One special climbing trip - Part 1

Diff and I recently had a two week tour of the north west, doing a bit of climbing and a lot of eating. We had a fabulous time and some fabulous weather (as well as some not so fabulous weather - we didn't get that lucky!). It was a trip we can never repeat, but we would love to explore further the places we found and certainly to do some more climbing. It's too much to write up in one post so this is just the beginning....

We hired a vintage VW campervan, a bright yellow splitty called Hannah, from Classic Campers in Carlisle and after the party in the Lakes, set off on our 30mph adventure. Aiming for Glen Coe, we got as far as Gretna on the first night. Well, we were tired, not in a hurry and it had been an exciting two days. Having realised that 35mph on the hilly M6 wasn't going to get us to Glen Coe that night, we relaxed into a slower pace of life on the road.

Everyone thinks they know what needs fixing, even if nothing needs fixing.

From Gretna we aimed for Glen Coe, deciding that the safest route (with our maximum speed) was right through the centre of Glasgow. We had a lovely (if hot) drive past Loch Lomond, stopping for tea in Inveruglas, with lots of other drivers waving and tooting at our trusty mechanical steed. A van with 1967 hydraulic brakes certainly brought a new meaning to the phrase "exciting to drive". I had to leave my seat to make her stop. I definitely need to eat more pies. Accidentally over-filling at Dumbarton, meant that we drove to Glen Coe with a strong smell of petrol in the cab. A concern that she was over-revving had us calling the AA man to the Red Squirrel campsite the following morning. I don't remember what he twiddled with but it worked and we did the next 900 miles without any trouble.

The weather was holding for us, so we headed across the Corran ferry for Ardgour and Garbh Beinn. Our objective was Butterknife, a 4-pitch VS topping out at the summit of the hill. The guidebook gave us two approach options: the 2-hour scenic stroll or the 1 hour brutal slog. We opted for the scenic stroll.....but it was more like 3 1/2 hours than 2! Finding the bottom of the route was pretty hairy. The guidebook instructions didn't make much sense to us once we were there and looking up at the massive wall of Garbh Beinn. We ended up scrambling up some steep slippy grass slopes above sheer drops in order to reach the bottom of the right terrace. We felt more secure once we started climbing.

Diff did pitches 1 and 3 an I did 2 and 4. This means I got the crux corner pitch and the last one. The corner was pretty good climbing, but things moved in it! Having not done much trad (ever, let alone recently) I was probably concentrating too hard to really enjoy it properly, but it was good. The top pitch was a bit random. It started with a big pull over a little roof - an unusual move for me at about 200 feet up the route! After that, the gear and the holds got very thin and I continually wondered whether I was going the right way or not. Eventually the rope drag was so bad I had to find somewhere to belay. What I didn't know was that instead of going 15m I'd gone 50m and there was no rope left anyway! I'm sure I set out in the right direction, but where I lost my way, I'm not sure.

Cooling off on the hot walk in to Butterknife

When we reached the top, the whole of Scotland was laid out before us. 360 degrees of clear skies and sunshine. By this time it was about 8pm. We thought we'd go down the quick way, rather than the way we'd come up the hill. Mistake. It wasn't quick. No path, craggy, steep....it was 10.30 by the time we got back to the van. And then we had to fight the midges over dinner!

One special climbing trip - Part 2

The next stop on our wee tour was Achmelvich and one of the most exciting routes in Scotland (I reckon). The weather was rotten first thing in the morning and we sat around thinking we'd just go have a look. The more we sat around, the better the weather got. "Shall we just go do it?" "Yeah, might as well. If it's wet when we get there we can always come back tomorrow." So we went.


The Old Man of Stoer looked pretty manageable from the cliff-top approach. How hard can it be? Famous last words! The trek down the cliff was pretty hairy. There was already a rope across the channel but Diff went first and came perilously close to getting soaked, even at low tide. So he rigged another rope for us, especially having seen the state of the in situ rope at the other end!

Diff set off on the traverse pitch with me watching, feeling a bit anxious. When it was my turn I flipped. The rock was greasy and salty and green, my feet were tucked somewhere underneath me where I couldn't see them. I wasn't happy. But we couldn't go back. Not now we were here. Diff willingly agreed to lead every pitch so that we could carry on. I was clearly having a bad head day.

Adventure was definitely the theme for the day and I'm very glad we did it. It wasn't windy, but the swell was pretty big and the noise of the waves crashing around below us was intimidating to say the least. The climbing was harder than I expected, with some pretty airy moves. Although they weren't as hard as they seemed at the time, the exposure made a significant difference. Ironically, the supposed crux was just a matter (for me) of working out how to get my leg up that high!

We watched the gulls riding the wind level with us, peering at us with beady eyes and suspicion. We were lucky that there seemed to be only two nests along our route and both only hosting eggs rather than chicks, so we avoided any nasty encounters with the contents of seabirds' stomachs.


Abseiling off wasn't so bad (after we convinced ourselves that the million layers of salty tat at the top would be ok!) but we did end up in the water...high tide! I had a near miss abbing down between the two nests. Since I am not heavy enough for the tope to slide freely through my belay plate, I have to feed the rope through. This doesn't make for a smooth abseil. Aside from the potential safety issues there, the other downside is that I can't move down very quickly. Just as my feet ceased to reach the rock, the wind was blowing me sideways, straight into the sharp beak of a sitting fulmar. How I managed to avoid swinging straight into it in a Milk Tray style rescue effort, I have no idea, but I was mighty relieved to be well below the nest and hanging in space.

Hannah by the Stoer Lighthouse

It was a bizarre experience standing in the water and coiling a sodden abseil rope. We managed to keep all but the end of one rope out of the water, with some crazy-fast coiling. The other rope was soaked. Despite a shaky start to the day I felt fine and confident sorting everything out and making sure we were not standing in the water any longer than necessary. I was super impressed by my Mountain Equipment Combin trousers. Although the water went up from the bottom, it didn't go through them and they were dry within minutes of being out of the water. Superb.

Poor Diff struggled to do the last, and sixth, tyrolean traverse. Clearly, he was exhausted, and he was carrying all the gear, so was hanging much closer to the water than I was. I felt quite ashamed of myself for not pulling my weight more. Going back up the cliff was infinitely easier than going down it, and at the top we looked back at what we'd done. Definitely a Type 2 experience for me.

Neilston: E2 or not E2?

Caroline and I headed for Neilston a couple of weeks ago. We'd seen the chat on Scottish climbs, and the new topo seemed to spur us on. Arguably it was a bit further from Edinburgh than we had anticipated, and much smaller than I had come to believe (having not looked at the topo myself - totally unprepared, me!). We followed numerous diversion signs, wondering exactly how far out into the wilds this wee place was, but eventually spotted the quarry with it's scary iron sentry. It's a delightul wee place.

Not quite the Eiffel Tower....

We've done a ton of sport and bouldering, and we both enjoy indoor climbing too, but trad is still a strange and mysterious world to us. So we started on HVS, neither of us ever having led HVS before. Why not? It looked ok. In fact it was very nice and pretty straightforward, much more so than I thought it would be. The climbing itself was fairly easy as far as we were concerned. We did both Punk Rock and Curved Crack at HVS 5a, placing as much gear as was humanly possible, just for the practice. Then we did Willie's Route, which is marked in the book as Severe, with an E2 6a variation. After much debate (see below) we followed this with a VS route to the right, unsure whether it was the VS 4c or the VS 4a....

Having admitted that we are not trad bunnies, we are slightly confused by Willie's Route and it's variation. Some friendly chaps there before us, who seemed to know the crag pretty well, said that the Severe went up the crack and then to the right of the grassy scoop. There's a good bit of gear in the back of the scoop, and the right hand option looked pretty easy and with lots of gear.

Always up for a challenge (!) we opted to go straight up the back of the scoop, and straight up the slab above. This fits the Lowland Outcrops description of the E2 6a variation as well as we thought it could, given the brevity of the description, but seemed pretty easy for E2! We thought E2 was meant to be Hard and Scary! We wondered whether the variation might have avoided the broken crack from the ground to the scoop and gone up the slab to the left of it, but that sounded more like the E3 between Willie's Route and Curved Crack - a proper scary-sounding route! Diff also rightly pointed out that in order to be a variation, the E2 option needs to share some parts in common with the original Severe option. Usually a "variation" shares the start, otherwise it's known as a "direct start", which would presumably share an upper part of the route.

Willie's Route (S) marked in red. The line we took (the E2 variation??) in yellow. Punk Rock (HVS 5a) in blue and Curved Crack (HVS 5a) in green.

There is no gear that we could find on the slab above the back of the scoop (along the yellow line above), even for side runners as suggested by Lowland Outcrops. Getting out of the scoop and onto the slab above wasn't a particularly hard move, either. The slab at the top was quite airy, I suppose, but nothing like balancing on the fairy sized ledges of any slab in Font!

So what is E2 6a supposed to feel like? Did we get the right route and it genuinely isn't as hard and scary as we had thought it would be? Or were we completely off route? We'd love to know, if only as guidance for what else we might try. Clearly routes of the same grade can vary enormously, but if this really was E2 we might try some other routes which previously we had written off. I hear warning voices in my head already not to get too cocky - pride comes before a fall, and all that - but maybe I should try things like Grasp the Nettle, Dead Ringer and Elgin's Crack. Caution has previously limited me to anything VS or below, which now seems a bit daft, especially given that on bolts I'm at least up for trying anything up to 7b (on a strong day!). Maybe I should be a bit more adventurous. It would certainly open up a whole new world of possibilities!

Chocolate coated star biscuits only from Gregg's in Barrhead. Yummy!

Out and About

It seems like forever and a day since I wrote the last blog post. So much has happened in the last year that I think I will still be reeling from the motion for another wee while. I thought I had found something that I wanted to do more than anything else, and that nothing would ever stop me choosing anything else over climbing (given the choice, of course) but I have been proved wrong. Life just takes over sometimes. There are lots of things to do in life. Making the decision what to do first is a dark art, that I am not convinced I will ever master.


So, despite the fact that I have a storage problem at home, stuff everywhere, a house to organise and a pile of filing, I went out climbing. Although my regular trips to the wall have dwindled significantly over the last 6 months, I've still managed to get outside whenever the decent weather (what decent weather??) has coincided with a weekend. This hasn't always meant climbing, but then better to be outside than in, no matter what you're doing.

Three of us trotted up Ben Venue in June, hoping to escape the late afternoon rain. As it was we got drenched, but it was fun anyway. The summer greens and the smell of wet bracken on the walk up was beautiful, and a huge relief from a stuffy office. We found a cute wee frog hiding in the grass too, and nearly got blown off the top.

Greenery and water - themes for Ben Venue

Rescuing the frog from thundering boots

Soon after that, I had a glorious walk up Beinn Iuthan Mhor with Andy. We walked from Dalmunzie House Hotel, up the glen running parallel to Glenshee. In fabulous hot sunshine and a warm breeze it didn't feel like the full 12 or 13 miles. It felt like real summer at last and it was nice to be able to enjoy it.

The view northwards, through the Lairig Ghru, from the top

Early in July we spent a day in Glen Clova. Another glorious day, with tops off, sunburnt shoulders and enough warm breeze to keep the midges quaking in fear underground. We were bouldering this time, with John Watson's new guide to Bouldering in Scotland. It's a beautiful book. At first I thought it might be disappointing because there appeared to be so much rock to climb, but so little of it was documented in the book. But I changed my mind about that, instead finding it pretty inspiring to look at, run around like a nutter and invent my own things to climb. We found a few things first, and then realised they were written up in the book.

Caroline on a nice little vertical crimp-fest

In fact we spent pretty much all day on the Peel Boulder. With Andrea's technique, my slightly foolhardy bravery and Caroline's strength we managed between us to work out the sequence on the Peel Sessions. Given that it was a joint effort I don't think we can claim the Font 6c+ tick! I managed to complete it from standing, but couldn't touch the sit start for love nor money. Andrea cruised the sit start but (probably sensibly) withdrew gracefully from the mad scary top out moves. Caroline too opted to come down rather than go up, as is her wont (ask her about retreating from the highball problem at Bas Cuvier). Instead she proved that her daily trips to the wall are worth it by cruising a tough move to pull from the ground, over the lip of a small roof and onto the slab above.

Diff had some work to do further north so we headed to Inverness for the weekend. The weather looked very flaky for the Saturday so I stayed home with friends, hung out in the garden, played with train sets and watched Cbeebies. It turned out to be sunny where I was and rainy where Diff was. Ah well. On the Sunday we headed south via Huntley's Cave.

Thinking it would probably be running with water our expectations were low. It's a lovely spot, although not ideal for Scottish summer climbing, being down in a gully, by the river and surrounded by trees. Prime midge country, and probably not a quick-dry location, but very pretty. We had Diff's original Highland Outcrops guide which resulted in some interesting route-finding. We also had minimal gear and only one cam! We started on the classic Cave Route, and then moved on the Diagonal (accidentally finishing up the last 3 moves of Cave Route). By the time I was half way up Slot Direct, it was raining. I didn't realise this until I looked down to see Diff with the rope tarpaulin over his head; I was bone dry under the roof of the slot. Good job I did look down, because the top holds were pretty wet and a bit slippy by the time I got to them. Despite not doing much, we discovered it was a good place to go back to. The chippy in Grantown was very nice too!

Somehow in amongst all this I have managed to unpack most of the boxes from our move. What I haven't managed to do is put the contents of the boxes anywhere other than the floor....

Thou Shalt Not Climb Today...

...or "130 miles to Alien Rock" might be a better title for this post.

In our great wisdom, based on past experience, we chose to disregard (by not reading) any published weather forecast this weekend. On so many occasions have we trekked o'er vale and hill for some climbing, only to be thwarted by the weather. How often have we said in great disgust, "but the weather forecast said..."? How many times has the forecast not come true?

Saturday, as we all know, was a beautiful day. Cloudless, warm, nay even hot! I had promised myself that on Saturday I would make a start on the stack of domestic chores that is rapidly accruing, with the promise of some climbing fun on Sunday. I deliberately chose not to read a forecast, thinking that if Saturday was this nice, Sunday couldn't be horrific. How wrong was I?


Having packed 7 boxes of books at home, and spent some more time moving furniture and tidying, I was restrained at Saturday nights' festivities. I had a good sleep, packed my sack quickly and was ready to go. Caroline picked me up and we headed south, determined to do some trad. somewhere in Northumberland. It looked a little grey, but we commented that yesterday's heat would have made the rock sweaty and slippy. Bad conditions, and all that. Any self respecting climber knows you can't climb when it's too hot, right?

Little Spots
Just past Torness some little spots appeared on the windscreen. There was quiet. Caroline looked at the road. I looked at Caroline. We agreed it would pass, and carried on.

The further south we got, the heavier the rain got. We couldn't see the sea, let alone the tops of the hills.

"This is ridiculous, we might as well turn back, now. Nothing down here is going to be dry." This by the time we got to Grantshouse. So we turned back. The rain got heavier. We thought of Andrea who had gone out west for some sport, of Iain at Kilnsey, of Sarah on her way to sunnier climes, of Diff and the boys at Dumbarton....all (probably) basking in sunshine. And where we we? On the A1 in the rain. Hmph. We also remembered Andrea saying that Sunday would be nice out west. She had read the forecast.

Long discussions ensued as to whether we should drive for another 90 mins to Dumbarton, 2 hours to Loch Lomond, 60 minutes to Limekilns (I don't like Limekilns, says Caroline) ....we resisted calculating how long it might take to reach Kilnsey or the south of France. We concluded that going to Alien Rock would probably result in a slating ("why aren't you outside??") and that we'd already spent enough money on fuel. The only sensible option left was a trip to Ratho. At least nobody there would recognise us and give us a hard time for being indoors at the weekend. All the routes and the bouldering would be new to us, and we could have a Sunday treat of some "window" shopping in Tiso's. Yesss.... (we are girls after all, and we do like shopping, even though we vehemently deny it at every possible opportunity. Note, Window shopping. We had spent all our money on petrol.).

No power
So we trekked to Ratho, round the bypass, in the rain, thinking that at least we would get some stamina training in, if not any decent trad. The car park was surprisingly empty. Our previous concerns that rain=mobbed wall evaporated (unlike the rain) and we cruised as close to the entrance as possible.....only to be stopped by a damp, forlorn and very apologetic member of Ratho staff, who told us that the building was closed. Thieves had been digging into the floor overnight in order to steal the power cables. Since there was no power in the building health and safety regulations dictated closure. You must be kidding.....

Once, twice...three times unlucky?
We laughed, oh how we laughed. We had to explain why to the nice Ratho lady, that we had driven (by this time) 120 miles to Northumberland and back, and had still done no climbing. Sheepishly, we retreated to Alien Rock, expecting it too to be mobbed (rain+Sunday+Ratho closed surely must=busy), but it wasn't. As it was we had a pretty solid afternoon's training. We did feel marginally stupid turning up with 50 litre rucksacks, a full rack and 3 ropes, but the hundreds of 7-year olds there probably thought that was normal for hardcore climbing chicks like us.

We were mildly consoled by J's comment that Alien Rock wasn't busy because most people didn't have our dedication to their sport; they'd gone out, got wet, sacked it off and gone home.

We, on the other hand, drove 130 miles to end up at Alien Rock.

Trad Anxiety

The good weather seems to have been and gone; it's frustrating that the long days should be rendered useless by rain. I'm looking at it sheeting down now and hoping that it rains itself out by tomorrow. Having done so much bouldering and sport climbing so far this year, I thought it was about time I put my helmet on and got back to some trad. In my usual fashion, I will start with the easy stuff so as not to scare myself silly. Tomorrow may end up feeling like a huge anticlimax if all I can manage is a VS, but I am sure that longer term it will pay off not to jump straight on E2!

Yes, I am a huge scaredy cat when it comes to trad. At the moment, I'm atributing this to lack of practice. Tomorrow may change that view. I'm quite anxious about how Trad will feel, whether I will have lost my bottle completely. I hope that all the indoor training will pay off and my strength and technique will not fail me in my hour of need. It's my head that will get in the way (yes, even my little pinhead!).

Spanish bolts

Why is it that the psychologies of trad and sport are so different? I am happy to fall on bolts (well, relatively speaking), which someone else has fixed to the rock. I don't know when the bolts were fixed, by whom or how. But if I can at all help it, I won't fall on gear I placed myself 5 minutes ago. I will also try hard moves above bolts that I wouldn't in a million years contemplate doing on trad routes. I don't seem to be able to trust my own ability to save my own life, but I have blind faith in Joe Bolter's ability to wield a bolt gun and mix resin properly. [Apologies to those of you who might have bolted routes yourself - this isn't a criticism of your ability to place bolts, just an observation that I don't usually know who you are! In fact, it may be a credit to your skills that I am prepared to trust my life to your work.] In theory, if my gear placements are solid, they are as likely to hold my fall as bolts. But something deep down in my subconscious doesn't believe this.... I'm hoping (again) that practice and experience will help initiate some mind control so that I can match my trad grade to my sport grade. Maybe this is too much to ask of myself, along with my other goal of 7c by Christmas. Do I want the moon on a stick or what....??

High steps above bolts, not so easy above trad gear

Sunday Update
What is with this weather?? It's damp and horrible and it's rained all night so everything is soggy. So I decide to climb indoors. Two stamina sessions and 29 routes later, I step outside into beautiful sunshine! I am suspicious that the weather has a personal vendetta against me and my purposes for trad. Either that or this is an omen from the Gods, telling me that trad is not for me.

Unfinished Business

It struck me last night, whilst dithering over a decision to climb or not given the dubious weather forecast for today, that I've started lots of projects this year, but have left several uncompleted. Of these, I've come tantalisingly close to completing Friendly Fire (F7a, the Anvil), Jocks and Geordies (Font 6c, Kyloe In) and Red Rum (Font 6b+, Kyloe In). I've had a good shot at Dog Eat Dog (Font 7a, Bowden Doors), Green Traverse (Font 7a+, Stanage Plantation) and Shadowlands (F7c, the Anvil).

While it's good to have some things to work on, it's also frustrating to not be able to invest the time it takes to complete them. But life is full of Other Things, like Bad Weather, Jobs, Non-climbing Friends and Sleep, which at different times each take precedence over climbing. Even bad weather is necessary, to fill our reservoirs, water our crops, wash my car, remind us that good weather is good....

Other Things...

The good weather seems to have been and gone; it's frustrating that the long days should be rendered useless by rain. I'm looking at it sheeting down now and hoping that it rains itself out by tomorrow. Having done so much bouldering and sport climbing so far this year, I thought it was about time I put my helmet on and got back to some trad. In my usual fashion, I will start with the easy stuff so as not to scare myself silly. Tomorrow may end up feeling like a huge anticlimax if all I can manage is a VS, but I am sure that longer term it will pay off not to jump straight on E2!

Fortunately, Nigella's Dark Chocolate Loaf Cake is just out of the oven, so whatever happens tomorrow Everything Will Be OK.