Fairhead

‘Fairhead has the greatest expanse of climbable rock in the UK.’  Not many people know that, as Fairhead lies on the north east coast of Northern Ireland, away from the mainstream of British climbing, and sees few visitors from this side of the Irish Sea.  In fact it is one of only three major crags in the world where Steve Newman hasn’t climbed.

It wasn’t too hard to persuade a few other veterans that a visit was overdue, and so Steve, Stewart Walker, Paul Rigg and I booked flights and accommodation for a week in June.  A morning flight from Southampton to Belfast’s George Best airport was about as painless as air travel can be these days, and after a short drive we were having lunch in a café in the seaside town of Ballycastle with a view of the crag from the front door.

It was a rather damp day, but ‘time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted’, according to the Major, so we went to have a look at the crag.  The approach past farms and over rolling moorland takes you to the top of the cliff and gives no hint of what lies beyond.  It’s a crag by the sea rather than a sea cliff, as the base of the crag is about 100 metres above the sea on top of a steep slope of man-eating boulders, with a superb outlook over the Antrim coast, the small island of Rathlin and across to Scotland where the Mull of Kintyre is surprisingly close and the islands of Islay and Jura provide a distant backdrop.

We wandered along the rim, stopping occasionally to peer rather gingerly over the top, then scrambled down a gully to view the crag from below. Wow!  This was certainly like nothing we had seen before, over two miles long and up to a hundred metres high, gloomy, north facing and formidably steep.  If this is the greatest expanse of climbable rock in the UK, then your definition of ‘climbable’ must include the ability to lead E5.

Fortunately for us lesser mortals, the western end of the crag is more friendly, with routes from 30 to 70 metres, easy access, afternoon sunshine and a shed load of classics from VS to E1 on the Prow and around the Ballycastle descent gully. It may be ‘Fairhead lite’ compared with the sterner stuff on the central section of the crag (you’ll have to ask Scott about that), but it still provided us with several days of superb climbing.

Next morning we were back to try our luck on the Prow and the obvious place to start was The Black Thief, a single pitch VS and the easiest route in the graded list.  It was a bit of a shock to find that this was no mild VS stroll but 30 metres of continuously steep 4c climbing, like three gritstone VSs on top of one another.  Next came The Fence, improbably steep and described in the guide as ‘a VS that thinks it’s an HVS’.  We thought so too.

Those two routes showed us what Fairhead climbing is all about. The grades are tough and the climbs are steep and remarkably sustained, but the rock is impeccable and runners can be placed almost at will.

After lunch Paul and I did Girona, a wonderful VS with a spectacular top pitch, stepping off a pinnacle for some very exposed mantelshelf moves, and then returned to the top of the Prow where Steve and Stewart were completing Fireball (E1).  They seemed to have found this good value, although Stewart appeared to have had more trouble getting the gear out than climbing the route.  We counted the runners – 18 in a 35 metre pitch.  Fairhead climbing is described as having ‘gear on demand’, and it seemed that Steve was out to prove it.

Steve and Stewart on Girona

After that day the Major was unfortunately jinxed by the World Cup injury curse and was hors-de-combat, so with a team of three a change of tactics was called for.  Steve decided that he would go first on the E1s, and that Stewart and I would have to lead on anything easier.  We didn’t dare to argue.

The new plan was soon put to the test on the classic HVS of the crag, Hell’s Kitchen. (Nothing to do with reality TV, this is one of the earliest routes at Fairhead, first climbed in the early1970s when Gordon Ramsay was still in nappies).  It follows a huge open- book corner with two long 5a pitches, rising for over 60 metres to a very steep finale.  Stewart led us up the first pitch, with some tough moves on the left wall to get into the corner proper, and then I was sent up the top pitch, weighed down with enough gear to open a shop and determined to use most of it.

At first things went quite smoothly; the runners slotted in with gratifying regularity and as the corner steepened I was able to stay in balance by following the instructions from below to ‘do that crazy stemming, man!’ until just below the top, bridged out in a wild position below a bulge, I contemplated a precarious step up at exactly the point where the crack went blind and the runners were well below my feet rather than above my head.  So much for gear on demand.

It seemed obvious what to do – bridge out with the right foot on a tiny smear, move the left foot up onto a good hold above the bulge and stretch up to reach a pocket, but every time I tried it I could feel my foot slip on the lichenous rock and the hand holds were poor crimps that did not feel very secure. While I procrastinated the other two were passing the time by calling the odds on the outcome. After a quarter of an hour we had

            Retreat             6 to 4 on favourite

            Success            2 to 1

            Leader fall        10 to 1

and the substitute was warming up, but then I tried a different tactic, making a high step up without using the smear. It worked!  I grabbed the pocket and quickly slotted in yet another runner in to restore equilibrium. A few VS moves later and I was on top in the sunshine.  The others soon joined me and after enjoying the buzz following a great route we sorted the gear.  19 runners and a new record.

Steve, Stewart and me after Hells Kitchen

But Steve doesn’t know the meaning of defeat. We moved over to the Prow in the afternoon sunshine and Steve set off up Midnight Cruiser (E1), yet another 3 star route.  I was hanging on a rope taking photos but I couldn’t help noticing that it was not exactly a cruise and a lot of gear was being placed.  This was another tremendous route, almost 40 metres of steep and sustained climbing where virtually every move was 5a or 5b, with the crux right at the top.  After Stewart and I had been dragged up we counted the runners - 21!  Steve had his record back and we could go home happy.

Steve on Midnight Cruiser

The 21 runners Steve used on Midnight Cruiser

As well as the climbing I thoroughly enjoyed my first visit to Northern Ireland.  The coastal scenery was spectacular, the locals were very friendly and we enjoyed a rest day visiting Derry and sampling the wares at the nearby Bushmills distillery.  If you fancy a visit to Fairhead then find a tame E1 leader, keep doing the pull-ups, buy lots of cams and have a look at the excellent website www.fairheadclimbers.com where you will find both inspiration and plenty of useful advice.

Old Wrecks Day Out

Although I have been climbing in the South West for over twenty years, until recently I had never sampled the esoteric delights of the Culm Coast - the cliffs on the North coast of Devon and Cornwall around Hartland Point and Bude where the rock is metamorphosed shale. Climbing on shale had always seemed only suitable for masochists with small brains and large life assurance policies, but after my first visit I was pleasantly surprised, so perhaps this article might encourage others to go and see for themselves.

For those who judge a route’s quality in terms of its death potential, the guidebook features plenty of horrendous sounding extremes (mostly courtesy of Mick Fowler), but for ordinary mortals the obvious place to start is Wrecker's Slab, a 400 foot VS on Cornakey Cliff which now seems to be recognised as the best of the easier shale routes and is described in the guide as ‘a Culm classic which should not be missed by those who still possess the spirit of adventure’.  A further attraction, if you are interested in the history of the sport, is that the first ascent was made by the legendary Scottish climber, Tom Patey.

When I first started climbing in the early seventies, Patey was something of an icon to the group I climbed with, not because we had ever met him or even tried any of his routes, but because we were captivated by his book One Man's Mountains which was a constant source of inspiration and amusement.  The book is a collection of Patey's writing, published after his death in an abseiling accident in 1970, and is a mixture of satire (a sort of mountaineering Private Eye), conventional narratives and songs. I read most of the book again recently, looking to compare experiences after an unsavoury encounter with a puking fulmar, and while the satirical pieces seem rather dated after almost thirty years, the narrative articles are as fresh and entertaining as ever. Well worth a read if you can get hold of a copy.

Although most of Patey's climbing was in Scotland, he spent some time on National Service in Devon with the Royal Marines, and his most significant contributions to South West climbing were the first big routes on the Culm Coast - Wrecker's Slab and its neighbour Smuggler's Slab. For the first ascent of these routes in 1959 he was joined by two other distinguished nautical mountaineers - Zeke Deacon was the leading climber from the Commando climbing instructors, pioneer of many Cornish classics such as Bishop's Rib, and Keith Lawder was a retired Admiral whose finest hour was to come two years later when he led the first ascent of the Devil's Slide on Lundy at the age of 68.

I had been meaning to try Wrecker's for some time, but attempts to persuade various Wessex luminaries to join me had proved unsuccessful. Then having spent the previous weekend risking the curse of Viveash by plodding up a few Munros in the North of Scotland, it seemed time to do some proper climbing, so I recruited an unsuspecting Chris Bristow and we drove down from Weymouth on a perfect summer morning. The guide book instructed us to drive down a private track to a nearby farm, park in the yard, and ask the farmer's permission to walk across his land to the coast path. Much to my surprise, the farmer seemed perfectly happy with this arrangement and cheerfully showed us the way to the crag, situated in a perfect setting on an unspoiled and spectacular stretch of coastline.

As we sorted out our gear, it appeared that Chris had come equipped to re-create the conditions of the first ascent, as he produced his collection of ancient heavyweight steel karabiners. He was reluctantly persuaded to leave them behind, apart from an extra large screw-gate needed to anchor the tangle of faded tape which forms the Bristow patent full body harness. I have heard some people doubt the security of this arrangement, but I should point out that I was holding the other end of the rope when it was successfully field tested at the Dewerstone last year. Indeed, a small patch on the backside of Chris's shorts bore evidence to the minor collateral damage which was suffered during this test.

My first visit to a sea cliff usually involves a major epic to locate the way down, but for once there was no problem as an obvious path and a short scramble led down to sea level. (In fact the epic came later in the day when we tried to descend to the nearby Gull Rock over terrain that had the consistency and stability of a pile of corn flakes, but that's another story.) The crag is a collection of enormous overlapping slabs above a beach of smooth pebbles, and Wrecker's follows the largest slab, rising straight from the beach to the cliff top for over four hundred feet.

We roped up while Chris muttered about assorted injuries which he had acquired during dangerous pastimes such as DIY and badminton. I interpreted this as a suggestion that I should lead, so I set off up an awkward step off the beach, followed by seventy feet of simple slab climbing when the first runner conveniently appeared to protect a more tricky section to a stance in a grassy groove. The next pitch was supposed to be the crux and looked more challenging, as the slab steepened into an overlap that had to be circumvented by a shallow groove of shattered rock whose stability looked questionable. In fact it was much easier than it looked, for the technical grade was only Severe and although the groove contained a few throwaway holds, it was just as solid as the Ruckle at Swanage and about thirty degrees further from the vertical. There were even some good runners, with a wonderfully reassuring Friend placement to protect a long stride out of the groove and back onto the slab above the overlap. The rest of the pitch was pure joy; no protection for sixty feet, just perfectly easy slab climbing on sound rock with huge exposure, ending at a tiny ledge, belayed hopefully to a couple of in-situ pegs in the middle of the vast sweep of slab.

Chris led through on the next pitch - more slab climbing followed by a short steep crack that gave painful toe jams and a chance to stretch the arm muscles. Another long easy pitch, taken slowly to savour the exposure, and we could relax at the top of the cliff. Our first reaction was that the route had proved much easier and less serious than the guide book would suggest, for now that most of the loose rock has been removed, the VS grade is exceedingly generous. Not that this matters, for the route's attraction lies not in the difficulty of the climbing, but in other less tangible qualities - the sense of adventure on a big sea cliff, the enormous exposure in the upper part of the climb, the wonderful location, and the chance to follow in the footsteps of one of the great pioneers of British climbing.

Incidentally there are a couple of other Patey classics near the top of my wish-list, but the logistics of climbing them may prove more difficult. The Old Man of Stoer (VS) is a spectacular sea stack on the coast of North West Scotland near Lochinver, and Squareface is a V. Diff in the Garbh Coire of Beinn a Bhuird, one of the remotest parts of the Cairngorms, a mere ten miles from the nearest road. Anyone interested out there?

Looking for the Best

What’s the best VS in Britain?  A good topic for discussion in the pub, internet chat rooms or magazine articles, although the author in ‘On the Edge’ who gave the accolade to a 20 foot boulder problem within sight of a fast-food van on Dartmoor needs to get out more.  I’ve been looking for a long time, mainly because of a pathetic inability to climb any harder, and I have fond memories of personal favourites in all parts of the country, from the Cornish sea cliffs to the Scottish Highlands, but there were two particular routes which had somehow escaped my attention and seemed a suitable target for the summer.

So when a visit to Pen y Clogwyn with the Lyness clan coincided with a rare spell of settled weather, there was only one place to go.  I’m not sure if Carolyn knew quite what she was letting herself in for, as she seemed surprised when we had been plodding up the hill for over an hour and still not reached the crag, but she didn’t complain too much and we were soon leaving the Snowdon tourist track and taking the climbers’ path round under the cliff. 

‘Clogwyn Du’r Arddu; The Black Cliff; The Temple; The Mecca; The Shrine of British climbing’.  That’s what the guidebook says, and for once the hype is entirely justified. Even the religious metaphors seem appropriate, for the change in atmosphere as you go from a sunny hillside into the cool shadow of the crag is like entering a medieval cathedral on a hot summer’s day. 

We moved along to the start of Great Slab, the only easy way through the overhangs which guard the entry to the vast overlapping slabs of the West Buttress.  I could see that Carolyn was a little unnerved by the atmosphere and scale of the place, a common reaction on a first visit to Cloggy, but I persuaded her to lead the superb first pitch of Great Slab and of course she coped OK.  So far this was familiar ground as Great Slab had been my first route on Cloggy back in the seventies, but I wanted to do the Great Slab / Bow-Shaped Slab combination, which takes the best bits of classic routes by two of the great pioneers of Welsh climbing, Colin Kirkus and Menlove Edwards, 550 feet of climbing up the middle of the West Buttress, and generally reckoned to be the finest VS in Wales (or at least until the new guide upgraded it to HVS).

A staircase of holds up an exposed rib took us up to the crux of Bow-Shaped, traversing the arrow of the bow across a steep wall with feet in a break but almost nothing to hold on to, in a very exposed position above a concave slab sweeping several hundred feet down to the foot of the crag.  It looked quite alarming with the last runners some way below, but I had some inside knowledge from reading up Cloggy history in my well-thumbed copy of The Black Cliff (long out of print – I saw a copy advertised for £165 recently).  After Edwards’ first ascent in 1941 the route was not repeated for seven years, in spite of a number of attempts by the leading climbers of the day, and the eventual second ascent turned into something of an epic.  Protected by a runner at the start, the leader had climbed the crux but the second declined to follow and so they continued to the top with one man on Bow and the other on Great, connected by 200 feet of hemp line.

Almost 60 years later, I reflected that they only had one sort of runner in 1948 and sure enough, a brief search revealed a small spike above the start of the traverse.  A tape runner on the spike and suddenly everything seemed much more friendly.  It’s easy to be bold with a runner above your head and I got across without too much trouble, but when Carolyn came to follow the look of horror on her face was a sight to behold, as a fall from the traverse would have led to an impressive pendulum.  But I had a cunning plan.  By leaving a back rope on the small spike we could make the traverse quite safe with a runner at both ends, and flick the runner off after Carolyn had crossed.

After the excitement of the crux the rest of the climb is just pure pleasure – a long pitch up the middle of the slab and a surprisingly simple exit through the bulge at the very tip of the bow into easy climbing and sunshine at the top of the crag. 

Carolyn on the final easy pitch of Bow Shaped  Slab

That was a day to remember, but there was still another climb to do and a few weeks later we were heading for a rendezvous with the Old Man of Stoer, a 200 foot sea stack on the North West coast of Scotland near Lochinver.  You first see the Old Man from about half a mile away and very impressive he looks, for his landward face is dead vertical apart from an overhang at half height, and the seaward side bulges with a substantial beer belly.  You can see why the 1950s guide book described him as ‘evidently quite unclimbable’.  It was Tom Patey who showed the way, finding a route to the summit in 1966 at a modest VS standard and writing an account in his book ‘One Man’s Mountains’ (which you can buy for £6.99 rather than £165).

Our first view of the Old Man of Stoer

A sea stack has to be surrounded by sea.  In case this seems like a statement of the bleedin’ obvious, the most famous British ‘sea stack’, the Old Man’s big brother in Orkney, does not qualify, and if you are in a pedantic mood the Old Man of Hoy is a mere foreshore pinnacle.  Anyway, the Old Man of Stoer is a proper sea stack, as a channel of deep water, about 20 feet wide, separates him from the foreshore.  In spite of his enthusiasm for sea stack climbing Patey was a non-swimmer and on the first ascent his team brought two ladders to cross the channel, but the usual plan nowadays is to get the most gullible member of the team to swim the channel and fix a rope for a tyrolean traverse.  As it was my idea to come here I had volunteered for the swim, though with no great enthusiasm as a brief paddle on the beach by the campsite had shown that the sea temperature in these parts was rather colder than what I was used to on the Dorset coast.

But salvation was at hand, for when we reached the cliff top opposite the Old Man we could see that there was already a rope in place for the tyrolean and two other climbers were going down to test it.  There was more good news, as the Old Man seemed to be free of the vicious fulmars that nest in early summer, ready to repel invading climbers by vomiting over them with a foul-smelling orange slime.

Two old men

We scrambled gingerly down steep grass and rock to the base of the cliff.  Carolyn seemed to find this hard going but she got no sympathy from me.  I pointed out that Patey’s team had descended this same slope with ladders balanced round their necks, where ‘the penalty for a slip was instant decapitation’.

Tyrolean traverse to the Old Man

In spite of my best efforts to tension it, the tyrolean rope sagged alarmingly under my weight, but it kept me just above the water and we crossed without getting wet.  From here the stack rears up, impossibly vertical, so the route sneaks off leftwards, traversing a steep wall on flat holds and slippery hand-jams.  Halfway across the footholds disappeared, causing me a slight panic until I could stuff a Friend into the crack in front of my nose; this is the hardest part of the climb.  As I reached the end of the traverse I was startled by a bird which shot out from under my feet - not a fulmar but a black guillemot, a common bird on this coast, which dived and gave me a great view of its elegant underwater swimming technique in the clear water below.

The first (and hardest) pitch on the Old Man. The route traverses left to the big ledge.

From the end of the traverse, upward progress is more feasible, and three more pitches take you to the top.  As well as leading to a spectacular summit, it’s a superb climb in its own right, continuously interesting and varied on perfect rough Torridonian sandstone, with some nifty route finding to find the easiest line and huge exposure on the top pitch.  After lounging around for a while on the surprisingly spacious summit the next problem was to get down, and although the abseil anchors are well below the top, I had read somewhere that 50 metre ropes will only just reach the ground on rope stretch.  As the last half of the abseil is completely free, this must give an interesting descent, hanging in space and wondering if the ropes will reach the ground.  Fortunately we were spared this excitement as we had now caught up the pair in front and they kindly allowed us to use their 60 metre ropes, so that the descent and return to shore were straightforward.

The clouds dispersed to give a sublime evening.  We pottered on the beach at Clachnessie to find samples of Lewissian Gneiss for the Lyness geological museum, celebrated with dinner and a few beers in a harbourside pub in Lochinver where the sun was so strong that they had to draw the blinds, then wandered up above the campsite to get a phone signal and to marvel at the panorama - across the sea to the Western Isles and inland to the extraordinary profile of Suilven, lit up in the evening sun.  A bank of cloud in the west heralded the end of the good weather, but we could hardly complain after such a wonderful day.

The view from near the campsite at Achmelvich

So which route was the best?  You can never be sure, as there are always plenty of new climbs to do.  On the way back south we stopped off in Glencoe and enjoyed a grand day on the Etive Slabs, when the sun was strong enough to keep the midges away and Carolyn thought that Spartan Slab was the best route of the summer.  As for me, I reckon that Cloggy takes some beating but I’ll reserve judgement until I have made the four hour walk in to the heart of the Great Wilderness and climbed Fionn Buttress on Carnmore Crag.  

Living the Dream

The dream began in 1970 on a weekend meet of the university mountaineering in North Wales.  Appropriately enough for one of our oldest universities, the climbing activities on these meets were organised on strictly meritocratic principles – the bumblies were kicked out of the minibus at Ogwen to go and play at Idwal, leaving the A team in splendid isolation to continue to Anglesey for some real climbing on Craig Gogarth. No need to tell you which group I was in.

In those days the climbs on the Gogarth sea cliffs had only just been opened up and it was seen as a rather serious place for experts only, but the A team were operating at a high standard – their leading light, both on the rock and in generally outrageous behaviour, was a very young Alan Rouse, who was to become one of the country’s leading mountaineers before he died on K2 after making the first British ascent in 1986.

On this particular weekend, after we had spent the day pottering up Charity on Idwal Slabs, we met up with the A team who returned from Anglesey enthusing about a route called A Dream of White Horses.  Apparently it was very spectacular but quite easy and I innocently wondered whether it was something that I might aspire to, but, not wishing to appear ignorant, I didn’t ask them the grade and went and looked it up in the guide book later.  In the grading system of the time it was ‘Extreme’– in other words on a totally different planet to the V.Diffs that were my habitat in those days.

A panorama shot of Wen Slab at Gogarth. The climb traverses the slab from right to left.

From North Wales, August 2007

Fast forward more than 30 years and A Dream of White Horses had become one of the most celebrated Welsh rock climbs, not just because of the intrinsic merits of the climb, but more because of the inspirational route name and a first ascent photo which has become one of the iconic images of British rock climbing - two climbers poised precariously on an enormous slab rising straight out of a turbulent sea, just out of reach of the spray as an enormous wave explodes beneath their feet.

More importantly, the grade had dropped to a soft-touch HVS, a level which ordinary punters like me might be able to cope with on a good day, and it became one of those routes which you just had to do.  I remember an account of Dream in one of Jim Curran’s books, prompted by Don Whillans asking him ‘Have you done that Dream of White Horses?  Because every other bugger has.’  Except that ‘every other bugger’ didn’t include me.

The plan to rectify this was made in a mountain lodge in Nepal last Easter when, with brain cells not functioning properly due to the lack of oxygen at over 4000 metres, I allowed Norman Wright to persuade me that Dream would be a suitable objective for the summer.  Back home at sea level I sought guidance from the Swanage oracle, a legendary grey-bearded figure who claims to be the fount of all knowledge on anything to do with climbing (and on most other subjects for that matter).  Of course he had climbed Dream.  He reckoned I should be OK, but told me to make sure that I led the last pitch.

We drove over from Pen y Clogwyn to Holyhead on Friday the 13^th, perhaps an inauspicious date for a first visit to Gogarth, but it was our last chance to avoid the weekend in the hope that there would be no-one else around to get in our way or to witness any epics and displays of general incompetence.  On arrival at North Stack, the cliff was out of sight below but a well trodden path led down a grassy spur towards the sea, so we followed it until suddenly we found ourselves confronted with a spectacular grandstand view of the crag – a massive steep slab of white rock, almost 300 feet high, rising straight out of the sea on the other side of a zawn.  After all the time studying the famous photo, it was almost a surprise to find that there were no white horses, just a flat calm sea  and a light mist swirling round to add to the atmosphere. Even without white horses it all looked pretty scary, but it was too late to back out now.

The 'grandstand' view of Wen Slab, with a climber on the crux of Dream.

From North Wales, August 2007

The route is a long rising leftward traverse for almost 400 feet, two pitches across the slab and then a horrendous looking final pitch traversing round the back wall of the zawn, with overhangs above and a huge cave below.  At low tide you can start from sea level, but today the tide was in so we abseiled nervously down to a small ledge at the start of the traverse, relieved to find that the slab was actually rather less steep than had it appeared from the other side of the zawn.
After a bit of a struggle to sort out the ropes on the tiny stance, I set off across the traverse - easily at first, then a couple of slightly more tricky moves past an ancient peg and then…  I prevaricated for a while, contemplating a blank section of slab and unable to decide whether to go high or low.  A few spots of drizzle fell, adding to my uncertainty.  But eventually I managed to fix a couple of high runners and once I made the commitment it only needed a long reach and one delicate step to reach good holds and a comfortable resting place.

After reading several accounts of the route, I knew what to expect for the belay at the end of the pitch – standing on one large foothold and hanging in the harness attached to two rock spikes and a couple of wire nuts.  Fortunately I did not have to wait long, for Norman breezed across the traverse, as if to shame my hesitation, and then made short work of the next pitch.  This was quite a contrast - a rising diagonal crack with good handholds, climbed briskly as there was little for the feet apart from small rugosities on the steep slab.  At least there was somewhere to stand on the next stance in the well-named Concrete Chimney, a vertical fault filled with a strange conglomerate which fortunately was far more solid than it appeared.

Now for the last pitch over the cave, trying not to remember the guide book’s warning that a fall by either leader or second could leave you hanging in space 200 feet above the sea.  The start was simple enough – a traverse across a steep slab under a roof, but the slab soon ended and I had to make a precarious descent, searching for footholds while trying to avoid looking down past my feet to the sea a long way below.

The amazing  final pitch of Dream, much easier than it looks.

It was now clear why the oracle had told me to lead this pitch, for a solid runner under the roof meant that I could make the moves in complete safety with a rope almost directly above, and after a couple of awkward steps a long grope round a rib revealed a perfect incut hold for a swing round onto easier ground.  And then it was all remarkably straightforward, for what had appeared to be a trouser-filling traverse on steep walls of crumbling rock was in fact a sequence of delightfully easy climbing on solid holds where I could stand in balance, fix plenty of runners to calm the nerves, and enjoy the spectacular position.  A final awkward step, pulling against the rope drag, and a short bottomless groove led to the top.  Quite a pitch!

I fixed a belay on the edge so that I could enjoy the view of the ropes trailing back across the traverse to Norman, waiting anxiously on the last stance.  The step down is much less well protected for the second, but he made it without any fuss and soon joined me. Well worth waiting over 30 years for.

That account was written in 2004. In 2007 I returned with Carolyn Lyness and repeated the climb on a perfect summer day, when the photos were taken.

Carolyn, very pleased to have survived the Dream.

Gneiss Work

Regular readers of this newsletter (both of you) may remember that I wrote an article a couple of years ago on the theme of the best VS in Britain, describing ascents of Great-Bow Combination on Cloggy and the Old Man of Stoer.  The article concluded ‘… I reckon that Cloggy takes some beating but I’ll reserve judgement until I have made the four hour walk in to the heart of the Great Wilderness and climbed Fionn Buttress on Carnmore Crag.’

The ‘Great Wilderness’ is the name often given to the region north of Loch Maree in the North West Highlands, a spectacular area of remote mountains, beautiful lochs and huge crags.  In truth, the wilderness tag is something of an exaggeration, as at the heart of the area at Carnmore there is a large house reached by a newly rebuilt path and a concrete causeway across a loch, but there are no roads and none of the conifer forests or bulldozed tracks that spoil some parts of the Highlands.  For the hill walker the highlight is the fine summit of A’ Mhaighdean, an outstanding viewpoint and generally reckoned to be the most remote of all the Munros, while climbers are drawn by the huge crag above the house at Carnmore.  As well as two Hard Rock ticks in Dragon and Gob at HVS, the crag has an 800 foot VS called Fionn Buttress that does not feature in any of the coffee table books but still has a considerable reputation – do a search on the UKClimbing website and you will find comments like ‘the definitive Scottish mountain route’, ‘relentlessly steep and exposed VS climbing’ and ‘a candidate for the best VS in the world’.  I know that you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet, but I wanted to find out if these superlatives were justified.

The long walk into Carnmore.

Back in June 2004, I persuaded Stewart Walker to join me on the 10 mile walk in from Poolewe to Carnmore.  We arrived in early afternoon and set ourselves up in the barn that provides a primitive doss below the crag, but 3pm seemed a bit late to be setting off on an eleven pitch route and in any case there was no rush as we had food for two days, so we settled for a shorter climb.  Big mistake.  The climb we chose, a VS called Black Mischief, was pleasant enough but the next morning it rained.  Then it rained some more.  By late afternoon the weather improved and allowed us to admire the wonderful view from the top of A’Mhaighdean, but the crags were still dripping the following morning.  Exhausted of food and enthusiasm, we trudged rather dejectedly back to Poolewe.

Three years later, and Stewart and I were again heading north on the back of a forecast suggesting that the only hope of good weather was in the far north west.  Rain followed us all the way up the A9, but things improved as we went west and by the time we reached the long winding shores of Loch Maree the clouds had lifted and we were looking forward to an afternoon’s climbing.

For non-geologists, the title of this article refers to Lewisian gneiss, one of the oldest rocks in the world and the predominant rock in these parts.  It doesn’t make for spectacular mountains like the younger Torridonian sandstone, but for the climber it is splendid stuff, superbly rough and with hidden pockets and sharp holds that allow unlikely lines to be climbed at a reasonable grade.  The Carnmore crags are gneiss, but if you want to try some nice gneiss climbing without a four hour walk, follow our example and head for the Stone Valley Crag near Gairloch, only half an hour from the road but in a beautiful location looking out to the wizard’s mountain of Baosbheinn and across to Skye and Harris.  We enjoyed a pleasant afternoon climbing the three easiest routes from the SMC ‘Scottish Rock Climbs’ guide on immaculate rock where good holds and runner placements seemed to appear exactly when most needed.

Approaching the lodge at Carnmore.with the crag behind.

I suspect that, having already been dragged off on one madcap expedition that involved a 10 mile walk to spend two days in a squalid barn watching the rain fall, most people would be reluctant to repeat the experience, but Stewart was made of sterner stuff, and agreed to a return visit to Carnmore with not even a hint of protest.  He did complain when I tried to leave half of the climbing gear behind to save weight, and although we eventually compromised on what gear to take, Stewart then added some more kit to ensure that his impressively large sac was full to overflowing so there was no danger of me being outpaced on the walk in.

5 star accommodation inside the barn at Carnmore

After a leisurely start from Poolewe, we were eating lunch in the barn by 2pm, and in view of our previous experience it seemed a good idea to go straight for Fionn Buttress.  At first things didn’t go according to plan - the approach to the crag was a tiresome flog up steep boulders and grass, and then the guide book’s description of the first pitch seemed to bear scant resemblance to the topography of the cliff and we spent a while faffing about trying to find the way.  In such circumstances the best plan, especially if your route takes the easiest line, is to forget the book and follow your nose so we did just that and after two pitches I found an unmistakeable large flake at the foot of a grey slab that fitted the guide book’s description and confirmed that we were on the right route.

Now the route started in earnest, with a bold lead by Stewart up the slab, climbed on pockets in otherwise blank rock with a long run-out at the top, followed by another VS pitch up a water-worn corner, also without much gear apart from a cunningly threaded microwire that gave moral support rather than actual security.  After a few pitches we could now appreciate the vast scale of the crag, and when belaying it was hard to avoid negative thoughts, especially when a rain shower passed a couple of miles away on the other side of the Fionn Loch.  What if we couldn’t climb one of the pitches - or what if it poured with rain when we are halfway up the route - or how would we cope with an accident in such a remote spot?

We were now approaching a substantial roof that runs across the crag, which the guide book told us to surmount by ‘sensational moves’.  I sent my man up with every confidence, and he justified my faith by making short work of the pitch.  When I came to follow, I found out why.  You know how most indoor climbing walls have an overhang covered in big holds so that even weak old men like me can climb it?  Well, this was the natural version.  Except that it was halfway up an 800 foot crag in the middle of nowhere.  And the crucial hold was far better than anything man-made - a stonking great flake of rough gneiss that you could wrap your whole hand round and heave up on whilst revelling in the feeling of complete security.

That was an amazing pitch, but there was even better to follow, although the guide book gave little away; ‘25m, 4b. Traverse right across the face to a stance on the true nose of the buttress.’  What it didn’t say was that the traverse was along the lip of a bulge above a 400 foot drop with exposure worthy of the Dolomites. It was a truly sensational pitch, with no escape from the huge exposure as on a traverse every move required you to look down for a foothold and your eyes were drawn down to the foot of the crag a vast distance below, but the climbing was easy and the gear plentiful, so that it was not too hard to stay in control and savour the experience.  The traverse ended at a tiny stance with a barely adequate belay and there was more excitement to come, a bold swing out of a groove to grab a huge flake and pull up a steep wall on superb jugs, another brilliant pitch in a wonderfully exposed position.

The space-walking traverse on Fionn Buttress

Stewart following the traverse pitch

And then, after seven pitches, the climb relented.  The angle dropped back, the huge exposure was gone and we could relax and enjoy the scenery, content that the climb was in the bag.  There were still four pitches to go, lovely climbing at about severe standard on perfect rough rock to finish on a splendid belvedere, surrounded on three sides by steep drops, where we could sit in the evening sun, pose for photos and admire the spectacular view – east across the Dubh Loch to A’Mhaighdean and Slioch, south to the huge crags on Ben Lair, and west along the length of the Fionn Loch to the sea and the islands.  Even the descent was relatively painless for such a huge crag, down steep grass slopes strewn with orchids and alive with small frogs that jumped prodigious distances to get out of the way as we approached.

The fine weather continued the next morning, but vague ambitions to try Gob were abandoned as our adrenaline supplies seemed to have been exhausted the previous evening. Instead we settled for a stress-free morning climbing a pleasant severe – appropriately named Ecstacy - on Carnan Ban below A’Mhaighdean before setting out on the long walk back to Poolewe.

Stewart enjoying the view from the top of Fionn Buttress

So is this the best VS in Britain?  Well, I don’t really pay too much attention to this ‘best climb’ business – that was just a convenient hook on which to hang the previous article – as there are so many memorable climbs on high mountain crags or adventurous sea cliffs that to single out one would be impossible.  But Fionn Buttress does justify those superlatives - it is worth every step of the long walk in and I don’t know of any other VS that can beat it for length, exposure, steepness and quality of climbing.  It would be a wonderful climb even in the most humdrum of locations, but at Carnmore, ten miles from the nearest road, surrounded by stunning scenery, and with an outlook over an array of dazzling lochs and across the Minch to the Outer Hebrides… it doesn’t get much better than this.

Another 40 Years of Puerile Ticking

I must have had a misspent youth. In the summer of 1968 I should have been demonstrating against the Vietnam war or taking part in student protests, clad in flower-power gear and under the influence of illicit substances. Instead, I was trudging up Cairngorm, weighed down under a steel-framed canvas rucsac containing camping gear, a primus stove and enough Vesta curries, Ryvita and dried apple flakes to last for a week. It was my first Scottish mountain – my first Munro, although I knew nothing about Munros at the time – and the start of a journey that would last almost 40 years.

A mate from school had persuaded me and two others to join him in an attempt to climb the seven 4000 foot mountains in Scotland (now there are nine - even mountains are affected by inflation), starting with a five-day backpacking trip across the Cairngorms from Aviemore to Blair Atholl. This was a fairly ambitious debut as my mountaineering CV at the time was limited to a walk up Snowdon and a ride on the Aiguille du Midi cable-car, and I was one of the more experienced members of the team. At first everything went according to plan - we camped out on the Cairngorm plateau and descended to Loch Avon to view the Shelter Stone, but then our primitive navigational techniques were hopelessly inadequate at finding the summit of Ben Macdui in thick mist and we floundered around aimlessly for a while before somehow finding our way down to camp in the Lairig Ghru. The next day was a different story. In perfect weather we made the circuit of the Garbh Coire from Cairn Toul to Braeriach, one of the finest high-level walks in the country, and to a youngster on his first visit to the Highlands the wide open spaces and the grandeur of the scenery were hugely impressive. I was hooked.

Later in that trip we walked across Rannoch Moor to Glencoe where we went up Bidean nam Bian and admired the jagged ridge of the Aonach Eagach. Now in those days information was much harder to come by, and for inspiration and guidance we relied on W.A.Poucher’s book ‘The Scottish Peaks’. Poucher’s descriptions tend towards the dramatic - a cliff is always a ‘bristling bastion’ or a ‘mural precipice’ - and there are dire warnings of the consequences if a route like the Aonach Eagach were to be attempted by the ‘ordinary pedestrian’ rather than the ‘experienced mountaineer’. Being young and innocent we believed all this tosh, but the warden of the Glencoe youth hostel encouraged us to give it a go and of course we had no problem, romping along the ridge and thoroughly enjoying the exposed scrambling. That day was a revelation to us, as we realised that Poucher’s grim warnings could be ignored and that all of the Scottish mountains were open to us.

Next year we were back, seeking what Poucher with typical flourish calls ‘the magic and mystery of the incomparable Cuillin’. The Carbost school bus and an outstretched thumb took us to Glen Brittle for a perfect evening with the mountains glowing orange in the setting sun, but the next morning was a bitter disappointment with damp mist enveloping the campsite and the Skye midges out in force. With no car, the only escape was upwards so we walked up Sgurr Dearg, the one and only time that I have climbed a mountain in mist all the way from sea level to summit.

In those days we had no rock climbing ambitions, so we watched some climbers on the Inaccessible Pinnacle and had just started our descent when we were lucky enough to witness the most spectacular transformation that I have ever seen in the mountains. Suddenly the clouds parted, leaving us in a wonderland of bright sunshine above a perfect cloud inversion, the individual peaks of the Cuillin Ridge sticking up like small rocky islands in a white sea. Elated, we strolled along the ridge for a while before reluctantly descending through the cloud to a still gloomy Glen Brittle.

We returned to Skye a couple of years later and duly climbed the In Pin, for by now I had acquired a rope and some vague idea of how to use it. But that was the end of an era, for rock climbing seemed far more exciting than plodding up the hills and I gave up on the Scottish hills for almost a decade, apart from one red letter day doing the Cuillin Ridge traverse with Roy Fisher in 1980.

Abseil from the Inaccessible Pinnacle during the Cuillin Ridge traverse

My revived interest in the Munros can be blamed on a ginger-bearded Scotsman, the splendidly named Dr. Fergus Macbeth. When he joined the Wessex in the early 1980s, Fergus had already climbed over 200 Munros and saw winter meets as a chance to add to his tally. Unsuspecting innocents on their first visit to Scotland were persuaded to forego the pleasures of the Ben or the Buchaille, and dragged on a marathon yomp across miles of bog and heather to climb some undistinguished lump with an unpronounceable name, whose sole merit was the blank space against its name in Dr Macdeath’s copy of Munro’s Tables. Suddenly everyone was aware of the Munros and had worked out their personal tally, and winter meets became very competitive as people vied to climb the most Munros in the week. I once managed 12, but I believe Alan James held the record with 17.

Fergus Macbeth on a perfect winter's day on the Aonach Eagach ridge, 1984

Over the next ten years or so, I was usually making both a summer and winter trip to Scotland every year, and my Munro tally grew steadily. It’s easy to scoff at the trainspotting mentality of Munro bagging (to save you asking, yes, I did collect train numbers as a boy, though it was in the age of steam…) but one advantage is that it forces you to visit some fine and very remote hills that are far enough from the nearest road to require an overnight stay in a tent or bothy. I have fond memories from a winter meet in the early 1990s, when a group of us spent the night in the Bearnais bothy before climbing the very remote Munros of Bideain a’Choire Sheasgaich and Lurg Mhor. It was a superb day with snow clad mountains stretching as far as the eye could see, and we had lingered a while to admire the scenery so that we were behind schedule when we reached the top of Lurg Mhor. Even so, it was impossible to resist a little extra excursion to the even more isolated top of Meall Mhor, an exhilarating scramble along an icy ridge, a miniature Aonach Eagach in the wilderness above Loch Monar.

Alan James on Lurg Mhor before he lost his trousers

Back on Lurg Mhor, time was pressing and the aforementioned Mr James decided to remove his trousers for the sake of speed, a wise move until we got back to Bearnais and discovered that the trousers, together with wallet and car keys, were not in his rucksack but still on the top of Lurg Mhor. Alan went back to retrieve them while the rest of us walked out to Strathcarron, the long miles eased by watching the sun reflecting off hundreds of pools of water before it finally set behind the Cuillin. We got back just before dark, enjoyed a meal in the pub at Lochcarron, and drove back to Kinlochewe with the Northern Lights flashing overhead to complete an unforgettable day.

By the late 1990s I had only around a dozen Munros left to do, none of them difficult, but somehow the challenge was gone and I felt no hurry to finish. The wheel turned full circle as I rediscovered a love for rock climbing, helped by an enthusiastic climbing partner and the discovery that, with modern gear and a bit of training on the QE wall, I could lead routes that had seemed beyond me twenty years earlier. The remaining Munros were picked off sporadically until I decided that it was time to finish, to meet my 40 year target and to avoid being beaten to the finishing line by my good friend Mr. Fisher, who has been with me on over 100 Munros. And so the last two were done this April, first Ben Lomond with Liz on a day of blue skies and superb views, then on Meall Lunndaidh on a more typical day in the wild north-west with Les Nuttall, John Whitfield and Bob Williams.

On my penultimate Munro - Ben Lomond, April 2008

284 Munros are bound to leave you with a host of memories, some bad but mostly good, of the Scottish mountains in all seasons and all weathers. I know that our editor, who has missed his true vocation as a journalist on a red-top tabloid, is keen to hear tales of accidents and disasters, but I have to disappoint him as my Munros have been boringly free of epics – no rescues, no broken bones, not even a descent into the wrong valley.

Les Nuttall lending me his Munroist's tie, Meall Lunndaidh, April 2008

Maybe I have been lucky – I remember a particularly wild winter day, lost and disorientated in a total white-out on Ben Wyvis, when we stopped for a breather, happened to notice a familiar metal plate under our feet and realised that we were standing on top of the summit trig pillar. Navigation was a bit easier after that. In fact, the two most dangerous episodes have both been at low level when, on my own and miles from anywhere, I found myself wading waist-deep across rivers that were flowing much too fast for comfort.

And the best memories? Too many to mention, but perhaps the best of all are Alpine winter days with crisp névé under foot, blue skies overhead, and views that go on for ever. Such days are all to rare, but I can remember great days with perfect winter conditions on the Aonach Eagach, Ben Nevis, Cairngorm and the Blackmount. Then there are the times rock climbing high on the Munros, getting two pleasures for the price of one – a beautiful day with my 14-year old son on Ben Nevis’ Tower Ridge, sensational exposure on the Rannoch Wall of Buchaille Etive Mor, the magnificent Eagle Ridge on Lochnagar or the spectacular rock architecture and supreme isolation of Squareface and Mitre Ridge on Beinn a Bhuird in the Cairngorms.

On Lochnagar after Eagle Ridge, June 2003

For pure enjoyment you cannot beat the west coast on mountains rising straight out of the sea like Blaven, Ben Sgriol, Ladhar Bheinn or Sgurr na Ciche, where you can stroll along airy ridges above dazzling seascapes and feel on top of the world. And my favourite Munro is on the west coast - Sgurr Alasdair on Skye, a tiny rocky pyramid poised in the sky with huge drops all around and a spectacular panorama of mountains and sea - though maybe I am biased because I have been there six times and always been able to enjoy a view that is a fine as anything in the British hills.

Munro bagging obliges you to keep records, so I know of 50 past and present Wessex members who have been with me on at least one Munro. Thank you all for your encouragement and good company.

PS. Lots more Munroing photos can be found in this Picasa web album

PPS. The title is unashamedly pinched from an article in the Climbers Club Journal by Derek Walker, where the ticks are climbs in the book Hard Rock. You can find it at https://www.needlesports.com/needlesports/hardrock/walker2.htm