The draw of trying out a new meet venue with sport, trad, biking and walking options led to a mammoth turnout for the July meet. Around 40 people aged 0 to ‘over 40’ made it to Llangollen on one of the hottest weekends of the year.

Everyone arrived safe and sound on Friday night, though Nick’s group had a nightmare getting out of South London and arrived just as everyone was going to bed. Those around earlier were lucky enough to witness the highlight of the weekend - Neville’s amazing pop-up tent, which self-erects when you throw it in the air. You can see this amazing construction in the picture of Chuck showing us the size of his sausage at breakfast.

Saturday dawned cloudy and cool, but hopes of a day of great climbing endeavours were dashed as the sun broke through and Llangollen took on a decidedly sweaty feeling. Despite the heat, a decent amount of activity took place.

Nick and Mark W climbed at Pinfold, where they managed Toccata VS, Devil’s Alternative HVS, Marander E1,Marnie HVS, Centrefold HVS, Last Fandango E1, Wafer Way VS and another HVS that Nick has forgotten. As it was far too hot, they followed prehistoric instincts and hid under trees and in caves between 2pm and 4pm.

Chuck, Wendy, Jules, Stefan, Simon M-C and Neville went to Trevor, Suspect  Area. Simon M-C and Neville climbed 9 sport routes graded 4-6a+; Jules and Stefan both led all the 4s (Prime Suspect, Clue So and Who's Sam) and Forensic Science (5), before doing some top-roping. They were all lured by Chuck down to Llangollen for ice-cream and feet-in-river-dangling-whilst-drinking-cold-beer- from-the-Spar-and-watching-cute-little-ducklings.

Rob M., Nikki, Matt, Simon A, Hilary, Rob J, Nancy, Mark R and Ivone all went to World’s End. Rob M and Nikki did what Rob describes as ‘a bit of climbing and a lot of gossiping,’ managing a 2* HVS (Sloth) plus a VS and a couple of HSs in between the chat. Rob J was on a mission to explore how many near death experiences a man can take in a single day. According to Simon he had accrued two by the time Nancy and Hilary couldn't take the suspense any longer and opted for a hill-top stroll instead.

Matt and Simon A completed 4 routes, dogged another and failed on one more before the relentless heat finally took its toll. Matt had a fairly nice start leading Ashgrove Prelims VS 4c and Insecure - a "committing" HVS 5a. After a bit of recuperating he also lead Whim HVS 5a. Simon then lead Open Book, a tricky Severe with magical fart inducing properties - both Rob J and Simon let rip just before the crux move, leading to smirks and a slight moving away among the spectators below. Thinking it had cooled down Matt decided to tackle Crystal E1 5b but failed to actually leave the ground. So, moved on to Fall Out E1 5b, which he got to the top of but with much cursing, quaking and general sitting around on gear. Finally deciding it was too hot for that kind of thing, they all withdrew from the crag for beer.

David, John Brooks and Andy spent half the morning fettling bikes before heading off on a long route around/over the Berwyn Hills.  The route started with a long up hill drag swiftly followed by a over-too-soon descent, repeated five times over varying terrain and in unvarying heat. Views from the tops were apparently stunning.  If you’re wondering whether disc brakes get hot after 500m of descent, you should ask David.

A walking group also went out into the local countryside, but we don’t have details of where they went of what they got up to. I suggest you make it up for yourselves.

The Bradshaws had a family day out on the steam train from Llangollen up to Corrag, where they found the river and promptly had a picnic and went swimming.

Lou and Rick eschewed the delights and furnace-like conditions of the Eglwyseg valley, and drove to Simdde Dhu on Arrenig Fawr, above Bala. Fitting rather spectacularly into the category of ‘climbing esoterica’, Simdde Dhu is a seldom visited mountain crag which despite Rick’s promises has no access path, so the day began with an hour and a half of bush-whacking though 5-foot-high bracken over steep rocky ground. The reward for this was two cracking routes - The Emperor's New Toes VS 4c (great climbing but a distinct lack of gear) and Cyclops, an E1 5b with an exciting chimney exit that wasn’t really what Lou wanted after 20 m of technical slab climbing! Two peregrine falcons made regular trips to investigate, and all in all it was a rather fine expedition. Having spotted a better way out from the top, their descent was much easier than the way in, and the day was finished off with a swim in the lake.

Everyone gathered for a late night BBQ at the campsite, with various stove and other cooking technologies being demonstrated and tested to their limits.

Sunday dawned hot, and got hotter.

Nick took Silvia, Debbie, Frank and John Brooks to Trevor for some beginner / refresher training.  Routes done included Clue So 4, Amateur Sleuth 5+, No Remittal 6a, Proven Guilty 5, Forensic Science 5, Suspectus 6a, Prime Suspect 4. Intriguingly, Silvia climbed in odd shoes, an experiment that apparently wasn’t successful (though it’s not clear what hypothesis they were trying to test). Finally beaten off by the heat they went back to Llangollen where they cooled down by jumping in the river and being swept downstream.

Rick and Nikki went to Craig Arthur, where Rick was on another mission and led one of the classics of the area - Digitron (E2 5c) – apparently a fantastic route with a tricky crux (there’s a picture of it in the guidebook).  They then went to Pinfold where Nikki led the classic VS corner crack Kinberg (VS 4c) - thankfully it was catching a bit of breeze.

Neville and Simon M-C went to the Twilight Zone, which whilst being in the shade  was a bit rubbish and chossy.  They climbed all 3 HS's, including a stoopid chimney after they suffered a bout of amnesia and forgot that chimney climbs are stoopid.  They then headed back to the river and joined the large gang in going to the pub.

Rob M just did a little run and spent plenty of time under trees before joining in a bit of swimming in the Dee.

Matt and Lou walked the 6 miles from the campsite round the valley to World’s End and back again, meeting various MMC-ers en route. They then headed home, via a swim in the River Dee outside Chester.

Rob J, Nancy, Simon A and Hilary had planned to mountain bike but a major faff at the bike hire shop resulted in a much delayed start. It was hard to get going at first, having all lolled around in the heat so long. Thankfully there was a mammoth uphill right at the start to put everyone in a really good mood. And just in case there was an encroaching sense of humour failure among the four, a wrong turn was taken (note the passive form so no blame attached to any one individual) which resulted in carrying the bikes at shoulder or head height up a 45% slope through shoulder high bracken to eventually emerge, via a barricade of gorse, at Offa's Dyke path on the top of the range of hills. Soon afterwards Hilary managed to fall off her bike to land squarely in the middle of a gorse bush. Simon gallantly pulled her out after urgent shouting from Hilary that this was not the time to take a photo and then cycled off, leaving Nancy to pluck the gorse thorns out of her derriere. The rest of the route more than made up for the somewhat beleaguered beginnings - some lovely swooping downhill sections and a mix of rocky paths and forest trails, nothing too technical but mostly off road until the final road sections where Rob somehow managed to get a flat. Doh! All in al it was a lovely 20 mile round circuit.

) The families Winfield and Dither went on the steam train to Carrog, where they met the Bradshaws (who’d enjoyed Saturday so much they’d decided to do it again) and hung about by the river in the shade, They day is described as ‘very pleasant’ by daddy Winfield - so pleasant that they stayed until 7:30pm, so there was no traffic going home. As they said, it was just too hot to do anything else...