Saturday. Sunny. Lovely day for a long route. Unfortunately Dan had a sudden and painful attack of work, wasn’t able to travel on Friday night, and is still trying to get here. It is 9:30 am. The clock is ticking. 

Dan arrives at 10am. We hit the crag at 1pm.  

As we kit up a small voice starts up in the back of my mind, “You are starting way too late. You are going to get benighted. You are going to have an epic. Turn round NOW.” 

Sod off, small voice. I am going to do this anyway. 

Right, ten pitches, gets dark a little after six, so half an hour per pitch or GET A MOVE ON. Dan climbs faster than I do (fitter, more talented and less inclined towards gibbering sweary moments), so the plan is for him to do most if not all of the leading.  

The first pitch suffers from a protracted start-of-route gear faff and takes over forty minutes. Not good. 

The second pitch  suffers from a can’t-find-the-belay faff. Not good either. 

Deconstructing the guidebook, comprehension dawns. We’ve overshot the belay and are actually halfway up the third pitch. I lead through and we are back on track. By the fourth pitch we are flying. 

Up the awkward bit. Up the corner. Up the ridge and yes, this is *that* belay, this is where we need to be. Now, where is the thing? A quick guddle under a suspicious-looking loose rock and I have cache#1000 in hand.  

We top out just as the sun starts to set. Sorted. 

It would be nice to report that there was much beer and celebration that night, but sadly I ended up asleep after half a pint. 

(On Sunday, as some sort of karmic balancing act for the joys of Saturday, we went to Dinas Mot, did The Cracks in persistant penetrating drizzle, and then got the ropes stuck on the abseil off just as it started raining properly. Hmph.)

 (Score so far:
Winter Routes (survived): 3
Sport Routes (seconded): 34
Sport Routes (led): 5
Trad Routes (seconded): 46
Trad Routes (led): 8
Trad routes (solo: 1)

Four days (two days leave plus weekend), 91 geocaches. The mission may yet happen.

After spending most of the weekend squelching round the wetter bits of the Peak, I ended up at Curbar. Not climbing – there’s very little at Curbar at grades I can actually do – but yet more tub-hunting. Geocache #700 turned out to be hidden in a hollow rock hidden in the back of a crevice hidden halfway up Curbar Edge. On the plus side, having a rope and harness meant I could stop worrying about falling down the crag. Unfortunately, they also increased the probability of getting stuck *in* the crag.

I think I need to eat fewer pies.

I’m a climber (well, for a given value of climber). I’m also a geocacher. I’ve a habit of making my geocaching milestones (caches #100, #200 etc) a bit “interesting”. There is a particular one I want for cache #1000, and that one is halfway up a route on Lliwedd. Given that that is somewhere I would far rather climb in the light half of the year (climbing by torchlight is only fun in the pub afterwards), I’m going to have to get a bit of a wriggle on. So, there may be a certain recurring theme to my weekends for a little while . . . because I have a little bit of a mission.

“Oliver, which target were you aiming at?”

“Which one are you supposed to be aiming at?”

“Shall we try that again? On the right target this time.”

Yes, the school* having been more creative than usual with the dates (ie made them up at the last minute), I had one of my voluntary sports coaching sessions on the Saturday morning of the bank holiday weekend. Which left me somewhat out-of-synch with potential climbing partners.

So I went geocaching instead. 43 in one day round the Middlewood circular, a new personal best and ended up very, very knackered. And grinning from ear to ear. As you do.

(*Before anyone asks, no, I’m not a teacher. It’s my old school and as part of a very long tradition of the Old Boys association helping out with things I do a little bit of sports coaching for them.)

Club meet on Dartmoor. Rocked up at the campsite on Thursday night and couldn’t find anyone. Went into the pub (well, it’d be rude not to, and have to go in there to pay for camping anyway) and still couldn’t find anyone.

Next morning . . . *still* couldn’t find anyone! I *have* got the right weekend, haven’t I?

No sign of climbing partners, so wander off towards Ingra Tor in search of geocaches. Lots to go at, might be able to get the 400th up if no-one else turns up. Back to the campsite – and now everyone’s turned up. Apparently they all arrived half an hour after I left in the morning, I must learn to restrain my enthusiasm!

Saturday saw us all rocking up at Sheepstor. Various other parties out, which is probably how my guidebook came to go missing – when everybody’s got the same one, it’s much too easy to pick up the wrong one by mistake. Led one route and seconded Andrew up a couple of examples of overhanging thuggery.

As for Sunday – all the fun of the circus! We ended up at Haytor, which was swarming with families, children, dogs, kites, frisbees, people asking daft questions, people tripping over ropes, people who think they know it *all*, plus the occasional example of obsolete equipment and vaguely iffy belaying. Aaargh, aargh, aargh! (Only been there in winter in the pouring rain before, didn’t know it got that popular.) Eventually escaped and went in search of more buried Tupperware.

So, what to do on Monday? Climbing club meet so really should go climbing, but am within spitting distance of cache #400 and want it to be a good one . . . sod it, tupperware time! Finished the day in a cramped, dark tunnel containing rather a lot of water and a plastic box, #400 in the bag, excellent!

(Score so far:
Winter Routes (survived): 3
Sport Routes (seconded): 5
Trad Routes (seconded): 6.5)
Trad Routes (led): 2.5)