Laetitia’s aspirant partner, Alastair crossing Castell Helen to start Lighthouse Arete Direct (5a)

We were super lucky at this year’s CC Aspirant members meet – the weather forecast looked poor. Whilst many headed for the reliability of Tremadog, we chose wisely and went to a sunny and dry (but a little windy) Anglesey to visit Castell Helen. Sea cliff adventure climbing – exciting!

Laetitia and I coincidentally got to climb with two guys both called Alastair. Both were great company!

My partner for the day, Alastair Blackshaw, and I had great fun on a couple of the crag’s exciting routes – True Moments (E2) and Atlantis (E1). We’d wanted to climb more routes but the time used abseiling into the base of the cliff, a few metres above the sea, took a bit longer than usual as we’d only got a 45m abseil rope; the cliff needs at least 55m in a straight drop to reach the sea level ledges. Al did a great job on the traverse pitch of True Moments – he’ll get my support for membership.

Pete’s aspirant, Alastair Blackshaw on Atlantis

After the day’s adventure we raced back to Ynws Ettws just in time for the evening’s party to welcome the aspirant members with a great buffet and lots (!) of wine and beer.

During the party we got the news that Geraldine Taylor had fallen at Gogarth at hit her head and was in hospital! Luckily she turned up back at Ynws a few moments later complete with eight stitches in her scalp and an impressive bloody bandage!!! Ouch – but a lucky escape!

An eventful, and mostly amazing, day!