Eight Days

To get out climbing you need the holy trinity of factors to align at the same time - time, weather, and someone to climb with. A big stroke of luck has brought these all together over the last week and I've finally managed to start getting some routes done. A nice high pressure system coincided with my contract finishing earlier than expected, and with graduates and teachers being on holiday.

It started last Friday night at the Camel with Jim, when I redpointed Final Straw, the last of the sub-7b routes I still had to do there. Jim did likewise, and we both warmed down on Stone of Destiny, which never seems to get any easier. A good start.

On Sunday morning I met Murdo in Contin and we motored oot west (as the Canadians might say) to Loch Thollaidh crags near Gairloch. Despite their Northerly aspect and sometimes feeling dark and cold, this is one of my favourite places to climb. All the routes I've done here have been brilliant and the Lewisian Gneiss is beautiful to climb on. My highlights were climbing Water Lily and Strip-teaser, both of which had been on my must-do list for a while. Murdo only has a couple of routes left to do here, so after seeing off Wild Iris, a bold E4 he'd been putting off for a long time, was ready for battle on Old El Passe, one of the Cubby/Anderson E6s on Gairloch Wall. After a prolonged and painful tussle with the brutal steep starting cracks he decided to call it a day though- a good reason to come back.

Me on Seams Obvious at Seanna Mheallan. (Photo: Murdo Jamieson)

Next day out was Tuesday, and Murdo and I fled west once more, this time up the vertical heather slope to Seanna Mheallan in Torridon. I'm coming to realise that sandstone climbing is hard - mainly because I'm crap at jamming - so it was a good opportunity to work on my apprenticeship. I managed a couple of good E1s - Sandpiper and Seams Obvious, but failed on an E2 called Mark of a Skyver - mmm mmm, sweaty jams. Hey ho. Again, Murdo has pretty much ticked the crag so only had a few things left to do. He ticked a couple of E3s he'd not done and the notoriously tricky E4 Hunter Killer. Despite all the hearsay about trickiness and shonky pegs, he made it look a path. The boy is on form. Next time he's up there he'll have to do Dave Mac's E8 Kolus.

Murdo about to start moving right to the arete on Hunter Killer.

Wednesday was slab day, and after Murdo and Guy did Thor on Shelterstone's Central Slabs a few weeks back, Murdo was keen to go back and do Cupid's Bow. This sounded like a good plan, as it has an easy HVS/E1 entry pitch that I could lead, then dangle from some rusting pegs (and other good gear) and Murdo could style the 6b crux. And that's pretty much what happened. The Central Slabs are an awesome place to be - an intimidating sea of flawless granite, traced with corners and grooves, perched on high and looking straight down the length of Loch Avon. Once the route was over, my heart had stopped racing with fear, and we'd finished the three abseils back to our kit, we strolled over to the Lower Slab by Hell's Lum and I finished the day with the pleasant E3 Cerberus, while Murdo thought about trying Firestone, but decided against

it under the burning July sun.

A timeless classic climbing image: Murdo's arse starting the crux pitch of Cupid's Bow.

The terrible view from the Central Slabs.

Then Friday, another sandstone apprenticeship day, this time at Ardmair with Steve. In this vein I went for some mileage on the E1s Sunstroke and Tunnel Vision and the HVS Friendly Groove (which felt the same grade as the others). Steve dug deep with an ascent of the classic

Acrimonious Acrobat, an inspiring fight to watch. About halfway up the route he was clearly having psyche-up issues, and ummed and arred for a while, then suddenly declared "basically, I'm being a pussy and need to man the fuck up", which he promptly did and grunted his way to the top. Props!

Lastly, yesterday I was hired as a guide by Sarah and Sofia (and paid in fish and chips, ice cream and pub credits) and took them up Ardverikie Wall on Binnien Shuas. I first did this as my first Scottish multi-pitch route in 2004, when I'd only been climbing for about 6 months, and it felt fairly full-on. It was great to return on a beautiful summers day, to feel relaxed and satisfied after a good week of great routes, and to just enjoy the climbing, the scenery and the company.

What a lucky bastard I've been!

The girls getting psyched for a day of micro-granite wonder on Ardverikie Wall.

Time for another coffee

Nursing my second steaming coffee of the morning, a steady drizzle falling outside, the trees bending on the stiff breeze. I sit here, typing, waiting. This is the problem with working on mountain-top bird surveys, the good weather you need is pretty rare. Sitting out bad weather is just a part of the job. It was the same yesterday, and the day before. A chat with the Cairngorm rangers on Tuesday confirmed that I was right to not bother trying - winds gusting to 70mph make hearing and seeing birds tricky.

All the forecasts point to an improvement at some point today, so for now I'm just waiting, checking webcams, staring out the window. My packed bag waits by the door, boots ready to go.

To kill the time yesterday I started playing about with some of the clips I've taken from my trips to the Laggan 1 boulders this year. I was trying to make a short intro for them, a taster of some of what's been done. Here's how it ended up:

Laggan Bouldering - Developmants at Creagan Soillier from Gareth Marshall on Vimeo.

Strongbow, and other tales.

Strongbow at Laggan.

Who said there's no good bouldering in Strathspey? (Photo: Dave Macleod)

It's with continual jealousy (and awe) that I do my endless rounds of website checks - blogs, forums, news updates, video sites, photo pages - and find out what people have been climbing. Whether it's mates of mine, international uber-wads or folk I've never even met or heard of, there's a constant feed of psyched climbers out there, getting out, pulling down, and documenting it - a continual source of inspiration for lowly weekend warriors like myself to tap into. Of course, it works the other way too. When the rain is pattering on my window for the third day in a row and I haven't ticked anything of personal note for some time, it's a torment to see the blue skies and big ticks, a mockery of my live-for-the-weekend attempts at being a climber.

With this in mind, I have to sit and think hard about what I've been up to, what's of note and whether any of it is worth blurting out to the blogosphere. I'm hardly setting the place on fire, and between the constraints of the working week and the recent Highland weather I'm pretty pleased that I'm managing to get anything done.

Traddage:

Last weekend Sarah and I took a quick trip to Gairloch, and after a morning admiring the arboreal verdance of Inverewe Gardens and enjoying coffee and cakes, climbed a few routes in Gruinard Bay. The highlights were Right Charlie at Jetty Crag and Root Beer at Inverianvie Crag - both routes I'd been aware of but not done on previous visits. I'm finding more and more that to improve at trad climbing you need to do lots of it and build up momentum, and given the crap weather that's not really been possible yet this year, so it's nice just to keep ticking over.

Sportage:

After being drizzled off trad routes at Loch Tollaidh on Saturday, Steve and I headed to Creag nan Luch for some redpoint action. We've had a succesful few sessions here after being rained/frozen/blown off trad crags, and this time I opted for Murdo's 7a+ slab Unfinished Business and was surprised to get it first redpoint. I think the grade is a bit contentious as it be easier the taller you are, but I definately found the crux pretty dang hard. Steve ticked the pumpy 6b Astar.

Boulderage:

I'm just back in from ticking my summer project - a beautiful steep curving arete at Laggan called Strongbow, and weighing in around the V7/7A+ mark. I'd half-heartedly tried it a few times earlier in the year and knew it would climb really well, I just couldn't do it. Dave Macleod then did the first ascent when I showed it to him in April, and since then I've had 5 or 6 sessions up there specifically trying it. Each time I've come away one step closer to the tick, refining the sequence and getting stronger and smoother on it. On my last session I kept failing on the same move but could do all the others almost every time, so this time I had a good long think and totally changed my foot sequence and hey presto! It worked. It's a big tick for me, as it's a brilliant problem - steep, technical and great moves - at my own little stomping ground of Laggan, and despite Dave doing it first, I found, cleaned it, and worked out the moves, and it's my first 7A+! (Dave reckoned that was the grade, and who am I to argue? Can someone come along and repeat it to confirm please?). I've taken quite a bit of footage of my sessions, so will edit something together and post it soon, but here's Dave on the FA:

Strongbow - Laggan from Gareth Marshall on Vimeo.

Crumble

I could feel the hold crumbling under my fingers and knew I was off straight away. The familiar lurch backwards, the milli-second flap of stomach butterflies, the sub-concious grab of the knot, the peculiarly unattached "what's going to happen next?" sensation. Of course, all that happened was that I fell a few metres onto a nice shiny bolt, but taking a lob is still always exciting. Serves me right for using the wrong holds.

I got the route, Match if You're Weak, next go. Another of the great routes on Moy's Big Flat Wall ticked. Now that the trees are gone this place seems to be becoming the most popular crag for miles around, especially now Mr Nisbet has added a couple more easy routes. Apparently it's not uncommon on a sunny evening to see a queue for Little Teaser, the crag classic 6b+.

Other than a couple of exciting-but-safe run-out routes at Farrletter on a sunny evening last week, the weather hasn't been conducive to getting out much. ***(As an aside, why do people only seem to top-rope at Farrletter? It just polishes the routes and drops a load of shit on them when the rope erodes the top of the crag. All the routes I've done or tried have been safe enough. Either man-up and lead or bugger off to somewhere the routes are easier, like Kingussie. Rant over)***. I'm getting plenty of exercise doing montane bird surveys (basically paid Munro-bagging and bird watching), so shouldn't complain too much, I guess. I'm hoping that when my contract finishes at the end of July there'll be a month of brilliant weather to play with, but if August is anything like last year, I won't hold my breath.

Incoming!

Stevie Johnston nipping up The Unknown Soilleir at Laggan 1 before another band of rain comes from the west.

This photo sums up the last few week's of sporadic activity.

Make Hay

Getting a bit toasty in Torridon.

Was that the summer? I bloody hope not.

The Strathspey weather seems to have fast-forwarded straight through to the horrible sunshine and showers we usually get in high summer. I'm not fretting too much yet, as there's normally a few high pressure systems to play with each summer, but still it sucks.

Murdo on Neart Nan Gaidheal at Ardmair.

That old saying about making hay while the sun shines definitely rang true when it did, with desperate flurries of texts going back and forth among the Inverness area climbers, making plans, arranging partners and lifts, checking forecasts. I don't feel too ashamed with the way I used the good weather: finally putting Mactalla to bed, pleasant routes at Seanna Mheallan while Torridon blazed below, evening sunshine at Kingussie Crag, skin-loss and body-pump at Ardmair and shower and midge dodging at the new(ish) sport routes on Creag nan Cadhag, Stone Valley. But of course, just as I'm starting to feel like I'm getting into my stride the rain intervenes. I guess it's a good time to go back indoors to keep up some strength.

Jones seconding Right Hand Crack at Kingussie.

Echo

Redpointing Mactalla

(Photo: Murdo Jamieson)

I remember first hearing about Goat Crag when I lived in Fort William. I was climbing with Blair quite a bit, and every so often he’d slope off to the north for a weekend of sport climbing and come back raving about amazing routes, perfect Lewisian Gneiss and the beautiful North West. He also kept telling me about this one route called Mactalla - I would love it and should get myself up there ASAP.

Not long afterwards, Gary Latter’s Scottish Rock North guide came out and I got another glimpse of this place. I couldn’t fail to notice the four stars Mactalla got, and the “one of the best routes of it’s grade in the country” description. The only issue I could see was the grade: F7a+. At this stage I’d only just redpointed a couple of F7as and was pretty sure they were soft touches, so the jump up was going to be a big deal. Never the less, everything about this route seemed like a perfect line to aspire to: the location, the rock, the grade and the reputation it was steadily acquiring. I just needed to get on it!

It wasn’t until the spring of 2009 that I had my first experience of the route. While waiting for wet trad crags to dry in Gruinard Bay I dragged Steve up to Goat Crag for a look. I knew straight away that I'd have a battle on my hands as this was clearly a long, steep, stamina route - something that a slab climbing boulderer isn;t very good at. I played on the first few clips but before long the sun came out and we headed off for some trad routes.

It was about 6 months later that I next went to Goat Crag. I'd hoped to get on Mactalla but it was wet most of the day so I amused myself on the easy warm ups and watched Blair and Iain make everything look easy, and this heralded the start of a period of about a year and a half when I was desperate to do Mactalla but circumstances kept delaying me. Often it seeps in the morning, so quite a few times I got on another route first and was too spanked by the time I tried it in the afternoon. Sometimes I was out with folk for whom Goat Crag didn't offer much scope so we went elsewhere. Sometimes we drove all the way to Gruinard Bay to find it clagged in and raining. Compared to it's neighbour Am Fasgadh it's an exposed icebox in winter and can be a similar baking sun-trap in summer, so I stayed away for big chunks of the year. But during all this time Mactalla was in the back of my mind, niggling away as THE route I most wanted to do. Even last year when I managed the similar and sensational Paralysis by Analysis at the Camel, it was just a substitute and preparation for Mactalla, which was spending the summer dribbling under a rain cloud. My fervour was fuelled all the more by starting to climb with the Goat Crag locals, Murdo, Richie, Andrew, Ian and Tess and seeing them waltz up the route in all conditions and all styles (last time I was there with Murdo he down-climbed it after leading it).

But this spring I decided to get a bit more serious and to be a bit more sensible. I've specifically tried to get as much sport climbing done and tried to get better at falling off and 'going for it' in extremis - being happy taking falls has always held me back, so whenever I've climbed indoors I've made sure that I lead and tried to take a few practice lobs - that sounds like a total punter thing to write, but it's definitely made a difference. A winter of bouldering has meant that I'm moving OK on rock already, rather than having to start all over again after months of winter climbing. And, importantly, when I went to the crag and the line was wet I waited for it to dry and then got on it rested and fresh. Finally, after all this time, I started my redpoint mission about three weeks ago.

On my third visit, after a week of great weather in which I'd clocked up a long stamina F7a redpoint at Moy, two ascents of Stone of Destiny at the Camel and an afternoon of showing some punter called Macleod round the Laggan boulders, and as royal wedding bells rang out across Westminster, I found myself eyeing up the last of the hard moves again. A deadpoint to a good jug, the scene of my previous failures. Gathering myself for the launch, braced for the fall, I squeezed the lefthand crimp, fired upwards, and the journey came to an end.