Rachel Grindlay

It’s hard to get inspired to put up posts for ‘trade route’ canyons, particularly when they were just standard days out. And my camera was still out-of-action and the one on loan from Tom producing inferior shots. So a few weeks behind here’s a single page with the best of photos (or something..).

First off, we have my second ever (!) trip through Hat Hill Canyon. Sadly it ended up being a bitterly cold day and we were slightly underdone in our springsuits. I had to tell Tom to stop talking and just eat his lunch so we could get moving again – the breeze at the end of the canyon not helping the warmth situation. It was way more attractive than I remembered – and also a lot more swimming.

A couple of weeks later we did Mt Hay Canyon. Fortunately the weather was far more suitable – in fact we were worried about how hot we were going to be on the climb out. Fortunately a breeze kept things quite pleasant. We didn’t see anyone until we got to the climb – two guys had just topped out when we got to the bottom so that was excellent timing. I lead the climb (my second ever lead?) – though not without some desperate hauling on the ringbolts for the final move!

We’d discovered earlier in the season that Sarah had never done Claustral. So after a couple of attempts we finally lined up a day for her to do it with us. We managed to time things excellently – leaving a commercial group of 7 in the car park, and not seeing anyone else until the exit where we bumped into Richard D’s group of 3. Based on the number of cars when we got out there would be have been quite a few people behind us. We were a bit early for sunbeams but it’s hard not to be awed by Claustral regardless of the time of day.