Lochnagar five with Roger, Mike and Adam

Mike and Roger's plane from Stanstead only landed one hour later, at 21.30 h at Aberdeen airport. After mutterings of staying at my place we decided to for the nocturnal walk down Loch Muick to the bothy where we arrived at 1 h in the morning. A sausage, bean & muesli breakfast at 7.15 h and Adam arrived at 7.45 h. Just after 8 h we walked up the path from the loch to Broad Cairn. Here is Mike...

... and here are Roger and Adam just after Broad Cairn.

Easy walking under wide skies with a cold westerly wind. Good for a reunion walk...

... with views over the central Cairngorms.

At one time it snowed and the Munros were nearly in winter condition...

... but quickly the clouds disappeared once again and the granite tor of the Lochnagar summit became visible.

Here is Adam looking down the Lochnagar corrie...

... and here is Mike on the last bit of ascent.

Team photo...

... and a view towards the Meikle pap...

... and another one towards An Stuic.

We descended to Loch Muick and had chicken soup & tea (bachelor menu). Cheers to the guys from the Dundee rucksack club for doing it up. And then Adam and I already had to leave whilst Roger and Mike stayed to savour a Scottish bothy night with the crocodile (only for insiders).

Good old Munro bagging: always special even if the weather isn't!

HW

Shelterstone & Beinn Mheadhoin

Last weekend Declan, a good friend originally from Enniskillen who now lives in Singapore, came back for a visit. We stayed under the Shelterstone and bagged Beinn Mheadhoin in the morning.

HW

Spring on Erraid

In the last years we have always made a pilgrimage in spring to the Hebrides. After weighing up the options, we decided to go to Erraid, a tidal island on the West coast of the isle of Mull.

Here is the Calmac ferry from Oban to Craignure on Mull, the last at 22.30 h which we had booked to enable us to go after work on Friday.

Another hour of driving through the night on Mull and then a nocturnal, boggy walk to our beautiful beach. Bring your wellies. I did and did not regret it.

Here is a video of our trip...

Erraid does not offer spectacular cliffs but small, red granite crags. Very rough and unforgiving to climb but perfect rock. Here is Robbie climbing a HVS on the upper tier...

... and here is Arno seconding an E1 on which I had failed and which Robbie had led with preplaced gear. The grades seem tough.

On the way back to our campsite.

Robert Louis Stevenson visited Erraid and some writings such as'Kidnapped' play on Erraid. After the climbing we decided to go for a swim, which was rather short. Ze German went for the nude sprint in and out variant whilst the Austrian and Scotsman decided for the suitably dressed option just in case that a class of 30 schoolkids would turn up.

We were keen to supplement our diet with some maritime protein but our approach to fishing was not energetic enough. So no fish and Robbie is veggie anyway.

Whilst walking along the shore to try to find a more productive fishing spot we came across the asteroid chasm where we met Robbie, who was exploring the crags.

We had a look inside but it was quite wet at the bottom and so we decided against returning for a climb.

Our next climbing venue was another Meikle Partan's-like crag close to our tents. I led a VS 4c, Arno a severe ...

... and Robbie a VS 5a which involved some tough starting moves and seems a bit sandbaggy.

Robbie is clearly a better rock climber than I am now and after frying my brain this winter I was happy not to push too hard and rather to enjoy the whole atmosphere. We started a fire ...

... had some beers, Jura malt and fish-free pasta...

... and started to experiment with our cameras.

It was supposed to rain at night but in the end it stayed dry and Sunday morning emerged sunnier than Saturday. There is some superb but hard deep water soloing on the Otter walls close to the beach. In the morning I jumped again into the water and found it as cold as the day before and worried that if we would fall in whether we would get out safely. Howevrer Robbie was keen to try the 5b/c traverse despite us all struggling on 5a/s and 5b's here. Here is Robbie doing the traverse.

However, there is a cop out before it gets really hard and so Robbie finished it by a crack early. We walked back at 11 h and crossed the tidal area back to Mull at around lunchtime.

As our ferry back to the mainland was only at 17.30 h we decided to take the Fionnfort-to-Iona ferry to the Island of Iona which is a mile west of Mull. According to the Wikipedia entry the island was founded in 563 by the monk Columba and played an important role in the change to Christianity. The abbey of Iona is the icon and there are other signs of the early inhabitants like this cross.

Here is the return ferry arriving.

HW

Beinn Dorain

Scottish winter is like Janus, the two-faced Greek god: one face is the great Scottish adventure that is winter climbing and the other face the long nights in the grey - or silver if euphemized - city that is Aberdeen. In spring the adventures become smaller but colour appears. It is a time to hill walk and to get fit again for rock. In the east the gorse bushes start to bloom and the sun starts to rise earlier and earlier. The hills are like zebras with snow streaks on brown-green ground. So after a good winter season with few but memorable climbs it was time for a first hillwalk and Ana and I decided to walkup Beinn Dorain, a bridge of Orchy munro. Here is Ana during the ascent...

... and here some walkers higher up...

... and here is Ana approaching the summit.

Another beautiful day in the highlands. Lucky us.

Vertigo Wall, the 'More Vertigo' variation

'Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise' (from a poem by Thomas Gray, 1742).

Robbie Miller, Andrew Melvin and I were looking for more Cairngorm adventure climbing and decided to climb on Creag an Dubh Loch. We spent the night in the bothy...

... got up just before 6 h and walked towards the Dubh Loch at 6.45 h. It was snowing...

... and didn't stop all day. The White Elephant did not have enough ice for an ascent but when we walked up Central Gully we saw that Vertigo Wall VII,7**** had good ice. During the first winter ascent in 1977 Andy Nisbet and Alfie Robertson forced their way up the climb with some aid and a bivouac. A landmark achievement for 1977. Andy Nisbet then went back with Andy Cunningham to do the first free ascent in 1985. The route is described in the Cairngorms guide as 'an outstanding mixed route with turf, rock and ice, near the summer line'. Also given that sub zero temperatures and a lot of snow were predicted for the whole day we were confident that the top wall would not be stripped by the sun. Robbie led the first pitch quickly.

The photo below shows the initial two pitches which reach a belay next to the icefall where it is thicker.

Andrew following some maybe tech 5/6 climbing.

I did the second pitch which starts with a move onto a detached block.

After that some good and tricky climbing on hooks and turf with continually increasing exposure.

Andrew, with the experience of many Nevis ice routes then led pitch 3 with confidence. It comprises of featured ice requiring technical ice climbing.

Here is Andrew higher up going for the steepest section...

... and here he is close up...

... and here he tackles the last steep bit before the belay.

Pitch 4 was supposed to involve a traverse left, a shallow groove and a way back right. We thought we had to traverse the mini ledges in the photo below to get to the icicles and thought that the shallow groove was next to the icicles.

Some thin ice led to a flake (the 'creaking flake' I thought) below an overhanging wall. Unfortunately the lens was steamed up. It is steeper than in looks.

A photo of the pitch from the other side of the gully, taken two weeks later, is below.

I shuffled forward on the diminishing mini ledge with the wall above pushing me out. Luckily I got a decent torque, a placement behind a block and let my feet swing round to enter the 'shallow groove'. A scary move given that the wall in this section is gently overhanging with a large drop below (the icicles are an indicator of verticality; I had to chop most off as they were in the way). Well that's why it is given VII,7, I thought.

Some easier climbing up rightwards to a good belay followed. Above was a steep chimney which we thought might be the 'easier but still steep' last pitch as it is described in the guidebook. But when Robbie set off and retreated it dawned on us that we had climbed the wrong line. The photo below from a previous visit shows the normal line of Vertigo wall in red and the 'More Vertigo' variation with the distinct hanging icicles in yellow (large photo format). It looks impossible on this topo but the photos above show the small ledges that make the way to the icicles possible at possibly tech 7. The green line is the 'easier but still steep' pitch 5 or at least that's what we thought until it dawned on us that we were off line. Maybe a suitable finish for the leading Cairngorm pioneers Guy Robertson, Pete MacPherson, Iain Small and Simon Richardson (and many others of course)?

Here another topo from the opposite wall. I had taken it two weeks later when it had all melted.

Again our variation in yellow and the potential Robbie escape in green. I became tense as I needed 2 h for the previous pitch and we did not know what was lying ahead. Easier turfy ground was on the left and I remembered that there was a winter route to the right of Sabre Cut which we now hoped to reach. Robbie climbed initially quickly but then the rope came back and after a while he shouted 'safe'. Here is Andrew following the pitch. The photo also shows the exposure at this stage. There are several summer routes in the mid E-grades below.

Robbie belayed near a left-leaning offwidth chimney and the plan was to climb the offwidth hoping for easier ground above. A topo of the last pitch is shown below.

The offwidth was hard to start as it was teflon smooth inside and as there were only tiny edges for crampon placements on the outside. I managed an au cheval move but there was nothing to hook inside the chimney and after a lot of trying I cammed my lower leg into the offwidth, leant out wide to the left to gain a good hook in a crack near the arete on the left. I took a deep breath, uncammed my foot and swung left. Luckily there were another good hook and gear above. Some more tricky climbing to a spike and it all seemed to end maybe 10 m below the plateau with a steep slab above an overhang. I managed to fix a peg and nut below the slab and got higher up on an arete to start the slab. The slab was the scariest climbing I have ever done: thin hooks out of balance with no gear and the central gully wall exposure below. Somehow I managed to inch up the slab to a position where a big tuft of turf and safety were near but yet so far. Some moss did not even yield a marginal placement but finally I excavated a poor sidepull, kept the axe steady, placed my front point out of balance high up and with a lot of stretch just about managed to whack the axe into the turf. The left axe followed and I made the sweetest pull up of my life, scraped my feet up, ran a few steps, fell mentally and physically exhausted into the snow and shouted 'safe' into the void below. This last move was the psychological crux of the entire route and the last pitch was the hardest pitch that I have ever climbed. Robbie and Andrew topped out just before 19 h. We stayed roped up in central gully which we descended on the side to avoid windslab and after a long, long slog through deep snow we reached the cars at 23 h. Here is Robbie, smiling as the cars where close.

Here are Andrew and Robbie exhausted.
Grade? We are unsure but pitch 4 and especially pitch 6 felt technically harder and bolder than the first three pitches of Vertigo Wall and thus we suggest a technical grade of 7/8. We feel unable to give an overall grade. Also as for stars, the variation pitches are a wild journey through some unlikely, vertigous terrain with ice, thin ice, turf, snowed up rock, two swing moves and those psychological metres up the final slab. The only star-reducing factors are an easy fifth pitch and the fact that the line is not straight up. Again we leave it to others to judge this but it is well worth the effort. The epic did not end there. I had to leave my car in Glen Muick and Andrew just about managed to get out. We reached Aberdeen around 1 h in the morning and Andrew and Robbie must have arrived at Dundee at 3 h. Here is my car.

This morning my camera didn't work just to add one more to the epic (it eventually came back to life). Finally, Adam Henly, a partner of many ascents, gave me a lift to get the car out of the Glen Muick car park on Wednesday. HW