Queen's Quadruple Quest.

Quest 1: Nice day. Walked into the crag. It rained.

Quest 2: Dry sunny day with snow on the ground. Walked into the crag. It was coated in snow.

Quest 3: Sunny breezy day. Showers just past. Walls soaked. Didn't even walk into the crag.

Quest 4:


Ohhhh YEAH. Amazing conditions. Lovely day to be bouldering, right on the cusp where unbeatable conditions turn into unsurvivable cold. Tris and I survived 5 hours although it was touch and go at the end. A quick half of Twice Brewed bitter at the Twice Brewed Inn (shown on the bouldering guide map as "Once Brewed", I was really not sure about drinking Twice Brewed at Once Brewed, or vice versa) kept morale enough to finish the 250 mile round trip.

Despite the conditions, this turned into more of an easy mileage day. A nice warm-up circuit, a couple of good middling problems spoilt by weirdo landings, and some fun problems later on seen in the video, including this Queen Line:



I did want to push myself on harder things at Queens, but there just seemed to be niggling little issues on the day:

Victory Arete SS - top-out felt too dodgy with smeary feet and a nasty blade of rock to skid onto. Even after flashing both stand-up versions to the top it just seemed unjustifiable and couldn't be arsed trying the sitter to not top that out either. Could have tried harder to pad the blade I guess.
West Wall - not sure about line, we tried an easy line but backed off the top-out again because of bad fall potential not difficulty.
Mxymatosis - not sure about finish, saw a climber climb to the top but the direct finish was too dirty. Again dodgy fall for that sort of nonsense.
Border Reiver - had a brief look at the end of the day but needed more time, more cleaning, and more attention given it's highball nature.
Left Hand Leap - kept trying the wrong method, got suckered in by a fruity pinch on the very arete but that's not the actual line, which goes up the righthand face. There's even a photo in the guide! Not that that's always to be relied on...

So dodgy lines and dodgy landings were the main deal! I'd go back for all of those with better preparation and knowledge. On my own, I'd probably be most tempted by working Worldline, probably waaaaay beyond me but could be interesting. Loads more easy stuff to warm-up on too.

An easy day on Sunday left my body feeling good on Monday, so I focused on a harder session at TCA, and felt quite good. Hurrah.

Carrock Crush.

In reality another Misanthrope Mission, but technically not as I actually invited a couple of homies down but they couldn't make it. I'm just as happy pootling around on my own, it allows me to get more focused too.

I've had a love/hate relationship with Carrock Fell. It's a great venue with plentiful inspiring problems, but I've had a couple of visits where I've seen a cool, breezy forecast, and been fully syked for the rough gabbro circuits, but it's turned out surprisingly muggy (the background of my blog title is taken from a hazy Carrock day) and I've got my arse kicked by the finger-shredding crimpy walls. I've never felt I've got to grips with the boulders, until the other day...

THIS time the conditions would have to be in my favour: Arriving at midday, it's glorious sun slowly slinking off the hillside, -1°C, and a steady South Easterly breeze. Perfect. I stomped up the hillside to the Mile High Wall. Rockfax says to avoid the bracken and "stick to the rocks" which I did. Pretty soon I skidded off icey rock and down into a jagged pit, only being stopped by being wedged between my mats and my shin on a rough boulder. Once at Mile High Wall however, the vibes were spot on. And then things pretty much proceeded as in the video above - I did some great problems although I didn't flash as many as I wanted (more on this later). I also tried a few other things (finger-shredding crimpy walls) and recced some cool problems for another time.

Just a classic bouldering day out :D.

Misanthrope Mission 4.

35 days since I last got out. Yes the weather and my gayflu (still persisting, on 2nd course of antibiotics now) have been that bad. Jesus. This mission took some effort, I really didn't feel great trying to wake up early and get going for it. So it was a late start, a LOT of driving and a bare minimum of climbing. But still good - back in touch with the purpose of winter and my purpose in life.

The forecast was good all over the County, so after much East vs. West deliberation, I decided to take advantage of the dry West and give Queen's another go. It was very crisp and bone dry....and completely snowed under there. Hmmm. I'm not having much luck with Queens! Onwards to Shaftoe which has everything facing in every direction and that worked pretty well as the sunny stuff was warm and dry and the shady stuff was cold and frozen and when the sun went down there was stuff that was cold and dry yay for friction. Before that I pottered about and recced Shaftoe South and came to the following conclusions:

Cafe Noir - worth a lead! Good line and obvious gear in a flake.
Antler And Deck - looks good and quite feasible, need mats and spotter.
Butch Cassidy - ditto.
Little and Often - crude but okay but top was iced up.
Pocket Rocket - looks crude and bland and too hard.
The cave stuff - very trad looking, best for summer power training.
Duvel - too small.
12 6c - too small and wrong on topo (shown perched over 10m drop!)
Slim Shady SS - looks good, bigger than it seems and perfect landing.

After that faffing and not climbing much I ended up in the Central Area to try to maximise the conditions on some of the sloping walls. Buford T Justice (not Belford, oops), I very nearly flashed by sheer determination but muffed my foot on the last move. Boo. I then ended up working it with the camera battery in my pants to keep it warm. That helped as I did it in the end. Despite being an eliminate it's a cool problem with some miserly slopers! Moved onto Smooth Wall, after a few goes this seemed impossible - similarly poor slimpers but this time with a bulge in the way. But! Lo and behold I worked out a foot placement and suddenly it seemed very feasible - this was exciting. Unfortunately despite getting super-close, I had to keep waiting for my skin to cool down in between attempts, and while I had the patience for that, the daylight didn't and buggered off leaving me to walk out in the pitch dark. But not before I saw a mouse scuttle across the frozen marsh beneath the wall (presumably very cold) and an owl swooping around (possibly solved the mouses coldness permanently).

So yeah. Another day with an epicly b0rked driving:sending ratio, but cool to get out at last!!

Misanthrope Mission 3.

More mockery - I spent the entire summer trying to get up to Glen Nevis to climb with a Canadian lass who was staying in Fort William and keen to sample the local cragging. After numerous Facebook exchanges, Metoffice scrutinising / swearing at, and last minute texts, it never happened. Come November, she's long gone, most tradding partners are winding down for the winter, seepage is creeping through, and it's getting a bit too chilly. So yeah the weather is good and dry for several days.

FUUUUUUuuuuuUUUUUUCCCKK!!!

Still, I made it up on the last dry day, and although frustrated by being able to see the mighty Wave Buttress but not climb on it, I did get some good bouldering exploration. The forecast was to be foggy, still, and cold air. It turned out to be clear, windy, and mild air. No worries about condensation and pretty good nick. I recced the Polldubh boulders while waiting for my Morrison's pseudo-redbull energy drink to kick in, and decided they were a bit brutal to start on...

Glen Nevis youth bouldering team in training.
Instead, I thought I'd just nip across the river to Tim's Arete for a warm-up and then head back via a packed lunch. 2 precarious weir crossings, 5 hours and numerous problem attempts later, I had no skin, no energy, no chalk and no camera batteries left - Glen Nevis Southside has a lot of potential both tapped and untapped on wild and rough rock. The clip below is just a sample, I'll be back when the above factors have recharged (and it's dry again so I've got a few months to regrow skin :S).

Classic Caithness Coolness.

Yay! Back to Caithness at last. Somewhere that always inspired me from reading about it in guidebooks and magazines (I wonder if Duncan Disorderly knows I pinched his OTE with the Caithness special a few years ago??), and somewhere that has proved to be worth that inspiration on initial and subsequent visits. My visits now total 3, which I hoped would be enough (not least because of a certain tedium with the neverending Inverness > Wick finale of the 5+ hour drive), but will likely require at least one more, as this trip was 66% rather than 100% successful...

Much Climbing at Mid Clyth
Yay! For Mid Clyth. A brief initial visit merely sampled the compact and heavily starred Stack area, this substantial return visit confirmed the validity of those stars in an orgy of steep wall climbing. Yes, it really is as good as the guidebook (the definitive, not the less reliable selected guide which criminally misses out this fine crag) says, with a veritable plethora of minor classics crowded side by side above the most convenient (abseil descent aside) of flat platforms. More than you can shake a stick at....or even a seal. Verily the seals were out in force, lowing and mooing and staring quizzically at our bizarrely non-aqueous antics. Those antics simply included a lot of great climbing....and that was that.


Showers at Scarlet
Since the weather forecast predicted 3 unbroken dry days, the rain had the decency to wait until midway through the second day. Oh what courtesy. Before this meterological blip, the mighty Sarclet was the natural choice for the day. Sarclet is somewhat more adventurous, although the main adventure involved trying to construct a vaguely comfortable two man survival shelter out of a ropebag, a rucsac, a small rockshelf with a good RP above it, and a few badly tensioned and even worse placed anchors. This sufficed - barely - for early showers, thus allowing us to snatch a couple of warm-up routes. However the last route was led in light drizzle and seconded in substantial rain. After a soggy and swearful retreat, the sun came out at the car. Arse and double arse.

Evening Esoterica
After an emergency - and pleasingly free - weather check at the Wick library, there was enough promise for the 3rd day....and the 2nd evening. The showers had scarcely tickled Wick nor the coast further North, so we tried Auckengill, lured by the dubious promise of easily accessible 3 star 8m routes. Hmmmm. Well apart from obviously not being 3 star routes, it was pretty cool. A charmingly relaxed location above an arguably even more convenient platform. The couple of chosen routes were definitely short but also distinctly steep, providing some good value. Not nearly as steep as a final digestif route at The South Head Of Wick....an alleged E2 5b with a hard 5c/6a crank above just adequate wires, hard to place amongst severely overhanging climbing the whole of it's brief and brutal way. This required enough up and downclimbing to get a Munro tick, yet was still fun enough climbing to make a perky E3/4 despite such dicking around.


Slipperiness at Sarclet
Thanks to the still dry forecast, the day dawned drizzly on the campsite. Back to the ever-useful library and the promise of a dry afternoon to be worth a morning caffeinating (Morag's Cafe being surprisingly good in this regard), perusing the vast array of tractor magazines (10 different ones in total, I was struggling to decided between Vintage Tractor, Old Tractor, and Classic Tractors) and general faffing (like I need any practise). Heading out to finish the job at Sarclet once more, the brightening day and freshning breeze promised the elusive sending conditions. However my befuddlement about onshore and offshore breezes and sea-cliff conditions was at the fore again. After following the mighty Pimpernel and doing a brief warm up, my chosen inspiration, despite looking reassuringly welcoming from a pert wee belay ledge, was greasier than a whore's fuckflaps. Thus escape was made, and there was little more to be done.

A rather good trip but a couple of Sarclet classics still remaine...so close....yet not close enough...

Backlog Bollox

Holy arse on toast it's been a long time since I posted any ramblings on here. The main reason being that things have been a bit bollox with weather, car trouble, partner mis-organisation, general slothfulness and other malaises.

Things I haven't done recently include:

• Got back up to anywhere inspiring in the North West or North East.


• Booked any rad and awesome trips away.


• Climbed much that has been particularly challenging or progressive.


• Kept up with training hard at the gym.


• Kept up with training hard at the wall.


• Followed my concepts for having a great climbing year.

Boo.

What a choad.

What I have done is sat on my arse too much, and then a bit of the following:

Horribly Weak at Harper's Wall
The low point of this year if not my life. Not only did I have to resort to climbing a VS, I actually enjoyed it. Ugggghhhhh. VS. Fucking hillwalking.

Breezy Cruising at Brown Crag
Obviously the above was completely unacceptable. So, after a good night's sleep and a strong coffee, Phil and I headed down to Brown Crag to see what we could do. The initial plan was to go back to square 1 and get some good E1 mileage there. As it turned out, conditions were good, the vibe was good, I was suitably wary/prepared for the steepness, and slowly eased my way into E1 5a, E1 5b, E1 5c, E2/3 5c, E2/3 5c, which whilst only just above hillwalking / descent route level, did actually feel like climbing. All pretty nice routes too.

Kinda fun at The Keel
I arranged to climb with Stuart. He suggested The Keel, a new local sport climbing crag on the Aberdeen coast. Ugggghhhhh. I expected something that would make Boltsheugh look like Ceuse. Really the last sort of place I'd want to go on a decent day with a plethora of trad available. Nevertheless I went along to give it ago, cos he's a nice guy, I might get some good training in, and maybe persuade him over to Coble Boards afterwards. As it happens although The Keel was short, steep and scruffy, it was long enough to make leading feel pretty worthwhile, and the climbing was actually kinda fun and it felt good to get involved and get a decent workout.

Casual Flailing at Carrock Fell

Each time I go to Carrock Fell it seems to be in bollox conditions. This time I thought previous bone dry days plus a forecast 10-20 mph Easterly wind would encourage some sort of friction but alas no. The rock was dry but my skin wasn't and although it was cool-ish there was a vague mugginess that ensured a brief session and a determination to revisit more in winter.

Going Okay at Glen Ogle
More local days, blah blah. Went up to Glen Ogle to sample fresh breeze and afternoon sun and it was pretty good despite it being blind rounded dusty slopey obtuse schist at it's almost worst. Nevertheless I climbed okay, highlights being a near miss on a slopey F7a - had actually committed fully to the moves and was 0.0000001 seconds away from getting a jug when I lost balance. Good that I put the effort in rather than wimping out but annoying it was rewarded with failing anyway. And a near success on the classic E3 crackline which was easy on all the steep bits and tricky on all the slabby ledgy bits and while never actually hard was sufficiently obscure enough I very nearly came off on dusty rock but somehow persuaded myself to adhere. Not so much a fun romp as a good exercise in staying calm.

Chilling at Cambusbarron
Finally went to Camby just for something to do, and that something to do seemed to mostly be lounging on my mat enjoying the sporadic sun. Did one warm-up route, tried a supposed easy E3 that was utter nails, backed off in a confused micro-huff, decided it was too still / tiring to try anything challenging and blah blah.

SoOoOo....what next to sort this debacle out. I'd love to say "more Highlands and Islands awesomeness" but I doubt the diabolical weather gods will be that kind. I certainly need to keep up with my concepts for dealing with shitty weather. I also need to train a lot more, and follow up some leads for a climbing trip abroad. Better get my arse off the toast and into gear then...

La Pedriza 6

Today's kitty of the day is....small ginger (cute).

Today was a day of Anger and Lust. We were back on the slabs to rest our arms and trash our feet, and to continue trying to get to grips with this elusive slippery sneaky sandbag style. We found a shady slab, albeit not by finding the correct path to it, the usual boulder-bash being both an adequate warm-up and the redpoint crux of the day. We rattled off a few "easy" ones in swift succession, and one of them actually felt "easy". Possibly only a short grade undergraded. The Anger came next when I got on what could be the slab highlight of the trip, a mighty F6b+. Having done a few cruxy moves and generally on easier ground, I slipped off one poxy F6a+ move to finish. What a DICK.


Cue quickdraw and shoe hurling and a substantial stream of tourettes. As infuriating as this was, the general feasibility opened up the possibility of breaking the seemingly impenetrable F6b barrier. So I tried a F6c, did the crux moves of that (English 6b?) and then slipped off a slopey pull higher up, mostly due to warm conditions. It seems as the grade increases, the level of sandbagging decreases. Possibly. It also seems the conditions play as serious a role as they should - a couple of locals confirmed that "winter yes is the time for best climbing". Woot. Might have to come back. Not least because the Lust is there....finishing with a skin-of-teeth F6b, I felt a strangely alluring balance between the holdless horror of it all, and the zen-like zone of faith in friction. There is a seduction in these sheer slabs, a dark sensuality, a game of chance where one must seek calm in a hidden storm...

I rounded off the day with a dip in a snow-melt mountain river, mmm refreshing, an a huge tapas feast at a local bar. We could see the bar staff gazing and smirking at us when we'd clearly ordered too much and mountains of food kept coming, but they were all friendly handshakes and adioses and graciases when we paid the bill ;).

Climbing: Slabs slabs slabs slabs. 4 routes and a few more attempts....but it was supposed to be a sort of rest day....

Wildlife: The usual birdlife, camping kitty #8 - small, black (cute but limping), and lots of lizards today too.

And: Thanks to the hordes of people attempting to ID the mysterious heron-like things from my inept and vague descriptions, and congratulations to sidewinder who IDed them as White Storks. Here is a picture of a White Stork:

Rather beautiful at the Ruthven Boulder.

Approaching Ruthven...


Another weekend, another damp-in-the-west-dry-in-the-east forecast, another visit to Aberdeen with some bouldering en route. After last summer's somewhat painful attempt, I returned to the Ruthven Boulder in much nicer conditions, and discovered that yes indeed the skin-murdering texture is about the only flaw with this monolithic beast of bouldering goodness. Another chap was passing through and we teamed up for a good syke-filled session...


With my skin just on the tolerable side of critically abraded, I embarked on the long slog across the A96 to Aberdeen, via collecting a well earned and long overdue bottle of Singleton from Dufftown, a favourite smooth and sweet single malt with a distictive dried fruit palate and a spicey finish. Thence followed the usual good hospitality of various Aberdeen friends, a day of trad at Red Wall, an eye-rollingly frustrating replacement of two wrecked tyres from a completely hidden chicane, and an afternoon of bouldering at Portlethen as it was too breezy for coastal trad. A pretty good weekend and while my skin is ready for a rest, my mind is vaguely keen to ramp things up a bit on the trad action...

P.S. Blogspot is still screwing up the fonts for me, but since no-one has said anything, I guess it's fine for other people, which is okay.

Bumbling at Bowden.

Made a last minute plan to visit The County on a free day with a decent forecast. Decent as in sun, cool temps, light breeze - but also after a previous day's rain, so some caution was needed. I first checked out the exposed and sunny Goat Crag, which I've only done one easy route at. It was pretty dry and the plethora of considerably less easy routes looked rather inspiring, but I felt a bit underprepared for the diverse sandstone battles. So off it was to the definitive classic and fairly honeypot Bowden Doors, where I again recced some harder inspirations, and eventually met a dude for some routes. However it was feeling a bit nervy on some sandyish top-outs, so we retreated to an easy bouldering circuit, which was fun....and also turned out to be a bit nervy on the shallow bog solo of Child's Play F6b S1!

Little bit of krushing at Loch Katrine.

Taking advantage of the OMG-snow-end-of-the-world-winter-apocalypse-/-awesome-bouldering-conditions weather, I've had a wee visit to the Loch Katrine boulders. This is rather long overdue - not least because they are GOOD. Good lines, great scenery, superb rock. Nothing like the usual flakey bollox, but a delightfully rough and butchly clean-cut schist. The walk-in is potentially a bit tedious but I drove down the private road and waved my "On Warfarin due to bilateral DVTs" medical card and politely asked to park there to save my poor wee legs, which worked and was the first part of a very fine session. The second part was seeing the inspiring lines and scenery. Third part, chalking my hands and touching the rock and oh my god the friction. Possibly the best conditions I've ever bouldered in, I felt I could just mollusc my way up things. Not much different to my usual climbing style then ;).



The fourth and conclusive part was climbing pretty well, flashing a few good problems and effectively flashing another (note to self: read guidebook properly and aim for the true and easier line not some harder version). The only disappointment was not managing the classic butch sloper problem "Fight Club". Curiously I was wondering if I was doing so well earlier on solely because of the conditions, but FC is totally conditions dependent and still felt nails. So as usual the grades are nonsense. But the climbing is good and probably the best bouldering session I've had since spring 2009.

Going okay at Glen Ogle.

I dashed out for an evening this week. Everyone in Scotland was getting all giggly and dribbly that "winter" had arrived (removal of brain cells being one of the best weight-saving tactics for Scottish winter climbers). They're not wrong. JB called the grit and conditions were pretty ace for bouldering - crisp cold and dry. I even kept my t-shirt on, well, sort of t-shirt. The main thrust of the video below is to show off the new threads rather than show off the actual problems. I'm sure you'll agree it's a winning combination...hmmm...


Glen Ogle is like most schist bouldering and indeed some general Scottish bouldering, a bit crap really...but kinda okay too. Glen Ogle doesn't have too many of the usual detriments, access is fairly easy, walking around the boulders is tolerable, the lines are okay as are the landings, and it's not too lowball. The rock is a bit flakey and there's a lot more boulders than good boulder problems but it wasn't bad for a wee easy circuit. Just nice to play around on rock on a fresh evening. The most aesthetic problem is also the most gruesome - Pyramid Lip, a campus traverse into a haemorrhage / hemorrhoid-inducing mantle onto a slab - a brief play on this confirmed it wasn't as randomly overgraded as the other problems and will require some serious effort a later date. Worth going back for I think. Overall it was a good opening to the winter season :).

Aimless although amiable amblings around Aberdeen.

Bit late with this, I've been lazy / busy (delete the latter as applicable). Last weekend I had another weekend in Aberdeen to escape the Wet(-ish) West. The Aberdeen coast is a sometimes good and often useful climbing venue, sheltered from the regular soakings that afflict most of the mountain areas in Scotland by, errr, most of the mountain areas in Scotland. It was criminally missed out of Gary's Scottish Rock books, his "reasoning" that it's often birdy or greasy being particularly insubstantial given that the rightly much-lauded Highlands And Islands are pissing with rain 33% of the time, submerged under snow 33% of the time, and heaving with midge death squadrons 33% of the time. Not even the slightest mention of Aberdeen or the Costa Del Moray Coast as useful alternatives, instead the space being taken up with gimmick photos of Mull non-move-wonders and verbose page-filling descriptions of exact protection for mountain E7s....hmmm....

ANYWAY. I went there. It was fairly dry. It was also fairly cool, a brisk south-westerly meaning it was either cold in the sun or cold in the shade. Not really a problem for me but it made it tricky choosing the right venues overall. In the end I did a bit of bouldery trad at Long Slough (short but quite fun and interesting rock), a bit of bouldery sport at Cambus O'May (not as bad as I feared, quite inspiring for Aberdeen sport climbing), a bit more bouldery trad at Clashrodney (nice enough although not much choice left there for me) and a bit of bouldery bouldering at Boltsheugh (fun but very limited easy circuit).

As much as actually getting out on the rock, the highlights of the weekend were hanging out with some of the friendly posse around Aberdeen, both deliberately and inadvertantly, and sampling the hospitality of The Neuk and Newmachars, and also making a new best friend in the tiny rotund form of Sir Voleington Volealot Of Volesbury:



They're not very good pictures as the wee bugger was all of a frisk and fond of frolicking around in dark clefts. He was exceptionally cute tho and no slouch on the routes either, here he is on the first ascent of Vole Corner VS 4c ***


Ho hum.

Lethargic haze at Loudon Hill.

[insert obligatory moaning about stupid fucking showery weather here]

A very mixed day yesterday. Not mixed as in the weather (which is still mixed over the damn country overall), which was generally very nice. Hot in the sun, cool in the shade and breeze. But mixed in the climbing I did and the syke I felt. This is often the case for me with local climbing - generally it is less inspiring and the "always there" doorstep accessibility makes it harder to feel the urge to get things done unless I have a specific desire.

At Loudon I did have a couple of specific desires - see what the harder routes looked like, get Epitaph Bloody Variation done (backed off it before), and err that's it I guess. The harder routes looked green but good. I pottered around seconding for a while, then tried Epitaph Sodding Variation in the baking sun and backed off again. I still don't like it. Following this I got in a lethargic haze and lounged in the sun until I got pins and needles in my arm and realised I only wanted to do Epitaph Fucking Variation to warm up and to get it ticked. Not the best motivations. Nor indeed the best state of mind to get on something harder, but inspiration + determination >>> ticking. Also, fresh cool breeze + shade >>> hot sun. So I stood beneath Lunge, realised although I felt a bit wobbly I really had to engage with it, did so, did the route, and enjoyed both the climbing and getting to grips with a decent challenge. So that was nice. Not a particularly energetic day out though so I need to do some more training now and get fitter and stronger.

More lethargic hazing at the end of the day, being invaded by sheeps whilst waiting for other members of the party to finish the splendid Edge:

Warfarin second ascent.

I'm taking it. I suspect the FA was on the medication but I'd be very surprised if any subsequent ascentionists were. No anti-coag, no tick ;). I did it in one pitch on a mild still day and had the sweatiest ropedraggiest experience I've had for a long time. At one point my belayer could see sweat dripping off my back. At the end I had to crawl to the belay, hauling my own body weight on left rope. Bleh!! Good route tho, a fine adventure for an outcrop.

Bugger up at Butterbridge.

The bugger up wasn't mine! I did fine - I went out to boulder, warmed up, wirebrushed a bit, sat out a shower, wrestled with the usual complete bollox Stone Country guide mis-descriptions / mis-grades, and eventually did a couple of cool problems in good fresh conditions, including this:


And the first ascent of this:


Butters V3 **, named in honour of Bbb-bb-but-but-buttttters who seems quite chuffed having done Strawberries recently.

The bugger up came with this:


Part way through my tickling around, I became aware the traffic was starting to go somewhat awry, around a combination of small car transporter and derailed white van, scarcely a few hundred yards from where I was sat (sit starts, you see). 4 police cars, 2 ambulances, 2 fire engines, a salvage truck and a helicopter later, it became obvious things weren't going to move any time soon. All of which was quite interesting in a detached sort of way, except that this was my main route back to Glasgow, and I needed to be back swiftly. Attempted swiftness turned to inevitable sluggishness when my chosen detour route became a nightmare of HGVs having to pass each other on single lane country roads and finally ground to a gridlock. About turn and leg it to Dunoon and catch the ferry back, which is a reassuringly smooth and rather fun experience, apart from it contribution in turning an hour's return into 2 1/2 hours. Ho hum!

Backlog Blog!!

Previous weekends as follows:
Sorry for all the number bollox but it's been a good run and I can't be arsed to write anything more interesting.

Desires come true at Duntelchaig
Before I considered moving to Scotland, I had 3 routes I'd seen photos of that had really inspired me. I did Edgehog a few weeks ago, and then managed to get to Dracula, which really is a good steep E3 5c crack and not an HVS jamming traverse lke it looks in the photos... One more to go....soon ;). Now I have a thousand more inspirations from my being up here, though.
Dracula E3 5c ***
The All Seeing Eye Font6c ** (flash)

Awesome at Ardmair
I liked Ardmair a lot before, and I like it even more now. Apparently the home of gritty rounded rock and steep jamming sandbags....more like the home of good holds, good gear, and generous grades!
Shakedown E3 5c **
Western Skyline E4 6a **
Space Monkey E2 5c ***
Unleash The Beast E4 6a ***

Lovely day at Lochan Dubh
Originally the plan had been to go to Inverthingy Rock Gym, but since Richie had ticked the crag, we needed another option. A brisk Northerly wind precluded many of the more interesting Gairloch crags, but the sunny and scenic Lochan Dubh seemed a sensible choice. Nice to get on the gneiss, and satisfying to do some big pitches.
The Missing Link E2 5b *
Call Of The Wild E4 6a ***

Minimal respite at Moy Rock
Finally to route off a diverse weekend of schisty stuff, sandstone and gneiss, we added conglomerate into the mix, well indeed it is a mix in itself. It's always fascinated me and Inverness seems the home of UK conglomerate sport climbing. Bizarre and intriguing, who could ask for more. Well, apart from a bit more fitness and freshness after a long weekend...
Little Teaser F6b+ ***
The Dark Side F6c/+ **

Power at Portlethen
As with pretty much everywhere on the Aberdeen coast, Portlethen has shut my ass down. Time for revenge, well only a little bit - small numbers! Under the watchful eye of Mr Big Numbers - indeed the power was his this session, with a massive run of macho problems - I managed to do a couple of previous nemesii fairly steadily. So that was nice. I don't suck that much after all.
Slap And Tickle Font6b+ ** (worked)
The Prow Font6c *** (worked)

Balls conditions at Balmashanner
The lovely Lyons decided a nice sunny evening was best spent clipping bolts in a dank festering hole in the ground, and who was I to argue?? Climbing is a broad church, right?? Apart from bloody mountaineering, that's an entirely different church with it's fair share of wizened old weirdos and kiddy fiddlers. Anyway and alas, Balmashanner really was dank and festering so I warmed up on one lead and warmed down on one errr aid pitch, and that was that. Ace dinner though.
Start The Fire F6b+ **

Climbing really okay at Clashrodney
Next up for my Crushing Aberdeen weekend was a bit of a granite taster. Clashrodney is a nice place with nice climbing, most of which I avoided by sticking to steep and pokey stuff, but that was cool, it turned out to be good fun and give me some confidence. Notably the hardest route felt easy and the easier routes felt hard. Hmmm.
Yellow Peril E1 5b *
Birthday Treat E1 5b ***
Blind Faith E3 5c **

Finishing nicely at Findon Ness
Already evening but with a showery morning forecast the next day, I was determined to get a bit more out of the day, and get a bit more action on the steep and worrying metamorphic schist that spanked my arse sideways a few weeks prior. This time there was distinct progress - my plan of "lots of chalk, slam in the cams, move quick and trust to good holds" seemed to work. There was a bit of a blip going off route on the ambiguous Siva-Guru connection and sitting on the gear before realising I'd ignored a piss easy finish. I can live with that, I got way more pumped attempting the off route version and resting for 10 seconds than if I'd gone direct (a clearer description would help!) initially. Spirit of the law rather than merely the letter of the law!
Siva-guru E3 5c **
Armed Conflict E1 5b **

Mini-beasting at Munich Buttress
A recent inspiration has been the well photographed Monkey Puzzle at Longhaven Quarries. Well photographed and justifiably so as it is an ace tower of rock - strong and dramatic lines up a striking pillar. Both routes I did were brilliant, the mini-beasting came from approx 3m of crux climbing in Jammy Dodger - nope I didn't dodge the jams and yep it was the hardest bit of crack climbing I did on lead. Raaaargh.
Monkey Puzzle E3 5c **
American Route / Jammy Dodger E3 6a **

Final words from the lean and mean Aberdeen legend, regular Font 7a+ ticker, and attempted Jammy Dodger seconder Amanda Lyons:

I'LL FOOKIN' KILL YOU LITTLE MAN!!!!

:D

Antics at Arbroath, exciting rubble at Elephant Rock.

Scotland is hardly internationally, nationally or even sub-nationally renowned for it's sport climbing. Nevertheless what it lacks in outstanding quality it makes up for in variety. From sea-cliffs to mountain crags, from pastoral outcrops to urban convenience, you can clip bolts on basalt (Dumbarton, Dunglass etc), dolerite (Benny Beg), quarried dolerite (Ratho), schist (Glen Ogle, Weem, Dunkeld etc), quarried granite (North Berwick Law), sandstone (Arbroath), quarried sandstone (Ley, Legaston etc), conglomerate (Camel, Moy Rock), rhyolite (Tunnel Wall), gneiss (Gruinard River Crags) and volcanic "stuff" (Elephant Rock). Last Saturday, with North West bouldering legend Richie Betts, I got to sample two of the more distinctive sport climbing areas...

The weather was equally distinctive - distinctive as in raining despite a dry forecast, then raining out of a clear blue sky, then gloriously sunny but with all the fields furiously steaming and sending up swirls of micro-haar. Somehow the rock - despite steaming a bit on our arrival - was in fairly good condition. Which is fortunate given that Arbroath issomewhat unnerving by sport climbing standards. How can 10m bolted routes be unnerving?? Well, slopey rounded sandstone and abseil approaches into hanging belay stances just above the sea, that's how. Like many such situations, once one touches rock, feels the holds, pulls some moves and gets the vibe, it's all jolly good fun in the end, and indeed it was. 4 short but valuesome routes were rattled off on short order, including a classic wee F6c, and neither us nor our kit ended up in the drink. Hurrah.

No pole, no tick. Climbing rules might seem arbitrary, but consider the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law and it all makes sense. This was actually the hardest move of the day. There should have been harder ones pulled off, but Elephant - which somewhat joyously really does look like an elephant - faces North-ish, and the harder routes tend to follow impressive but potentially greasy cracks. Now I love a bit of greasy crack action me, but not on overhanging F7as that look like bolted Gogarth. So we left those for another day, and rattled off another 4 mid sixes in short order. Elephant is described as "a mixed volcanic intrusion" and one can't really argue with that. Mixed and weird and interesting and fun because of all that. I will be back in dry weather that's for sure. A good and interesting day out!

Dodging drips and dead deer at Dunkeld.

I managed to get a brief day out at Upper Cave Crag at Dunkeld recently. Only did one route due to time and a surprising amount of seepage (I guess the ground above is slowly defrosting), and that route wasn't amazing - a bit awkward, fiddly pro and okay moves. But it was a good day out for various reasons:

- I still felt okay on trad despite two months off, a bit rusty due to excessive sport climbing, a bit nervous due to run-outs and dripping bits, but got straight on something non-trivial and did it okay.

- I learnt some useful stuff about what will help with my trad, especially on mica-schist. I tend to struggle with this rather obtuse but alarmingly prevalent rock type, where you never really know what you're going to get with imminent holds and gear slots - a big change from the obviousness of join-the-dots Tenerife sport climbing. I'm just going to do more of the damnable schist and get used to the fiddly-ness of it all, which will be good training, and after which something more obvious like gneiss will feel rather, errr, nice.

- It was another confirmation about how trad is perfectly feasible during Scottish winter. Despite it being -2'c in the morning, forecast to rise 4'c, and it soon clouding over at the crag, it was still fine climbing in a t-shirt and the vibe of the crag, drips aside, was quite pleasant. If the sun had stayed out I could have worked on my tan!

- It was good and interesting to check out Cave Crag. At my standard it's one of the most important day-trip crags so I can see it getting heavy usage. And indeed it was quite inspiring, some good towering lines above a very pleasant flat crag base. Plus some really decent looking sport climbing to get rotpunkting on - a useful training arena all round!

And the deer?? 3 of them between Cave Crag and Polney, all distinctly dead but mostly intact apart from their eyes having been pecked out. Hmmm. Not sure how nice that will be when they defrost!

Giddy at Gruinard, And at Ardmair.

Giddy with delight - the mission worked!

Actually I can't be bothered to do a write-up, so here are some pictures:

Saturday morning at Sail Mhor hostel. £13 a night, warm, comfy beds, good kitchen. Definitely the key to good climbing in winter.

The errr lovely Lyons at the gorgeous Gruinard bay. A minor crag but such a nice spot, this bit also wins "crag base of the year award 2009".

What Scottish winter climbing is all about!

Moody posy bollox.

Gairloch church. Drove over for a nice meal at the Old Inn. The hostel was surprisingly busy with a large hunting party who were culling deer, so I had wild venison steak at the pub in their honour.

No sun but still warm enough at Ardmair. This is Sculptress, on one the nicest HVSes in the history of mankind, go do it!

But bloody freezing (well -2'C to -5'C) around Inverness!

Climbing sandwich.

A few recent days:


Bread: Bouldering in poor conditions. Whilst recovering from my throat infection, I went to Carrock Fell for some bouldering mileage. Not quite sure what I expected but it was a particular blend of fun: hazy conditions that were dreadful for climbing on the rough gabbro slopers, new skin growth peeling off all the time, painfully breaking in new shoes, disappointing easy problems, feeling weak as a kitten, AND feeling nauseous after every single problem due to the antibiotics. YAY :). Actually I did enjoy a couple of problems and accepted all the issues around and at least the haze looked great with the evening sun...

Filling: Trad climbing in good conditions. A little while later, after some chillout time and a recuperative session of crazy putting, I went to Cambusbarron for some leading mileage. And indeed got more miles than I expected, the partner I was with fortuitously decided he'd like to second some ""harder"" routes for a change, so I raced through a few easy extremes, much fun. I also equally unexpectedly managed my main Cambusbarron tick, Chisel, which was well worth the syking up required and provided a satisfying challenge. However now I've done that there are many more challenges there....and elsewhere...

Bread: Bouldering in poor conditions. Went indoors for a brief hour of power. Not quite sure why as I'm sure I should have been running or doing routes or something relevant, nevertheless. Anyway I got my comeuppance, a decent workout but almost entirely devoid of actually success - and almost entirely due to conditions. I seemed to choose sloper problems with an unerring knack, and slide off them with even less erring. No surprises being hampered by conditions not strength, but it's all training of a form isn't it...