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Tells Us About Your Latest Trip!

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Araps Weekend Winter Warriors 16-Jul-2007 At 9:22:37 AM steph

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Well it seemed as though it was never going to happen - Sabu and I had taken time off work, shifted plans and organised this trip over 2 months ago. But after my car accident last week, everything started to come undone and all our desparate backup plans were failing. My car wasn't going to be ready in time and neither of our parents were keen to let us borrow their cars for the whole w/e. Public transport or hitch-hiking would have left us with less than a day of climbing provided the weather was good. Hiring a bomb would've been great but you need to be over 23...

But perserverance prevailed in the end and we got the use of Sabu's parents' car the good old toyota carola with the proviso that we stop every hour or so to check the oil and tire pressure...

Needless to say, all the effort was totally worth it - we spent 3 fantastic days at Araps - our first trip there in the Winter time! Due to shifty weather patterns, we stayed on single pitch climbs but ventured from the Atridae to Castle Crag, to King Rat and also the Pharos. We climbed Hell For Leather (15), Agent Orange (16), Romper Room (5) - a very nice chimney that is significantly more difficult when wet but a lot of fun nonetheless, Swinging (17) and I'm A Little Asteroid (18/19).

All in all, a fun trip and some lessons learned about packing warmer clothes like thermals and gloves in winter, and that possums will go to any lengths to access your well-positioned rubbish bag while you're sleeping.

Some photos to come fairly soon...