This year I have joined the Edinburgh University Mountaineering Club. A couple of weeks ago folks trooped off to Aberdour quarry for some climbing, and I went along. It's a... quaint place; the routes are named after the graffiti they are nearest, and apparently one of the main dangers are the local youth throwing stones down at you. Anyway, a few topropes were set up, and I climbed my first actual rock route (a VS and a couple of Severes, these were only like 10m or so).

Last weekend there was a trip to the Lake District, and on Friday night I headed off down on the bus (to Borrowdale) to go on a rock climbing course. We arrived some time nearing midnight, and set up tents under torchlight (in fact surprisingly easy after having set up that tent in a gale in the rain). Unfortunately it then proceeded to rain throughout the night, and indeed into the morning.

It is hard to persuade oneself to get up out of a nice warm dry tent into the rain, so at the last possible moment I got up, and we met the climbing instructors. Since it was raining, we took the bus down to Keswick climbing wall, and did some basic stuff in there. I did pick up one or two things I didn't know... the weather brightened into the afternoon, and we went off to a crag to do a bit of gear placement and anchor construction (setting up equalised anchors to belay from). Unfortunately I am still crap at finding useful gear placements, so some practise here is definately required.

After walking down a dark road in the rain for longer than we expected to find a pub of which we were marginally aware of the existence, a couple of us caught up with the group for a few nice pints. A significantly colder and more restless night ensued, after which we walked down the valley to Sheperd's crag for the second day.

And my first lead! Well, okay, it sort of takes the sting out of leading when there is an instructor soloing around, keeping an eye out and critiquing gear placements and anchors, but it was a lot of fun. There were quite a few of us leading at once (so sitting around chatting on the belay ledge), but it all seemed to work out. While the other couple of pairs were leading there was a top rope set up on a more interesting route, a VS going up a crack by a fairly blank greasy slab (and it was raining at this point), which was good also.

After a brief instruction in abseiling, we sat at the excellent little farm cafe to wait for the bus home. Tea and scones (and we had been there the previous day too, nice toasties). Very soon (again via Lockerbie for food) I was back home wondering when I can go climb next. And start to build my rack of gear...