UKC

My First Outdoor Lead (114) - the Great Orme

© Stephen Rowley
photo
A climber, A lover and intellect. Honest

It was one hot summers day. Ok there's lie straight way, another one would be that I have any kind of climbing skill what so ever, but here it goes. On one of our Universityi clubs biggest get together ever (a grand total of 5 people) we headed out to sea cliffs on the back of Great Orme.

When we go there it was cold and overcast but hey at least it wasn't raining. Me and two others set up to climb a nice easy single pitch on a route of what name I can't remember. Up went the leader, It didn't take him to scale the 20 or so meters we had to climb.

Then we put the least experience of us in middle (when I say least experience I mean no experience) and surprise surprise they got stuck. After a good 15 or so minutes of trying to persuade them to continue we got fed up. I ended up having to solo (a very easy part) to a safe ledge that I could belay the rescuee across to.

Now the route hadn't been stripped of gear so I abbed back down to collect what was left behind. When we all got to the bottom the crag the tide had began to turn. So I thought 'hey' easy enough climb I have some knowledge about this leading stuff, lets go for it and well, as the much repeated story goes, so I did.

I didn't feel any fear either because the route was easy or more likely I was concentrating so much on what I was doing. It was over in what seemed like an unbelievable short time.

When I got to the top I set up an anchor (which i must admit I cheated by copying the same layout as the original leader). By the end of it I felt quite smug and proud to. In there with the proper climbing crowd

dmm-writing_comp

www.dmmclimbing.com

Write approximately 500 words about your first outdoor lead and supply an image of you climbing (not necessarily your first lead) and submit to: http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/send.html

The competition will be judged by us here at DMM and the winner announced on Monday 24th December and will win a complete DMM rack worth £500.

But more than that, everyone who submits an essay will receive a spot prize.

More details HERE



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