The Rucksack Club

We raised £4,000 for Cancer Research! Last chance to get your Calendar

The calendar season is coming to a close and we’ve raised almost £4,000 for Climbers Against Cancer. You can still bag yourself a bargain for a fiver (including postage – feel free to donate more!) and why not have a browse of the other goodies in the CAC Shop while you’re there… Don’t forget that the calendar includes all this year’s Club meets so you’ll never miss the fun!Meanwhile, Bill has a few cosmetic seconds, so if you can think of a good home for a bunch (maybe a scout group?) then get in touch with him.Many thanks for all your support – and get snapping for 2024 (landscape please!!!) Cheers, Dom

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7:15pm 14 February: High Risk, Climbing to Extinction with Brian Hall – live on Zoom

Brian Hall is an internationally certified mountain guide, who’s numerous credits include the BAFTA award-winning film Touching the Void and founding the Kendal Mountain Film Festival. He will be sharing some tales from his book: High Risk, Climbing to Extinction – WINNER OF THE PRESTIGIOUS BOARDMAN TASKER MOUNTAIN LITERATURE AWARD 2022. (see https://rucksackclub.org/…/book-review-high-risk… ) The event is ONLINE ONLY. Admission is FREE for EVERYONE – Be sure to share the event with your friends Zoom Doors open at 7:15pm and the show starts at 7:30pm. Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82807381553 Meeting ID: 828 0738 1553 Passcode: Year of Founding of The Rucksack Club

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Tuesday 10th January @ Heaton Moor and on Zoom. Utah Big Walls & Desert Towers and Dover to Cape Wrath

Tuesday 10 Jan – Bill & Dom’s Excellent Adventures Episode 13 and John Lord’s ‘Other Corners’ – Heaton Moor Rugby Club (and on Zoom) A contrasting double bill (don’t worry, there’s only actually one ‘Bill’) of desert adventure and a huge human-powered undertaking Bill and Dom’s first post-covid adventure took place in the desert of south west Utah, famed for its sandstone canyons and towers – A tale of Big Walls, Vertiginous Towers and Excellent Microbreweries!   Following on from his successful walk from Land’s End to John o’Groats, John Lord (a glutton for punishment!) set out to travel between the other corners of Great Britain: Dover to Cape Wrath Admission is FREE for EVERYONE so be sure to bring your friends! Doors open at 7pm and the show starts at 7.30pm. For those of you who are unable to join in person, you can also watch live on Zoom: Meeting ID: 828 0738 1553 Passcode: The Year of Founding of The Rucksack Club Google Maps Link for the Heaton Moor Sports Club: https://goo.gl/maps/wbwKG3UPTBsGuoPT6 …and here’s the address for those who own and can still operate an AtoZ: Green Lane, Stockport SK4 2NF

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Tuesday 8th November Zoom Show – Hard Trad and Georgia Alpinism

Hard Trad and Heart Surgery with Adam Bowman and Georgia Alpinism with Molly Worth The indoor meets season continues with a thrilling double bill featuring two highly accomplished Rucksackers who are recent graduates from MUMC. Zoom “Doors open” at 7pm with the show starting at 7.30pm https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82807381553 Meeting ID 82807381553 Password: Year of Founding of The Rucksack Club. Adam Bowman has blazed a trail through some of the UK’s hardest trad routes (and sports routes for that matter) including the hardest line on Peak Limestone: The Final Round which weighs in at E9. His accomplishments are even more remarkable for the fact that he’s fitted them around a number of major heart surgeries. Tune in to find out how! Molly Worth shared the story of her Alpine Apprenticeship with The Club on Zoom last year, culminating on the summit of The Matterhorn! What next, you might ask? We’ll be hearing about Alpine excursions further afield in Georgia.

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2023 Rucksack Club Charity Calendar in support of CAC – Buy yours NOW!

The 2023 Rucksack Club Charity Calendar in support of Climbers Against Cancer is on the shelves now! Thanks to the generosity of The Club, every penny of the purchase price will go to support Climbers Against Cancer in funding research around the world. That’s right – think of it as making a £10 charity donation and getting a free calendar! Fifty photos taken from the equivalent month of the previous year feature members enjoying the whole gamut of Club activities: climbing, mountaineering, bouldering, fell-running; ice-climbing and via ferrata among other things. From The Matterhorn to The Ben; Gogarth to Georgia; and Cornwall to Chamonix, there’s something for everybody! Through the worldwide climbing community, CAC https://www.climbersagainstcancer.org/ aims to increase awareness and raise funds for research in the continued fight against a disease that affects so many. Climbers Against Cancer is a non-profit organisation, with all proceeds donated directly to cancer research facilities throughout the world. Last year, with your support, we raised over £5,000 for CAC – let’s see if we can go even further this time! The calendar is available online directly from the CAC Shop: https://www.climbersagainstcancer.org/shop/rucksack-club-cac-calendar/ and from Climb-Europe: https://climb-europe.com/rockclimbingshop/rucksack-club-2023-calendar.html and will also be on sale at local climbing walls. A[…]

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The 2023 Calendar has arrived!

The eagerly anticipated 2023 Rucksack Club Charity calendar – in support of Climbers Against Cancer – has just rolled off the press, just in time for the stocking-filler / calendar-buying season. This years edition has contributions from over 70 Rucksackers (in front of and behind the lens), and post-pandemic it’s great to be able to report that EVERY SHOT was taken in the equivalent month of the previous year. What a tremendous demonstration of the diversity and vitality of The Club! I might be a bit biased, but I think it’s the best yet, and the quality of the images that have been contributed by Rucksack members is at the heart of this. I know you are itching to get your hands on a copy (or copies!), and I will follow up with a post with all the details shortly. In the meantime, this is a huge THANK YOU to everyone who contributed photos, and especially those whose photos didn’t make the final cut into the calendar. We had about three options for every one of the available 50 or so slots (more or less, depending on how active that particular month was) and it was a desperately difficult job[…]

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Celebrating The Rucksack Club’s 120th Birthday – Tuesday 11 Oct – Heaton Moor or on Zoom

Don’t forget to join us to celebrate 120 years since the founding of the Club with John Beatty and Volunteer All Stars (that’s you!) – Heaton Moor Rugby Club (and on Zoom) Like all the best birthday parties it will feature cake, candles, beer and some photos from when the “Birthday Person” was growing up! This will split into two parts: – John Beatty will take us on a whistle stop tour of the first 100 years, based on the centenary publication: This Mountain Life, for which he was the driving force. – We’ll then hand over to you, the Club members, to fill in the most recent twenty years! Please email me with your favourite photos which capture the essence of being a ‘Rucksacker’ (no more than 5 each please!) and we’ll share these for the rest of the evening (and great if you can be there just to say a few words). email to dominic@oughton.uk.com. If you can’t join us ‘in the room’ there’s plenty of space on Zoom (and you’d still be very welcome to share some photos). Meeting ID: 828 0738 1553 – Passcode: The year of founding of the Club (do the maths!) Entry is[…]

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Winter Indoor Meets Season – it’s going to be SPECTACULAR!

Here is the eagerly-awaited program for the 2022-23 Indoor Meets season. We will be holding a once-per-month ‘indoor evening meet’ from October through March on (not quite always) the 2nd Tuesday of each month. That’s 11 Oct, 8 Nov, 6 (not 13) Dec, 10 Jan, 14 Feb & 14 March. These have been scheduled to integrate with programmes by The Alpine Club (1st & 3rd Tuesdays) and the Mountain Medicine Winter Webinar Series on the 4th Tuesday so the whole outdoors community can set aside an hour or so on a Tuesday evening, safe in the knowledge of some quality entertainment. Details of the MMWW series can be found here: https://deathzone.7thwave.io/cgi-bin/renderpost.py?postid=2002 Three of these (Oct / Dec / Jan) will be taking place face-to-face at the usual venue at Heaton Moor Rugby Club, and these will also be available on Zoom for those who can’t make it in person, as will the Nov / Feb / March shows. Entry will be FREE for all members and Associate members of The Rucksack Club, with a modest charge for non-members for the December f2f event featuring a guest speaker. o Tuesday 11 Oct – Celebrating The Rucksack Club’s 120th Birthday with John Beatty[…]

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Last chance to get your shots in the 2023 calendar!

Picking up on my last post, we’ve had to bring forward the deadline for submissions to END OF AUGUST – printing prices are going through the roof and we’re having to make a change for 2023, which means that the design will be an in-house effort from the Payne-Oughton team. We’ve already got a decent haul, but there are plenty of gaps to fill – especially in October through to January (but all good shots would be welcome!) so please have a rummage through your thumb-drive or facebook and send me your contributions NOW! – All of the many Club activities are fair game – mountaineering, climbing and walking of course, but also caving, ice-climbing, fell-running, cycling, kayaking, MTB etc… – Landscape format, full-resolution photos ideally featuring club members in action between Oct 21 and Sept 22 (I aim to have each month feature photos from the same month the previous year) – Extra bonus points if you are wearing a CAC T-SHIRT (haven’t got one – get in touch and we’ll sort that!) – Please indicate month – subject – photo credit, ideally in the file name eg “June – Andy Tomlinson on Black Slab, Stanage. Photo Tim Taylor.JPG”[…]

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