Tag: Mountain Scramble

Jez’s Group On Tryfan

Posted on | By DGoodbourn399 | No comments

Hey it’s Dr. Dumbledore Goodbourn and Will Scarlett here and we’re talking about what we did on Friday. We started off getting ready to go and climb Mount Tryfan. We decided to leave the centre earlier than usual because we wanted to get the most out of the day (and we didn’t want to be the last back – again.)

After a driving to the car park, we set off and started our ascent. This mountain wasn’t as hard as Snowdon. We started up a normal, but boggy path which wasn’t particularly difficult. After a while the climb started to get steeper, but still manageable. We continued climbing for about an hour until we had a break, and at this time Greg realised that he put too much orange juice in so it wasn’t diluted enough. He wanted to get the water from the lake and the streams that ran through the mountain.

Even though the first part wasn’t difficult, we were still slightly tired, and we only about halfway up the mountain. Because of this, Mr Bright White thought of an idea similar to Tour De France, where the person in front would walk 50 steps and then head to the back, and the person behind them would do the same thing. At the same time, I (Dr Goodbourn) fell over (as usual) and pulled on Will Scarlett’s bag to get up. Because she wasn’t “ready,” I pulled her down and we fell onto either side of the rock.

We continued onwards, and we didn’t expect to fall over so much. Jess Combe was the first victim, where she fell into a bog and got COVERED in mud. Luckily Mr. White was there to take a photo of her (and it was luckily she didn’t hurt herself.) Generally we all slipped over. It didn’t help that it was starting to rain, so the rocks were getting slippery which would cause a lot of us to fall over later on.

Our slow but steady pace meant that we didn’t have to rest so much, which spurred us on to finish the mountain. Given our slow pace, you would expect that we wouldn’t fall often. That theory is WRONG, especially for Dr. Goodbourn, who slipped over MANY times. After about 2-3 hours of climbing, we reached the summit of Tryfan, where we sat down and ate our well deserved lunch in the pouring rain. We had a photo at the summit and we continued on.

Now that it had been raining for quite a while, the rocks were slippery which meant that we would be more likely to slip. It didn’t help that the route downwards was quite steep so we were even more likely to fall, which made our descent even more fun. The first part of our descent was climbing down rocks, which was like our ascent. We slipped but didn’t fall too much. After about an hour, we reached a man-made pathway which was still quite slippery and you were prone to fall. Us two were probably the two people who fell the most, but that was when we saw one of us fall, we saw the other person and started laughing at them and fell ourselves. We had a sense of déjà vu, because I (Dr. Goodbourn) fell and went to grab Will Scarlett’s bag and fell over onto the path – again.

At this time Jez (our instructor) went to grab the mini-bus from the car park because he knew we didn’t want to walk ALL the way back there again. The man-made path ended, so instead of rocks you could slip over, there was very boggy and muddy grass – which you could slip over. We wanted to make up time which we lost on walking down the path so slowly by jogging. We were lightly jogging and Dr. Goodbourn slipped on the mud. This caused Mr. White to turn around to see who slipped and fell over himself. Too bad we didn’t have a camera to capture the moment. We then generally got down okay, even though we did slip a few times and we put our feet in foot deep mud pits.

We wanted to show our appreciation for Jez by buying him a postcard from the Tuck Shop. We wrote on it and made it look nice. What we didn’t realise was that Suzannah had it in her bag the whole way up Tryfan, so by the time we realised it was soaked and a part of it was missing. Luckily, Mr. White had a spare postcard, so we used that instead. We still gave Jez both postcards though, and I think he appreciated them both as much as each other.

Overall we had a great day, and we had a great week. We would like to thank everyone who organised this trip.

By Daniel ‘Dr Dumbledore’ Goodbourn and Scarlett ‘Will Scarlett’ Eddy

Tryfan Terror

Posted on | By LRigney399 | 1 Comment

Hello this is Lauren and Alice here to tell you about our day climbing Tryfan. Lauren was not going to climb Tryfan because her ankle had been hurting all week and she didn’t think she could do it, but she was determined to and went anyway.

After the 20 minute mini bus journey we started the accent up Tryfan. Our ears hurt from having the radio full blast to block out Lauren and Poppy’s amazing singing and Alice and Lara’s great backing singing. We managed to sing louder than the radio and I’m sure everyone enjoyed our singing…

At first it was a slippery grass slope, but we could see the rocks ahead. With many slips and falls we had a stop for lunch and a drink then started the steepest part of the climb.

After this slope we started to scramble up the big slippery rocks, the rain wasn’t helping, but the rainbow was really pretty. For every 10 steps everyone took Robert would take one and did not help Poppy with the constant reminder that If she took one wrong step she would plummet to her death and go SPLAT!

We finally made it to the top and had a picture taken next to the Adam and Eve rocks. Lauren was pulling an interesting face. Also on the top we saw Boderick the eyeball eating seagull. Here is the story of how ‘Boderick’ started…

Halfway up Snowdon Lauren decided to feed the seagull her dried fruit to look good. Keith came up to her and said that if you feed the seagulls then when you get to the top they will peck your eyes out. She stopped feeding them immediately and another Welsh couple started feeding them so she warned them not to or they will have their eyes pecked out. They gave her a strange look and so she thought it was because they spoke Welsh. When Lauren and Poppy eventually got to the top ‘Boderick the seagull’ squawked at them and they ran the last 100 metres. When at the top they asked to kick him off the edge and Keith said no in case he falls on someone’s head and everytime we saw a seagull from that point we were in HYSTERICS! We all teased Poppy for her seagull-in-distress-like-laugh. THAT’S THE STORY OF BODERICK!

By this time we were all soaked and there were many slips on the way down. We were told that if a rock fell we had to shout ‘BELOW’ to warn people but Alice pointed and shouted ‘DHISFHDSODSUFBF’ and Lauren screamed ‘AVALANCHE!’ because we both forgot the word. Luckily no one got injured. Tom and Jack threw themselves down the hill on their bums.

BEST TRIP SLIPS: Alice falling into a stream, Lauren falling 17 times walking down one hill, Lara falling many times down the stone stairs, Robert falling into a waterfall trying to get water, Jack falling a massive hill along with Tom and of course when Lauren was dying for the loo and Poppy was wearing a new tracksuit and fell on a slope of mud and slid the whole way down.

We’ve had a great week and a great ending with a quiz and photos shown on the screen including one of Lauren with 14 starburst in her mouth and many more mugshots. We’ve made great new friends and we’ll always remember our memories together. THANK YOU KEITH AND MIKE WE’VE HAD A GREAT TIME AND IT WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN THE SAME WITHOUT HAVING YOU AS LEADERS. No Mr White, you are not the best leader, ours were and we also had the best team!

Mike’s team went to Tryfan…..

Posted on | By Mr Taylor | No comments

Today Mike’s team went to Tryfan, a really good day out was had by all. This is a mountain measuring 915 m and it requires ‘scrambling skills’ and its fair to say, alot of courage. Poppy and Lauren saw Broderick again at the top – it’s a long story, and we established that Tom has a soft spot for the actress Emma Watkins. We saw Prince William again flying his helicopter but thankfully all made it back down safely again without needing his assistance.

Thanks from me to all of the group I have worked with during the day activities and all of those who have been present on the trip. A big thanks to Mr Alderson for arranging such a great week away where Dane Court Students have yet again shown that they are a positive group of young people.

Keith

Tuesday, TEAM ZONKEY…long story! (Mike’s group)

Posted on | By Abi | 2 Comments

Once upon a time there were a group of people who had a passion for goats. So they decided to climb Mount Tryfan (the south peak). They had a wonderful time spotting goats and lots and lots of poo! They also managed to get to the top without dying! It was fun (:

First of all the set off up the mountain.It was quite cold and very steep.We failed at this because Maddy was our leader. When we got a bit higher we decided to change our leader to Kayne and Shayan. They were much better at this job and managed to get us half way, where Katie and Abi took over.

After about 1 hour we came across an overhang (a rock coming out of the mountain side). Some of the BRAVE people (including, Me, Maddy and Dan) had our photo taken standing on the top of it.

After a while we stopped for a bite to nibble on, this was in a cave(which was dripping onto MY sandwich!!): then we set of to the summit(the top…..bop bop bop, right to the top, slip and slide and ride that rhythm)

On our way down we had many lovely conversations, 1 of which was about Zonkeys 🙂 and now everyone in our group loves ZONKEYS!!!

We then started on our trek back down the very steep and un-steadddddyyyyyyyy mountain.

When we were near the bottom Maddy decided she needed the toilet… REALLY BADLY, and would not stop going on about it, which got on everybody’s nerve. After a while Ellie persuaded Maddy to go to the toilet, after that everyone was happy that she had shut-up. By then everyone was soaking and swimming in mud, we used this opportunity to splash about and roll down hills (well that was only Maddy…she was a bit….maybe very…. hyper).

By the time we were at the bottom we were all delirious with laughter.

you know you love me….xoxo….gossip girl(Abi & Ellie & Maddy)

talk to you soon, love abi, ellie maddy xxx

Tuesday, Tryfan (Mr Alderson’s group)

Posted on | By SSkirrow306 | No comments
Mr Alderson's group on the north ridge of Tryfan
Mr Alderson's group on the north ridge of Tryfan

On Tuesday we climbed the very difficult mountain called Tryfan the mountain is only 915M high but you need to scramble up the whole mountain straight from when we stepped out of the car park, we were climbing over huge rocks and boulders. The weather was not that bad when we started. We got about half way up the mountain and had a bit of lunch and then it started to rain very heavily so we had to put our water proof clothes on which was very hard because we were already wet and it was hard to get the trousers over our boots. The weather was terrible and it was raining really badly and there were really high winds. With the winds and rain it got very hard to climb the mountain. When we got very near the summit we had to stop for lunch on a very steep and slippery hill because we were protected from the wind there, but not the rain. Many of us got soggy sandwiches 🙁 When we got to the top of the steep hill we started to get blown away by the very high winds. We then had a short trip over some rocks and boulders to get to the summit ( Adam and Eve). Adam and Eve are the two large parallel rocks at the summit which look like people from a distance. We stopped for a minute at the summit and then started our decent down the sister path to the one we had lunch on, this was not so steep but still slippery. By this time the rain was chucking it down and we were drenched, Mr. A said it was the hardest rain he had ever walked in. When we got to a man made path at the bottom of the slippery rocks we started another decent. This was on grass which was very slippery and lots of people fell over, even Mr. Alderson. Melissa decided the fastest way down was by sliding on her face.  When we got to the bottom of the path, after many falls, we started to walk over the rocks to the minibus. When we got back we had to sit in our wet waterproofs which was a horrible feeling.  We got back to KMC and the seats were very wet! 🙂

Monday, Team Whack (Jez’s Group)

Posted on | By Eilish | No comments

Today we climbed up Tryfan the mountain that all other mountains want to be like when they grow up. It was 915m high, and it took us 4 hours to reach the top. A grade 1 scramble that involved Team Whack (Jez, Mr.White, Alicia, Eilish, Steph, Mia, Phoebe, Liam, Craig, Georgie, George) taking on an exciting (dangerous) adventure.

From the word go, it was ridiculosly high and vertically ridiculous. We had to work as a team to haul each other up steep gorges. Eilish felt sick having to push Phoebe’s rear end every five minutes. Luckily she didn’t have too many beans for breakfast. Half way up we looked down to see fighter jets passing beneath us.

We also bumped into three Norweigen soldiers hacking their way over the mountain.  By two o’clock we finally made it to Adam and Eve and took a short break, sheltering from the 50mph wind gusts and cloud eating.

Photos and descent to follow as we need to eat … Alicia and Eilish…Whack Out

Hi, Georgie and Mia here, just had spag bol, it was WHACK. LOL. So, after we put on our waterproofs we set off to go down the rest of the mountain. It was like a human land-slide, mud, wet rocks, rain, wind, and a lack of balance 🙂

Mia fell 93 times, encrusting her clothes in mud. Craig slid at every opportunity to join Mia in the mud. It was a pathetic exuse for steps, and reminded me of a water-slide, minus the swimming pool.

Highlight of the days were;

  • Georgie doing a forward roll into a bog.
  • Phoebe repeatedly saying ‘i cant do it!’ lol 😉
  • Mr. White’s singing that drove everyone crazzzzyyyyyy.
  • Jez’s definition of ‘dangerous’ being ‘exciting’ lol
  • Liam thinking every rock is worth money, so filled his pockets.
  • And George saving my life (Mia) after I nearly fell down the mountain (“about 32cm’s Mia”- Mr White)

A whack day with a whack group, have a whack night!

Mia & Georgie. Blog tomorrow, WHACKOUT!