The Climbers’ Club is celebrating 100 years of continuous definitive climbing guidebook production this year. There’s a whole programme of celebrations throughout the year with the key events being held in North Wales and Cornwall. However, the celebrations started with a packed weekend and dinner (coinciding with the AGM) at the Shap Wells hotel.

The whole event kicked off with an excellent (well I would say that, Laetitia was the architect) quiz on all things climbing and guidebooks.

Quiz-master; 'In which Star Trek film does Captain Kirk climb El Capitan?'

Saturday saw all of the 290 guests enjoying a packed agenda of amazing lectures, includuing:

• Nick Bullock’s talk about Canadian ice and North Wales rock climbing was, in typical style, superbly funny!
• Mark Vallance gave a talk about Friends; those little “cams” that save our lives!
• George Band gave a talk about his 1958 Caucus’ Expedition.
• James Pearson entertained us with a potted history of his climbing successes so far, the elegance and fluidity of his movement was amazing.
• David Simmonite’s presentation of people climbing routes we can only dream of climbing – having more E-points per pitch than I have toes. It was inspirational. Really looking forward to using his images in the new Tremadog guidebook!
• Pat Littlejohn’s talk and presentation of adventurous climbing “before guidebooks” was fascinating and massively motivational.
• John Cleare presented many of his seminal pictures of climbing in Snowdonia.
• Chris Bonnington started the post-lunch lectures with the sort of presentation one can only get from one of mountaineering’s most recognised figures. Brilliant.
• Doug Scott followed on with more amazing Himalayan adventuring.
• Finally Alex Huber was the star speaker of the day, presenting a veritable audio visual feast! Covering amazing solo climbs on the Mont Blanc massif, desperate new routing on the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, blistering (2 hour 48 minute) ascents of El Capitan, and dramatic footage from Antartica. It’s no wonder this guy is such a super-star!

Saturday was topped off with a grand dinner, and a series of presentations to some of the individuals who have helped the CC succeed through it’s 100 years of guidebook production.

Laetitia and Pete

Vikki and Terry

Pete, Paul and Richard after the dinner

Sunday dawned sunny – as forecast – so the scheduled CC AGM couldn’t finish fast enough! But it did finish, and after that Paul and I went to Scout Scar to enjoy the late winter sunshine with a couple of “pumpy” limestone sport routes.