EDITORIAL

The Cambridge University Mountaineering Club has a considerable reputation to live up to. In the days when mountaineering was a pastime for those sufficiently wealthy or well-connected to afford both the time and the expense, Cambridge rock-climbers were amongst the foremost of their generation, Cambridge expeditions probed the remote mountains of the world, and Cambridge Mountaineering was published in hardback (sigh). Today, hard rock-climbing is the prerogative of the dedicated unemployed, the unexplored ranges are no more, and you hold in your hand evidence of our sad decline.

But before I am accused of being a killjoy, I would like to look, on a more personal level, at exactly what the CUMC is and does.

To the outsider that I was, a mountaineering club 300 miles from the nearest mountains and 3 hours weary journey from any major climbing ground seemed a rather futile joke. As a fresher the club consisted largely of an amorphous clique who ignored me at the teas, and grudgingly accepted the company of myself and other lost souls on the meets – provided we could look after ourselves. With only occasional trips to wet gritstone crags, my climbing standard plummeted.

Yet now, nearly two years later, I appreciate that only a little dedication and pushiness are required to gain entry; accept, with a certain guilty reluctance, that novice meets are a device to part the innocents from their money whilst ensuring that only the keenest actually take up climbing; and enjoy immensely the company that I keep.

For the CUMC is more than just a collection of people with a common interest in mountaineering. It is a group of individuals with interests as diverse as their activities: from extreme rock to the rooftops of Cambridge, marathon running and marathon drinking, rally-car driving and minibus reshaping, cycling to the Peak and canoeing to Granchester. From grade V ice to the more esoteric pleasures of formation star-jumping, climbing is the nucleus, but the club is an organic whole. And its most important function is to help us come to know better not only the mountains, but ourselves and each other.

I think Geoffrey Winthrop-Young would have approved.