Scotland!

Pylon King: We are going to North-West Scotland in May.

Fiend: We are? Okay.

Simple as that really :). PK had this grand plan that we needed to wait for a good weather window in May, early enough to avoid the worst of the midges, and shoot up last minute to explore the highly regarded cragging around Torridon and Diabeg. All credit to the old goat, it was a very good plan. He monitored the weather, I provided the transport, and over this weekend, we went.

It was really rather good...

Actually I'm really rather tired so I won't write so much on it now, but...

Our campsite:

I think PK summed it up best when he said that the usual great climbing areas in the UK - North Wales, Lakes, Devon and Cornwall - are 3 star climbing destinations, and Scotland is a 4 star climbing destination. I found the scenery around the Torridon to Ullapool area to be particularly stunning, the combination of typically rugged mountains and hills, with lochs and forests and isolated villages, all surrounded by an undulating coastline scattered with islands and inlets. Magical. What is most noticable is that although any individual scene can be equalled by the best scenes elsewhere in the country, there is SO MUCH up there - drive over the next hill and it was equally beautiful and tranquil.

Climbing on the superb Torridon sandstone:

The climbing is similarly lush and lovely. As well as the usual 2 hour walk-in mountain bollox (some of which does, admittedly, look stunningly good), there's plenty of varied and accessible outcrops offering single pitch climbing as good as any in the country. We climbed on the major crags of Diabeg and Seana Mheallan as well as other gneiss crags further north, and developing a new little outcrop just next to Torridon itself. I relished the choice of fresh routes throughout the grades, and thus could keep things fairly steady to avoid aggravating my elbow. Seemed to work okay - had a bit of pain to the touch each night but it was gone by morning, despite no access to icing. Easy trad is the way forward :).

Chuffed at the general scenery/climbing/weather combination:

More later, maybe. Or other waffling.