Starlight, No storm.

We parked up in the car park just before 6am and long before daylight. The first car there for a change. Not the case the day before, when we only left the car at 11 am and started the route just after midday. That was different though. An easy short route, Doctors choice IV 4** (above). Mark Stuart and I had climbed it in just under 3 hours. Today, Mark had gone climbing on the 'Gar with Henning, Stuart and I planned to head over to the Shelterstone for the classic Sticil face V6****.

We walked in the dark. Under the cliffs of Coire an t-Sneachda up the icy goat track to the high col linking the Coire to the loch A'an basin. On a nice day the view here is breathtaking, but all we had was a bubble of blue light from our head torches showing us the way. We traversed over Hells lum to avoid avalanches then dropped down the side of the mighty shelterstone and around to the base of our route only to find we'd been beaten to it by another team. The decision was quickly made to go for 'second prize' Route major. This classic Tom Patey route weaving is way up the full lenght of Carn Etchachans 300m frontal face (cliff on the left, above) should provide a good challenge.

The climbing up the first three pitches was easy with only the route finding proving difficult. pitch four gave us the crux. The squeeze chimney. It was Stuart's turn for the crux as I'd had it on Bells route. Climbing these winter chimneys is thruxy, inelegant and sometimes terrifying using full body friction to make upward progress in this case to find a hook and thus pull on to the slab (above). Stuart battled well and was soon at the next belay. My turn. Lots of huffing and puffing seen me at the 'perch' amd for the crux I put my axes over a nut and just used my arms and legs to make progress.

The RAF chopper hung about in the basin for a while. Flying by now and then. We quickly realized that we weren't going to make the top in daylight as we'd joked before. The deep powder and poor protection putting up resistance and making climbing edgy. A diagonal pitch led us to the battlements groove. In the guide this is described as being to the right of the pink rock, not so easy to find when the rock is rimed up.

Stu led up the groove (above) to the fork which I decided to take the right branch of. It had gotten dark by now and head torches were donned, I'm quickly getting used to climbing on big cliffs in the dark. The groove was well iced and poorly protected. This led me to a slab and the snow bay. Not far to from the top, we hoped. The belay was poor, really poor. So i dug out a bucket seat to reinforce it. Whilst bringing Stu up I turned off my head torch. It was dark, cold and we were on the top of a big cliff in the middle of the Cairngorms, I imagined that we could have been anywhere. I had company soon as Stu came up and joined me, we exchanged gear, a couple of words and he set off to the top, hopefully. I didn't mention the belay, best not. He topped out shortly after and brought me up to the plateau. We packed up quickly, had a bight to eat and set off with the Moon shining our path back to the car. A long day, but a day to remember.

Scottish Unis Comp

On Wednesday 25th Nov, a few of us students headed down to Alien Rock 2 for the first round of the Scottish Unis bouldering championship. The team consisted of myself along with transition regulars Tom and Mark, and other members of the Lairig club.

We came 2nd as a team in the "hard" category, and I managed to win the girls comp. A great day was had by all!

Avalanche and breakfast

The alarm woke Me at 05.15 then 05.20, I finally got up at 05.25, it sucks having to get up so early on one of my days off, but it was for good reason. I was meeting Andy Munro at 6 at the wall to head over to the Cairngorms. The forecast wasn't great, giving light winds but lots for rain below 600m. That means it should be snowing in the northern corries. The driving rain in the car park didn't deter us form having a look higher up. As you often find better conditions up in the corries.



Cloud base was low but a good path marked the way up. The rain was persistent and a couple of parties passed us on the way down, not usually a good sign. We carried on, even if we didn't climb the exercise was still good for our fitness, thought we were both keen to try The Genie, V 7**. Andy reached the rescue box a couple of minutes before me and was chatting to a group when I joined him. The cliffs, for what we could see, of Coire an t-Sneachda were pretty plastered, and the rain was almost falling as snow.

I'd spotted a couple heading up the goat track, a steep slope to the plateau. Next time I looked up they were sliding, both of them. The snow was moving too and I could hear her screaming through the wind, but no thundering rumble. The avalanche stopped not far from us. Both were ok, a little shaken but in good spirits. A decision was quickly agreed between Andy and myself that the approach slopes in the Coire would be loaded and dangerous, so we deiced to head down for a big breakfast at the mountain cafe, the best option on a day like today. The Genie will have to wait!

Topping Out Down Under

So Ashley gives everyone abuse for bouldering. Who cares? When the climbing's this good, anyone could be converted...

I just got back from a family wedding in Sydney, and squeezed in a couple of days out, including a visit to the Palm Beach boulders. Fans of Australian soaps will find something oddly familiar about the beach in the background. I've never seen 'Home & Away', but the weirdly eroded sandstone on these boulders was just beautiful.

Here's a scan of the guidebook as well- it's one of the strangest and best I've ever seen and I'm keeping it in the office if anyone cares to take a look.

Now it's back to early winter here...

Scottish Tooling Series, Round 4

On Saturday morning Ashley and I (Anna), headed to Glemore Lodge to take part in round 4 of the scottish tooling series. We were to be competing in the third and final time slot, meaning we had a leisurely start to the day.

The glenmore lodge round is unique as it takes place on their outdoor rock pillars, and the competitors must wear crampons. As we kitted up and got ready to go, we felt the first few drops of rain fall upon us...
We strategically chose our first route; it had a board of wood that was almost destroyed, and an ice block that was 3/4 gone! Better now than later we thought!

By the time we both completed this route, the heavens had opened and there was a pretty torential downpour going on!

We both managed to flash the first six routes, and then we arrived at the harder stuff. By this point, we were drenched to the bone and very cold from the wind! we fought hard, and succeeded and failed on different routes to one another.

Finally, we were at the last route. Ash made light work of this. As I reached the second last hold, Ash said "watch that hold, its sketchy!". What is he talking about, I wondered, this is bomber! suddenly, wham! my axe popped of and went straight into my lip! I lowered down, and quickly started to try again within the time limit. However as I kept going, I could taste more and more blood so i thought i should bail! We went back inside to clean up and dry off. Unfortunately my parents had come to visit, and seeing me with blood all over my mouth has not given my mum a good first impression of drytooling!
Results were in, and I made it into the finals in joint 2nd. Unfortunately Ash did not make it through this time, I think we can put this largely down to "the conditions"!!

The final route had a horrible balancy start, that spat off more than half of the finalists! When it was my turn, I came out of isolation and had a quick look at the route. I took the start carefuly, and made it onto the overhanging bit, before falling off from a sketchy hold. Fiona was last out in the womans, and she was spat of in exactly the same place. It came down to speed, and as the slowest climber in the world, i finished in 2nd :-)

despite the weather, we both had an awesome day (i think) , and we really felt like we deserved our fish and chips on the way home!

Don't die, I have no signal!

Mark and I had been keen to try some night climbing for a while. We'd ventured out on Wedensday night, only to be beaten back by the weather, Friday night was a different story though. It was dry and pretty mild for November so after a short shift at tranny I picked Mark up and we made the journey north to Longhaven near Peterhead. I was confident Phaff would be dry as it's a face climb on the massive red wall at Longhaven quarries. A huge lump of granite that juts out to the North sea, Phaff is a rising traverse of the cliff on ramps and cracks. An easy but exposed severe that should be a good adventure in the dark.



We geared up at the Dais, before the climbing gets interesting. The swell was running and big waves were breaking on the wall below sending spy up to our height 20m up the cliff much to Marks excitement! I led off since we had no guide book and was sure of the way. Easy climbing on ramps and narrow ledges led to a small step and thus a good belay to take Mark over.




I was pretty sure we were on he right track now as the 'crux' lay ahead. An airy hand traverse during the day, we only had the waves to remind us of the void below. It was marks turn to lead, easy climbing again on jugs to a tricky step around some short corners proved a little thought provoking. After these were passed only a short wall was between us and the top. We topped out in a fit of giggles, a good adventure. Maybe well try something a bit harder next time.

Ryan Slater

Transition Climbing Staff

Hey the staff at the wall now have a new blog!!!

We will try and keep this really active to keep you guys up to date with what the staff do when they are not instructing, setting routes or looking like they are just wandering about cos when they are not here they are usually up to something.

So keep an eye out to find out about climbs, trips, comps and other stuff we do