Robert the Bruce

The Sanctuary, Bealach na Ba, Applecross.

What's that old legend about Robert the Bruce hiding in a dank cave and watching a spider trying to spin it's web? Try, try and try again. Success will come if you try hard enough.

In a radical departure from my usual form I've had a successful week: topping out some great problems in the lonely wilds of the Highlands and being offered an interview for the previously mentioned RSPB job. I've even scraped some cash together by writing articles for a mate who does something to do with web marketing (I still haven't grasped the particulars). Something about lights and tunnel ends springs to mind.

After a fresh fall of snow the Bett's and I had a whitey and backed out of our plans to go to Hell's Lum on thursday, giving way to one of the best day's North West bouldering I've ever had. Richie's text on wednesday night says it all about our winter vs. bouldering motivation: 'fuck ledge shuffling i wanna pull on some sick slopers'. I don't doubt that we'd have had a good day on the hill, but would it have beaten a day on Torridonian Sandstone in Applecross, under a cloudless sky? Who knows. As it was, conditions couldn't have got much better: cool, frosty, still and sunny, so after a warm up on the Kishorn boulder we hunted out The Sanctuary on top of the Bealach na Ba (I shook my fist at Blue Pillar as we drove past). There's a pdf topo of this cool low roof on the new Stone Country site and it's definitely worth visiting if you're in the area, just make sure you've got strong core muscles as the problems all start lying down! I managed a dubious tick of The Sanctuary problem (starting 1 hold out, but seriously, why would you bother starting lying down? I was bouldering, not caving!). I'm taking the tick.


On the way back down the hill we visited the Dam Boulder on the lip of Coire nan Arr and after receiving maximum beta from the first ascentionist (Richie) I ticked the brilliant left arete of the roof. Two 7As in a day? Perhaps, perhaps not.

The King Line on Dam Boulder

After a full day of interview prep yesterday I've back down to Laggan today, managing to
fill in some of the un-climbed (certainly uncleaned) lines. One of which, though I say it myself, was a bit of a peach - short, sharp and powerful and something I thought was a long way off when I last tried it about a week ago. Just goes to show what trying can do.

Some of the Laggan beauties

What's in a name?

Steep moves on the big face, Creagan Soillier, Laggan

Sod's law. After I bigged-up the Laggan boulders on Soft Rock Richie and Steve were keen to come down for a look and, of course, it rained. Not to be put off (there's not much else to do once you've driven to Laggan) we walked up to Creagan Soillier for a look-see. The big face remained perma-dry so we had a play on the right-hand problem and strolled about in the drizzle looking for lines.

Richie rain-dodging

As I've previously mentioned, Mike Gale et al. did some of the problems up there back in the day and he wrote them up in his wee 2006(?) Strathspey bouldering guide. However, no names were given to problems, which I think really detracts some of the poetic mystery and appeal from the adventure. "The 6c up the arete" doesn't get me excited or make me curious, but by giving it a name it becomes definite, a real identifiable problem with a character - and the same goes for routes. Deliverence, A Dream of White Horses, Orion Direct - there's no doubt that these names all mean something more to climbers than simple lines up rocks. As you may have noticed, I'm really keen to develop the Laggan boulders and spread the word, but feel like a bit of an arse if I go giving other people's problems names, so what's the deal with retro-naming other people's problems?

The Lonliness of Obsession

Strange days these. I've been working contracts for the RSPB for almost three years now, but my last one ended at Christmas so I'm starting the year with lots of time on my hands but no money to spend on fuel for adventures. When I'm working I always complain about the lack of time to get out. Oh the irony! The application closing date for what could potentially be my dream job came and went on Monday so all I can do is sit around and hope I get the call offering an interview.

In the mean time I've regained my status as the only/keenest/most desperate boulderer in Strathspey. Armed with rope, jumars, prussicks and all the wire brushes I can carry I've spent this week visiting some of our small collections of boulders and giving them a spring clean. The sad truth is that I'm probably the only person who'll benefit from all this work, but it's already paying off with one or two good new problems and lots of oldies in better nick.

In particular the Aviemore local's favourite, Burnside Bouldering Wall, has had a face lift and now you can top out all the problems. The desperate crimpy wall in the middle finally gave in to my attempts. I'm sure Mike Gale and the old school will have done this years ago, but at least now there are holds rather than moss at the top. I also went to re-aquaint myself with Jules' find at Creag Pityoulish and the highball wall at Creagan a' Mhuilinn, both of which are typically Strathspeyian, to coin a word: quite an effort to get to but actually pretty good once you get there. Also typical of round here there are very few proper hard problems (proper hard for me means into the Font 7s), but lots of good mileage 'circuit' problems up to about Font 6C. On paper the Cuca Boulder sounds like it should be what I'm looking for, with a smattering of two and three star 7A/7A+ problems in John Watson's Bouldering In Scotland guide, but the sad truth is that every time I go for a look its dank, dripping and uninspiring.

However, this all pales into insignificance next to the Laggan boulders. There are two seperate areas either side of the village and I know that over the years a few of the locals like Mike, Jules and Scott Muir have been up and climbed a few of the lines, but for some reason word has never spread to the rest of the Scottish bouldering fraternity. It seems mad when folk are out scouring the high mountain corries in the remote North West for the last great problems when these perfectly good venues are right next to the road in the central Highlands. Quite bizarre really, given that they're as good a collection of problems across the grades as any places I've bouldered in Scotland. Now I either need to get very strong and good very fast, or gather a gaggle of handy climbers to mop up the projects, and then I'll try to write up a wee guide for them. It'll give me something to do to while away the hours.

The Good, the Good and the Ugly

Back north to the grim wastes of the wintry Highlands and a few shenanigans to report. Shenanigans might not be the right word, maybe epic mega shit-storm would be more suitable. But I digress.

Friday was one of those perfect winter days, cold, crisp and still with a bright sun pulsing down on the white hills and fields, making Aviemore look like just another day in the Alps. I took myself off to the Laggan boulders to continue the exploration and hopefully succeed on a problem I'd failed on before. Lone days of bouldering like this are perfect for me - a chance to really take my time to enjoy the place, the rocks, their shapes and the humbling landscape laid out before me. I warmed up slowly, taking regular warming gulps from the flask and stuffing my shoes down my top to thaw them between tries, my tarp under my mat acting as a lubricating layer on the snow, constantly trying to surf me down hill into the fence. Finally, sufficiently warmed and stretched I spent some time on the problem I was after and saw it off. Happy and relieved I broke out the last of the Christmas chocolates to celebrate. It's great up at these boulders, it's such a beautiful spot, and nicely accessible from Aviemore. There's a bit of work to do to get them properly cleaned and spic and span but I'm psyched to put the effort in and unleash some new gems for the Highland boulderers (all 2 of us).

Steep dry rock, snow and blue sky. What more could you ask for? The Cairngorms lurk beyond the steep face of one of the Laggan boulders.

The next day I joined Richie at Brin for another cold, crisp day on the rock. Heavy snow in Aviemore gave way to beautiful sun in Strath Nairn and we played for a few hours. I had a try on The Scientist, which I can only describe as excitingly hard. I did the easiest two of the four hard moves, which is something, I guess. Could do with access to a campus board... We then went for a look at the Farr Boulder as the sun set.

Richie confronting the snow on the Farr Boulder.

Then it was Sunday and time for my first winter climbing trip of the season. Sam came up on Saturday night and we left in good time on Sunday morning, skating up the snowy Bealach na Ba in Applecross to climb Blue Pillar on Meall Gorm. Being only 15 minutes from the car you'd think it wasn't going to be an epic day, but when Sam pulled a big chockstone out of a shallow chimney high on the route and took a backwards plummet onto ledges below that all changed. Out of sight, round the corner and pulled tight against my belay I didn't know what to think. Sam was silent. "Sam, speak to me!" I yelled into the approaching gloom. Eventually he called back. He was OK but his ankle was badly hurt. It had only been a fall of a few metres, but with that chockstone involved, things could be messy. Slowly he emerged groaning back onto the ledge beside me, his headtorch swinging loose from his helmet before his ashen face and thousand-mile eyes. "We're going down", he confirmed my thoughts. And so we started our descent into the inky darkness, I lowered Sam to our previous belay and then abbed down to join him. But then, of course, the ropes jammed when we tried to pull them through. No matter which way or how hard I pulled - nothing. Then we made our error, we still had 30 or so metres of rope so we abseiled as far as we could onto the next big ledge in the hope that the ropes would pull from this different angle. I should have climbed back up the ropes to free them, but hind-sight is no use now. By now it was pitch black and we worked in the twin white cocoons of our torch beams. From this new ledge we could escape into Lobster Gully, and down-climb it as far as possible, which we did until a steep step loomed out of the blackness below. And there we were, stranded only 60 odd metres up, no ropes. Shit.

We'd now abbed too far for me to climb back up the ropes and free them so I cast about on the other side of the ridge to find a way off but just found dead ends and bottomless drops so came back to Sam, who was now in a fair bit of pain, sitting quietly, stoically in the snow. There was nothing left for it but to make the call to mountain rescue - our time had finally come to become rescue statistics. Hours passed, messages were relayed back and forth and we started to get cold, then colder and then colder still. Our conversation started to falter and it was alarming how quickly the silence grew and bore down on our pitiful position. I tried hard to make small talk with Sam but it wasn't up to much and I could tell he was starting to get cold and depressed. The quiet calm night turned dim as the clouds dropped and then the snow started to fall, heavier and heavier on the rising wind. Through the murk we could see the rescue teams vehicles on the road, up and down, stopping and going again, but nothing was happening, no processions of torches coming up the hill.

The first rule of having an epic is to take lots of photos. Here's Sam when our predicament was still fairly novel. Smiles rapidly dissapeared shortly afterwards.

After another hour or so we realised that no helicopters would be flying in these conditions and any rescue from the team would take forever as they'd have to rig about 130 metres of abseil to reach us. I decided to have another look at the step in Lobster Gully that was stopping us. Leaving Sam to bear his pain alone I went for a look, desperate to have a good go at down climbing it if it looked half do-able - it was our only way off. And thankfully, it was. Once I committed to the first few metres I found that it was OK, 10 metres of fairly steep but useful turf and snow-ice. I raced back up to Sam to tell him and he was game to try, although neither of us were sure how he'd do it with a damaged ankle. With lots of swearing and scraping he did it though, hard bastard, and we were back into the gully. Only to be stopped by another shorter but steeper step below. No surely not after all our efforts! Keeping moving, I left Sam and hunted across the other side of the ridge again, finally finding a ledge that led off into the left hand easy gully. Back up to Sam again and I told him I thought I'd found our salvation. Following on behind me, sliding on one foot and his tools, Sam braved the narrow ledge round into the gully and bum-slid down behind me into the valley floor, free at last.

The rescue team were still in their vehicles and had obviously seen our torches moving and making our way toward them as a couple of torches came out into the darkness and started to approach. By now Sam was leaning on me and hobbling badly. When we reached the rescuers - of which the first we met was local legend Martin Moran - they looked as relieved as we were that we'd made it off by ourselves; it would have been a huge epic and taken a long long time for them to reach us, by which time we would probably have been hypothermic and in a bad state. They took Sam off to check he was OK and made sure I was fine to reach my car through the blizzard.

Then it was just a case of not crashing or falling asleep at the wheel for the next three hours of heavy snow and terrible roads back to Aviemore.

I heard from Sam today and it turns out that he's chipped and fractured his talus bone and is now in plaster so that's his winter season put on hold. As for me, well I'm not sure, but that might be the end of my winter too.

Power down. Cough, snuffle, sniff, groan. Oh woe is me, man-flu I hate thee!

I'm very rarely ill and have been very rarely injured, but here I am, cut down in my prime by this vile wintry pox. The flu. Or is it just a bad cold? No, it's bronchitis, surely. I'm not used to being incapacitated, what are you supposed to do?

I'll sit here and grumble quietly to myself and polish off the last of the festive confectionery. You don't mind do you?

Well, that's 2010 been and gone. I was proudly in bed by 12.15 on new years night. Bah humbug, cough, splutter, grumble grumble. Actually I rather like waking up on the first day of the year hangover free. Trying to make a big event out of something that just isn't always leads to a disappointed melancholy when it's all over, all you have is a hangover and a mild feeling of depression to show for it.

From a climbing perspective, 2010 was a funny old year. I'm chalking it up as a year of consolidation, rather than one of progression. I don't think I did much that was harder than anything before, I just did a bit more of it than previously. I bouldered and sport climbed more than before - mainly thanks to the rain and convenience, but also because I was introduced to the endless supply of Torridonian sandstone and Lewisian Gneiss in the North West. Trad started OK but never really got going as the summer monsoon stepped in.

Hopefully 2011 will be a chance to up the trad output. To do this I need to be ready to pounce as soon as the Highland spring begins. The pre-midge dry season is so short and arrives so soon after winter it's hard to be ready. A winter of pulling on plastic can only do so much good as it's my head that always lets me down first. I think a large amount of practice falls and sports mileage in February and March are required. And of course there's the growing list of sport routes and boulder problems that will require serious attention if they're ever to be completed, plus getting a job, plus going winter climbing, and learning to ski and staying on top of the running. Tricky tricky.

In the mean time, Jones and I have been down in Staffordshire and Somerset visiting family. Both our contracts ended just before Christmas so we're currently free agents (anyone got any work?). I've managed to slink out into the cold a few times for a quick boulder. Un-named tidal limestone problems at Brean Down were the best I could manage in Somerset but Staffordshire's Roaches have been a bit more accommodating. On Christmas Eve most things were still covered in snow but C3P0 on the Spring Boulders was worth the drive alone. Yesterday things were dry but baltic so I didn't stay still for very long and The Staffordshire Flyer and Wild Thing were the highlights among lots of easy circuit problems. We'll be back home in Aviemore by the end of the week when serious job hunting and playing in snow can commence.

Happy New Year y'all.

1000 Words

The nature of winter rock climbing generally means projecting hard boulder problems and sport routes. Short cold days aren't conducive to casual days of tradding, so I spend my time attempting to make incremental gains. Sometimes it feels like banging my head against a wall, but I know that the feeling of hard-fought success will be worth it if I complete even one of my growing list of projects...

Here's the latest Soft Rocking....

It's pretty rare that I get to report a success, but as previously reported, Masonic Fingershake at Cummingston finally gave in.

After the turbo-thaw Torridon was back on the agenda. There's not much left for Richie to do at the Celtic Jumble, so now he has to work on the desperates. Here he's trying Dave MacLeod's Frantic.

After a rapid flash by Richie, I managed to scrape myself up Mike Lee's Girls in Their Summer Dresses. (Photo: Richie Betts)

Another Am Fasgadh Sunday Session. Here Rich battles with Bog Talla. Given The Sheild's regular wetness I'm switching my attentions to the drier line of Primo. It's the first route I've been on that I've not been able to do all the moves after the first session. I think this might be a whole-winter seige. Bring it on.

Mixed Feelings in the Dark

I get mixed feelings as the cold continues to grip onto Scotland and starts to squeeze hard. Every man, woman and their dog in Aviemore seems to have donned their luminous baggy clothing and thousands of pounds worth of skiing kit (how do they all afford it?) and joined the queues on the pistes.

Part of me feels like I should too, or at least be out ticking winter climbs. I mean, why live in the Highlands and put up with it's generally crap weather if you're not really fussed about playing in the snow? I'm not sure what it is that puts me off. I guess sharing the same small bit of hill with every Tom, Dick and Chummer isn't exactly my idea of a fun time, regardless of how much you have to pay on kit and up-lift to get there. And as for winter climbing, it still holds an attraction, in the right place, at the right time, but wading through ball-deep avalanche debris to dig around in powder and stare into the same mist-obscured corrie isn't it. Give me a bit of freeze-thaw, some sunshine and a new mountain to explore and I'll probably be a bit keener.

So, I've been skiving off from winter and making use of the cold dry northerly by bouldering at Cummingston. Last weekend poor Chris was up from Edinburgh and heavy snow meant we couldn't get across to Ben Nevis. Naturally we ended up sheltering in the big cave at Cummy, as you do, and it was in good nick. This Saturday I returned with the Betts but a slight thaw meant it was a grease-fest. All except for the secret weapon: The Corridor. As luck would have it we were both armed with lamps to stave off these early December nights, so were able to light up the through-cave between Doubt Wall and the big Fingerlicker cave, and not only was the rock dry, it was beautifully wave-worn and harder than the rest of the crag. Time to make hay.

One problem I found looked fairly innocuous but kept kicking me to the floor. Slapping up an arete, spanning away to a pinch and stubbing blindly for a rounded-toe edge under a bulge. It looked so easy. Eventually Richie showed the way and just as I started to make progress the batteries waned and the shadows grew and we had to bail, blinking into the daylight. Empty-handed.

The future of raining/snowy days? Richie in The Corridor (Photo: Richie Betts)

With charged batteries, rested fingers and the return of colder air I went back on Sunday and saw off the problem. I called it The Enemy Within, and assume it will never be repeated cos it's in the dark, which is a shame really. Afterwards I put the cherry on my already pleased cake by doing Masonic Fingershake, which I've tried on and off for about 2 years so was rather chuffed.

Quick! The batteries are running out! Me trying The Enemy Within on Saturday. (Photo: Richie Betts)