left) and Laurence Falconer (right), harnessing their climbing power! (Photo credit: Laurence Falconer)

A fabulous Ceilidh organised by team Emily not only brought out some questionable dancing and tasteful tartan but also raised enough to money for UBES to have been able to buy 10 new helmets, another essential piece of kit for any climber. We hope to keep investing!

‘Orange you glad we bought some helmets?’- UBES in the Peaks modelling the new helmets (Photo credit: Thomas Eldridge)

The term ‘UBES Power Couple’ springs to mind when climbing with Tom Eldridge and Thom Jenkinson. With these two, bickering like an old married couple and fierce competitive aggression seem to go hand in hand. Tom, usually seen in rasta sunglasses and a snap-back hat, compliments Thom, usually spotted in multi-coloured lyrca. (On a side note, the more outrageous your leggings, the harder you climb. Fact.) This techni-colour team have managed an extremely impressive E2 down in the gorge, climbing Banshee ‘a solid and pumpy crack climb coupled with a delicate and blank mantleshelf’. Go team T(h)om! If you somehow managed to miss their blogpost, you can read it here.

A triumphant Thom at the top of Banshee (Photo credit: Thomas Eldridge)