Cold Fusion Blog

Friday 23 - Saturday 24. This weekend we were more decisive in getting away for the weekend before Mike headed offshore again, so defying the bad forecast for the rest of the UK we headed up to the North West.

On Friday after a frustrating fight out of the city traffic and up the M90 we stopped briefly at Dunkeld’s Myopics Buttress for Mike to redpoint Granola Head F7c. After a shaky first redpoint he dispatched the route second go in good style. After this we piled back into the car to make the long journey to Creag Nan Luch near Poolewe arriving at 4.30pm. Here I tried one of the steep routes on the upper tier. I was a wee bit disappointed it wasn’t as good as I had remembered and I started pulling off big holds at the top onto Mike. Still I’ll be back with a wire brush to see if I can find a better sequence. On the lower tier Mike made a good attempt at doing a route or two before we were midged out of town. Deterred we headed off to the hostel for the night.

Mike inspecting a project, even a fist jam won’t help wearing footwear like that.

Saturdays weather forecast seemed to hold and morning drizzle cleared to a generally overcast day with enough wind to (only just) keep the midges at bay. The plan for the day was to visit Goat Crag to do some routes and perhaps put up a new one. In between belaying Michael on Mac Talla (which he did 1st RP) and Mighty Atom. I managed to find a suitable line to equip. Left of the existing sport routes was a short steep bulging wall resembling a mini Dumbuck. The central line looked superb so after a quick inspection I set to work. Being the first route I’ve bolted with resin bolts in ages I was surprised it took nearly three hours to rig, drill and glue. It was after 6pm by the time I started trying the final route. After working out all the moves and a tricky third clip I started redpointing. On my first and second redpoint I made it to the last hard move before flailing. I changed tactics to do the crux in one almighty throw, but by the third redpoint I was knackered and it was 10pm! Leaving disappointed I was worried the weather would deteriorate the next day and I’d leave empty handed.

Gruinard midge atire: Taliban headwear, the bioweapon suit and medieval armour.

On Sunday we awoke at 7.30am to rain. Luckily it stopped before we left for the crag for a final session before leaving early for home. Bolt to bolting the project for a warm up I felt sore all over which wasn’t a good sign. Feeling nervous I wobbled up to my high point the previous night, but this time held the crux throw. Pulling through I tentatively climbed the remaining ground to the LO praying not off snap any holds. Clipping the LO was a mixture of relief and joy, I had something to show for the weekends efforts which was my primary concern. I’ve called the route Broken Silence after the outrageous contamination of the nearby Gruinard Island by Anthrax testing back in 1942. As for a grade I’m suggesting F7c, assured that it took me four RP’s due to bad luck and tiredness (but it might just be harder). I hope other climbers will find it a worthy addition to the existing routes in this area. Holiday time over its time for me to concentrate on some more unfinished projects. First I’ll need a couple of days rest to let my shoulders recover.

Sunday 17th June. Inspired last weekends visit to Yorkshire I was psyched to train over the past week and managed to squeeze in three finger board sessions into another long and stressful week. Although this resulted in little or no progress I was still psyched to get torn in to something hard at the weekend. However, the weather transpired to dampen my spirits as heavy rain and flooding effected most of the UK, righting off most venues due to seepage. After plans for Yorkshire fell through I made alternative plans for Sunday to head to Dumbie. Sadly an early call from a hung over Michael also end this plan.

Sulking about the house at 2pm Lindsey finally persuaded me to do something so we headed for Dunkeld hoping to find dry rock. Our first stop off was at Newtyle Quarry was unfruitful as the cave was soaking. Alternatively, we headed to Myopics Buttress which was just dry enough to climb. I had planned to try and onsight Granola Head but ended up grunting up a rather damp and greasy Chopping Block. After taking a spanking on meager 7b I decided to call it quits. We spent the rest of the evening going for a walk in the nearby Hermitage to see Ossians Hall, cave and (former) Tallest Tree in the UK (I wasn’t impressed). On the way back we stopped off for a burger at Dunkeld’s Tay Bank Inn and listened to some impromptu folk musicians which were excellent. It was good to include Lindsey in my plans this weekend and spend more time with her. Those belay lessons could come in handy in the future.

Sunday 10th June. I’ve been so focused on projects over the spring that its been nearly three months since my last day walking with Lindsey. Between DIY and projects we’ve missed some glorious days to be out in the mountains. Aware that the year is ticking by we decided we should head out even though the forecast wasn’t great. To allow for a fairly easy day we headed back to the Ben Lawers range to complete two of our remaining unclimbed peaks here. Our indecision lead to a very late start at 4pm. Starting from the village of Lawers we made the slightly longer walk towards the mountains without the help from the higher Lawers car park. The initial climb was very humid and sweaty. Stripping off soaking tops I assured Lindsey these weren’t popular peaks. She was then slightly red faced walking in her bra when we passed the local farmer and a dozen walkers, oophs. The evening breezed saved us and we finally got back into our stride grabbing the two summits before dark.

On the summit of Meall Gardh on a damp day.

Lindsey looking devious on the summit of Meall Greigh 9.30pm.

Lindsey even managed to wipe out again jumping another bog to the cry “I’ve got a real cavalier spirit” - splat, classic… We got back to the car around 10.30pm and were lucky enough to grab some food at the local hotel after last orders. Pretty girls can be very persuading.

Thursday 7th , Saturday 9th June. It’s been nearly a year since my last trip down to Yorkshire limestone when I visited Kilnsey to try a very wet Subculture. In the late nineties I was more motivated to visit this area to try the many cutting edge routes at Malham and Kilnsey. At Malham I tried Magnetic Fields, Power Ranger and Transform, at Kilnsey I tried Dalliance and Full Tilt. I made progress on these routes, but never enough to go for a proper redpoint. My desire to do these routes hasn’t changed, rather they now have to compete with my many hard projects in Scotland that some would say are of far higher quality.

On Thursday I headed back down to Yorkshire with Craig Henderson. Firstly we stopped by the Hollywood Bowl to look at a few of Steve Dunning’s new routes from last year. The extension to Kleptomania caught my eye, from the floor at least it looked like the hardest move was in the steep middle section. I guess I’ll find out. We arrived at Kilnsey around 11am after a 7am start, no where near as early as some of my winter climbing starts. Psyched to get started I unpacked my bag to find I’d forgot my harness. Not so easily discouraged I convinced Craig a harness tied from one end of a rope would do for belaying. Craig kindly lent me his for leading. I warmed up on the Directissma which was much better than I remembered it from years back and nicely pumpy.

Gareth Parry attempting True North.

My plan for the day was to try Full Tilt, the first half of True North. Last year I watched Gareth Parry nearly do this falling on the lip. I was especially interested to try his ’shorties’ sequence above the third bolt section that bypassed the impossibly massive reach. Full Tilt was first climbed by Nic Sellars taking in half of Kilnsey’s spectacular North Buttress. Later Tony Mitchell competed the route in its entirety and called it True North. I can understand why Sellars didn’t persist to climb such a stunning line. I’d heard Scot’s based Alan Cassidy and Rob Sutton were making excellent progress toward climbing the route. Malcolm Smith even squeezed in a quick ascent. This was reason enough to try the route to see what these guys are doing.

I dogged up the route to try the section above the third bolt. This turned out to be much more technical than I expected. The sequence moving right was fairly simple. However, this ended in a horrible move slapping left using a small condition dependant sloping pinch with the right hand. I managed to do this once by the end of the day. Time ran out and I couldn’t quite figure out the move above the jug moving right.

Kilnsey chums, Michael, Sophie and Sam.

On Friday I returned with Ian Moody, Sam Clarke, Michael Mullins and girlfriend Sophie, quite a achievement on reducing our carbon footprint. After a late start for the young ones we arrived after twelve to some very humid weather. As it was to hot for making any decent links on Full Tilt so I quickly tried Northern Exposure. I was surprised to find so many good holds on the start of this 12m F8b+. No surprise then that the section above the last bolt was nails, involving a V10 section making a long reach for a small pinch then a heinously high rock over off a quarter joint edge. I couldn’t work out the lower move and fingers weren’t strong enough for the rock over ,so I lowered disappointed. Perhaps the route is still worth a try on a cold day when other routes are wet. In the meantime Sam and others set about redpointing Subculture. I had to keep my temptation at bay to try it myself.

Sam Clarke on the crux of Subculture, Kilnsey, Yorkshire.

Back on Full Tilt I finally figured out the top section and made the link to the lower off. However, I still struggled on the crux middle section and couldn’t make the move again.
Undeterred I pulled the rope and went for a redpoint. Puffing away I managed to make it up to the crux, but had absolutely nothing left to make the crux move. Next time I reckon I’ll try a rock over to move at the undercut more directly to see if that works.

Friday 1st - Saturday 2nd June. My old pal Owen Davis (now resident in Newcastle) was in Scotland this week with his girlfriend Ruth, traveling around visiting folks and doing some climbing. I planned to meet them in the in the North West to show them some of the areas best trad, sport and bouldering.

Looking west down Glen Torridon towards Ben Eighe.

On Friday I meet up with Owen and Ruth in Torridon after another manic Haribo and caffeine fueled drive up from Edinburgh. Here we planned to indulging in Seana Mheallan’s Torridon Sandstone. I last visited this crag nearly ten years ago with the ever eager Chris Hill only to get rained off with only a single route ticked. This time the weather held long enough for us to complete a couple of routes. Sadly the crag classic The Torridonian which I came for was soaking.

Middle of the Road and Rock of Ages at Seanna Mheallan.

Of the remaining dry routes I decide to try Middle of The Road E3 5c. I managed this with some minor problems. It took me nearly 20 minutes to make to the committing and awkward crux move over the roof. After this things got worse when I initially couldn’t get any decent gear in and found the cracks were still wet. My persistence eventually paid and I found some lob-stoppers and the correct line. Owen tried Rock of Ages E2 5c. He shuffled up this gradually gaining a good pump for the grade. Although the crag doesn’t have a massive number of routes, they more than make up for it in sheer quality. The grit like sandstone is quite deceptive, the shadowed holds above being equally likely to be sinker pockets as evil sloppers. To finish our day in Torridon we had a short session on the Ship Boulder. Here we tried unsuccessfully to do Squelch V4, being beaten by the evil technical slopeiness (and the excessive humidity from the bog). As the midges descended we retreated to the Gairloch Campsite for some dinner and a beer.

On Saturday we headed up to Grinuard bay for some sport climbing. My prayers the night before were answered as I woke up to a cool windy overcast day, perfect summer sport climbing conditions. Firstly I had a score to settle on Am Fasgadh after I had been spat of the last move of Tog Balla back in March.

Exiting the crux of Tog Balla and starting up Mactalla, Griunard (Owen Davies)..

After a quick dog to refresh the hideously technical moves in the middle section I was starting to feel quite sore from the previous day. I decided not to mess around and went for the redpoint. I grunted through the crux a little easier this time, but was sure I was much more pumped on the final rail. Hanging in there I though that my arms and skin were going to be too sore for another go and that I definitely didn’t want to blow it again. With elbows out I managed to pull through to the chain, the crimps feeling nice and sticky in comparison to my last attempt on a warm March evening. Owen also tried the route but struggled commenting that he thought it was harder than Chiseling the Dragon at Malham. Wall climbings is not my strong point, highlighted by my continued argument about the downgrading of Sufferance etc at Dumbie. I’m sure both the Am Fasgadh routes I’ve warrant an extra grade. To finish off we went back to goat crag to try the excellent Mactalla F7b. Being unsure about my fitness I was happy to bolt to bolt the route first. When I redpointed the route first go I was surprised not to pump off, the holds were all big enough to get something back on right to the chain. Knackered we decided to head home, stopping off at Dunkeld of the way home for well earned burger and chips, yum.