The Roaches Weekend

The climbing section weekend was held in the Don Whillans Memorial hut at the Roaches crags in Staffordshire. The hut itself is known as Rock Hall and is a Victorian (I think) folly partly built into the rock itself and the rest of it like a gothic castle complete with turret. Some years ago it was inhabited by a hermit who one occasionally met, somewhat disconcertingly, as he was generally carrying an axe. However, as far as I know he only used this to hew firewood and not climbers. I also remember seeing one of the famous wallabies which had been imported into the woods but these have now, alas, vanished.

The Saturday dawned cold and a bit mizzly and as we started up our various first routes with freezing fingers and low morale a few flakes of snow started to fall and prospects did not look good. However, the snow came to nothing and although it stayed cold the weather was bearable and climbing of innumerable routes at various standards went on all day, with some commendable efforts, in particular by Howard and Paul in not the best summer's day conditions.

One of the benefits of the hut is that it is less than 200m from the nearest rocks so it was possible to return for lunch and have hot soup in a warm room instead of cowering under some freezing rocks.

Sadly, we awoke next morning to a steady drizzle and the different car groups formed various plans to stop off on the way home and do walks, runs etc. However, the rain got heavier as we went north and the hardest climbing that Lindsay, Pete and I did was to the top floor of Longlands cafe in Hathersage for a cup of coffee. Anyway, you cannot win them all and I enjoyed the weekend - it was good to get on real rock again instead of the artificial delights of Rock Antics (brilliant as they are, Colin!) and I hope everyone else felt the same!

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	Swaledale Outdoor Club

The Roaches Weekend

Peter Dyson