Author: Dominic Oughton

The Rucksack Club and Alpine Club, two of Britain’s oldest mountaineering clubs, combine to take you up the classic six great north faces of the Alps, with accounts from 6 different members. As ticklists go this is short, sweet and an easy one to remember, but containing formidable and historic routes, it’s not such an easy one to complete and has become the benchmark for the serious alpinist. It’s the Matterhorn, Eiger, Grandes Jorasses; the Petit Dru, Cima Grande di Laveredo, and Piz Badile. In Part 1, we are hosted by the Rucksack Club to celebrate what has become known as “the trilogy”: Matterhorn, Grandes Jorasses, and the Eiger, with speakers Andy Kirkpatrick, Martin Cooper, Nick Wallis, Bill Deakin and Tony Rhodes. As usual, we will finish with a Q&A. Club members can participate directly in the Zoom discussion – watch your email for the link or check the Rucksack Club Facebook Group post [NOTE This is NOT the same link as the usual Tuesday evening session] We’re also opening the event to the whole climbing community. You can watch the livestream at the following YouTube Event link: https://youtu.be/VKy9HKhFwTU and also pose questions to the speakers via the comments function.

Every June, for almost 20 years, Helen and I have organised The Gogarth Meet. Despite my best efforts, and the climbing on The Best Crag In The World, this has become known as the Barbecue Meet! Due to the Covid crisis, 2020 was a bit different, with gatherings of more than 6 people banned, and no one allowed to drive more than 5 miles in Wales. Still, it takes more than a mere global pandemic to dampen the enthusiasm of The Rucksack Club, and the meet was reconvened from Port Dafarch Beach into back gardens and front rooms across cyberspace. More than fifty of us got together on Zoom to enjoy Burgers, BBQ, Beers, Bonfire and Banter – you could argue that’s all the best bits, without the carbon footprint or the terror of Main Cliff! Thanks everyone for joining us for such a fun evening – with the banter flowing and fire crackling it was almost like the real thing. Special thanks to John Beatty, Dave Crilley, Adam Bowman, Gareth llewellyn, Rob and Mike Ferguson, Martin Cooper and Alan Firth for sharing their pics and tales, and to Jim Burton and Bill Deakin for chipping in with stories from[…]

Every June, for almost 20 years, Helen and I have organised The Gogarth Meet. Despite my best efforts, and the climbing on The Best Crag In The World, this has become known as the Barbecue Meet! 2020 will be a bit different – we’ll still have the Burgers, BBQ, Beers, Bonfire and Banter, but we’ll be getting together in back gardens across cyberspace rather than on Port Dafarch Beach (you could argue that’s all the best bits, without the carbon footprint or the terror of Main Cliff!). We’ll have a few pics, some tales from ‘Back in the Day’, a prize for the best burger, and a Gogarth-themed quiz to amuse you, so put the beers in the fridge, fire up the barbie and come and join the virtual fun on Zoom. Please pass the invitation on to friends (whether in the Rucksack Club or not – EVERYONE WELCOME!) and get in touch if you’d like to share a story or pics of your favourite Gogarth experience. Link to follow via email or check the Club FB page or email me at virtual-meets@rucksackclub.org Cheers, Dom & Helen

Hi Everyone With all the pandemic gloom I thought I’d share some good news – Thanks to all of your efforts in contributing to, and buying, The Rucksack Club calendar, we’ve raised over £1,500 for The BMC Access and Conservation Trust. Many thanks to everyone who provided photos and of course to everyone who brought one! If you missed out, there are still a couple of ways of getting hold of a copy: If you make a donation directly to ACT they’ll send you a free one: https://www.thebmc.co.uk/donate-to-act or there are still a few taking up warehouse space at Amazon which you can have for a knock-down £4.99! buy calendar at Amazon I’m still pondering whether to do a 2020 version (feedback welcome) but if you keep sending Bill your photos for The Gallery at photos@rucksackclub.org then we’ll be in a good position for content if we do. Cheers, Dom

The Tuesday Evening Virtual Slideshows have proved to be hugely popular, with over 100 participants at each of the first four in the series. These are all available for ‘catch-up’ viewing at https://test.rucksackclub.org/virtual-meet-gallery/ We now have a program scheduled until early July and these can all be joined by using the SAME log in details: https://zoom.us/j/93547263254 Meeting ID: 935 4726 3254 – Requires password (year of founding of The Rucksack Club) All shows start at 7:30pm prompt, with ‘doors open’ from 7pm if you want to baggsy the best seats or just say hello! Also bear in mind that the slideshows themselves will be recorded for public viewing, so please feel free to ‘stop your video’ if you don’t want to be part of the show. See the Events Calendar for full details but here are the headlines for the Forthcoming Attractions:  

Tonight’s Virtual Indoor Meet features Will Harris sharing a tale of “Expedition Experiences” featuring his ascent of The Infinite Spur in the Denali Range in Alaska. Here’s the link to join the Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88139669566 Meeting ID: 881 3966 9566 Password: The year of the founding of the Rucksack Club Looking ahead we’ve got a fun-packed program coming together: 28th April – Member’s photos: John Warburton on Carnmore Crag, Lis Bloor ticking Wainwrights and Dave Palmer bagging Alpine 4,000ers. 5th May – Phillip Smith Mark Jenneson and Rich Clegg will be talking about what happened when ‘Three once-a-year weekend warriors go to Chamonix’ 12th May – Andy Stewart and Debbie Whittaker will have the low down on their ‘Never Again! bike ride in Ladakh 19th May – John Beatty will be wowing us with some of his amazing pics 26th May – More Members’ Photos: David Nightingale Trekking in Nepal, Rae Pritchard and Helen Allison covering a lot of ground, and Rosalind Fowler likewise! June is shaping up nicely too, with Norwegian Big Walling, Himalayan adventures, St Kilda, Ecuador and more wintery stuff likely to feature! Wow – I’ll need to get in training just to watch it all! Keep[…]

It was fantastic to “see” so many of you at the Club’s first ‘virtual’ indoor meet. I counted over 130, including many from around the country, or elsewhere in the world (including Chamonix and New Zealand!), who wouldn’t have made it if we’d been at Heaton Moor Rugby Club. Perhaps there’s a small silver lining to the current weird situation. For those of you who couldn’t make it, you can enjoy the outputs on ‘catch up’ here: https://vimeo.com/406157475 If you had technical issues joining the meeting then get in touch and I’ll try to talk you through some troubleshooting and we can get you onboard next week. Talking of which, I’m really looking forward to our next Virtual Indoor Meet! Joe Fisher and Andy Barlass will be sharing a tale of ‘There and Back Again – A Scottish Odyssey” on Tuesday 14th April. The show will start at 7:30pm prompt, with ‘doors open’ at 7pm to give you time to get settled, grab the best seats and perhaps have a chat with everyone else, or at least say hello! Here’s the link to join the meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/299228028 Meeting ID: 299 228 028 but you’ll need to enter a password to[…]

Breaking Zoom news – Zoom has just unilaterally mandated password entry by default for all meetings (even those already scheduled – something to do with stopping people “bombing in” with porn broadcasting; spoilsports!) Anyway, the original link below should still work but when you get asked for a password it’s the year the Rucksack Club was founded (if you don’t know that, it’s not too tricky to find, but hopefully beyond the AI bots…) Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/780950881 Meeting ID: 780 950 881 Password: Year of Rucksack Club founding Also, I’ve had a few requests for “tech support” on Zoom. There’s a 1 minute video here that gives you the basics. https:youtu.behIkCmbvAHQQ … and I plan to be “at the meeting early” from 7pm to help with any teething problems. Or phone me if you get stuck (but don’t leave it until 7.30pm tomorrow!!!) Looking forward to “seeing” lots of you tomorrow – meanwhile stay healthy and “Stay In There!” Cheers, Dom

Looks like “Get Out There!” has been replaced by “Stay In There!” for a while, so we’re going to try holding a virtual meet. Bill and I have volunteered to run a “pilot” with a slideshow on our most recent “Excellent Adventure” on El Cap, and depending how it goes (and how many volunteers we get) we might continue with a monthly or even weekly session. Settle down in front of your laptop / tablet / phone with your favourite tipple and join us! We’ll be using a service called Zoom Meeting and we’ll be in touch via email with the log in details. Please don’t be put off by the tech, and feel free to message me ahead of time if you want talking through it. Hopefully catch up with loads of you next week. Cheers, Dom