Fall of the Wild

Is it wet? Or is it my own sweat? Chalk. Chalk. Chalk.  Nervousness. Dry mouth.
Is the cam I shoved in above the stuck Friend over-cammed?  More gear.  Need more gear.

Move from the rest back up into the land of confusion.  Sideways holds.  Fight, wires in teeth, grating a bloodied knuckle, jerking and tugging, two happy wires sit firm.  Bubbles of security.  Back at the rest, I look down at Murdo, surprised how far I have to arch my neck to see him.  This has to be the steepest trad route I've been on for a long time.  No wonder I'm fatigued.  No wonder I'm scared.  Whipping around in the maelstrom of my buzzing mind is what I've recently found out about this route.  Folk I know failed on it, where it steepens, right at the last.  All good climbers.

I can see a crack, surely Friend 2 width.  And maybe slightly smaller just above.  I make another pass into the confusion, seeing more with each tentative foray.  The Friend goes in, I struggle to clip it, groaning.  Down to the rest again. Next time, I'll go for it.  The kit's good.  You're just tiring yourself.  Get up there and move right. The top of that black boss. It's a jug.

This time I'm passed the Friend, don't ask me how.  Thinking back, I can't remember what I did.  Reaching right to the flange I can bridge out and stuff another cam into the higher crack.  Clip and move.  Rightwards.  The top of that black boss.  It's a jug.  And it is. Swimming with the steepness, paste feet right and step in to rock up and rock round.  Rounded.  Rounded.  So, this is what the guide meant about laybacking rounded holds.  Feet up again, right toes on a sloping ramp.  Sloping down and down.  But it's too far right.  Trying to pull up, and in.  Slap the left hand.  Rounded.  Slap again.  Rounded.  The right hand is under my chest and I try to bring my weight into the niche.  Face pressed on rock.  Off balance.  Ragged breathing. The terror.  Becoming deafening.  Deafening.

And I'm off.

My first visit to Lochan Dubh Crag proved a memorable one.

Slow Beginnings

It's been a mixed few months up here.  I booked a couple of weeks off work in late April and early May, hoping to cash in on one of those amazing Springtime high pressures we sometimes get in the Highlands - warm air, blue skies, the glens infused with the sweet scent of birch sap as fluorescent buds unfurl, a cacophony of cuckoos and willow warblers making house, home after their long journeys.  Nature yawning and blinking into a new season.

I'd hoped that by the end of my time off I'd have a decent list of battles under my belt and scars on my hands and I'd be starting to feel fit and confident. I'd have dusted off the winter of boulders and sport climbs, re-acquainted myself with wires and cams, fear and commitment.  Like nature's new arrivals; ready for the new season. I'd be lying to say I've done nothing, but it's definitely not been the festival of spring psyche I'd been dreaming of.  The stable weather we've enjoyed for the last couple of springs is yet to show itself and I've been dodging between soaking showers and tempting sunshine.  I live in hope.

A day at soggy Ardmair was salvaged by doing a damp E1 on Arapiles Wall and bettered the next day with my inaugural visit to Inbherpollaidh Rock Gym.  By the end of the day I started to feel the trad head returning - that strange cocktail of fear, intrigue and confidence that comes from pushing into the unknown.  Prior to this I spent a cold afternoon at the Camel and a showery day having good redpoint goes on Primo at Am Fasgadh (still no joy, and surely the season has closed by now?).

I've had a few bouldering sessions too.  After the Am Fasgadh day I had time to kill in Ullapool so spent a sunny hour at Ardmair Beach, the waves gently lapping at the pebbles as I spent the last of my strength and skin.  I finally got round to visiting Tom Riach, the Culloden conglomerate boulder, ticking everything but the traverse before rain stopped play.  I returned a week later for that one. This week I had a session back at Ruthven and decided to try White Russian, aka Mike's Problem.  It's a bit eliminate but is the only other 7A+ after Barry Manilow so worth a punt.  I managed all the moves in that session so looking forward to returning.  Strangely, I think it might be one of those problems that you don't want it to bee too cold for, otherwise slapping for the sharp holds would just be too painful.  A good summer project?

2 long held ambitions finally achieved - Suilven and Lochinver's famous pies on the same day.

Badbea Clearance Village in Caithness, not a happy place.

Blair in traditional Highland dress.

Blair on Tyrantic, E4 6a, Inbherpollaidh Rock Gym.

After Rich crocked himself on his road bike (look at this pic) I took Bronwen off to look for potential new crags, only to find someone else's old anchor round this rather insubstantial rock! 

Still snowy?

I've been on a few winter-sun sport climbing trips to Spain in the last few years, always to Catalunya, always in November or December.  By the end of a week I always come home feeling keen and confident, ready to tear up the local crags, only to remember that it's mid-winter in the Highlands and you just have to take what you can get.  So, this time Nick and I booked a holiday to Chulilla in Valencia in late March, in the hope that our return would coincide with the start of Spring and the pre-midge trad season.  The success of this plan is yet to be seen, as our arrival home has been greeted with continued cold weather, morning frosts, and more snow in the forecast, but we did manage a great short trip.  I've climbed with Nick a few times at home, mainly at our local suntrap of Moy, and knew that we climbed at a similar standard, so it was great to go out with someone who was going to be keen to try the same routes.

Chulilla itself is a wee Valencian village tucked into a hillside above a huge meandering limestone gorge.  Back in the 70s and 80s it was a real destination in the European sport scene, providing loads of long, technical wall climbs, but for one reason or another it fell out of favour and people stopped going.  Perhaps peoples tastes changed for shorter, steeper routes?  Regardless, in the last few years it's had a renaissance, with locals equipping loads of new routes and re-equipping the old ones, and the gorge is starting to echo with the clamour of climbers from across Europe again.

The view from the refugio

Our mates Rich and Lee were already out when we arrived so they were able to give us the lowdown on crags to visit and routes to try (or avoid - the new guide still uses the old school grades for the old school crags, beware!).  Like us, they were staying in one-time World Bouldering Champ Pedro Pons' nice new refugio El Altico, which is stunningly situated, looking out across the gorge.  Nick and I spent most of out time trying to onsight and flash routes, with a couple of specific projecting sessions thrown in, and ended up climbing almost exclusively at the three sectors called El Oasis, Pared de Enfrente and Sex Shop (not sure why it's called that...).  I think, for once, my attempted preparation for the trip paid off a little, as I seemed to be climbing better than I have done before - perhaps the long pitches are quite forgiving for the grade?  Regardless, it felt great to have the confidence to just step up to routes and try them, rather than going through the regular mental turmoil.  Highlights for me were the long 6c crack El Diagonal, the horrid-looking but amazing climbing 6c Presiscrack, flashing the lovely techy 7as Plan Z and Top of the Rock, onsighting the 7a Super Furry Animal, which has it's tough tufa crux right at the end, and redpointing the superb 7b Dale Duro Negro.  Nick did this last route on his first redpoint, but I had to plump for second go after falling from the very last move of it's 35m length on my first go.  Punter!

Nick's arse emerging from a resting hole on El Diagonal.

A very small-looking Lee on a very long looking El Ramaller, 7c+

A week has already passed since we got back, and between work, the cold and family commitments I've not been able to make use of my Spanish stamina.  However, a very early start this morning saw me at the Ruthven boulder as the sun came up and I finally dispatched the horrid grovel-fest that is Barry Manilow, the 7A+ mantel that I've been trying on and off for ages, and I was home by eight o'clock and ready for a day of family fun.  Result...

Time Slips By

It seems that the tunnel-visioned focus of the winter rock season is starting to blur.  After months of obsessing over Malc's Arete - constantly failing on that final move and trying to work out how I can train for it (be better, be stronger, be longer, jump higher) - my attention is waning.  Don't get me wrong, I'm still after the prize and am still trying every so often, but as the Spring approaches it's not as high up the list of priorities.

As the season advanced I made minuscule increments of progress - having the start wired, jumping, hitting the lip, twisting and bending the knee, even holding the top for a millisecond - and I dared to dream that perhaps it might happen.  Then it started to go backwards, or at least the progress stopped and I was still hitting the pads.  My hopes were dashed and I felt cheated.  One particular day I went in a cold wind and could hardly keep my pads down and got pretty pissed off - with conditions, and with myself.  Then, the very next day I went to a different boulder, under a blue sky and snowy mountains and out of the obsessive project bubble.  I had a great day, possibly the highlight of the season, climbing new problems on perfect rock. As perspective returned I felt my spirits lift and the dark shadows pass.  I felt like I'd been passing through the stages of grief - Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and now, finally, Acceptance.  I realised again that it's all just a game.  It really doesn't matter. If I ever do Malc's I'll be thrilled, overjoyed. But if I don't, I'll still relish the challenge of trying.

So, the focus has started to shift to routes and fitness.  I'm off to Chulilla in Spain next week so I've been trying to prepare for that, and hope that in turn it'll prepare me for the Highland spring. We've been fairly lucky with the weather up here and trips to the reliable weather-proof options of the Am Fasgadh Sunday scene and Moy and a sunny weekend at Goat Crag have kept me on my toes (and arms).

Am Fasgadh Sundays:
Andy Wilby on Black Sox Direct, 8a+.  After some determined sessions Andy did it this season. Effort!

Besides doing Am Fasgadh's The Shield in January, a few fruitful battles have set the wheels in motion for what could be a good year. First were Fidgey Muckers, a 7a at Goat that I'd failed on last Autumn during a period when I'd hardly done any climbing, and then The Combo, the 7a+ that links Mighty Atom into Too Old to be Famous.  At Moy I surprised myself by doing The Seer second go.  It's gained a pebble-hole on the crux span since I did it last winter so think going down to 7a+ is fair.  Oddly, it probably makes it a better route - less cruxy and more sustained at the same level.  Retro-flashing Constant Flux afterwards was a good reminder in hanging on and working things out when pumped - the aim for Spain.

Am Fasgadh Sundays:Tess off The Shield, 7b

Yesterday me and Sarah had a quick hit to Am Fasgadh while the sun still shone in the West and I had my best ever goes on Primo (or more specifically, The Curving Crack, the 7b+ first part of Primo).  I first tried this back in 2010 but it had never seemed like a reality until this year when I worked out how to do the last hard moves.  For a weakling like me it's a pure power endurance route, short and hard with no real respite.  There's a miserable semi-rest at what's known as the quartz 'jug'.  Jug!  Ha! I can do the route in overlapping halves to and from the jug but the redpoint crux is moving off it into a crozzly pinch.  For the first time I managed that twice yesterday, peeling off just afterwards, but there's a bit of me that thinks that if I can stick the next move it might just be do-able.  Where's that fingerboard?

The Farrletter Debate

I heard through the jungle drums a few weeks ago that Farrletter Crag in Strathspey had been retro-bolted, or at least, some of it had been.  I went down for a look at the crag today, and it's true.  It's something that has been discussed over the years, not least on a couple of UKC threads, with strong feelings on both sides of the argument.  Now it's been done and the argument is pretty much over.

I'll start by saying I no longer live in Strathspey so accept that my opinions probably hold little weight, and that this post is just that - my opinion.  I don't want to implicate anyone else or piss anyone off, but I do think it's something that should be discussed and that people should know about - you might even want to go and do the routes yourself.

Farrletter is an odd little place - a steep, North-facing wall of very compact schist, similar to sections of nearby Creag Dubh.  It's very close to the road so easy to access for a summer evening's cragging (if the midges don't get you!).  It's got a handful of routes from E1 to E6, and the nature of the rock means they're often fairly bold (some rely on pegs) and pretty strenuous - again, similar to it's much more famous neighbour.  Some of the routes are fine though, including a very safe E4 crack.  The routes were developed in the 80s and 90s by locals, mainly from Glenmore Lodge.  Being short and close to the road, it seems it's always been treated as a training venue rather than a normal trad crag - as far as I'm aware most people top-rope the routes and they are rarely led, even rarer onsight. I guess this style of route isn't very popular nowadays, especially if you're just after a few laps to keep fit on a sunny evening.  As such, the idea of bolting it to create a sport crag has been mooted on more than one occasion.

As far as I'm aware, arguments put forward by others (taken from my own discussions and UKC 'discussions') in favour of bolting are:

• To stop wear and tear to trees used as anchors for top-roping.
• To provide a safe training venue for Strathspey climbers.
• To make the crag more popular - it's a small, insignificant crag with only local interest as a harder trad venue, plus Creag Dubh, a haven for this style of climbing, is nearby.
• The safety of old pegs is unknown - better to replace them with 100% safe bolts.

The right hand section of Farrletter, where 3 lines have been bolted. These are roughly the lines of Master Farrter (E5 6c), Yet so Farther (E5 6b), and The Art of Course Climbing (E5 6b).

When I first went there in 2009 I think I saw the crag quite differently to the locals.  Sure, there are some pretty bold looking E5s, a few E1s, E2s and E3s with spaced kit, and a smattering of dubious old pegs, but it just looked like a normal crag to me (all be it not a very pretty one).

Over the four years I lived in Aviemore I visited the crag a couple of times a year, onsighting most of the E1- E3s.  I attempted to onsight the very safe E4 Too Farr for the Bear but took the lob from the top and took it again on the second ground-up attempt a week or so later.  I've not been back on it.  I also dabbled in headpointing while it was briefly fashionable with a few locals in 2009, climbing the E5 The Art of Course Climbing after top-rope practice. A friend, who is a far better climber than me, then climbed this route ground-up after falling onto the peg on the onsight attempt.  During this time a new E6 start to one of the older E5s was climbed by Steve Johnston.  All these routes were spicy little challenges, requiring as much mental endeavor as physical to do them - the essence of trad climbing.   The point I'm trying to make is that to me, it's just another trad crag, with hard routes that I won't touch, and easier routes I'm happy to attempt onsight.  Just like Stanage, or the Shelterstone or Sheigra. There are hard or dangerous routes all over the place and if I don't feel up to leading them, I don't.  Perhaps I'm an ethical elitist, perhaps I'm an idiot.

Headpointing The Art of Course Climbing in 2009 - is that trad gear?

My rebuttlal to some of the points put forward above would be:

• Fair enough, bolted anchors will put an end to damaging the trees at the top of the crag, but so will stopping top-roping!
• It's not for nature to provide crags as safe training venues for local climbers.  To be honest, Farrletter would be a pretty crap training venue - between winter cold, summer midges and year round wetness you'd be better off a) building a board in your garage and buying a fingerboard,  b) going to the climbing wall, c) going to some of the reliable year-round sport venues we already have (Moy, The Camel, Am Fasgadh, Goat Crag etc, or d) go bouldering, there's some good stuff nearby, honest.
• Trying to make a crag more popular by making routes safer is all well and good, if you find the crag and develop it yourself.  But if a crag is initially developed as a bold trad crag, that's what it is.  If people don't go there because they choose not to climb hard or bold routes, that's OK. A crag is just a lump of rock sticking out of the earth, it doesn't have to be popular.  Even if the people that first developed it are no longer as bold as they once were and would prefer to see it made safer, others might be up for the challenge   Should they have their scary routes denied them?  There's a reason we all go on holiday to Spain to sport climb, not Strathspey.  Spain has a prevailing ethic of bolted protection, Farrletter is (was) a trad crag.
• I'll grant you the old pegs vs new bolts argument is a tricky one, but to my mind a peg is temporary and can easily be removed or replaced.  A bolt is permanent and instantly changes the nature of a route.  In this case I would rather all the pegs were removed, making it an even bolder trad crag, than it was bolted and turned into a safe sport crag.

So, personally, I think Farrletter is an already established trad climbing venue and shouldn't be retro-bolted. By not seeing it as a training venue but as a normal trad crag it has provided me with some great climbing experiences - spicy and serious but memorable and rewarding.  As a sport crag it will provide some pretty mediocre 10-15 metre long wall climbs on a north-facing, dark, dank crag.   But I guess that's pogress. 

A New Day

After my soul searching day in Torridon I went out to a nice wee boulder I'd visited once before above Achnashellach in Strathcarron, gave it a wee scrub, tried hard on some lovely rock and had a jolly old time.  Funny how perspective can change so fast.

When I first went there a few weeks ago I couldn't for the life of me work out how to do one move on an otherwise really cool and obvious problem..  This time, however, I came up with a very peculiar and painful knee/shin bar, using an old tea towel taped to my leg as a makeshift pad.  I think it might be the future of hard bouldering.

In the past I'd be keen to shout from the rooftops about finding a new boulder and doing new problems, but this time I'm just happy to have been to such a cool place and to have my own wee tussle.  I put together this little film of the problems, and bolted on the thing I did in Torridon on Sunday.

Winter Exploration from Gareth Marshall on Vimeo.

Torridon Diaries #7

I passed up the chance to have a sociable day swinging from bolts at Am Fasgadh to go to Torridon on my own.  Malc's isn't going to climb itself.  But even before I left the house I knew nothing had changed and that conditions weren't likley to be great.  The seeds of doubt have started to sprout into seedlings and saplings.  I went anyway.  Between weather and other things I'd not been out to the Glen for three weeks. I've had a few quick blitzes on Rich's board and at Alien 2 in Edinburgh, and a few deadhang sessions in the brief spells back at home, but doing more days in the field at work and the lack of contact with rock left me feeling sluggish.

So, arrival at the Ship. A cold, strong Easterly is determined to steal my tarp before I can pin it down with rocks and pads.  I've tried to warm up but the wind robs any heat straight away.  I have a few goes but it feels terrible.  I feel terrible.  The head games change up a gear.

Why am I here?  What am I trying to prove, and to whom?  This piece of rock is clearly way beyond me.  Always has been, always will be.  Frustration. But I'm not sure where it comes from.  Is it not being able to do it? Or is it for kidding myself that I thought I might?  Injustice.  What do I need to do?  Haven't I tried enough?  I feel like I've spent enough days and enough day dreams on this.

I pack up and move off.  There's a huge list of things that I'd like to do in Torridon, some new, most old, but it's always felt like I'm missing the point if I concentrate on them before doing Malc's.  Maybe now it's time to move on. Before I start to head up the hill Ann and Nigel arrive.  They've both been working on their own projects for months and are obviously psyched for another day of battle.  Their motivation brings shame to my self-obsessed pity.

It turned out to be a pretty good day in the end, doing a cool new (?) problem up on the Stokes Croft level, and finding lots of stuff to come back to.  On arrival back at the car there was a note under my windscreen wiper from Ann and Nigel.  As I read it, the motivation started to return...