Like most climbers of a certain age, I first came across sea
stack climbing by watching the BBC outside broadcast of the Old Man of Hoy in
1967, with an all-star cast including Joe Brown and Chris Bonington. You can find clips on the internet (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6aYKZwr15k)
and it is real old school climbing – no chalk, no sticky boots, no cams (in
fact hardly any runners at all), but EBs, breeches, woolly socks and the talent
to be able climb Extreme while simultaneously giving a laconic running commentary and smoking
a roll-up.
A few years later I made a first visit to the far north west
of Scotland. We came to enjoy the wonderful miniature mountains of Suilven and
Stac Polly, but we also took time out to visit the Stoer peninsular, with its
beautiful white sand beaches, stunning panorama of the mountains of Assynt and
Coigach and its own Old Man. The Old Man
of Stoer is a spectacular 60 metre pinnacle and looks quite a challenge with
his bulging beer-belly, but when I found out that the climb was only VS he was
quickly added to the List Of Things To Do.
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| The Old Man of Stoer |
He stayed on The List for over 30 years before I came back
to climb him with Carolyn Lyness in 2005. That was one of those rare days when
everything went according to plan – the weather was perfect on our first day in
the area, there was a rope in place for the tyrolean traverse so we didn’t have
to get wet, and the route gave four pitches of superb VS climbing. I was so
impressed I even wrote an article for this newsletter.
Soon after that I finally got round to finishing the Munros
and, needing an excuse to keep going to Scotland, started visiting the islands.
In 2011 it was time for Orkney, so Liz and I booked up for a week on the
largest island (confusingly called Mainland) and a few days on two of the
smaller islands. It was meant to be a
non-climbing trip, but it seemed a shame to go all that way and not do the Old
Man of Hoy. At E1 it’s a bit too hard
for me to lead, so I tried to see if I could find a guide to take me up.
There didn’t seem to be any local guides, but after a search
of UK Climbing I came across a bloke who ran a small guiding business and had
taken clients up the Old Man. I emailed
to ask if he could help. No, he was off
to the Alps for the summer but his mate might be able to help. And he was not just any old mate - his friend
turned out to be the editor of the SMC guide books and all-round Scottish
climbing legend, Andy Nisbet.
We fixed up a date for the climb. Andy was very helpful – we
agreed to get in touch the weekend before and change the date if the forecast
looked better, and if the weather was really dire we would bin the whole plan
and he wouldn’t charge me.
I need not have worried, as it turned out that Andy’s many
attributes include the ability to predict the weather six weeks in advance. The
forecast for the chosen day could not have been better, and on the night before
Liz and I walked round the stone circle of the Ring of Brodgar in magical
evening light before driving down to meet Andy in Stromness. I had wondered how
we would recognise each other, but there was no mistaking our man as he came
off the ferry, with his huge rucksack and bushy ginger beard – a Scottish
mountaineer straight from central casting.
Next morning we were back in Stromness to catch the early
ferry across to Hoy, where Andy had arranged a taxi to take us to
Rackwick on the other side of the island. The walk from here to the Old Man is a
marvellous prelude to the climb, starting from Rackwick Bay with its beautiful
sandy beach and huge red sandstone cliffs, then walking along the cliff top
with the skuas wheeling overhead and grand views across the Pentland Firth to
the hills of Caithness and Sutherland. From a mile away your sense of
anticipation is heightened as the top of the Old Man pops up over the moor, but
nothing more is revealed until you reach the viewpoint opposite the stack, peer
over the edge…
… and pick your jaw up of the ground, for no matter how many
photos and films you have seen, nothing can prepare you for a first close-up
view of this extraordinary 135 metre pinnacle. From here, level with the top of
the stack and a couple of hundred metres away, the climb looks especially
daunting and it is hard to believe that, of the five pitches on the climb, only
one is harder than VS.
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| Andy Nisbet on the descent path to the Old Man of Hoy. The route follows the face on this side of the stack.
But what a pitch that is! An hour or so later I was
contemplating it with some anxiety, even from the supposed safety of the blunt
end of the rope. You start from a spacious platform 40 metres up, but have to
move out onto the East Face and its frightening exposure. Below, the face is
undercut, so you look straight down to the boulder beach below your feet, while
above you the face bulges out into big overhangs, emphasised by a fixed rope (more
of that anon) hanging way out in space and swaying in the breeze. You
have to climb down a little corner and then traverse for about 8 metres –
nothing too hard but there were no runners and I was all too aware that a slip
would result in a monster pendulum ending miles out from the rock and a long
prusik to regain contact, so there were a few anxious moments before I reached
the end of the traverse where the rope was directly above. The
difficult climbing now starts, but the rest of the pitch is 20 metres of remarkable
climbing, finding a way through seriously overhanging terrain, mostly by hugely
exposed bridging moves but without anything too strenuous.
Two rather scruffy pitches follow to take you to the grand
finale, ‘an Orcadian Cenotaph Corner’. It’s just as steep as the Llanberis
version, but with much bigger holds and without the polish, and gives a
wonderful 30 metre VS pitch to the top.
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| The Old Man of Hoy with Andy and me on top. Photo from a walker who we met later on the ferry. |
It was a special privilege to be able to enjoy this
spectacular summit on such a perfect day, so we lazed around for a while, enjoying
the views and posing for the photographers on the cliff opposite, before
starting back down. For the first
abseils the only problem is to convince yourself that there is some safety in
numbers in the vast collection of rotten wires, pegs and bolts that form the
belays, but the abseil down the crux pitch is more exciting; clipped into a
fixed rope and hanging way out from the rock before being pulled back to the
stance.
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| The free abseil down the crux pitch. |
After I got back I posted a few photos on Facebook and a
certain Mr Stevens commented ‘Am Buachaille next?’ Now that was a challenge.
Am
Buachaille is the third in the holy trinity of classic Scottish sea stacks that
were first climbed by Tom Patey in the 1960s. It doesn’t have the same profile as
the two Old Men – there is no write-up in Patey’s book One Man’s Mountains and it sees far fewer ascents – but it looked
to be a most excellent adventure in a stunning location.
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| Am Buachaille, showing the channel that guards the base of the stack. |
Carolyn was still up for a challenge so we made the long
drive north last June. Unfortunately the
weather was not cooperating; after almost a week we had only managed a few
short routes on the sea cliffs of Skye and Rieff, and we drove into Scourie on
an afternoon of continuous rain. But things were looking up, as a couple of dry
days were forecast and we were getting youthful reinforcement in the shape of Carolyn’s
son Chris, obviously a chip off the old block and happy to make a 1200 mile
round trip to look after his mum on a wee adventure.
We met Chris in the car park at the start of the Sandwood
bay path, where he had arrived at 3 am after driving up from North Wales and then
dossed in the car. Carolyn’s maternal instincts then kicked in, so we got out
the stove to give Chris some breakfast before setting out for Am Buachaille.
A couple of hours later we were on the tidal platform
opposite the stack and trying to work out how to get across the 10-metre channel
of deep water that separates it from the foreshore. The game plan was to pack
all our gear into dry bags and send the youngster across with a spare rope,
which we then used to haul across the gear before we oldies swam across. A post
on UKC had observed that ‘the water temperature encourages you to cross with
Thorpe-like speed’; this was indeed true, but as my swimming technique is some
way short of Olympic standard I just got Chris to pull me across on the rope.
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| Contemplating a cold swim. |
We dried off and sorted out the gear, and I was soon
contemplating the first pitch, a
20-metre near-vertical wall with big holds protruding like stacked dinner
plates, but on rock that crumbled when touched and seemed likely to snap off
without warning, so that the dinner plates felt more like giant digestive
biscuits. I should have sent the lad up first, but there was no great technical
difficulty and a lifetime of climbing at Swanage increases your immunity to
this sort of thing. It was still a relief to get up without any holds breaking
off and reach the sanctuary of a vast ledge, so large that we didn’t worry too
much about the belay on a load of rusting pegs bashed into solidified mud and
linked with some old washing line.
We pointed Chris at the next pitch – an awkward corner to
start, then sneaking out to easier climbing where the main problem was to keep
on the right side of an angry-looking fulmar. The fulmars seem to be an
occupational hazard on Scottish sea stacks; so far we had remained unscathed but
Carolyn was not so lucky this time and ended up with a beakful of foul-smelling
orange gunk on the back of her jacket.
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| Carolyn on the last pitch. The dark patch on her sleeve is fulmar vomit. |
The last pitch was a deep overhanging crack, fortunately
with a good Hex at the base, which reminded me of the top of Climbers Club
Direct at the Dewerstone. I adopted the same technique – stuff as many limbs as
possible into the crack to avoid falling off, and use any remaining body parts
to wriggle upwards. That was supposed to be the end of the difficulties, but a
little wall gave a sting in the tail with an awkward mantelshelf onto a ledge
covered with loose blocks and the usual collection of abseil tat that marks the
top of the route.
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| Carolyn and Chris on top of Am Buachaille, Sandwood Bay in the background. |
We had plenty of time to enjoy the summit, goofing around
posing for photos with the views of Sandwood Bay and Cape Wrath as a backdrop. Unlike the exciting free abseils on Hoy and
Stoer, the descent is quite tame and we were soon back on the ground for the
return swim and a visit to the beautiful beach at Sandwood Bay before the long
walk home.
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| Am Buachaille. |
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