Courting Controversy - Brin Rock

As a Highland rock climber my primary goal is trad climbing - onsight, adventurous, wild and remote.  All the other climbing I do I often think of as training or I do because weather, conditions or a lack of partners mean trad is out of the question.  Living in the Highlands means these last three factors are often at large: it rains a fair bit, it's often cold, and there aren't many climbers about, which means in a year I end up doing more bouldering and sport climbing than trad. And that's great, because as well as the well-known wealth of brilliant trad climbing we have up here, there's also a lot of very good bouldering, and due to the hard work of a few dedicated folk, an expanding wealth of excellent sport crags.  

The realistic truth is that if I want to be a rock climber in the Highlands I want sport crags, and this means I need people getting out there with drills and bolts, doing the dirty work (Don't ask me, I don't know my arse from my Hilti).  This also means you need crags; crags that are suitable for bolting; that aren't historically or ecologically sensitive; that don't have an established no-bolt ethic.  Coming from a tree-hugging long-term viewpoint, I don't think we should be bolting things that might one day make good trad routes for a fitter, stronger, bolder generation.

And this is my dilemma.

There's a word that's been spoken quietly by the Highland scene for the last year or so: Brin.  Brin Rock is a crag high on a hill in Strathnairn, steep, south-facing, schist.  Best known by climbers these days for the boulders at the foot of the hill, but the crags muster a few trad routes from the 70s and 80s.  Nowadays these routes get very little, if any, traffic.  In the last few years, and unknown to each other, two men visited Brin - Andy Wilby and Guy Robertson.  They both saw the crag from opposite ends of the spectrum. Andy has been responsible for a large number of the sport routes in the Inverness and North West areas, including the now super-popular Moy Rock, and he saw a large amount of steep, fairly blank looking rock on an unpopular and forgotten buttress - ripe for sport development and rejuvenation.  At the same place, Guy saw the potential for a handful of hard, bold trad routes and put up an E6 of his own called Astroceltic Soundsystem.  Not knowing that Guy had climbed his route, (parhaps the moral of this tale is that more open communication in the secretive Scottish scene is needed) Andy and another Inverness local, Dave Douglas, started bolting the crag, staying away from the original trad routes.  When they found out about Guy's route they chopped the bolts that encroached on his line, but continued bolting elsewhere on the crag.  And that's pretty much where we are now.  The bolts are still there, and the crag is growing in popularity with a 'retro-concensus' seeming to emerge.  

I'd stayed away from the crag, not really sure what I made of it.  The sudden appearance of a load of new sport routes on a crag near home (including rumours of a 3* 7a) got the short-termist climber in me excited, but the more philosophical (idealistic?) long-termist part of me couldn't help but be concerned about seeing established trad venues being bolted.  If this crag now, what next?  With the surge in popularity of climbing you can't help but wonder what someone without the knowledge of the history and ethics of British climbing might want to bolt, and will the bolting of venues like Brin just encourage gung-ho bolting?  

In these debates people often say 'it makes a better sport crag than trad crag', or 'if bolting makes the crag more popular, then bolt it'.  I don't hold with these arguments at all - rock is rock, a natural resource.  It doesn't have amenity value or human worth.  If a crag isn't popular, so what?  Does it have to be?  In the geological time-scale of rocks, climbing has been around for the merest fraction of a fraction of time, what gives us the right to drill bits of metal into them just because we, humans alive today, aren't good enough at climbing to get up them without drilling?  On the other side, I've no-doubt that some climbers could do most of the sport routes I've ever done on trad, so should those bolts be chopped?

Anyway, enough cod-philosophy.  I felt like I had to go to see for myself, so went up on Friday morning with Nick.  To be honest, I still don't know where I stand.  I'm simultaneously impressed with the amount of work Andy and Dave have put into developing the crag (access paths through the dense vegetation, an in-situ rope up the scramble to the base of the crag and good bolting), and impressed with Guy for trad climbing up a bloody scary-looking steep wall.  On that sun-baked session I warmed up on a nice 6c called Captains of Crush but failed to redpoint the rumoured 3* 7a One and Only.  I was loathe to admit it, but it is a brilliant sport route, sustained and unlikely-looking, long moves between good holds, and no obvious gear placements.  I felt I had unfinished business up there.  Rich recommended a return visit on Sunday morning so I went back up to see if I could seal the deal.  It was a lot cooler, with more of a breeze, and I managed to get it done on the first redpoint.  Rich then ticked The Pink Wall, a great-looking, rather steep 7b(+?), and I surprised myself by doing Snake in the Grass, the 7a+ variation into One and Only, which, again, climbed brilliantly.

I had hoped the crag would be crap, with crap routes, a crap view and crap rock, and I'd  feel justified in not really wanting the bolts to be there, but the truth is that it's pretty good, it's close to Inverness and has a spread of grades that other local crags don't really have.  But, the question is, if this is OK, what will the uber-wad trad climbers of the future have to climb?

Reverting to Type

The distant chattering of a ring ouzel blends with the bubbling froth of the nearby burn.  The air is full with the sweet sun-warmed scent peculiar to the plants at this sub-montane habitat - matt grass, crowberry and blaeberry all dominating over the lower altitude heaths. I'm here at last. I've thought about this place a lot in the last year.  Ever since I first came here it's been nibbling away in the back of my mind as a place to return to, to explore.

Despite being a Cairngorms-based climber with a preference for slabs, I'd not been in the Cairngorms once yet in 2012, summer or winter, and not climbed any routes that I would describe as proper slabs. So after a few good days in the North West over the last weekends, including some steep crack grovelling at Ardmair and a redpoint of the mega-steep Snowflake at Goat Crag, it felt like time to change up and do something completely different. 

Not a slab: Abbing for a stuck wire on Space Monkeys, Ardmair. 

While working on the RSPB's Montane Bird Survey last summer I had the good  fortune to work on Beinn a' Bhuird, one of the more remote Cairngorm hills.  The size of the area we were surveying meant an overnight stay, but I couldn't be bothered to lug a tent up with me.  After a bit of research I found out about the Smith-Winram bivuac under Dividing Buttress in Coire an Dubh Lochan, and after a day's work dropped down into the coire to find it.  On approaching the crag I couldn't help but notice the smooth granite slabs set below the buttress itself and comparisons to the Lower Slab at Hell's Lum started to spring to mind.  Closer inspection provided all I needed to know - gently angled, compact, perfect Cairngorm granite, an obvious line of  blankness between two cracks.  Later I quizzed Julian Lines, the master of remote Cairngorm slabs, and he didn't know of any routes there.  I vowed to return with rock shoes.

Dividing Buttress, Coire an Dubh Lochan.
The slab is bottom centre, left  of the dark wet patch and above the boulders.

A year passed.  Winter came and went, then the rains arrived and the Cairngorms were out of bounds while the North West was in drought.  The slab remained in the back of my mind but other things got in the way - not the least finding someone else happy to bike and walk the 13km to indulge my twisted fantasy.  In the end I decided to go it alone and yesterday found myself under the slab at last.  Part of  me expected that over the year my memory would have changed the shape or angle or size of the slab - that on my return it wouldn't live up to my hopes.  Fortunetely, I'd remembered it about right.  

On my own, I wasn't really sure what I was going to acheive.  I didn't want to top-rope the route without a good try from the ground first, but could't really justify going for it without at least the vague knowledge that it might be climbable.  In the end I abbed the line, giving it a wee clean as I went.  Then I pulled up the rope (no jumping to safety!)  and after up-downing the start a few times to remind myself how slabs work, took a deep breath and committed.

A dodgy video still of the action.

I got it first try, which was great, but it did leave me feeling a bit puzzled.  It was definitely easier than I'd hoped it might be - I'd secretly been hoping for a new Firestone - and I couldn't work out if I had just pulled  an amazing climbing performance out of the bag (I'll admit, frictiony slabs are probably my strongest climbing area) or if the route just wasn't very hard.  I think the slab is a degree or two shallower than Firestone, and allied with slightly courser granite, there were more tiny edges and rugosities to play with.  Regardless, however, it was still a 17m solo flash of a beautiful piece of granite, which is more than I'd expected when I got out of bed yesterday.  I'm calling it Kissy Klub after everyone's favourite electro producer Kissy Sell Out, who's mixes have been keeping psyche levels high for the last few years (he was on the ipod on the way in and out yesterday), and, based on other routes I've done that are a bit like this, tentatively giving it E3 5b, but I'll be honest, I don't really know.  You could place a runner in one of the cracks right at the top, but am not sure if it would be worth it.

The Smith-Winram Slab.  Kissy Klub goes between the obvious cracks in the centre

Barrathon and Beyond

Having lived in Scotland for almost 10 years and never been out to the Western Isles I'd started to feel that a trip was well overdue.  I've been out on climbing trips to Pabbay and Mingulay before, with quick overnight stops in Castlebay on Barra, but the full 130 mile trip up through the Uists, Harris and Lewis was still undone.  Sarah had heard about the half-marathon on Barra - the brilliantly named Barrathon - which seemed like a good starting point for an adventure, and luckily we managed to get an entry in the 45 minutes it took to fill up.  So, we booked ferry tickets, did some training, packed Sarah's battered old Ford Escort and headed west to Oban.  


Race-day dawned damp and breezy, and the prospect of leaving our cosy wee tent on the Vatersay machair in short shorts and skimpy vest wasn't all that appealing.  On the start line the cloud slowly started to lift and  drizzle dwindled as the local priest (local celeb from the BBC's An Island Parish, no less) fired the starting pistol and 1hr29minutes of angst and suffering began.  It was only my second half marathon (last one in 2004, that's how much road running I do) and although I'm probably much fitter now I only improved on my time by 10 minutes, but it earned me 8th place.  Also, it's a pretty hilly course, with a brilliantly long climb up the side of Heaval at 11miles, just when you don't want it.


Disciplined Sarah had stuck to a training plan and was aiming for sub-2hrs.  She was a bit miffed to miss it by 2 minutes, but given the hilly course I'd let her have it, especially given that it's the longest continual run she's done (mountain marathons don't count, it's all walking!).  I'm really proud of her dedication.
The next day we went to find Breaker Wall, a nice crag on Barra that's been fairly recently developed (info on Colin Moody's site here) and after some scary sheath-cutting abseiling (my fault) did a brilliant E2 called Druth's Groove and a nice aptly named Diff called Escape Route under the watchful eyes of a rather bemused grey seal.  

Druth's Groove, Breaker Wall, Barra

We laugh afterwards: 50m ab rope soon becomes 2x25m ab ropes.

From Barra to Eriskay, to South Uist, to Benbecula, to North Uist, to Berneray - big skies, empty spaces, sandy beaches, historic sites, museums, tea, cake, not much exercise.  These islands felt a bit like the land that time forgot, still following the seasonal crofting cycles - small houses dotted across the landscape, grey, pebble-dashed, functional.  Even the occasional nods to the modern world, like the military base and airfield on Benbecula, felt old and impoverished, like looking at archive footage of the 70s and 80s.

Sarah and the Sea

Eventually we docked at Leverburgh on South Harris, a much more familiar (and much preferred) landscape of hills and rock.  A quick run up Clisham the next day then off to the tiny island of Bernera off Lewis' west coast.  Here we found our favourite beach of the trip at Bostadh, where an Iron Age village had been hidden in the dunes for centuries, to be exposed to our inquisitive eyes by an Atlantic storm in 1993 then re-buried to preserve.  We found Creag Liam nearby and I mustered some psyche for my first ever deep water solo - Mini Tsunami, 4a, 20m, S2 (what ever that means), first done by the heroic Jules Lines.  Suffice to say, getting to the bottom of the route was far harder than 4a, and you really wouldn't want to fall off from much higher than the first 10 metres (the shaking started when a hold broke at about 15 metres).  An intense, deep experience, that will live on for a long time.

Part way up Mini-Tsunami at Creag Liam, Lewis.

A Realisation

Looks like the sun has set on the long spring dry spell in the Highlands.  June showers are here again and it's looking like this will be the first weekend for quite some time that I haven't got at least one route done.  Sad times.  On the bright side, I'm seeing it as an opportunity to pull hard on small holds, to get pumped silly in a controlled environment and a chance to go running and not feel guilty that I'm throwing away the precious few trad opportunities that we Northerner's get offered.

Training for ledge shuffling

I'm feel pretty positive about the way the climbing year has gone so far.  Last August I started a new job that gives me a three day weekend, but means I'm away from home three nights a week. Initially I worried that being away for those three nights would really take a chunk out of the amount I could climb or go to the wall, that I'd start to lose strength (what strength?), fitness (what fitness?) and that I'd generally feel out of the loop.  Instead, by careful (selfish?) use of my longer weekends I think if anything I'm still on the very gradually improving gradient that I've been on since I started climbing in 2004.  When it comes to grades (and I apologise, but it does) the numbers don't say much, but the numbers of the numbers tell me I'm doing more, quicker.

Let's not get carried away,  mind.  E3 is still a big deal.  Redpointing a 7a is still something to be proud of, and bouldering harder than 7A seems nigh-on impossible (mind you, if this chap is to be believed, it appears that I've chosen to take on 'the world's hardest 7A+' in Malc's Arete).  I'm well aware that I'm the height of mediocrity, a fact reinforced by reading about and seeing the exploits of many folk that I know:  Rob, Murdo, Dave, to name a few, not to mention the rumblings of the grade-hungry climbing media.  I sometimes wonder why I take it all so seriously, why I hang from a fingerboard, why I do circuits on Rich's board, why I run, why I read about training, about core strength, about periodisation, about active rest, why I even write all this down.  And then I realise, it's because I love it.  Yes, I want to be a better climber, I want to go to amazing places and to be able to climb inspiring routes, I want to have deep experiences, to learn things about myself that only adventure, fear, hardship can teach.  But, even if those things never happen,  I've realised it's the process of trying to get there that I love.

Battle Stations

I'd booked a week off work a few months back, gambling that it would coincide with some Highland sunshine and finding midweekers to climb with, and by a stroke of luck seem to have hit the jackpot.  Blue skies, dry crags, midge-busting breezes.  10 days off work: 7 days out tradding, 1 day trying to boulder (too warm!), 2 days of domestic bliss (the lawn won't mow itself, or so Sarah tells me).

The Beginning:  a sunny afternoon at Glenmarksie on the way out for a Torridon weekend.  It's a nice wee crag in a lovely spot on the edge of Strathconon but, like so many Highland crags, has a dirty, neglected air.  In the Lakes or Wales it would be spotless and perma-chalked.  A winter of getting good at trusting the scrittly schist/lichen interface at Laggan paid off.  Then Groovin' High on Beinn Eighe on Saturday and getting baked on Routes 3 and 1 at Diabeg on Sunday.  Sunburnt calves....

Steve had the camera while I was climbing and was convinced that if he zoomed in enough he'd see topless women..

Russell having a hard time after I sent him the wrong way on the last pitch of Route 3, Diabeg.  Must pay more attention to the topo in future.

The Middle:  Richie's on leave and prepping for a long weekend at Fairhead so keen to dust off his wires.  Gruinard Crag makes a good dog-friendly option on Tuesday and a chance to do Red John of the Battles, one of the classic North West cragging E2s.  A good route, but surpassed by the more technical Pistolero.  Rich mops up the E4s at the right of the crag.  Next day Reiff beckons and Rich starts with a decent lob off the top of The Mystic onto my little Zero 4 cam...  It holds,  phew.  I somehow battle up Elastic Collision but then have to rest seconding Seal Song next door.  I've got work to do with my crack climbing...  The day ends with a fluttering heart above The Channering Worm.  Starting to feel the trad momentum, this weather can't last...

Rich getting ready for the ride on The Mystic.

The easy finish to The Channering Worm, Reiff.  I remember back in 2005, imagining what it would be like to do this when members of my uni mountaineering club were failing to headpoint it.   It only took me 7 years. Oops.
 (Photo: Rich Betts)

The End:  A late start means it's only a half day at Rhue with Steve, but having never been before it's just nice to soak up the chilled seacliff atmosphere and drink in the view of Ben Mhor Coigach across Ardmair Bay.  The 15 metre Boom Boom Boom packs in an adventure totally out of proportion with it's size - one of the best routes so far this year?  Steve gets the Rhue Corner tick.  Finally, Sunday afternoon Phallatio at Creag Dubh - I'd bargained a single belay from Sarah with the promise of tea and cake at the The Potting Shed afterwards. I really should climb here more...

A Sermon

As a science-fearing atheist I feel very comfortable saying that I don't believe in a higher power.  No gods, no designers, no creators.  However, sometimes, and just sometimes, I wonder, and the conclusion I keep coming to is that if there is one, they're a climber.

God's gear?

I was thinking this as I walked off Beinn Eighe on Saturday afternoon, having just romped up Groovin' High on Coire Mhic Fhearchair's Far East Wall.  I'm ashamed to admit that I'd never climbed on Beinn Eighe before, but I'd heard tell of the brilliantly steep, positive and well-protected climbing provided by the steep quartzite walls.  I'm glad I'd heard this, as it meant I was prepared for the shock and awe cast by the sheer, grey, seemingly-blank appearance that the crags confronted us with as we dropped into the coire.  


"Are you sure an E1 goes up there?"  
"Well, that's where the guide says it goes"
"Looks pretty steep to me".
"Let's find out".

....some hours later...

Steve following pitch 1 of Groovin' High

"F*****g hell! That was f*****g amazing!"
"Not bad, eh?"
"The f*****g holds, just...so.. f*****g...big!  And the f*****g gear!  And the f*****g exposure!  Just when you thought things were about to get sketchy you just placed a brilliant bit of gear, reached up, and hugged the mother of all jugs.  Again, and again.  F******g brilliant!"

Russell at the end of the last pitch.

It does sometimes strike me how incredible it seems that holds and cracks for protection are so regularly spaced on so many bits of rock across the globe - how many,  many bits of rock can be climbed at pretty amenable standards, even ones that look totally improbable.  Maybe there is a creator that designed it after all.

Or maybe Homo sapiens are one of many species of primate and are therefore quite good at climbing.

In  bad news, the 2012 midge season kicked off  this weekend.

Duncan Gump

The sun emerges on Clough Head (Photo: Viv Scott)

As dawn crept into the Eastern sky we could make out the glimmering of torches coming off Blencathra.  Flickering left and right, snaking down to Thelkeld and the waiting support teams.  Duncan, Adam and Andy, supported by the irrepressible Viv, soon arrived out of the gloom, steaming like colts in the frosty morning air, smiles beaming across their faces.  Leg 1 of 5: complete.  They'd been out for four hours already, starting at one in the morning on their second attempt at completing the Bob Graham Round, the Lake District challenge of 74 miles and 42 peaks in under 24 hours.   The first attempt having been cut short by wild weather almost a year previously.

Dermot and I were Duncan's pacers for leg 2, the graveyard shift from Thelkeld to Dunmail Raise.  Like a Grand Prix pit-stop, Sarah had Duncan's kit laid out ready for him on arrival: a change of socks, a bite of pizza, a mug of warm soup, water, jelly babies, jaffa cakes.  I took the rucksack from Viv, who stuck to his all-night- party-animal form and decided to carry on with us (if you've got up at midnight to go running, I guess there's not much point stopping at half four).  And within a few minutes of their arrival, we were off.

Toward Great Dodd (Photo: Viv Scott)

Four and a half hours later, leg 2 completed on schedule, we waved a freshly refuelled and re-shod Dunc goodbye as he started up Steel Fell with his new team of pacers for leg 3.  Sarah's job, as lynch-pin support driver for legs 2 and 3 was  now complete, it was 0830, and we had the rest of the day to play with.  However, somewhat weary after an early start, the best we mustered was the Langdale Boulders (mainly bouldering, but a fair bit of dodging the mountains of sheep shit too), followed by tea and cakes in Ambleside, a snooze, a wee walk to Derwent Water (watched a fishing osprey) and then a race back into Keswick to see Duncan sprinting up the high street looking fresh as a daisy.  He took 19 hours, 32 minutes for his Bob Graham Round - very fast indeed.  Adam and Andy arrived within the hour, making a trio of fast BGs.  Nice one boys!

To the victor, the spoils: Duncan after 19hrs 32mins of being Forrest Gump. (Photo: Matthew Tilley)

Sunday morning routes: M.G.C at Shephards Crag (Photo: Viv Scott)