Cold Fusion Blog

A break in the clouds reveals views down to loch Fannaich.

Friday 27th-29th July. This weekend Lindsey and I repeated our journey North making it to Gruinard at a more respectable hour. After checking out Inverewe gardens and relaxing for a bit I coaxed Lindsey into belaying me at Creag Nan Luch for a bit. On Saturday the weather decided walking wasn’t on so we shifted our walking day to Sunday. This turned out great for me as I got a chance to link more moves at Creag Nan Luch in the evening, after pottering around all day on wee walks and drinking coffee. On Sunday we managed to get out for a walk in the Fannaich’s to climb a couple peaks. Sadly the weather was a mixed bag of blustery showers and the paths were like a pig sty. Peaks done we headed back to the car to chomp biscuits and all sorts of crap on the way home.

Pink girl in the rain, tra la la la la.

Lindsey with the first summit of An Teallach behind us.

Friday 20th - 23rd July. This weekend I headed north with Lindsey as part one of our two part holiday to do some B&Bing, walking and maybe some climbing in the North West. A late start on Friday didn’t give us much time to spare not arriving at Gruinard untill evening. On Saturday the weather was stable enough for us to do An Teallach. The initial walk in took ages and Lindsey decided she wasn’t happy about our chosen past time together. Many cross words were exchanged on route to the ridge where moods improved for a short time. The pinnacles looked fairly challenging but I guessed Lindsey wouldn’t be psyched so we bashed on to do the peaks. Moving over the summits later we got a fairly good view of what the dangers the pinnacles held. I suppose it was right to put personal ambition aside on this occasion.

With peaks done we headed back to the pub determined to make last orders for dinner. The romp down was easy enough bouncing across the soft peak underfoot. Getting back to the car we made a charge for the Dundonnel hotel at five to nine. This time we got our burgers and beer (after missing them on the Anach Eagagh last year). Here we bumped into the same grumpy man we had met on the way up who scowled at our late start like we were incompetent school children. Declaring we were only just back down after nearly eleven hours on the hill seemed to put his noise out of joint. After I told him we had missed out the pinnacles he seemed dismissive of our ascent. In his parting words he declared he’d be doing the ‘whole’ climb tomorrow. I had words to say after. Luckily we got talking to another nice couple from down south that were much more positive and upbeat that planned on doing the same walk the next day. I felt a bit smitten myself by the end of our chat, lovely chap. Hopefully he helped swing some of Lindsey’s opinions on the outdoors.

Steep caves are on the horizon.

Saturday 14th,15th. I had planned a visit to Griunard with Ian Moody this weekend but the weather put a dampener on affairs. Instead I decided to check out some new sport crags planning on equipping a couple of F7c’s ready for Sunday. Sadly things didn’t go as expected and I ran into loose wet rock and diagonal lines that were too difficult to equip. Without having placed a single bolt I called Iain with a change of plan before heading back to the B&B.

The next day I headed south to met up with Iain to check out some Inverness conglomerate. The crag actually turned out to be much better than I expected. It was good to see Iain climbing well again, as various things seemed to be bothering him earlier in the summer. I felt I was climbing crap I decided it was time to get training again and get stuck into some proper power endurance training for my projects.

It was nice to find some future projects to try, but I’ve decided to put them on hold for now and concentrate on the Burley Shadow routes. Its looking like my travel budget will be limited over the next few months pending referral of my speeding offence to the procurator fiscal. Don’t be fooled by those empty A9 roads on a Sunday night, the police radars are out there!

Sunday 7th July. I’ve spent the last few weeks drifting between different routes around Scotland. Despite having reached the training power plateau from hell I was keen to get back on my Anvil project left of Fire Power. So I headed back out with Alan Cassidy, keen to see how he’d manage on Fire Power and the other Anvil routes.

We arrived to find the crag completely dry, surprising given the wet summer we’ve been having. I got to work on the project but took some time to work out the initial moves. The resulting sequence to the jug required quite an aggressive approach for my short span, probably font 7b+. The next section pulling right into the Heavy Metal crux was easier but no where near a rest. With some links bagged I got redpointing. After nearly nine goes on the start I managed to get the jug. The wilt crept up on me as I reached the Heavy Metal crux and I wasn’t going anywhere.

Alan had been watching my efforts in between trying the crux on Fire Power without much luck. With the beta he quickly managed to link the route together. Feeling knackered myself and sure that Alan could definitely send it I decided to let him try.
He made easy work of the start keeping his feet on. However, the middle section sapped enough strength that even Alan was labouring through the crux and final moves. Having completed Fire Power back in May I was happy to give this one away. I’ve called it Blood Fire after the fine anaerobic pump experienced. As for a grade Alan thought F8a+. I thought it might be harder myself, maybe as hard as Hurley Burley but I guess we’ll get to a consensus on it eventually.

To finish off I had a quick go on Body Blow keen to see some improvement after all my training. Due to tiredness, plateaus or whatever else I still couldn’t improve on the lower section or do the upper crux. Either I’m still weak or it’s definitely harder. Alan though at first glance Body Blow might be as hard as Devastation F8c and that Fire Power might be F8b+. It got me thinking the next day re-organising the sport list on scottishclimbs maybe some of those F8b’s need to slide up a grade. I’ve had no luck this summer finding an F8b+ to try to compare with Fire Power so the jury’s still out on that one.