Page 37 - 2019 AMA Summer

AMA MEETS UPDATE
By Ryan Lang
This year we have had another successful meet program that has allowed our members the opportunity to get out into the fantastic mountains we are blessed with in the UK. I would like to begin this article by thanking everyone that has volunteered to run a meet for the benefit of others. Without the meet leaders, none of this would happen. Since the last AGM we have had meets in the Wye Valley, N Wales and the Winter Meet in Scotland. By the time you read this we will have ran another three meets and be well on track planning the AGM.
WYE VALLEY MEET 2018
The Wye Valley meet has become engrained in the AMA calendar, it continues to be very popular and sells out quickly. This coming year will be the eighth in a row and I sincerely hope to be attending the 10th Anniversary in a couple of years’ time! The meet continues to defy the odds by usually being dry enough for two good days climbing in October. I have often wondered how long our luck would last and am thankful that this time round we had a dry day on the Saturday, promptly followed by a downpour on the Sunday. All was not lost though as we had an excellent day of indoor coaching laid
on for us by Paul Smith. A big thankyou to Dan for arranging the meet, it was fantastic, and I am sure everyone had a great time! Please keep an eye out for the next one in October.
NORTH WALES MEET 2018
The North Wales meet took place in October and was also very well attended with all twenty tickets sold. We stayed in the Nuffield centre which is very comfortable and only a few minutes’ walk to the nearest pub that does great food. There was a steady stream of arrivals on the Friday evening, some old faces but plenty of new, which is great to see. I was teamed up with Dave and Sally for the day who both decided that they fancied a day of multi-pitch climbing. We agreed to head for the Idwal Slabs with a loose plan which was to see what was free and go for it. We ended up climbing Faith, followed by Lazarus route then finished off with the Arete. A great Idwal link up that saw us top out just after 3pm. A quick decent followed by a short drive took us to Siabod Café for possibly the worlds biggest scone washed down with a very welcome coffee. We also had the pleasure of Sam Leary for the weekend, she is an awesome local instructor who
loves working with the AMA. She was paired up with Kurt and Fletch, they also opted for some multi-pitch. It was great to hear that they both did really well and got the very best out of the weekend. To quote Sam, “We headed into Ogwen for a first multi pitch experience for some. Great working with these professionals who absorb information so fast and apply themselves so diligently to all aspects of the day. On our second route I was almost just an observer as these two chaps put
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