Newtyle

Today I headed to Newtyle Quarry near Dunkeld with Adam Russel, Greg Boswell, James Dunn and Adams dog Holly. I had asked Adam if he wanted to go head to Coire an Lochain to make the most of the cold weather and climb the Auricle but he was heading down to Newtyle with Greg and James. I had never been to Newtyle before and I was looking forward to having a go at some of the super steep routes in the tube. The tube is a cave which burrows into the ground and has a rising floor meaning that no matter how far up a route you are you're still about the same distance off the ground.
Newtyle quarry is an old slate quarry. Slate is a type of metamorphic rock with a mudstone protolith. I would have liked to have shown some nice sedimentary features still present however there were too many scratches on the rocks to show the small ones, except small scale bedding. The rocks here have obviosuly been tilted quite alot in the past. Mudstone, like any sedimentary rock, is laid down in flat horizontal planes, called beds. These will be preserved to some extent during metamorphism. The beds here create the steep slabby walls around the tube, so indicating that there must have been some intense tilting of the beds during metamorphism. 
After giving Adam a belay on his project I tied in and with a pair of borrowed fruit boots, Thanks Greg, I set off up the fast and the furious. The moves all seemed really powerful and I didn't really trust my feet on anything so it wasn't long before I was off. The hooks were much better than I imagined they would be as almost everyone was a sinker. I managed to finish the route but it was far from clean. I must have been much stonger during the sts, or my footwork was that poor today, as I really struggled on it.
I sat around abit trying to recover and took this time to take some pictures, although most of them seemed to be blurred. James tryed his project of Torchlight, D11, and managed it on his second attempt of the day.
Later on I went out side to climb on the slab, which was a more achievable introduction to outdoor drytooling. I managed Groovilicious, D4, and fell off Roofilisious, D5, when something popped, although im not too sure exactly what. 

James clipping the chain on Torchlight

Next saw greg attempt his huge link up project which finished out of the tube. The line took in climbing from atleast 3 different route and an unclimbed finish. After working a few of the moves greg was ready for an attempt from the start. He did well and managed to achieve a new high point just before the lip of the cave before he had to take.

Greg on his project

Adams main project for the day was Torchlight, like James. He had a couple of good goes on it, getting pretty high each time, although he didn't manage to get it clean. I don't really have any photos of him on this but I do have one which I like of him on the fast and the furious which he did at the end in the dark. My camera flash didn't seem to want to work so the only light was from his head torch. 

Adam climbing in the dark on the fast and furious

Im really psyched to head back here again soon. I never thought I would be hoping that winter condition don't improve too much!