Despite not leaving London until 8 o'clock and making 2 shopping stops on the M1 to buy provisions Simon and Beatriz managed to arrive at the campsite first, arriving a little before midnight. It turns out that this wasn't such a great achievement as there was only one other MMC member that made it up on Friday night Toby who arrived half an hour later.

Saturday morning was cold and damp, this resulted in less than enthusiastic campers who were just about up and fed by 10:00 when Dave Collier arrived. The forecast was for the weather to remain damp so after some faffing it was decided that mountain biking was the thing to do. Lacking in knowledge of local trails and needing to hire 2 bikes Ladybower reservoir was chosen as the starting point for the ride as Simon had been there before and it had worked out OK last time with only one mountain biker (Neville) lost from the club. On arrival at the reservoir the real faff started with Simon declaring that he needed to fix a puncture that he had been aware of but for some reason unknown to the rest of the group couldn't be bothered to fix until 5 mins before the ride. The wheel was removed and the puncture located when it was discovered that Simon had also failed to pack any glue in his puncture repair kit, not to worry "I'll just borrow some off Faff" Simon thought. Unfortunately whist Faff did have glue it wasn't of the sticky variety with the patch refusing to bond to the tube. Refusing to see this as a problem Simon put the tube back on and it seemed to hold some pressure so the group set off on the kiddie ride around the reservoir. The ride was going well with the flat wide path not proving too technical for any of the riders. Then disaster struck, the shoddily repaired tyre went down again. OK I admit that this isn't disaster in the Joe Simpson sense of the word but there was talk of every man for himself and leaving Simon behind for the sake of the group. A spare tube was whipped out and inflation began with Faffs pump which Dave produced with a gleeful look in his eye and a story about how in a race the previous weekend he lost 45 mins due to a puncture. After much pumping it became apparent to Simon exactly how these 45 mins had been lost as all his efforts had failed to put any air into the tyre but had provided some amusement for the spectators and a walking group which we had just blasted past (tortoise and the hare anyone). Deciding that Dave's pump was fit only for the bin a pair of friendly northerners were flagged down and after overcoming the language barrier they were persuaded to lend a working pump. The rest of the ride was uneventful followed by lunch back in the car park. After lunch a more technical ride was proposed and the group set off again and enjoyed something that was more like mountain biking. A wrong turn meant the the group cut off a big corner so Simon and Faff decided to tag some more miles on to the end, but the cold and the sleet meant that Beatriz and Toby had had enough so they returned along the road.

Faff then disappeared to go visit Krusher and have a play on his new titanium bike and have a ride in his Hummer. The other headed back to the Hathersage to find a pub to have dinner in as cooking in the cold and rain wasn't that appealing. The Little John provided both warmth and huge helpings of food so the group stayed in there until kicking out time. They were joined by Robin who made a cameo meet appearance late in the evening having just run 40 miles around the peak, nice effort Robin but what possessed you.

Sunday morning was very white with an inch of snow falling overnight, but after another slow start the group were more optimistic about the day as the sky was clear and the sun was out. Toby was keen to cut his teeth on trad leading and the remaining 3 headed to Birchen as it is a friendly crag and quite sheltered from the wind, oh and also quite near a pub. Simon started on The Chain (s) taking the direct 5a start, Toby then led Polaris Exit (d) Simon then toyed with the idea of climbing Bulbous Bow (e1) but didn't fancy it so traversed off on to Camperdown crawl a much more civilised VS, Toby led Monument Gully (vd) and managed to do an excellent Tom Cruise impression as he climbed the chimney facing away from the rock, Simon then finished on Monument Gully Buttress (hvs 5b) looking a bit like a beached whale for a second as he got his breath back on the ledge at half height before completing the climb more elegantly, looking at the comments on UKClimbing this doesn't seem to be an uncommon style of ascent. This was then seconded by Toby as the snow came in again with the incentive of a pint of beer in the pub if he was able to retrieve all of Simon's gear, this he did and was repaid in the pub before the trip back to London. In conclusion like Font fun was had despite the weather trying to put a dampener on things.