Thanks for the West Route backstory, Duncan. I bet you were well chuffed with that one!
Let me know if you need a catch on those Pembroke adventures
I’ll trade you your West Route tale for my Paradise Lost story, since the experience was really quite odd.
It was at the end of the Cheddar Gorge restoration project, when Martin Crocker cleaned up a load of old routes, replaced fixed kit, and generally got the place ready for climbing to begin again – all in conjunction with the landowner, Cheddar Caves and Gorge.
To celebrate completion of the work, and the start of the autumn season, Martin organised a big opening festival, where the great and the good were invited to enjoy speeches and a buffet, before various routes were ‘demonstrated’ by various local (and not so local) reprobates.
For some reason Martin asked if I would like to be involved, and if so what I’d like to climb. I’d hardly done anything in the Gorge, but had always liked the look of Paradise Lost from reading about Livesey and Ron’s efforts there back in the day.
Unaware of just what ‘demonstrating’ a route involved, I naively said yes please, and can I do Paradise Lost?
When me and Ian Parsons arrived in the Gorge, there was big marquee, and lots of folk milling about. There were various speeches – think Bonington spoke, which seemed appropriate, before everyone tucked into an ace looking buffet.
Of course, we were supposed to perform, so despite being hungry, we postponed our lunch and headed to the crag.
The next thing I remember as we made our way up the route, was the first of a number of open topped buses driving up the gorge, with Martin on a loudhailer commentating on our ascent, “Up to the right you have the magnificent Sunset Buttress, where you can see X and Y making their way up Z” presumably to a collection of non-climbing dignitaries who were full of a most agreeable lunch.
The whole thing was quite surreal, but it did add a certain pressure to a normal Sunday afternoon on the crag.
When I pulled over the top, there was a note pinned to the belay tree, which read “Hi Neil. Did you flash it?” Fortunately I had…
Needless to say, by the time we got back down to the marquee, all the food had gone :-\
duncan said:
Let me know if you need a catch on those Pembroke adventures
I’ll trade you your West Route tale for my Paradise Lost story, since the experience was really quite odd.
It was at the end of the Cheddar Gorge restoration project, when Martin Crocker cleaned up a load of old routes, replaced fixed kit, and generally got the place ready for climbing to begin again – all in conjunction with the landowner, Cheddar Caves and Gorge.
To celebrate completion of the work, and the start of the autumn season, Martin organised a big opening festival, where the great and the good were invited to enjoy speeches and a buffet, before various routes were ‘demonstrated’ by various local (and not so local) reprobates.
For some reason Martin asked if I would like to be involved, and if so what I’d like to climb. I’d hardly done anything in the Gorge, but had always liked the look of Paradise Lost from reading about Livesey and Ron’s efforts there back in the day.
Unaware of just what ‘demonstrating’ a route involved, I naively said yes please, and can I do Paradise Lost?
When me and Ian Parsons arrived in the Gorge, there was big marquee, and lots of folk milling about. There were various speeches – think Bonington spoke, which seemed appropriate, before everyone tucked into an ace looking buffet.
Of course, we were supposed to perform, so despite being hungry, we postponed our lunch and headed to the crag.
The next thing I remember as we made our way up the route, was the first of a number of open topped buses driving up the gorge, with Martin on a loudhailer commentating on our ascent, “Up to the right you have the magnificent Sunset Buttress, where you can see X and Y making their way up Z” presumably to a collection of non-climbing dignitaries who were full of a most agreeable lunch.
The whole thing was quite surreal, but it did add a certain pressure to a normal Sunday afternoon on the crag.
When I pulled over the top, there was a note pinned to the belay tree, which read “Hi Neil. Did you flash it?” Fortunately I had…
Needless to say, by the time we got back down to the marquee, all the food had gone :-\
