Northern Ireland Trip: Fairhead Meet

I don't remember when or how I first heard about Fairhead, as a british climber who'd not climbed in Northern Ireland I'd only stumbled upon the odd incredible looking picture and heard other friends talking about the cliffs in hushed voices: 

"It's the greatest crag you've never heard of" 

"It's a full 2 kilometres of hundred metre tall sea cliffs"

Solid information on the climbing was fairly hard to come by and as a result the cliff and its climbing took on legendary status in my head. Every little scrap I could find was used to piece together an Image in my head of what I'd discover, what I actually found met all of my expectations and so much more! 

Manhood shrinking 101, Myself abbing into the middle of Fairhead

The Fairhead Meet takes place at "the head" at the start of June to introduce people from all over the world to a big, daunting crag. The festival is a great opportunity to meet other members of the climbing tribe: I don't think I've ever seen quite so many climbers focused in one place (besides t'sneachda on a sunny winters day of course ;) ). There was a good smattering of big names a few of whom I met and chatted briefly to, which was a cool experience mainly because I realised that every one of them was "just" another climber like myself, just as stoked as myself, the only difference between us is they were pulling wee bit harder. Even besides the big names the "average joes" who'd come along to the meet were climbing astonishingly hard with E5's and E6's being done like they were going out of fashion.

Speaking of hard routes; meet organiser Paul Swail on the second belay of Faerie Stories (E6 6b)

The the main cliff itself is about 2 kilometres (girdle traverse anyone?) of unbroken perfect dolerite with routes ranging in length from about 40 metres to a wee bit over 100 metres. There's also a few other smaller outlying crags making the full length of Fairhead near enough 5 kilometres. The climbs themselves generally follow soaring crack and corner lines penetrating the blank walls. Protection is often on demand due to the nature of the lines, though the trade off for this is that they are often sustained or technically difficult to balance out their lack of danger for the grade. Jams are frequently required, and over the weekend I climbed cracks of all widths; fingers, hands, fists, offwidth, squeeze chimneys. Sometimes whole pitches were just jam after jam for a full 40 metres. The more "modern" i.e. flipping hard and bold climbs break out and away from the cracks and corners onto blank oceans of rock in between. 

Natural line interspersed with blank rock: Ben on Sandpiper (E2 5c)

The crag plummets down into a heavily vegetated and near impenetrable boulder field, though when we say boulder these are boulders in the order of the Douglas "Boulder" of Ben Nevis i.e. massive. Some of these bits of rock which are styled as boulders are the size of a small block of flats and have their own 40 metre climbs on them! This coupled with the militant vegetation made working your way around the base of the crag nigh impossible. So in order to reach the base of 95% of the climbing one had to abseil the full length of the cliff as near to your climb as possible. Though once again this is easier said than done. First you need a 100 metre abseil rope and second you need to be able to work out where on the entire 2 kilometre length of the cliff the climb you want to do actually is. Helpfully the climbing guidebook had recommended abseil blocks for certain areas of the cliff complete with pictures of said boulders, so after a bit of slithering around on your belly at the cliff edge with a healthy amount of umm-ing an ahh-ing you felt confident enough that you were in the right spot and headed off down your rope into the vegetation below.

One of the locals

The abseil is certainly an intimidating one, on the second day of climbing we abseiled into the middle of the cliff, requiring us to descend a full 90 or so metres to the bottom, the top section of our abseil formed a roof and so after having descended the first 5 metres I was swinging around in space, the only thing connecting me back to terra firma was the umbilical static rope. If your abilities are somewhat restricted, on certain parts of the cliff the abseil becomes a notch more committing as it's likely the only route in that area you are capable of is the one that you're attempting. So either you get to the top or you spend the next hour or so walking the most difficult few kilometres of your life.

On first acquaintance, quite unsurprisingly I found the head to be very intimidating. I might have done much longer routes, though never before had I done anything I done anything quite as continuously steep for as long as the climbs at fairhead. From the base I felt a lot of the climbs looked somewhat unlikely at the grade. For our first route of the trip and my first at fairhead we went for December (HVS 5a); a composition of two brilliant and contrasting pitches. The first, continuous sustained bridging up a positive corner out of a cave formed by a collapsed block and the second was pitch of awkward shuffling up wide cracks capped off by a physical move over a roof just before the top. The climb hadn't taken long, though I still hadn't quite found my mojo.

Pulling faces doesn't make it any easier Ben...

Our plan originally was to go and climb Toby Jug, though upon abseiling down we found this part of the crag to be particularly crowded and got snarled up in queues for routes waiting for slow climbers to crawl their way to the top of their routes. The particular party on Toby Jug took so long that we decided to sack the climb and instead went for Sandpiper (E2 5c) after some nice Germans (I think they were part of the DMM team) moved off the ground. What mojo I'd recovered from our smooth send of December had been neutralised by sitting for three hours at the cold base of the crag waiting for a climb, this resulted in me having a lot of difficulty with the first pitch of sandpiper. I wasn't climbing particularly well and I didn't have piles of confidence as I quested out on the crux of sandpiper. Gracefully the final pitch was a crazily fun, though perhaps not long enough off width crack. After a few arm bars, chicken wings and a lot of pig like snorts and grunts I was back in the sunshine atop Fairhead.

Ben extracting himself from the top pitch of Sandpiper

The camera wasn't actually out of focus, Ben was just shaking a lot; he doesn't like off-widths

After all of the queues, much time had passed and it was 5 o'clock and we hadn't eaten since breakfast. After some refuelling we went to go and find some confidence in the evening light of the prow. Often in these sorts of situations I find the best tonic is to force yourself to keep on climbing and sooner or later you'll feel confident again. We spent the rest of the evening at the prow, where I climbed Midnight Cruiser, a route similar in style to that of Grey Panther on Kilt Rock, Skye though nowhere near as good. 

For myself the best routes of our trip were two relatively esoteric climbs: Drag Race Queen and An Goban Saor, which is without a doubt in the top 10 of climbs I've ever done. Both made for fantastic adventures away from the honeypots of the ends of the crag. Both also only get one star, though to me these climbs prove just how subjective the star rating of a climb really is. We climbed An Goban Saor as the first route of our second day at the head. The route is on the tallest section of the cliff and as a result is one of the longest. The climb snakes up the conspicuous corner to the left of An Bealach Runda (one of the most popular climbs on the crag) in three pitches, though we strung the first two together as it made more sense than to split the climb as the guide says. Ben took the lead on the first two pitches, which followed an impeccable hand jamming crack for 50 or so metres to a large comfy ledge half way up the cliff. There wasn't really a crux on this pitch, just a solid 50 metres of 5a/b moves.

elbow deep in An Goban Saor

Amazing Columns

The upper pitch of the climb was an incredibly involving lead, almost every single move from about 10 metres above the ledge up was definite 5b, pulling on awkward sidepulls and crimpers up a clean corner with on demand protection. I found myself frequently jammming my feet in the crack feet meaning my toes went numb after about 15 minutes. The crux of the pitch and indeed the whole route were the last couple of moves. The guidebook describes an inhospitable niche a few metres from the top from where some awkward and very physical moves diagonally up and right are made to a good foot ledge after which the climb is in the bag. My beta for the moves (probably not the best, but I felt like Sharma so who cares!) involved getting my right foot up in a heel hook on the foot ledge at about chest/shoulder height and then yarding on a small but positive crimper with my right hand to rock over onto my right foot to gain the foot ledge. Upon pulling over the top, the release of the pressures of trying my best to stay pasted to the rock allowed me to be filled with a sense of great joy. I flopped onto my back and a grin creeped across my face. My mojo was back! (Groovy baby).

Still so much climbing to go! Myself on An Goban Saor, my favourite climb of the Fairhead meet.

The other quality climb of the trip as mentioned before was Drag Race Queen, an E1 5b in the blockbuster area climbed in two incredibly disparate pitches. The first was led by Ben and featured a similar style of climbing to the second pitch of An Goban Saor. This section lead up to another cracking ledge underneath the ominous looking final pitch. 

The second pitch wasn't that long by Fairhead standards only about 20 metres and all of the difficult climbing was in the first 10, but boy did it pack a punch. Above gaped a wide and overhanging corner crack. After having geared up to go for the lead I did a fair amount climbing up and then back down to test the holds and place gear before I psyched myself up enough to blast up and over the wide overhanging crack. Before I set off I had my two largest cams at different heights in the crack with one in reserve to place higher up. I viciously jammed my way over the bulge using my fists whilst my feet were placed delicately on small edges bridging the corner. As I climbed I shuffled the white cam higher and higher up the crack so as to save the energy of placing another piece of gear, annoyingly the piece overcammed and I had to sit on a higher piece of gear to wriggle it back out to safety. I quickly lowered back down to the belay so I could try the pitch by fair means and soon I was over the bulge hugging the jugs above! 

At the top we chatted to Calvin Torrans (The first ascentionist of the first route at Fairhead, Earnsheugh's Chimney for those interested, and a bit of a local legend who still climbs E4 in his 70's) who was surprised that we'd decided to climb such a left field choice of climb, admittedly it was a bit dirty and my eyes were still red from all of the lichen I'd unwittingly brushed into my eyes, but it was a fantastic climb all the same. Later that night we bumped into him again and he'd gone and done it on our recommendation and found it to be much harder than the guidebook suggested grade of E1 5b. Though it wasn't intended as praise I was pretty proud that I'd got up a climb that such a strong climber had found tricky.

These weren't the only climbs we did on the trip, we managed to complete Girona, Taoiseach, and Run Fast Run Free, which was our final climb of the trip before heading home and a really positive note to end on as in terms of grades it's the hardest thing I've ever climbed without falling and so provided a good injection of positivity at the close of the holiday.

Myself leading the first pitch of Taoiseach.

Other highlights included Alex Honnolds evening talk in a farm shed on Sean's farm which turned out to be quite the one off as he changed his usual cookie cutter presentation about how he ended up doing what he does to one all about his experiences and climbing ethics. later in the weekend I got to chat to Honnold himself as he asked to look at Ben's guidebook so that he could work out the line of Styx before he onisghted it. Once we topped out on our respective routes we also stopped to chat to Alex's climbing partner for a good 45 minutes about climbing and just general life a climbing writer from the west coast of America called Chris and a really great guy. It's such a cool experience to just meet strangers and immediately be able to hit it off with them, it's one of my favourite things about the global rock climbing community.

But with that my trip drew to a close, and what a trip it was! Ireland is one of the most incredible trip destinations I've ever been to if not the best (in contention with Lewis) it's definitely the place I want to go back to and climb most! Hopefully It won't be too long.

Just missed the sunset; beautiful regardless.

Typical Fairhead Climbing.

Northern Ireland Trip: The Mournes

Ever since I'd seen the following picture of Sean Villaneuva O'Driscoll climbing We're all Learning (E7 6c) on Slieve Binnian I'd been meaning to make the pilgrimage to Ireland and particularly the Mournes to climb on the spectacular looking granite tors. The weathered bulges of the rock to my eye form some of the most aesthetic climbs I've ever seen. I could fill this blog with pictures that get me psyched if I so desired, but that wouldn't really be representative of my particular trip.So instead you'll find a fair number of poor quality bum shots, though at least the sun is shining!

The aforementioned photo (not mine) cred: http://www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.html?id=205977

Myself and Ben's first day of climbing on our Ireland trip was on Slieve Binnian. After the pleasant walk into its tors we settled at the delta tor to warm up on what transpired to be some ridiculously sandbagged vdiffs. The scrittly nature of the granite on some of the less well travelled routes proved to be somewhat disconcerting. I'd stand on a little edge and then some of the granite crystals would crackle off underneath my foot and I'd slide a little. A bit of care and some prior cleaning of the holds as I climbed was needed for confident upward progress.

Nice Weather!

Walking amongst the tors of Slieve Binnian

Here be scrittly "vdiffs"

Unsurprisingly our primary objective was not to climb some random vdiffs on the delta tor, instead we'd come to climb the classics most of which were on north tor. At the top of our list was Electra (E1 5b) perhaps the most famous manageable route on the tor. I had a couple of other routes I wanted to do, and others I simply wanted to stand under and look up at namely Thrill issues of the Jellyman (E7 6c). Another climb I'd seen some Incredible looking photos of.

First on the agenda was a really fun offwidth (is that an oxymoron?) called Meanstreak. The first time in my life I've seriously had to use a butterfly jam to aid my progress up the crack, which was a bit of a novelty. The size of the cams I was placing also made me chuckle to myself a little. The crack terminates just before the top on a little ledge, then the climb finishes up what the guidebook describes as "The squirmiest exit in the Mournes", this certainly proved to be the case! The finishing chimney is likely the most awkward thing I've climbed. I removed my jacket for fear of tearing the fabric (alas it was too late) as I shuffled with desperation up the finishing couple of metres of the route. 

Squirmin'

Ben quickly snaked his way up the route behind me and soon we were back on floor ready for Ben to lead blood in the cracks (E1 5c). Which proved to be a real lesson in Mournes technique, as a climb I enjoyed it a lot. The moves were technical and required you to focus on your feet and centre of gravity: definitely my style of climbing. It also finishes up the squirmy chimney of Meanstreak for added comedy value.

Next on the Agenda was Electra; one of the primary routes we'd come up here to try. The climb romps up on good flakes, with good gear, there's one slightly awkward move though on the whole I felt it was a little soft for E1 though still deserving of its 3* rating.

Good Gear and Good Climbing: A Mournes Classic

Another climb on our agenda was to have a bash at Eazy Now (E5 6b) which is just around the corner from Electra. Due to the aspect of this part of the tor the crack had become filled with dirt; so Ben opted to abseil down the route to clean it and place gear before hand. Though in most cases these tactics might be questionable, it seemed fair considering it was his first ever attempt at an E5.

Ben quickly ran up the flake to its top where a totally desperate mantle move has to be made by getting your left foot at the same height as your hands. Ben tried a few times but in the end couldn't stick it and fell back onto his gear.

North Tor

The day closed with myself leading Dreadlocks Holiday (VS 5a) a route with an easy blocky start followed by an abrupt and rather perplexing crux. I decided to climb it because it skirts above the slab of Thrill issues of the Jellyman; a route I was desperate to get a better look at because to my eye it's one of the most compelling climbs on the crag. The slab stands in it's pristine beauty far above the ground, one day I'll have to climb it!

Falcon

Plans for day two were fairly fluid until the last minute when we decided to go to Pigeon Rock. The crag is much closer to the road than Binnian and is in a somewhat less scenic spot, though the climbing is still of a high quality and I definitely had a blast! We opted to start the day on the classic low grade Falcon, Ben strung both pitches into one and soon we were back down on the ground and I was gearing up to go for one of the most classic E1's in the Mournes: Phantoms. The climbing revolves around a pocketed seam in the middle of a blank slab intersected by thin ledges, the crux(es) were mantling onto these ledges, and once done good rests were found. You had to search a little bit to find the gear but once found it was solid, overall I felt the climb was soft but still great quality!

The bum shot ;)

Our day had to end a little earlier than the previous as we needed to drive North to Ballycastle for the Fairhead meet that night so we only had time for one more climb: Yellow brick road, another route on the same slab as Phantoms though about 10 metres left. The route finishes up some cool flutings, almost like tufas. Which Provided some very unique climbing. After a bit of a dodgy abseil off of the top of the route we had to leave the crag to make our way up north.

Yellow Brick Road

These 2 days spent in the Mournes have to be some of the best climbing days I've ever had, especially the day on Binnian which without a doubt is one of the best crags I've ever visited. Most northern Irish people I meet massively downplay the quality and beauty of the Mournes thinking them diminutive in comparison to their grander Scottish neighbours. Whilst they may be shorter than a lot of Scottish peaks the climbing to be found on them is just as good if not better in parts. It won't be long before I'm back I'm sure!

Mid-west Send-Fest

Regular readers of my blog will realise that the title of this blog is a throwback to a blog I wrote in march last year. That trip involved me and Scott spending a few days in Coigach and Assynt getting some sweet climbing done on the Torridonian sandstone. Now a little over a year later myself and Scott headed west again. Starting our trip in Applecross and working our way north to Gairloch over the course of 3 days, and bizarrely (though brilliantly) with a quick Cairngorms hit at the end.

The trip began with us charging up to Sgurr a'Chaorachain at 6pm on thursday the 26th of May to climb the legendary Cioch Direct before the sun went down. We opted to go fast and light and to simul-climb the 7 pitch route with a light rack of  a few wires and some slings.

The impressive bulk of the nose of Sgurr a'Chaorachain

We tanked the walk in to further save on time as a result it took us about 40 minutes instead of the 1-2 hours mentioned in the guidebook. A short while longer found us the base of the climb, once located I started up the first block of pitches. It felt good to be back on the rough, rounded holds of the torridonian sandstone which is probably my favourite rock type.

Like the grit it asks a lot of you in terms of how you approach the climbs. 99% of the routes don't rely on burl but instead are much more cerebral requiring you to think at great length about your body position and foot placements. Which certainly plays to my strength as I'm weaker than a butterfly and really cannot be bothered with training.

Scott enjoying the exposure on pitch 3 of the Cioch Nose

It was fun to flow quickly over the surface of the rock, not having to worry too much about protection or belays. Instead I was able to focus more precisely on the climbing itself and the enjoyment of it. The first three pitches lead from the mid-way ledge up and around right onto the exposed nose of the buttress. Tom Patey famously said of the route on the first ascent: 

"What had appeared from any angle to be an XS (extremely severe) pitch, turned out to be a glorious difficult"

Once finished my block of leads, Scott took over and lead us to the top of the Nose (more amazing and easy climbing on perfect rock), from where we descended with two abseils down a gully and onto the valley floor. I won't lie I was quite surprised when I glanced at my phone and realised that to go from the car to the top of the climb and back down to the valley floor had only taken us a little over two hours. Before setting off I was a little nervous we might get benighted as I'd never really tackled and objective like this at this stage of the day so had no idea how long it would take. 

Now we found ourselves with plenty of time to kill before the sun went down. We opted to solo about on some smaller crags, we climbed two new routes: "Class Clown" (HVS 4c) and teachers pet "VS 4b". Both unprotected climbs on short slabs above Loch Coire nan Arr and both surprisingly good fun. I'll likely never bother submitting these to the SMC, though perhaps I should, along with the new routes I did one Lewis.

Soloing on Class Clown

That night we drove up to the Bealach na Ba to pitch our tent and spend the night. The views as the sun set over Applecross were incredible, photos don't really do this sort of thing justice but hopefully you get the gist.

Not too shabby

 The next morning we awoke bright and early and set off down the road a short ways to climb "Sword of Gideon" a classic VS in the area, though I found it to be mediocre at best, still it was nice to be able to climb a mountain route so close to the road. After this we agreed to head to Seanna Mheallan a very picturesque crag with views looking out over Liathach and a place I've been meaning to climb for as long as I'd seen pictures of people on Thunderbird and Crack of Ages. The approach is a bit awkward up a steep and arduous heather slope, but it's more than worth it for the climbing and the outlook. I warmed up by leading a random VS and then I got onto "Crack of Ages" (E2 5b).

Crack of Ages with Liathach in the background credit: http://www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.html?id=224147

Sometimes when on a climb, you feel like you've been handed "the key" and you elegantly unlock the sequence of moves from the bottom to the top of the route, flowing like water over rock. And then other times the climbing feels harder than plucking a turkey with boxing gloves on. Crack of ages (for myself) definitely fell into the latter category. I don't think I've ever battled that hard on a route to stay on. The frustrating part was that the climbing wasn't even that hard! I just bodged every single move and made it all ridiculously awkward for myself. I was pumped three moves up and so for the rest of the climb my forearms felt as useful as a chocolate teapot. At the top out I simply didn't have enough fuel left to actually "climb" back onto the horizontal. Instead I opted to do the most inelegant beached whale move (winter included)  I've ever done. Upon getting my belly over the lip of the cliff I realised I needed to let go with my hands and grab some heather further forward so I could pull myself up. Unfortunately on my precarious perch I knew that by letting go I would slip backwards and fall onto my last piece of gear. My panic moment solution was to bite a mouthful of the heather to hold myself in place. A hilarious solution, but one that worked all the same, and one I'm still laughing about.

I actually made it!

After my somewhat ugly ascent of Crack of Ages, somebody had to cruise something. Scott went on to crush the classic of the crag "The Torridonian" (E3 6a) a super techy corner with a thin crack in the back. Scott had originally planned to layback the crack, but found it to be too thin for his fingers and so was forced to bridge up the corner instead. From the bottom it seemed he didn't break much of a sweat, climbing the whole thing incredibly well.

Scott just about to start bridging over the crux.

The following day was spent up in Gairloch, climbing on a variety of crags including the Aztec Tower just outside Gairloch itself where we both managed to successfully tick every single route in the guidebook at the crag which made for a fun afternoon. The day after this we'd thought about taking the long road to Carnmore crag to attempt the Ultra Classic mountain route: Fionn Buttress. Though unfortunately upon waking up the following morning, low cloud and a general damp atmosphere greeted us, so we sacked the plan and headed back to Aviemore instead.

Shelterstone and Carn Etchachan <3

The weather in Aviemore in contrast to that out west was truly incredible. A last minute plan was hatched to tank it over to Stag Rocks and then solo Afterthought Arete and Final Selection, a spanner in the form of a rainstorm came tumbling over the top of shelterstone crag and doused Stag Rocks in water. Now with both of us being very wet and on the way to being cold we chose to slim our list of routes to solo down to one; Final Selection, which for me apart from the Cioch Nose was maybe my favourite route of the trip and I think will likely become one of my favourite climbs of this year.

Lovely wet granite

Don't ask me why I love this so much

Soon after I was comfortably back in Ben Gibson's house where I spent the next couple of days preparing for our adventure in Northern Ireland and the Fairhead meet!