"The Gathering" movie.

A couple of weeks ago, Justin Tracey and Jenny Crook from "Reeltime Adventure" asked if it would be ok to film us on something. We were ok with this and so they came up to Lochain and shot us on "The Gathering".
     Here's the end product, a great little movie which does the route justice.



The Gathering, VIII 9, Second Ascent from Jenny Crook on Vimeo.

A Change of Allegiances

Over the last three years, i have been been lucky enough to be supported by Marmot. This sponsorship has no doubt been key to allowing me to climb as much as i have since i left school, and i owe a lot of the mileage i currently have in the big mountains to this fact. Big thankyou to Marmot and especially Martin Panton, who has always offered good advice.
     Recently however, i have been talking to the Mountain Boot Company (MBC), the distributor for OR, Scarpa and Grivel amongst other brands, and have decided to take up a sponsorship deal with them. This is exciting as these three brands in my opinion make some of the most advanced climbing gear in the world at the moment, and MBC are a company that are definitely going places, and are an ever increasing force within the UK. Looking forward to it.

Northern Corries

After the extended warm and wet period of the last two weeks, myself and Greg have packed the climbing in to the last two and a half days.
      On Friday we headed to Coire an Lochain, for what was a sociable day with many friends. Adam, Greg and myself climbed "Daddy Longlegs" VIII 9 and "Fallout Corner" VI 7, and i soloed something easy in-between.
      On Saturday myself and Greg were tempted in to Sneachda to look at something new, but on arrival we deemed it out of condition so walked back over to Lochain and climbed "The Gathering" VIII/IX 9, which was a great route.
       On Sunday we had a late start, and arrived in the corrie to see a lot of black rock. Just for the sake of doing something, we climbed a line at the very top of Y gully left hand. It looked a bit scrappy but it was something to do. I won "rock paper scissors" and headed up, soon realising that rather than being scrappy, it was in fact an incredible quality, long pitch of climbing. Nothing hard, and with good gear. Not sure if its an existing route or not, but probably one of the best pitches of 6/7 i've done in Scotland.

Greg on the great first pitch of Daddy Longlegs

And again, the tricky move on this pitch is just above Greg.

Myself on the crux pitch, which starts with a wide boulder problem.

And again.

And higher on the same pitch. Credit: Mark Chadwick.

Adam on Fallout.

Greg cruxing on "The Gathering"

And again Credit: Justin Tracey - Reeltime Adventure.

Myself on the awkward crack and groove of pitch 2.

And higher up the same pitch Credit: Justin Tracey - Reeltime Adventure.

Myself on the brilliant route we did on Sunday, which tops out on the RH side of the cornice, just left of Grumbling Grooves.

Its been great over the last few days to hang out with Charly and Matthias, two Austrian climbers i first met last year in Patagonia. Its brilliant to see such talented foreign climbers enjoy Scottish climbing. Ive seen some phenomenal climbers climb, but Charly is definitely up there amongst the very most impressive.

Charly casually onsighting "Torchlight" at Birnham yesterday

It was great to blow away the Christmas cobwebs, and i'm now really looking forward to the international meet next week. Although slightly jealous of what Mr Griffith got done at the weekend!...

On t' farm

I got an email from someone the other day asking about jobs in Chamonix. After writing as helpful a reply as i could, (which must have read quite depressingly....), i got to thinking just how incredibly lucky i am to have a job that i can come back to, almost as little or as much as i want when in the UK.
         John, the farmer i have worked for on and off since school days is a bit of a legend. This November i basically said to him i wanted to work as much as i possibly could, until it got cold in Scotland when i'd want to be climbing, he said OK and that was that. Although it doesn't always work out as well as that, and there are times when not much work is going, i don't think there can be many jobs around where you can do that!
          Farm work is physical, interesting, varied and as far as casual work goes, well payed. Over christmas we've been keeping the farm ticking over, and i've been milking every day which has timed well with the warm and wet mingfest that Scotland is currently undergoing.
       The forecast is looking better for next week, time to head north again i think!

Id drive tractors over tranfer vans any day! literally.



The cows aren't usually covered in this much shit, they've just been refusing to lie on their mats recently.

 .

Snow

With tales of metre deep powder day after day from friends in Cham, i should be very jealous sitting here in the unseasonably warm UK. The promise of more great routes in Scotland in January however is keeping me quite sane. Although i have been getting some flashbacks of swooping between trees, mind-numbing face-shots, and the excitement of first lift up the midi, running out of the lift like a pack of grey-hounds after a rabbit.

      I remember last winter, some friends went off to the Dolomites in search of the legendary limestone couloirs (very different to granite couloirs) found there. It wasn't until i saw this movie of their trip that i understood what they'd gone looking for. Check it out, it will make you jealous.


Dolomiti from Felix Hentz on Vimeo.

Lochnagar

Just back from another great trip with Greg. This time we headed to Lochnagar, intent on a particular route. Unfortunately that didn't all go to plan, but the climbing we did and the consolation route were easily equal to anything i was expecting of the day.

Neither of us had been to Lochnagar before, so it was another fully "onsight" day. An icy drive, dodging deer rabbits and ptarmigan up Glen Muick saw us bedded down in Greg's car at the road head.
       We timed the walk in pretty well, as it was just getting light when we dropped down from the col in to the corrie. "Crazy Sorrow", which goes through a large overlap on the Tough-Brown face was quickly identified and we started to brake a trail in its direction.

A spacious car, the key to a good Scottish winter.

I must say i wasn't particularly impressed with the line. Mullin obviously wanted to find a roof that he could monkey over on axes - there's nothing wrong with that! -  but there seemed to be far better lines on the face. With this in mind, i thought it would be cool to climb a more direct start to the route, adding some climbing and line. A slither of ice visible halfway up the initial slab gave me something to aim for, and resulted in a brilliant, delicate pitch of bold 7.

On the first pitch, reaching the ice after some thin moves.

Greg pulled up to the roof on pitch two and started to work out the moves. There was clearly going to be a lot of luck involved in the sequence, the kind of thing that you can get right or get wrong, and if you get it wrong you'd be very lucky to stay on. After some climbing up and down, he committed and took a small fall on to the bomber peg, which is at waist height.
     After a couple more looks, combined with myself leaning out to see above on the slab, we concurred that there was zero ice on the slab above, which is clearly visible in photos we'd seen of Pete and Guy's ascent, which was the first true ascent. With this evidently being a crucial condition needed for this pitch (and by the sounds of it the next one also), we decided to rap off and go find something else to climb.

Eyeing up pitch 2.

     After a short flick through the guide, we searched for a fun sounding route nearby. "Scarface Wall" fitted the bill and we set off up Raeburn's to find it.
      The route was great, but not straightforward, with huge amounts of snow. After a quick "Rock Paper Scissors" i took pitch one, tenuous climbing on bad gear. Greg took the next pitch, which had a pull on to a ledge that led to a thin move in to the next groove.

Pitch 1 of  Scarface Wall VIII 8, lots of annoying snow stuck to this pitch!

Pitch 2, a steep pull on to the snowy ledge on the left, which is then traversed.

     I then took pitch three, which was an awkward diagonal crack, with a scary loose block at the top (extra scary when you hook both sides of it and it starts to lever off!). 
      At this point, with all the independent pitches done, and where our route joined another, we decided to rap in to Raeburns and down climb that, so we could get back to our bags swiftly.

Another great day! i thought Lochnagar as a crag was awesome, with a pretty mellow approach. I remember reading about Eagle Ridge in cold climbs when i was younger, and ever since then Lochnagar stuck in my mind as a seminal Scottish cliff. I'm pleased i've now been there.
           Its getting soggy and warm over the next few days, so i've headed south to Cumbria, where i'll be for Christmas, working when i can, and training (and eating and drinking) when i can't! Mega psyched for more Scottish action in January!

Stone Temple Pilots

After last week's routes myself and Greg had a real yearning to do something big. Maybe its the alpinist in me, but i really like the idea of routes which have a bigger feeling than just cragging. Scottish mixed climbing has to be one of the most time consuming and energy-absorbing types of climbing i know of metre for metre, so i was motivated to try something long with hard pitches.
         Discussing what to go for, we went through the decision process something like this; lets go do something in the North West - lets do The God Delusion - lets do something on Shelterstone so we know the crag ready for "Temple Pilots" in the future- fuck it, lets just do "Stone Temple Pilots"
          Good weather and an 86% moonphase was on our side, but we were very aware that neither of us had been to the crag before and there was going to be a lot of hard climbing.
          We left the car at 3.30am and broke a not-too-deep trail up and over from Sneachda in to the Loch Avon basin and across to the crag, stashing one bag and some kit half way. Greg set off up the first pitch at about 6.30 in pitch black and fairly heavy snow. By the time i'd seconded it it was light, and i led through in to the corner above which was great fun technical climbing.

Greg setting off on pitch 1 in quite heavy snow at 6.30am.

Myself seconding the same pitch.

The linking groove of pitch 2.

     Some easyish ground and a boulder problem led to the crux wall which Greg slowly but confidently dealt with. I must say that Greg is a total animal at the moment.

The higher you go on this route the steeper it gets.

Myself on the crux pitch. Very steep and sustained but with mostly sinker hooks.

A techy and insecure feeling slab.

The next few pitches we have no photos of, which is a real shame because it was some of the meatiest climbing. Greg lead a steep crack and techy traverse which led to a turfy groove for 30 metres. After realising that he was belayed in the wrong place, i didn't follow all the way to the belay, and instead lead up right back on route.
              Now dark, and with tired cramping muscles, the next pitch looked pretty full on. I started up it feeling weak but felt better once committed, a brilliant sustained pitch (photo from Pete and Guy here- http://www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.html?id=165064) which completely wasted me.

Greg eyeing up the very hard 4 metres above, on the last pitch.

Chuffed but feeling a little fried on top.

      What a route, just totally awesome, and very intense. I'm pretty inexperienced with regards to top level Scottish mixed, we both thought that the X grade was pretty big sounding. Having now done the route both myself and Greg can certainly see why the route gets the grade. That many pitches of VIII and harder certainly equate to something much harder than the pitches themselves.
      Awesome job Pete and Guy putting up such a great route. Some brilliant route-finding.