Island Adventures Part 2: Lewis and Harris

Driving off of the ferry into Tarbert, I could not know what lay in store for me for the next 8 days. Never before in my life have I ever climbed in such an unforgiving place! I took the largest fall I've ever taken, Held the largest fall I've ever seen, been pulled into the freezing Atlantic Ocean, Core-shot our abseil rope and pulled on more loose rock than ever before! The climbing on Lewis/Harris is adventure distilled, and as such I have decided to distil this article down into a collection of the most memorable times on the island.

Me post whipper in torsageo; the largest fall I've ever taken

First a bit of background, For the bulk of this trip we stayed in one of the most incredible bothies in Scotland. Built by a lovely couple in the local hamlet (Mangersta) it sits atop the "screaming geo" a huge steep wall of rippled Lewissian Gneiss. The most famous climb in the outer Hebrides traverses above the jaw dropping arch in the centre of the cliff. Sadly at E4 5c and looking rather committing we felt an attempt on "the Prozac link" was a bad idea.

The Screaming Geo

The bothy tucked in at the cliffs edge

The most concentrated area of quality climbing is situated on this section of sea cliffs, stretching for about a mile to the north and south of the bothy. This meant access to all of our climbs was very easy. While the access may have been simple enough, other factors certainly made up for this. After spending a week here, you'll never trust a good hold ever again! If it feels too good to be true, that's probably because it is. Now when I climb on more well travelled places jugs make me feel very uneasy, I just expect them to give way at some point and for me to pop off the rock. It's like someone holding a balloon and needle in your face, they won't tell if they'll pop it, but it's always a possibility. and that uncertainty is terrifying especially when the stakes are a little higher than a small fright. The rock as In most places on the island was a mixture of the beautiful lewissian Gneiss and the much hated Pegmatite. I can't even put into words how much I hate this stuff. It has all of the qualities of rock that you don't want rock to have. It has no friction as it's really glassy, It's very brittle, won't take protection and forms many sharp edges just so you can circumcise your fingers on it. Lovely stuff!

We haven't even got to the weather yet! The weather wasn't exactly perfect, for the bulk of our time on the islands we climbed in 3 or 4 hour long windows between showers. You quickly learn that trusting an online forecast is highly ineffective and the best method for learning what the weather will do in the next few hours is looking in the direction of the prevailing wind and seeing if there are any rain clouds on the horizon. This often lead to frustration, most acutely felt on out first full day on the island when we had to wait till mid afternoon to get anything done.

When boredom strikes; 17 point anchor. I haven't laughed
this hard in a long time!

There was one upside to the weather being crazy. With the wind never ceasing I was barely bothered by a single midge for the whole 8 days!

Our climbing may have rotated in 4 hours cycles, our psyche however rose and fell every couple of days. We'd come from another crag; cold, wet and otherwise demolished we'd traipse the short boggy walk back to the car with feet so drenched I was genuinely getting worried about gangrene. Slump into the seats and the drive back to the Uig community shop. We'd buy a large volume of sugary food and sit in the car for 20 minutes stuffing our faces and recharging our batteries before we headed out on another ill-advised adventure, where we'd get really scared. pull some microwave sized blocks out of the cliff, get really wet, and the process would begin again.

Getting rained off of yet another crag.

The notices in the Uig Community shop

Adventure 1: Atlantic Crossing

Having spoken to the owner of the bothy we'd discovered he in the past had done a little bit of rock climbing himself. He inquired if we'd done a particular route by the name of "Atlantic Crossing". I'd seen it in the guidebook and it looked an interesting line, it was one of the longest routes on the sea cliffs as it had a large traverse on the first pitch. One evening we weren't too sure what to get up to and It seemed like a good idea, we traipsed the kilometre or so over the cliffs to the top of a large cove above the route which we abseiled into.

The line of pitch 1/2 of Atlantic crossing
Sauce: http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/c.php?i=8648#photos

After anchoring myself to a boulder for the traverse pitch (a lesson which we learnt the hard way; you'll find out later) Joe set about making the cruxy moves off of the jammed boulder and onto the face of the route. The sea crashed beneath him as he stepped across the gap, an intimidating move! After this a few more difficult moves left followed, leading onto easier terrain. Due to the route traversing over blocky terrain we were struggling a bit with rope drag. I didn't think too much of it until I heard Joe cursing from around the corner. I shouted to ask what had happened, He told me he was stuck. My heart sank as I knew we'd found ourselves pretty far up the creek again! From what I could understand Joe was cragfast, he could move neither up, nor down from the position he was in due to rope drag. I still don't quite understand how Joe sorted himself out, but after much swearing he was able to make his way out of the mess he's ended up in. 

Unfortunately due to the issues on pitch one, I was only on belay on one of the half ropes, which unfortunately was the one which hadn't been clipped into very much gear. As a result for the entire first pitch until the last couple of metres I was soloing a traverse above the sea, An exciting start to a climb! Thankfully after the first couple of moves off of the boulder the climbing was very easy!

Next, came the glorious romp to freedom, and the most outrageous move on a rock climb I've ever made and may ever make! The move off of the belay just as the route stops traversing is near indescribable, But i'll try my best; simply put you're traversing left around an overhanging arete, Though at foot level the arete stops and there is nothing but a corner leading straight down into the sea.

The move marked in red, the arete above overhangs

For only this move I'd recommend this route, what a move! though the last section did not disappoint. A gloriously positioned romp up the easy upper slabs leads to the top. 

Joe, on the upper slabs of atlantic crossing.

The "adventures were had" face

Escaping the top of atlantic crossing

Adventure 2 - Aurora Geo

Joe having visited the islands a mere few weeks before had seen these two soaring corner lines that looked well worth a go, so one morning we awoke, looked out of the window, saw the weather looked fine and plodded over to aurora geo. The line we chose was that of "Newtons law" (E1 5b). Joe abseiled in first to make a belay above the wild seas below (they really were wild, probably about the craziest they got for the entire duration of the trip). The intended belay ledge was getting smashed to pieces by the incoming waves, so we opted to take a belay in an alcove further up. Soon I was climbing and I teetered up the fantastic corner making it to the top rather strenuously though without much of a hitch, barring one loose spike of rock I wanted for a handhold, alas it was not to be. Though by this point my lack of trust of the rock on the cliffs was already waning.

Tasty exposure on newtons law!

The "adventure" wasn't had whilst on the route this time (though It was perhaps one of the best routes of the trip) It was had whilst pulling the rope we'd abseiled down on back to the top of the crag. A short section of the sheath of the rope was simply missing. Somehow after both of us had abseiled down the rope and made it to the belay without passing any sections of torn sheath the rope had torn itself. It would be safe to say we didn't use that rope again! It really hammered home to us just how gnarly the climbing out here was.

The culprit. we won't be using it again!

Adventure 3 - The Swan

After a day spent trying our hardest to get a climb done on the screaming geo and coming away with having done the same route twice in succession because we couldn't find the line of another, we were sufficiently frustrated. So that evening we snuck out to have a bash at a route called "The Swan" (E1 5b). The line traverses over the top of an arch for some awesome exposure on perhaps one of the most aesthetic lines of the trip.

Abseiling into Screaming Geo

The Great arch of the Screaming Geo, viewed from Lighthouse arete

I spied the line and didn't really believe it was E1, The first section was a really steep traverse, about as far from my style as it's possible to be. Against my better judgement I soldiered on anyway. I got right to the end of the difficulties and was shaking like a leaf because of the pump whilst trying to place my last piece of gear before the good rest. I'd placed it and was trying to pull rope through to clip it but because of the traverse, pulling the ropes through was really hard work and they wouldn't come I tugged again and again until the came free and I clipped the cam, by which point I was milked out of my mind and slumped onto the rope. 

On the overhanging start to "The Swan"

I was a bit frustrated, because after having made the 2 moves to the rest I knew I could have done them if I'd clipped the cam first time, but ce la vie. The rest of the climb wasn't too problematic for me, barring the incursion of the much hated pegmatite. Now Joe had to second, traverses on second are just as serious as for the leader. Upon arrival at the belay, Joe announced he'd never been more scared on second in his life, and that he'd like it if he never seconded a traverse ever again.

Further along on the swan

And now the moment you've all been waiting for: 

Adventure 4: Air Time

Once again this adventure begins with us flicking through the guidebook and stumbling on "Torsageo". Torsageo was a sheltered cove, and all of the routes start on a rocky bay instead of above the sea, like everything else we'd done up to this point. Our plan was to do the 2 pitch E1 5b: Triton, the route took a fairly straight up line, so we didn't anchor the second to anything in the ground. 

Joe heading up Triton

Unfortunately, Joe got lost on the route and ended up traversing a large distance round to the right before heading up. I heard only one "watch me" (a rare occurrence I assure you) from Joe, so I assumed all was good. Joe had blasted through a fairly overhanging section on good holds, and had made it onto a vertical section above. I was sat on a rock occasionally paying out slack, but otherwise unperturbed. It was then I heard the loud shout coming from around the crag. I braced myself for the fall, I was caught unawares when instead of being pulled up by the fall, I was pulled to the right and into the sea! In total I was yanked maybe 8 metres or so around the arete in about half a second, so naturally I was quite shocked when everything within the space of a second had gone from warm and dry to really wet and really flipping cold. I glanced up and to my right to see Joe hanging in space, I shouted up to him. He hadn't yet noticed me and glanced down and to his left to see me up to my chest in the sea, still holding his ropes. He laughed hysterically. Despite how freezing I was I couldn't help but see how funny the situation was. Joe had Just fallen 15 metres after pulling a block out of the cliff, and I (rather unexpectedly) had been pulled into the sea as a result.

Then began a rather long and protracted escape from the climb, Joe aided off of the climb and I swam back around to the bay, we'd left a lot of gear in the route so we needed to return the next day.

The next day we pitched up in the morning. Joe had had a go at the first pitch so naturally It was now my turn to head on up. I headed up and around without too much trouble to the steep section, which I also blasted through and this time didn't pull on any loose blocks. I placed some higher gear And made it to the slab above the steep bit. Sadly after being pumpy the route got very technical, so I hung around just below the slabs, not being able to breach them. Getting more and more pumped with each second. I couldn't work out a sequence! It was now or never, and I was stepping completely into the unknown on our accidental new route. I tried as best I could, though try as I might too many little crimps kept snapping and I fell from a little bit above that which Joe had fallen from. In total I fell about 10 metres, thankfully the whole crag was overhanging and nothing was met on the way down (It's the little victories!)

I fell from above the top of the photo

After faffing around trying to find my way back up and carry on the lead I had another go, this time I sent it (though not without difficulty) The last pitch was comparatively easy and Joe gave it a strong send. After this experience on the crag, I don't want to look at it ever again. We named the route "Air Time" (E2 5b) in honour of our misadventures on it.

Whilst I've only included 4 adventures, innumerable numbers more were had, I just felt these 4 were a representative sample of the experience of climbing on the lewis sea cliffs. You should expect about the same level of adventure to what we had, and never before have climbs felt so hard at the grade as lewis! Adventures that were missed include: "Moac Wall", or why doesn't this route remotely resemble the guidebook description or "Creag Na tri Piosan", the only place in lewis that was kind to us. We also did a fair number of new routes scattered around, Air time being the most memorable, though we did many on the sea stacks on tolsta bay and some at an inland crag called crulabhig.

Joe on "Moac Wall" we think?

All in all adventures were had! and this blog post (whilst very long) doesn't even begin to cover them so If your interested to find out more, feel free to ask a question. Though I don't think I'll be able to adequately explain what it's like out there, you really just have to go and get demolished for yourself!