A Scottish Bouldering Odyssey

Over the past couple of weeks I have been driving around Scotland exploring and climbing on lots of boulders and short outcrops. I would have liked to have split this post up into 3 separate ones but with a trip to the islands looming over me I have tried to do it all in one big abridged post with lots of pictures.

All of these trips have been inspired by the Bouldering in Scotland guide, published by Stone Country. Stone Country produce a nice selection of guide books for Scottish bouldering and also have an interesting blog.
Scotland features lots of interesting rock types, which allows for lots of different styles of climbing in a small area. If your a crimp fan then the schist found at Weem or Glen Nevis might be more to your taste than the rough slopers, typical of Skyes's Gabbro. I personally have tried to just climb on as many things as I can. Glen Clova and Inchbae, both with a granitic composition, although neither strictly being granite, have been highlights of the trip. I liked the solitude which can be found at Inchbae, despite being so close to a major road, coupled with some brilliant climbing on lovely blocs. Some of these can be quite dirty but once uncovered the climbing is generally very good. If your ever driving between Ullapool and Inverness then stop off and seek out some of the problems here. My personal favorite was "Long Winning Streak" on the double boulders, however everything described in the guide is worth doing.

Long Winning Streak, Inchbae

Colonel Mustard, Inchbae

West Wall, Glen Clova

Glen Clova is another good venue to visit. It is less on the way somewhere than Inchbae, but it does have a lot more to go at making it worth a special visit. There is a good guide on the Scottish Climbs Wiki, which features lots of good problems. There is a lot of potential for new routing here too. My favorite climb here would have to be Lady Sam, a brilliant font 7a+ in "The Hollow" area below the sentinel boulder.

Lady Sam, Glen Clova

Climbing out of the Darkness of the Hole of Weems, Glen Clova

Torridon is a particularly popular bouldering venue for the highlands and even has its own guide book produced by Stone Country. I have visited the boulders in Torridon on other occasions but I have just gone to the classics of the Celtic Jumble and the Ship Boulder. This time however I decided to have a look at one of the outlying boulders close to Annat. The Balgy boulder is a Torridonian sandstone Erratic sat upon a Gneiss platform. The guide describes two problems, one of them the brilliant font 7a The Balgy Prow. If you attempt this problem then try and stay as true to the line of the prow as you can. It is easy to escape out left after a few tricky moves, and I guess you will have climbed the line, but with a bit of work the direct line up the prow becomes possible. You might loose a lot of skin, but it is totally worth it!

The Balgy Boulder, Torridon

Other very good venues include the Gneiss boulders found at Loch Buie on Mull, the Torridonian Sandstone boulders of Loch Kishorn and Reiff and The Gabbro boulders in Coire Lagan, which are totally worth the walk!, and of course the classics such as Dumbarton and Glen Nevis! Ill let the pictures speak for the rest of these though.

Lucky Break, Coire Laggan

Snake Attack, Coire Lagan

Hook and Go, Loch Buie

Nipple Attack, Loch Buie

Dannys Wall, Loch Buie

Dannys Wall, Loch Buie

The problem with summer scottish bouldering

A Busy 2014

So I have been sort of neglecting my blog recently but this has mostly been due to me being really busy!

Kandersteg

I have loads to tell you about, but I will be brief to avoid making it into too much of an essay.

Team GB in Romania

During January I competed in the Ice World Cup in Korea, Romania and Switzerland. Despite me never challenging the top climbers at all I have learnt loads, had so much fun and made loads of new friends.On my travels I have also been to some cool mixed climbing crags. We were shown a newly bolted crag in Romania and then went to Kandersteg whilst in Switzerland.

Saas Fee Structure

Saas Fee Qualifiers (Photo Credit: Matt Pritchard)

Romanian Qualifiers (Photo Credit: Anna Wells)

My best performance was in Korea where I just went out there and climbed as I didn't have a clue how I was going to do. Hopefully next year I will be selected for the team again and I can do a bit better!
After returning from Switzerland I went straight to the BMC international meet. This was a week were UK hosts, of which I was one, showed loads of foreign climbers around the winter scottish highlands. I didn't really get very much done as I missed the best days to go to university but I did manage to climb The Seam, Unicorn, a new route in the Cairngorms, DTS Spirit and Fast and Furious in my wellies (well I took a victory whipper from the final hold on this).

The Seam (Photo Credit: Piotr Sulowski)

Unicorn (Photo Credit: Piotr Sulowski)

Unicorn (Photo Credit: Piotr Sulowski)

F+F (Photo Credit: Piotr Sulowski)

Since the meet I have managed one day out on Ben Nevis where I climbed Route 1 with its Direct Winter start.

Route 1 Direct Start

In addition to my ice axe related adventures I came joint first, with a very strong boulderer, in the Edinburgh Universities bouldering competition last week held at the CSE climbing wall. I was quite surprised at this since I haven't rock climbed very much at all in the last month or so.

Competing at the CSE (Photo Credit: Steven Barnes)

Magic Crack

On Saturday I met up with Pete Holder, who hitched all the way from Keswick to Aviermore (that's dedication). We headed into t'Schneada with a few idea about what we could try but no firm plans. Once in the corrie we decided to head for Magic Crack. This is a really iconic route, which was featured on the TV show the edge back in the day, or so I am told.
The route starts up The Genie before breaking out right up a steep foot less slab. Magic Crack can be done in two ways in winter. One by breaking out right after the crack pitch, for White Magic, or by following the summer line throughout, for Magic Crack.
I began by climbing the first pitch of The Genie, which felt really sketchy. I didn't manage to get much gear in but I got up it reasonably quickly. Pete led the second pitch, a really cool set of crack and a corner set just off vertical. Everything is there on this pitch but you do have to do some smearing in your crampons which is pretty good fun.

The third pitch was the money pitch. The finger crack is a pitch I had seen pictures of before and it looked really hard. I was a bit worried that there would be ice in the crack which would make protecting it really hard. The crack was full of the most helpful ice I have ever seen. It was good enough to allow me to hook it making the climbing easy, but not too good so that I had to struggle to clear it. I managed to climb this pitch quite steadily, until the very end of it where I spent a long time trying, and failing, to get some gear in.

The fourth pitch was Petes and he elected to climb the final hard pitch of Magic Crack, instead of copping out and climbing White Magic. He took a couple of falls on this pitch but persevered and managed to dispatch it. The climbing on this pitch was well protected but a bit blind with really poor feet!

The final couple of pitches were about grade II scrambles.
I really liked the climbing on this route. There was nothing too difficult but you were always thinking. I do quite like climbing things where you have to really try and place your feet as well.
I would recommend this route to anyone, especially if you get it in the conditions that we did! I have done a lot of route in the coire and I think I can say that this is by far the best one.

Coire an Lochain Winter Conditions 10.11.13

On Sunday I made my second winter trip of the season to the classic early season venue of Coire and Lochain in the Northern Corries of Cairngorm.

Looking across to Savage slit and Fallout

The day started out a bit cold, windy and cloudy but I did see a few friends in the car park heading to t'Schneada. Today I was climbing with two friends from across the border, Pete Holder and Jack Loftus. Despite doing a lot of drytooling with Pete I had never winter climbed with him.
We had some wild ideas of trying something on the Happy Tyroleans wall (ok maybe that was me) and then Daddy Longlegs (me again). In the end we went for Ventricle (VII 8). Both Pete and I tried to lead the first pitch but got stopped by an awkward slopping ledge, just above a nice friendly ledge. It wouldn't have been so friendly if one of us had fallen on it. I also fell after trying the move a lot of times but one of the axes luckily stuck while all other points of contact came off. It shouldn't be this hard!
In the end we climbed The Aurcile (VI 7). The main overhanging corner crack pitch is definitely the crux, but it isn't all over on the last pitch either.

Auricle Pitch 1

Auricle Crux Pitch

Final Pitch

Conditions were good in the corrie with a healthy coating of rime covering all surface, except Fallout Corner (although it was probably still "in"). I found some bits of ok turf kicking about, although its far from perfect. Things appear to be in good early season condition at the moment.
We couldn't see any other teams climbing in the corrie, but I think the was a team on Hoarmaster. There was a big bit of rime missing on the buttress between the branches of Y-Gully, so maybe something was climbed up there too.

Lochain with its winter coat

The Migrant

This weekends weather was looking promising for winter climbing. I met up with James Higgins at the Cairngorm car park at 6.30 am on Saturday morning, after roughly 5 hours sleep in the back of the car, and off we went into Coire an Lochain to find something that looked white. Jim was on about trying Pic n' Mix but we decided against it as it is really quite hard and would have been a bit ambitious for such early season. This was my first day out this season, and Jim's second. We were joined in the Coire by Neil Adams as his partner had forgotten his boots.

We decided to go for Nocando Crack (VII 8). I had seen some pictures on of it on UKC and it looked really good. Neil lead the first pitch and then I was given the second, which was the main crack and crux pitch. I started up a short corner and then onto a big ledge. From here I was to traverse to the right edge of the ledge and climb the crack to a big cut out. I spent a while trying to get gear in and find hooks. I couldn't find anything I trusted and after a while of fiddling around I asked Neil and Jim if they wanted to have a go at it. Neil said he would and came up to meet me on the ledge. He gained the crack and then started climbing up it on very thin icy hooks. There was too much ice in the crack to allow you to place gear, although he did find some in situ gear. Neil climbed about half of the pitch before deciding it was unjustifiably dangerous and lowered off his axe in a good hook. I was quite glad I didn't get that far as I'm not sure I would have done that.
Neil abseiled to the ground and Jim and I finished up the Migrant (VI 7), which was very good. Jim lead the crux on this, which was a thin traverse. I finsihed up the easy angle slabby terrain at the top, which I though climbed really nicely. We abseiled down Nocando Crack to retrieve Neils axes and walked out.
Despite the faff we had on Nocando Crack I had a really good day, and only got hot aches once. Hopefully the rest of the season holds more successful ascents.
Jim has also done a write up on his blog.

Coire an Lochain conditions 5.2.2012

This weekend was the second EUMC meet of the year and about 30 of us headed off to the Cairngorms, hopeful that MWIS had lied and actually the weather was going to be quite good.
Joanna Lisowiec, Ondrej Mandalu, James Lismore and I headed off into Coire an Lochain on saturday morning. Joanna and I climbed Fallout Corner (VI 7) while Ondrej and James climbed Hoarmaster (VI 6) and Fallout Corner.

Myself leading the main corner pitch of Fallout Corner (Photo credit: Joanna Lisowiec)

Ondrej on Fallout Corner (Photo credit: Joanna Lisowiec)

I lead the whole of Fallout Corner, and took my time on it, there was quite alot of snow to clear. In my opnion it was in reasonable mixed condition with enough white stuff to make it look nice and wintry and even abit of ice in crack to help me off the first belay, but not enough to make finding gear too hard. Abit like Cutlass ,which I did the week before, I could have a reasonable, non-strenous, rest every few moves thanks to a large foot ledge, where I could excevate foot placements. We climbed it in three pitches. The first went to just past the small roof, which felt quite large on lead. The second to the large ledge at the top of the main corner and the third to the top. I did intend on doing it in two pitches but the ropes got into a tangle on the belay, apparently, which meant I didn't have any slack. We abbed down Savage Slit, thanks to the guys topping out across the coire for pointing out were it was. Unfortunatley the ropes didn't pull, despite Ondrej, James and I all hanging on the end of it halfway across the coire. It was starting to get late, and I had people to take back to Kingussie, so Joanna and I decided to leave them and come back and try and retrieve them on Sunday.
Despite it being quite a windy day the route was quite sheltered. We heard an avalanche in the twin burns area on the west of the coire and in breaks in the cloud you could see that there was some debris on the lochan.
Most of the rest of the group headed to Coire an t'Schneada where The Runnel (II), The Seam (IV 5) and Hidden Chimney (III), amongst others, were climbed.
Sunday saw Joanna and I walk into the coire. We were the first at the bottom of Savage Slit so I decided to start prussicking up. I only managed to reach the bottom of the slit before a team from St. Andrews University came along and said they wanted to climb it and would rescue my ropes for me.

St. Andrews team on Savage Slit

Coire an Lochain on sunday

As they climbed Joanna and I dug a large bucket seat/snow hole, it turned into more of a snowfa, took some pictures and played around on some ice in the bottom of the coire. We could see loads of people climbing, there must have been atleast 12 seperate teams in the coire. Once the ropes had been freed we soloed up Y Gully Right Branch (II), which had a pretty sketchy topout thanks to some really poor unconsolidated snow, and walked out down the goat track. We talked to a few teams who had climbed Central Crack route (IV 5) and Y Gully Right Branch (IV 4), both complained about lots of fresh powder making the going quite tough.
The EUMC group managed to climb Invernookie (III 4), Alladins Mirror Direct (IV 4), Sticil Face (V 6), Fiacaill Ridge (II) and Marsh even got some ski touring in.
We had the give the house a quick clean before locking up and heading home.

How many students does it take to work a hoover?

New Places

I have been trying to extend my horizons by visiting some new crags. In light of this Joanna and I headed off to the Cairngorms on Friday morning for some pre-university wintering. On friday we headed off up Coire Ciste to Creagan Cha-No, a newly developed crag on the eastern edge of Cairngorm. The walk in was nice and short and we arrived at the top of the crag by about 10am. This crag is only about 70 meters tall and there are a few hard routes dotted around. I was wanting to have a go at Falked Out, VI 7, but it was completely black so we moved abit further down the crag to the Arch Wall buttress. Smooth as Silk, VII 7, was looking good so we geared up and off I went. The first pitch followed a turfy groove to a big snowy ledge. The turf wasn't as frozen as I'd have liked but it wasn't too bad.

Me on the first pitch

I reached the big snow bay and set up a belay. I had to thread a small chock stone in a thin crag, which took abit of work.
The second pitch took a steep crack to the top and would provide the crux, as the first pitch didn't seem too hard. I traveresed out from the belay and managed to place some good gear in the bottom of the crack before bracing myself and heading into the unknown. There seemed to be a couple of little crux sections. Firstly gaining the crack past a hanging block and then secondly leaving the crack again, having to make use of some very small footholds.

Pulling through the second crux

Joanna managed to second me up this with not too much drama, despite it only being her second winter climb, so I figured she should probably try and lead something. We went back down to the base of the crag and managed to find the start of Jenga Buttress, III 4. Atleast I think it was the start, its not actually on the topo. Joanna set off up the first pitch following some turfy ground to the start of more blocky terrain.

Joanna on her first winter lead

It was starting to get dark now so to speed things up abit I lead the second pitch until just before the top where the rope drag was starting to get abit too much. Joanna ran up the final few meters and we began the short walk out to the Coire Ciste car park.
We headed down into aviemore for some food and a drink. While sat in the pub we checked the weather and planned what to do on saturday. We decided to go for Castle wall on the Shelterstone. The guide suggested it was a III but I have now found out that this is a mistake and it is actually a IV 5. The shelterstone is actually a big bolder with a cave underneath it, where people shelter. One side of the cave has been blocked up with a drystone wall and although it is abit of a grotty hole im sure I'd be delighted to find it if I was benighted.
The shelterstone crag is a large crag in the Loch Avon basin with some hard lines up it like Stone Temple Pilots, X 9, and the Cittadel, VII 8.
For further details on my climb on the shelterstone check out my previous blog post shelterstone conditions report 14.1.12 but here are some more pictures.

Shelterstone conditions report 14.1.12

Joanna and I got an early start on saturday and headed over to the Shelterstone Crag. I've never climbed on the shelterstone but with blue skies and very little wind things were looking good for a nice days climbing.
There was lots of hard snow and some ice walking down Coire Domhain into the Loch Avon basin. With some fresh snow this could pose a substantial avalanche risk. On the way we saw a couple of parties making use of an iced up looking Hells Lum.
Looking up at the Shelterstone I could see alot of bare rock but I was hoping that our route, Castle Wall, would be holding abit more snow, as it is only a III and therefore unlikely to be as steep as other routes on the crag. There didn't look to be anything else actually "in" on the whole crag and the likes of Sticil Face will take abit of forming.

Not sure exaclty what goes up here but its not "in"

The route itself took lots of turfy ledges up the ridge to the right of Castlegate Gully. The guide may say that this is a III but some of the climbing was much harder than that, the UKC grade of IV 5 sounds abit more accurate. The climb turned out to be in an accaptable condition with lots of well frozen turf and provided some excellent positions.

Joanna on the snow arete on the 5th pitch

We topped out at just before 3pm and began the long walk back to the Coire Cas car park. On the way I actually took a picture of a white Hells Lum. I took a look down the top of a few of the easier gullys in Coire an t'Schneada but they were looking abit bare. The top outs for Alladins couloir and Central Gully weren't holding any snow.

Hells Lum