UNUMC

Club Journals

This page is the home for all of the UNUMC journals that have been found. With articles ranging from Christmas Dinner antics to Alpine epics, they're all well worth a read. Last year's will be added to the archive at around the time of the Annual Dinner. Plans are afoot to re-scan all of these and make them searchable but that is going to be a mammoth task so progress will obviously be inversely proportional to rainfall!

Terrace Wall

Many generations of Nottingham climbers have perfected their art on Terrace Wall. Situated in front of the University's Trent Building, this south facing decorative sandstone wall, although not designed for climbing, provides a number of delicate, fingery climbs. The wall is set on three tiers, each a couple of metres high, with the top two tiers being the most intensely developed (the bottom tier, being immediately above the water, exacts a higher price for failure than the other two tiers, both set above paths). The two most popular problems are probably traverses of the left and right hand sections of the top tier, with the traverse of the central tier 'New Traverse' proving a slightly more challenging prospect.

The 1964-65 club journal, which included the first of several guides to the climbs on the wall, is fulsome in its praise of the wall: 'its great virtue lies in the number of climbs which, while being perfectly safe, are of a standard unsurpassed by any route this side of Llyn D'Ur Arddu'. The wall was extensively developed in the 1970s, with a few more problems climbed in the 80s and the early 90s, with only a handful since then. The other tiers having been extensively climbed upon, only the waterside tier really leaves any potential for development.

A new colour guide was published as part of the 2002-03 club journal and it includes several new problems including the excellent 'Soggy Bits', a traverse of the right hand waterside tier and 'Neil's Dyno', a somewhat contorted leap of a problem. The waterside traverses are often green due to a sad lack of people wanting to throw themselves into the murky depths of the freezing cold lake but in summer, a hardcore few make the airy steps down with brushes in hand to take up the ultimate of challenges. 'Swinging by the Knees from the Chandelier', 'Ice is Nice' and 'Soggy Bits' are three routes that rival the classics of any crag the world over and should be at the top of any self-respecting climber's ticklist.

First-timers often find that they can do only a handful of moves on any of the problems but perseverance pays off and they soon grow to love the wall that has filled many an hour of a Nottingham climber's life.

Guidebook (2003 Edition) - 2.6MB