Dane Court KMC Blog

We all gathered in the Common Room to hear what Jez had planned for us to do today, he asked us questions about the previous day when we climbed Tryfan. We all replied with our low points and high points of the ascend up, and then our battery percentage (how much energy we had) for the day. He then told us we were going to go Sea Level Traversing, Tyrolean Traverse and possibly plunging into the freezing cold water from high rocks.
We hadn’t had much clue of what we were in for on the minibus there, but we were told to bring spare clothes and waterproofs. The journey was long, about 30 minutes, but everyone seemed excited and ready to go. We arrived at Anglesey Island, it’s quite big and also a very beautiful place.
Our first ‘tester challenge’ was climbing up a vertical wall about 10ft tall, with very spaced out holes to grip our feet onto. We were shown a demonstration by Jez, and were told we needed to work out who needed to go first and who needed to go last for more help. Lily went first, then Jed, then Hannah, then Ella, then Miss Hodget. When it was Maria’s turn……she got half way up and then she couldn’t find a foot hole. She was stuck. There 3 people at the bottom and 2 people at the top trying to help her up. Everybody was in hysterics, Miss Hodget kept taking pictures. Hannah was holding her hand to try to pull her up but she kept sliding down after Maria. Eventually, after about 5 minutes of struggling, she got up and then last 3 people climbed up whilst Miss Hodget continued to take pictures.
The next challenge was to down the side of a cliff and trough a tight space to reach a rock pool area at the bottom. It was simple until we got to the tight space. You had to sit on the edge of a large rock and slide yourself down, trying to find spaces to put your feet on the wet rocks. It was quite slippery and difficult to keep your balance. When we got to the rock pools, we decided to take a team photo so we climbed onto several rocks so we were all sitting down. On the way up, Ed stretched his legs too far and ripped his trousers in the genital area! It was very funny. He had to go the rest of the day with his trousers like that in high winds. So when Miss Hodget took the team picture and uploads it, you may see Ed with his ripped trousers!
So, we were walking along the rocks and small pools for about an hour, the walk included small cuts in hands from sharp and sneaky barnacles and steep stealthy and slippery stepping stones. Jez had told us to follow the person in front’s steps exactly, this was extremely difficult when the person in front disappeared after a difficult part if you needed their help, we all had to keep remembering to look behind us to see if anyone else needed help getting up the walls.
After a while of walking, we came to an end and walked back to the car park to eat our lunch. No one really spoke through lunch because we were all so hungry and we just ate. When we had finished eating, we had to try on our harnesses and put on the cows-tails that would attach us to the Tyrolean. We walked for about 5 minutes to the Tyrolean and when we got there it was a big drop. By this point some people were a bit nervous but they knew that it would be fine. Jez demonstrated and then Miss Hodget had her turn. Then one by one, we carefully walked down the slope to get to the rope. We got attached and climbed along the rope. When we got half way, we had to try to do a back-flip and land on the top of the rope. Nearly everyone tried and nearly did it. No-one managed to do the whole thing apart from Jez- showing off his ‘abs of steel’.
Then we climbed across rocks to the edge of some rocks where we could jump in, fully clothed! Nearly everyone jumped in and it was really fun! Everyone was very nervous and excited about this part. Ed and Jed were the first to jump, they immediately screamed and scrambled to get out of the cold water! Hannah and Lily went next, their reaction was almost dittoed! It was so funny! Then Ella jumped in on her own, she didn’t want to jump in with anyone because she was scared she would get crushed or land on somebody! Lily jumped with Jed next, and then Ed jumped again and then Hannah, Jed, Ella and Lily jumped again a couple of times.
Then we went back to the minibus to go and get out of the wet clothes to go change behind a sand June. This was quite tricky and very funny, then we began the long fulfilling journey back to the centre.

By Ella Cook and Hannah Francis

The first morning of the trip, admittedly. Not a good one. We dragged ourselves out of the warm inviting safe haven of the duvet into the cold unforgiving environment of the bedroom, ready for the challenges ahead. We soon prepared for the first nail biting challenge of the day. Breakfast.
We were greeted with various cereals and breads also a cooked breakfast, we were told to eat well for our bodies would be subjected to harsh exercise.
If you were to tell me at the start of the day I were to climb 915 metres, traverse through battering hail and persevere blistering cold I would have trouble believing you.
At the beginning, we were prepared for little obstacles to face, we were wrong by a long shot. Halfway up the almost casual first few hundred metres, the weather took a turn for the worst, we faced heavy rains and racing winds. But to our luck the weather soon returned to a peaceful breeze. Continuously throughout the trip the weather swung from peaceful to storms, the worst point was when the winds rocketed past and hail battered our faces to no avail.
Eventually we reached a point where we were ready for lunch, we ate sandwiches and chocolate basking in the stunning views of the valleys below.
After a lot of clambering and bum-shuffling we reached our destination. The south summit. We took a cheeky picture then quickly skedaddled for the weather was getting serious.
As a group we started to head back to the centre, we travelled down the mountain as a group around the muddy other side of mount Tryfan. We trudged through the sinking mud towards the van, cold and aching. Moments before boarding the van after continuous hours of rain and hail the clouds dispersed and the sun came out, talk about luck!
We went home wet and tired but happy and confident that we did all we could physically that day. We were greeted back with a nice cooked meal and more importantly, warmth.
By
Jed Warren and Ed Caps

Our last day of activities involved all the groups included ours journeying into the gorge. We arrived relatively early and set about harnessing up and checking that we had sufficient equipment, after a short walk into the woods we came to the rush of water. The activity began with our group gently making its way up the ever-increasing pools. We helped each other find hidden footholds under the white froth and worked slowly step by step up into harder and more difficult routes and terrain. Along the way we saw other groups struggling or laughing as they traversed similar scrambles. One group in particular were doing a route were you slide yourself under a narrow crack in the slippery rock and fly down a steep face while being pelted with spray. After a while of generally simple walking we came to place were the water was far too deep to avoid being soaked down to your clothes. We braved the freezing pool and emerged with a sense of achievement and wet long johns, Higher we climbed up into ever-increasing waterfalls before reaching the furthest we could possibly go. There before us lay a waterfall spectacularly huge I gaped looked round too see my friends amazement only to see him do something out of an ancient comedy, slipping onto a well-placed branch a leg on each side and the piece of tree in the middle right into his exposed crotch area. He hardly made a sound as we laughed. We made our way down having a go at the slide in the process which finished off our thoughts of a dry day with no shower. We returned to the bus and began the epic journey of getting on dry clothes before listening to terrible music all the way back to the centre. In all a nine out of eleven day.

Sam Williams