Road Trip 2013

Sunset at Reiff

At the top of Blankist, Arran

Since the18th May I have managed to pack in loads of climbing. I have ticked a total of 123 routes and boulder problems and only had 2 days without climbing anything outdoors, although one of these days I went to Red Goat climbing wall in York. It is needless to say that I don't have much skin left. I have been to nearly 30 different crags in this time too. It would be a very long blog post if I described everything I did, so here is a summary.
The interesting part of my recent climbing, and the posts name, starts on the 25th May. Here I set off road tripping with Matt Harle and Sophia Borgeest. Our desitnation for the evening was Arran but we decided to stop off at Dumbarton rock on the way past. After Dumbarton, and on the way to Arran, we climbed on a cool little erratic boulder in the corner of a field called the Clochoderick Stone. Arran saw me head off on a solo trip up to the Rosa Slabs where I climbed Blank (VS) and Blankist (HVS). The plan after Arran was to road trip for a while, with Anne Peale as well, but unfortunately the weather wasn't looking very good up north, so we went to the county. Kyloe In seemed like the best bet and we had a nice day climbing around the steep crimpy sandstone walls. Matt and Sophia had to be in Edinburgh on Wednesday so Anne and I set off up North together. We were headed for Reiff but stopped off at Creag Dubh on the way past and climbed a nice HVS called Inbred. At Reiff we met up with some others from Edinburgh Uni.

Scooped Wall Traverse, Reiff in the Woods (Photo Credit: Anne Peale)

On Wednesday John De Lyser, Alistair Rocke, Katie Main, Anne Peale and I made the long walk into the leaning block cliff at the North of the peninsula. Here I onsighted The Quickening (E5) and Freedom (E4), among others. They both felt very easy, so I may have been having a good day. The Quickening is my first E5 onsight, and first E5 clean (I don't think I have even top roped one). It takes a traversing line of massive buckets with good foot holds along a steep face and onto a slab. The next day we all went to the seal song area at Reiff. I managed to climb the route Seal Song (E3) which gives the area its name. I thought this felt much harder than The Quickening. On Friday Anne and I went out East in preparation for the EUMC's Dinner Meet in Dornoch on Saturday. We went to Cummingston and Huntleys Cave.

The Quickening, Reiff (Photo Credit: Anne Peale)

Seal Song, Reiff (Photo Credit: Anne Peale)

On Sunday Matt Harle, Sophia Borgeest, Anne Peale and I went to Sheigra to climb its famous steep sea cliffs. On Monday, after a morning at Sheigra we made our way south, climbing at Ardmair Crag on the way past. We spent that evening in Gairloch, climbing at Aztec Tower and Grass Crag the day after. The rest of the week was spent in Torridon, although I made a short trip to Helmsdale to do some work.

Bloodlust Direct, Sheigra (Photo Credit: Matt Harle)

Western Skyline, Ardmair

This trip has not only taken me around a large number of amazing locations, and featured some amazing sunsets, but the geology has also been very interesting. I have climbed rocks from the Dalradian, Lewisian, Torridonian and the Cambro-Ordovician within the past 11 days. Im not sure if I climbed on anything that was from the Moines though. This is possibly the best way to cement my knowledge of Scottish stratigraphy possible. I have even climbed within all the terranes of the Lewisian, those being; Richonoich, Assynt, Gruinard and Southern.
I'm having a rest for a few days now before I head to Pabbay on Wednesday!

Northumberland Wall, Diabaig (Photo Credit: Anne Peale)

Here is a summary ticklist:
E5: The Quickening, Reiff (o/s)
E4: Western Skyline, Ardmair (o/s)
Unleash the Beast, Ardmair (o/s) (2nd)
Freedom, Reiff (o/s)
E3: Brave Heart, Reiff (o/s)
Seal Song, Reiff (o/s)
E2: Cross Eyed, Reiff (o/s)
Huntleys Jame, Huntleys Cave (o/s)
Pete's Wall, Huntleys Cave (o/s)
Bloodlust Direct, Sheigra (o/s)
Wanderings, Sheigra (o/s)
Northumberland Wall, Diabaig (o/s)
The Pillar, Diabaig (o/s)
Colours Fly, Limekilns (o/s)

Font 7a: Problem 37, Edlingham (o/s)
The Groove, Caley
Fony 6c+: Haven, Reiff in the woods

Malcs Arete, Torridon

Font 6c: The Prow, Hepburn
The Wall, Hepburn (o/s)
Jocks and Geordies, Kyloe In
Avoiding the Main Issue, Reiff in the woods (o/s)

F 7a: Like It Hot, Grass Crag (o/s)
F 6c: The Dump, Grass Crag (o/s)
All The Arts, Grass Crag (o/s)

Like it Hot, Problem 37 and The Quickening are all personal best onsights for me!

Skye and the North West

Joanna and I decided to drive up North on Thursday night thanks to a favorable weather report. We drove to Cairngorm mountain where we stayed for the night. The plan was to climb Crystal Ridge but the weather on Cairngorm wasn't great so we drove further North to Huntly's Cave, near Grantown on Spey. Huntley's cave is a small Mica Schist crag which is improbably steep at the grade. I imagine the mica schist, which is a metamorphic rock, would have in a metamorphic aureole around the igneous intrusion of the Cairngorms, although I haven't checked this. Here we climbed a nice multi-pitch route called Diagonal (VS 4c), Central Crack (HS 4b), Cave Direct (VS 4c) and Double Overhang (HVS 5a). Double Overhang takes a corner crack which passes through two overhangs, and looks much harder than it turns out to be.

Double Overhang (Photo Credit: Joanna Lisowiec)

That evening we drove to Skye. There was lots of very low cloud when in the Great Glen but this lifted as we approached the coast. Skye was cloudless and dry. There was even a little bit of wind to blow the midges away, so it was almost perfect. The EUMC meet to Skye was this weekend too so we drove around campsites trying to find them. We failed in finding them but we did join a beach party in Glen Brittle which had a fire and bag pipes and everything. Later on in the evening we drove to Neist and camped next to the road. We got a leisurely start the next day and arrived at the car park at Neist point at about 10am. Neist Point is a series of impressive sea cliffs, which are over looked by a light house. We climbed at the Financial Sector, which is above a raised beach. The routes here require a 30m abseil to get to the bottom of them. We only climbed two routes, both of which I lead, which where Security Risk (E1 5b) and Venture Capital (HVS 5a). Venture Capital takes a line up two parallel cracks which end in a small roof and Security Risk takes a very crimpy line up a groove, which is harder than it looks.The rock here was Gabbro, which is a very coarse grained plutonic rock. This combined with the relative remoteness of the crag, so it didn't get much traffic, meant that the friction here was amazing.

Security Risk (Photo Credit: Joanna Lisowiec)

We had big plans for Sunday so we decided to move on to Elgol, which is another sea cliff but at the other end of the island. Elgol, unlike Neist, is composed of Jurassic Sandstone, which is much softer. This produced lots of interesting flaky features but made everything seem a little less solid than Neist. To add to this the rock is covered in a sort of grassy sea lichen. This lichen gave the name to the first route I did, which was called Hairy Mary (VS 4c). This route takes a series of crack up a steep wall of rock. Whilst at the crag we found the rest of the EUMC group, so we took Catherine Marsh along for the climb aswell.
There was enough time for another route so as Joanna's route was taken I decided to climb Veritas Splendour (E3 5c), which takes a steep roof around an arete and then after a short way up the left wall off the arete you swing back round onto the right wall and to the top. Liam Ingram had done it earlier in the day and he told me what to expect on it, which apparently wasn't too much difficulty. I found the steep bit not too difficult, except a long move into a crack around the arete. The hardest part for me, or at least the scariest was the top of the arete, which featured an insecure move, all be it to a massive jug.

Hairy Mary (Photo Credit: Joanna Lisowiec)

Veritas Splendour (Photo Credit: Joanna Lisowiec)

That evening, after dropping Liam Ingram and Catrin Nichols off at their campsite, Joanna and I drove to Reiff, which is another sea cliff North of Ullapool. Reiff is composed of Old Red Sandstone. Whilst stood at the bottom of the crag I could see features such as turbidites which suggested the rock was deposited at the bottom of an ocean.
Joanna had the first lead today and climbed Jim Nastic (VS 4c). After this I led Clam Jam (E1 5b) and Bank of Scotland (E3 5c). Afterwards I also soloed a number of HVS's. We were quite tired from our trip by now and decided to head back to Edinburgh, as the weather wasn't looking quite so good for tomorrow.

Reiff

 I'm sorry this is so long but we did do quite a lot!