A Quick Trip to Yorkshire

Last weekend I took a short trip to Yorkshire with Anne Peale, Liam Ingram and Alex McMillan.
On the way down from Edinburgh on Friday night we stopped at a crag in Northumberland which none of us had been to before, called Widehope. This crag is just a bit further down the valley from Redheugh, which I was at the day before, and is also composed of the same cross bedded Carboniferous Fell Sandstone.
Redheugh turned out to be quite soft and snappy in places with lots of sand on some holds, however we did climb some nice problems such as Horned Arete, Widehope Arete and Chicken.

Widehope Arete (Photo Credit: Alex McMillan)

Horned Arete (Photo Credit: Alex McMillan)

Saturday was going to be quite a warm day, so after consulting Oli Read on what might be a good crag to go to we decided upon Simons Seat, close to Skipton. Simons Seat is a grit stone outcrop sitting on top of a hill. Simon Seat is composed of Carboniferous age Millstone Grit, like that found in the Peak District. More accurately it is of late Mississippian age. It was quite interesting to notice the difference in the rock from one side of Simons Seat to the other, with a well sorted sandstone on the South which contained lots of concretions, and a more poorly sorted pebble rich sandstone on the North, which also appeared to show less concretions. Further north again at Lords seat the pebbles seem to disappear again. I spent too much time climbing to really gather enough information to indicate what the cause of this difference was.

Simons Seat (Photo Credit: Alex McMillan)

I did most of my climbing on the Southern side of Simons Seat. Here I climbed the classic E3 Ill Bet She Does, which takes a line of chicken heads up a steep wall, and a font 7A called Galaxy, which takes a line of good chipped holds up to a horn. Below Galaxy I found a block which showed signs of some sort of trace fossils.

Trace fossils in a block 

On the north side I soloed the classic line, and apparently the best E2 in Yorkshire, A Question of Balance. This route takes the right arete of a steep slab after an initial steep jamming crack. We ended the day on Lords Seat, however a lack of skin stopped play a bit here.

Oli on Ill Bet She Does

Liam on Dog Lead

A Question of Balance

Chilling at Kilnsey (Photo Credit: Alex McMillan)

That evening we ate at the Nelson Inn, near Harrogate, and then headed over to bivi underneath the overhangs at Kilnsey. Kilnsey is composed of the Garsdale Limestone Formation, of middle Mississippian age. Anne, Liam and Alex had all just come back from Kalymnos so were feeling pretty psyched for sport, which Kilnsey is quite well known for. Liam kept on claiming that he is in danger of becoming a sport climber, so naturally Anne and himself started the day on a classic E2 called The Diedre. Alex and I attempted to climb some of the shorter single pitch routes. Having spent most of my time recently climbing on sandstone I found reading the limestone quite hard. I had a good attempt at a 7b called Witches Brew, however in the end Alex and I only managed to get up The Diedre clean.

Alex on The Diedre

This trip was really a trip around the Mississippian, a sub-period of the Carboniferous, sedimentary succession of northern Britain, with the deltaic Fell Sandstone of northumberland being oldest, followed by the limestones at Kilnsey and then the younger Grit of Simons Seat. By the Carboniferous Scotland had already joined to England following the Caldeonian orogney, Arthurs Seat in Edinburgh was an active volcano and the North Sea had not yet rifted. The British Isles sat much further south than they do today. To the North of the region existed highlands providing the sediment for the sandstones. The rocks we climbed on all represent different depths of water, with the limestone being deepest, grit shallowest and the fell sandstone somewhere in the middle.

Les Alpes

Last week I went to the Alps with Cassim Ladha. It was quite an impromptu trip as Cass called me about a week before setting off as his partner had dropped out. After a bit of thought I decided it was a good idea and agreed to go with him. We took Cass's new car from my house in Yorkshire to France via the Ferry at Dover. Our first destination were the Ecrins, thanks to a slightly more favorable forecast. We arrived in mid afternoon on Saturday and thanks to the long drive we decided to take most of Sunday off before walking up to the mountains in the evening. Our target was Jour de Colere, a 15 pitch ED1 on the Aiguille de Sialouze.
On Sunday I bouldered in the valley while Cass did some work. I didn't climb anything very hard but it was useful to get me used to the rock I'd be climbing on the next day.

Ailefroide Bouldering

We met up later on, had tea and got ready for our walk up to the Refuge du Sele. The walk was quite long and monotonous, with a couple of via ferrata sections, but nothing too hard. 4 or so hours after leaving the valley I was in my bivi bag outside the higher winter hut trying to psyche myself up for next days climb.
I woke at 5am when my alarm went off and sat in my sleeping bag making coffee and eating breakfast. It was still very dark and cold but we could see lights heading up the valley. We didn't want to hang around too much as we didn't want to get stuck behind another team and the weather was due to change in the afternoon.

Jour de Colere (Photo Credit: Cassim Ladha)

Jour de Colere (Photo Credit: Cassim Ladha)

As we walked to the bottom of the route it started to get light and I could see the length of the climb. As you can tell from my blog I mostly just boulder with the odd bit of single pitch trad in there. This thing was 15 pitches long. I could just about make out the line, and the location of the Crux F7a pitch.
Cass had the first lead, which after the initial snow climb in rock boots wasn't all that bad. We alt lead from here. I could give a break down of each pitch but this would be very dull. Things started to get a bit more interesting when I got to the bottom of the crux pitch. I had just led the previous F6b pitch so I expected Cass to have this one, but he wasn't feeling it, so I took it again. Up until this point on the route I didn't think we would do it. The weather was supposed to change soon and bring some bad rain and we were going quite slow, but after this pitch there were only 4 more easy pitches to the top. Easy.
This pitch went without too much trouble, although I did cover the crux foot holds in blood after cutting my ankle. I have to be honest I did the pitch "French Free", meaning I aided the crux moves, but its the alps and that's allowed.
Cass seemed to struggle with this pitch and looked quite tired when he got to the top. He set off up the next pitch but it wasn't long before he couldn't go any further and made a belay below an off width. I took over the reigns again and linked the rest of the pitch together with the next. We were now just 2 short pitches from the top, which we would be able to link together. Cass set off up this final link up but didn't get far before he didn't want to do any more. After a look at the topo I worked out that we could get to the abb line with a diagonal abseil. I lowered cass off and followed myself. It seemed to take an age to get to the valley floor thanks to the huge number of abbs needed but we managed it and walk out to bivi next to the hut again.
The next day saw us drive to Chamonix, via Italy. I wasn't feeling too psyched in Chamonix to try anything hard. I didn't want to commit to a big route seeing how close we got to the top of Jour de Colere then had to back off. I was psyched for something short and hard, but Cass didn't want to do this. In the end we settled for a walk from the Aiguille do Midi, across the Vallee Blanche and down the Mer De Glace. I quite enjoyed this although it wasn't too hard. We saw a lot of the Alps this way at least.

Vallee Blanche (Photo Credit: Cassim Ladha)

(Photo Credit: Cassim Ladha)

(Photo Credit: Cassim Ladha)

(Photo Credit: Cassim Ladha)

Requein Hut

On the way back we stopped at Font for a quick boulder. This was the first time ive been here and im pretty keen to get back.

Font

After a day off at home I drove back to Edinburgh, stopping at Bowden on my way past. I managed to send Sprung, my first font 7c. It went down without too much trouble on the day. Im really psyched to get some more hard boulders done now!

Pabbay and Mingulay

I have just returned from an amazing 10 day trip to the islands of Pabbay and Mingulay in the Outer Hebrides with 8 friends from uni. The group consisted of Jamie Sparkes, Morgan Trigg, Robert Taylor, Anne Peale, Liam Ingram, Fergus Cuthill, Alistair Rocke and John De Leyser.

If you look through the guide for the islands lots of routes are graded with 4 stars, as are lots of routes on many other crags in the North West. I don't generally agree with stars on routes. I feel they are often over starred. Routes are usually graded 0 to 3 stars, although some 4 star routes do exist. I feel a 3 star route should be really good climbing in a nice place. 4 star routes need something a bit extra on top of the 3 star criteria. This should be in the effort required to get to and from the climb. A road side crag doesn't cut it. A big mountain or inaccessible island does. Pabbay and Mingulay are one of the few places I feel deserve 4 stared routes. You may ask why I stop at 4 stars. Well I don't, however 5 stars should be an unobtainable goal.

The trip started on the 12th of June with us catching the ferry from Oban. It almost ended then for me too as I nearly missed it as I had to drop the car off and run back across town. When I arrived they were removing the ramp onto the ship! The ferry drops you in Castlebay in Barra, named after the castle in the bay. From there you get picked up by "The Boy James" with captain Wee Donald, which dropped us off on Pabbay.

So much stuff

Aborad "The Boy James"

Pabbay is a playground of Gneiss, cross cut with dykes. There is an interesting abrupt change in vegetation at the northern end of the island which may have been affected by the geology, but I haven't been able to look t a map yet and I only realised on my way back.

Sand Fortress

Day 1 on Pabbay saw us take our huge amount of gear (77 cams, 82 quickdraws, over 1km of rope and more) up a stash at the top of the hill near the climbs. We then made our way to the Poop Deck for some nice steep single pitch climbing. The stand out effort for the day was Fergus who climbed the majority of The Raven, an E5, before taking quite a large fall.

The Great Arch

So much gear

The trip had quite a nice weather pattern. It generally rained in the morning and was dry in the afternoon, allowing us to have a lie in and plentiful water for tea and coffee whilst waiting out the rain. The crags are generally steep enough so as not to get too wet too. Day 2 was Hoofers Geo, for more single pitch fun. I climbed with Jamie again and managed an E1 lead each. On Day 3 I went to the Grey Walls with Jamie, Anne, Liam and Robert. To access the Grey Walls you need to make a 90m free hanging abseil onto a wave cut platform. I found this a bit scary, but once committed it wasn't so bad. We climbed U-Ei in 2 teams. I climbed with Jamie and Anne.

U-Ei

For our final day on Pabbay Jamie and I went round to 3 different crags to climb as many routes as we could. After trips to The Poop Deck and The Galley we finished the day off on The Banded Walls. Here we climbed Endolphin Rush. The first pitch has to be the best pitch of climbing I have ever done.

Wiggly Wall

Endolphin Rush

Monday was our moving day to Mingulay. The weather was amazing, and maybe even a little to warm to climb. Donald picked us up at about 11.30 and took us around Mingulay so we could see the crags we were going to climb on. Once on Mingulay and having set up the tents we had a look around. Robert and I went for a climb on Waterfall Geo and had a look at the Puffin Colony. I only had one more day of climbing in the trip, it was a holiday afterall. This was on the Wednesday before leaving. The entire team went to Dun Mingulay. Robert, Liam, Fergus and I climbed Voyage of Faith and John and Jamie climbed Sula. Dun Mingulay is a big sea cliff, which happened to have a big sea at the bottom of it on the day. After some hopeful looks over the edge we decided to give it an hour or so for the tide to drop before we could abb in. This meant that we didn't finish till 11, but its ok as it was still light! 

Voyage of Faith

It rained quite a bit on Thursday so we all went for a run back up the hill to get the stash. Friday saw us return to the mainland, smelly and tired but content with our Hebridean adventure.

Wet weather activities

I really enjoyed hanging out with the people in our little group but the people we met along the way made our trip even better. We shared Pabbay with another group of climbers who were all retired, and even had an ex EUMC president within the midst. One morning on Pabbay we were joined by Roger Wild and friends for tea and biscuits. They were kayaking around the islands as they retired too. On Mingulay our campsite had an extra tent in it, which belonged to a guy called Will, who was counting seabirds on the island for the NTS. Will had just finished a degree at Swansea Uni in Marine Biology, which he found out he got a first for during our stay.

Nice weather on Mingulay

The wildlife on the islands was also pretty cool. We saw eagles on 2 separate occasions, once on either island. There were lots of seals too. Seal song isn't as nice as it may seem, they just sound like winning dogs. There was one particular seal which endeared itself to us. It must have been cast away from the rest of the group and being British we backed the underdog. I think the decision in the end was to call it Tom H Seal. One night on Mingulay we even saw a basking shark swimming around the bay. A worry of mine before the trip was Fulmar vomit. I've heard it smells really bad and fulmars are like proximity puking devices that go off when ever you get too close. Luckily I avoided this peril, but John wasn't so lucky.

Tom H Seal

Ticklist (stars are my opinion)

Pabbay: 

Endolphin Rush - E3 ****

Corncrake for Breakfast - E2 **

U-Ei - E2 ***

Who Shot RJ - E2 ***

Bint There Dun It - E1 **

Hoofers Route - E1 **

Geovannie - E1 *

Wetter Than A Day At The Beach - E1 *

Illegal Alien - HVS **

Wiggly Wall - HVS ***

Mingulay: 

Voyage of Faith - E3 ****

Not so Diff - HS

Gneiss Slot - VD

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!

Pete is a common name

I have quite a lot to update you on. Since my last post I have been all over the place. I have climbed in Yorkshire, The Lakes, Wales and Stirlingshire.
I went down to Yorkshire on the 7th and took Anne Peale with me. She has no exams as she is a masters student and was psyched to climb.

Si's Arete (Photo Credit: Anne Peale)

On Wednesday we went to Almscliff. Here I led Z Climb (VS) and Dolphinian (E1). I also did a bit of bouldering. I got quite close to Teaspoon Variation (font 7b-ish) and Si's Arete (font 7a). On both of these problems I can link up to doing the final move, which is a bit annoying. That evening we drove to The Lake District.
We stayed with friends of mine, Pete Holder and Pete Hill. On Thursday we went to the newly re-bolted "The Works" near Coniston. I climbed Stein Pull (M6), the only route on the industrial sector which I hadn't done before. I then belayed Anne and Pete (Hill) up it. The second cave at the works, just to the left of the main cave, now has a route bolted in it. It hadn't seen a first ascent but Pete thought the guy who bolted it would be fine with us trying it. Pete sent me up it so that I didn't blow the onsight by watching him. I managed to flash the route up to the end of the steepest section where I really struggled to get into the next hold. After falling off I managed to find a small intermediate which I could use to allow me to get my feet onto the left wall. I then managed to rip the stein pull on the last move before the lower off, but I managed to do it after getting back on again by being very careful.

Lakes Ethics

The new cave

Next it was Pete's (Holder) turn but he fell off at the same place I did before climbing the last few moves to the lower off. I fell off again at the same place on my second attempt after not getting a good enough hook on the intermediate. Anne and Pete (Hill) also gave the route a go. Pete (Holder) managed to climb the route clean on his second attempt of the day. He has called the route "Lakes Ethics" in reference to the recent bolt chopping and given it the grade M9+. I had one more go and managed to climb cleanly to the very last hold before my axe ripped through the very small thin stein pull. We all moved onto the second  were Pete and I attempted Guardian of the Underworld (M12) and Anne and Pete (Hill) attempted Bloodline (M10).

Pete in the bat hang rest on Guardian

That evening, after a quick check of the weather, Anne and I decided to go down to Wales. Our plan was to climb in the slate quarries around Llanberis as they may just about be dry, and if not there is a small drytooling venue.
The morning brought about a lot of rain so after a breakfast in Pete's Eats, and a look round V12 and Joe Browns, we went to the Dinorwig slate quarries to find the drytooling at Never Never Land. After getting a bit lost we finally found it. Everything was very wet and some lines resembled waterfalls but luckily others were reasonably dry. I warmed up on Monkey Bar Kid (M6+) before climbing The Deerhunter (M7) and the The Ibex Direct (M8). I thought The Deerhunter was particularly good with some fun stein pull moves at the top. I decided against trying the harder line of Bambi (M9+) as there was a huge runout at the top and I couldn't see any holds. I would really like to visit here again, hopefully with someone that has beta on the harder routes. I wonder if I could flash everything in the entire quarry?

The Ibex wall at Never Never Land

Ibex Direct (Photo Credit: Anne Peale)

Monkey Bar Kid (Photo Credit: Anne Peale)

I met up with Helena Robinson in Pete's Eats for a drink. She recommended going to the Great Orme near Llanludlo on the way back to Yorkshire. The Orme is a really cool place to climb with routes starting directly above the road, which you unfortunately have to pay a toll to drive on. I only completed one route, Firefly (E3), despite attempts on Captain Fingers (F7b) and Excursion Direct (F6c+). I backed off Excursion Direct as I didn't bring any nuts for the top of the route, which it shares with a trad route, and Captain Fingers felt quite hard.

The Orme (Photo Credit: Anne Peale)

Captain Fingers (Photo Credit: Anne Peale)

I took Saturday off to clean the car and drive back up to Edinburgh but I was back on it today with a trip to Wolfcrag Quarry and Cambusbarron, both near Stirling. I had wanted to climb sport, but it looked wet, and my second choice was tooling, but I couldn't find a partner.  I climbed a number of boulder problems at Wolfcrag including Edges (font 6C+), Oval Pocket (font 6C) and Side Pull (font 6C+). I decided to see how dry Cambusbarron was on the way past. I climbed here last year and nearly on-sighted my first E4, but fell off thanks to loose rock whilst pulling onto the top of the crag. I was pleasantly surprised how dry it all was seeing as it was under the trees. I had a go at Spanking the Monkey (font 7a). This problem takes a slabby arete on a very much featureless boulder. It requires pure friction climbing and unfortunately the moss of the boulder was still damp, despite the rock being dry, leading to me repeatedly falling off after the first couple of moves. This is definitely one to come back to though. I had a go at the left hand side of the arete of Spanking the Monkey, Monkey Spanking (font 7b). It felt very hard and I could barely get off the ground, but again one to come back to. I climbed a boulder problem called Treehugging (font 3) in my trainers on my way back to the car.

Wolf Crag

Spank the Monkey boulder at Cambusbarron