North Hill Tor Trip

by Emily Tongue

The north Gower trip was nothing short of an adventure… My day began with a drive across the Gower on a very alternative route, courtesy of Hugo’s sat nav. Once we’d finally turned up, we were presently greeted by Leah and Matt, who recently been AWOL (even though we still don’t know where he went.)

We then discovered that this was a very “exclusive” climbing location, and that if we weren’t quiet we might find ourselves face to face with a very angry farmer. The gang then proceeded to venture out to the crag, the first of which was disappointingly slimy and had little to none gear placements (something which was to be a reoccurring theme of the day.)

The second crag further up took a little more effort to reach, mainly due to the track turning into a muddy bog and the rock face being buried under several feet of brambles, much to Henry’s delight. Luckily Matt was armed with a plan, which involved half of us crawling through the undergrowth and skipping over fences!

We shortly met up with the rest of SUMC who’d made a pathway around the other side, and began our descent to the rock face. As mentioned previously these routes had very sparse gear, which led to the rather dodgy placement of several slings around bushes and the rescue of Alex. SUMC also had to contend with several miniature rock falls (Adam) and the loss of a handhold on Florian’s route. But undeniably there were some very enjoyable climbs and a fantastic view from the top of the crag.

To end the day the recently returned Matt proceeded to “hang out” in a tree, whilst waiting for the rest of the gang to finish their routes, and Hugo drank tea from the top of the crag. The walk back to the car park was much less eventful, mainly due to the avoidance of the bog, but we all remained in high spirits. This day trip also marks the day we learnt a valuable lesson, we shouldn’t let Adam pick routes…