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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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).
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Lovely wet granite |
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| 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!
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