Meet

Friday night went on a lot later than it would normally, in the pub till close then continued in the hut, with the last lads hitting the hay at about 6. It mightn’t have helped that two young ladies found their way back with us, along with a dashing young Mexican named Julio who accompanied them gamely. The phrase cock-block was thrown around liberally and young Julio was lucky to escape uninjured, though everyone subsequently strongly denied any interest in the ladies.

Some very strong lads from England were over for the meet and seemed to have set their sights on every unclimbed line in Wicklow. Their industry should have put us to shame and they were gone before we awoke on Saturday. Tim lost out in the Russian roulette that is heavy drinking for us old men, and we awoke to the sharp sound of him choking up his dinner in the bathroom. In the past I would approach a meet as a drinking session, as there was more novelty in drinking in that setting than climbing in it. Unfortunately now I’m from Brighton, the deep dark unclimbable hole. Perhaps I should have planned to change my drinking style accordingly but I didn’t. As it happens I think conditions would have pissed me off if I had made an effort to be in fit shape to climb effectively.

We got into glendo for a decent length if low intensity session. Nothing of particular note was climbed, started in the ruins and finished on chillax via BBE, black art and squamish. The usual banter was had, with meat flashes all round. I was happy to do the guts of chillax but Shane got it for the first time and its one of the few problems I’ll get proxy pleasure from someone else getting. Tim got Black Arts which was commendable considering he seemed to get dizzy sitting up. Watched second half of match in pub, the better half in terms of tries scored. The rest of the evening was very laid back, drinking in the hut. A bunch of us headed up to Zef’s boulder for a mildly drunken lamp session. The dark and drink made the climbing a little unnerving but it was a good way to close out the evening. The frictionsnob strongly approves of such perfect granite.

The smaller group freed us up from any sense of obligation to go to Glendo on Sunday and we headed to Lough Dan instead (while the English lads waded into the bog of Glenmac). The impressively hot sun meant that we were never going to have amazing conditions but a good solid day was had nonetheless. Heads were a lot clearer and we nearly all made short work of Shadow, with the top out bringing out disdain and disco leg in equal measure. I forget every time the unforgiving sharpness of Lough Dan granite. We moved lakewards along the hillside, three kings boulder’s lovely arête got a lot attention then down to karma by which time the lazy river and the heat had brought us to a near standstill. Kudos to young Dave who came on the meet having never climbed outdoors before and who brought nothing to eat for the weekend but 4 packs of Toffee Pops, like a young Ped perhaps, high praise indeed.