Page 19 - 2017 AMA Winter

and Jenga blocks were deployed and many a climber ended up on the matting looking puzzled or dismayed. Spr Andy Mawhinney RE, ex-Irish junior bouldering team member, pulled it out of the bag at his first ever Army event cruising all the hard problems and scoring 247 out of 250. He only failed to flash one of the easier problems which cheered the setters up no end. Capt Amy Johnstone RAMC took the honours for the women with 171.
Each evening throughout the week we re-located to the Swallow Falls Hotel to listen to guest speakers or watch a film. Oli Torr from
Lattice Training gave a very engaging talk on climbing performance and training and DMM sponsored climber James ‘Caff’ McHaffie delivered a talk on his life in climbing, from instructing to new routing and on repeating many of the hard test pieces across the country and the world.
The Festival was kindly supported by Lattice Training, who delivered two coaching sessions for members of the Army Climbing Team, and DMM, who ran a discounted gear sale. DMM also laid on a fascinating tour of their Llanberis factory. The Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team also opened up their Nant Peris HQ and gave us a tour of their facilities and explained how they conducted rescues across the Snowdon range. A big thanks must also go to 165 Port & Maritime Regt RLC who provided the admin for the week.
Snowdonia once again proved that it is one of the premier UK des- tinations for climbing offering all styles and environments from sport to trad, sea cliff to mountain. It also proved possible to climb for a full week in September despite the weather – just! The AMA Festival of Climbing will return to North Wales again in May 2019 and include the Army Climbing Championships.
ARMY MOUNTAINEER 17