My Blog
My Blog
Bracken Spraying
My plan was to bolt a couple more routes at Balmeanach in July but the weather gods had other plans. There was an impressive thunder and lightning storm. Only a few spots of rain here but 3 miles away on Ben More there was a flash flood and the road was washed away in a couple of places.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-18739770
No climbing at Balmeanach for a few weeks and many other crags became more difficult to get to, so it was back to climbing at Calgary and the Broch.
Cynthia Grindley’s photo of climbing at the Broch below.
The crag at the Broch is not easy to get photos of. In 2007 I swam out to the tidal rock in front of the crag to get photos, but they were not very good. There are large blocks standing proud that do not stand out in the photos. These blocks do not show up on large scale maps or google earth.
A couple of days after the flash flood I stopped at Lagganulva where they had set up to spray bracken. The future of bracken control is in doubt due to an EEC ban. I was told it is not ideal where spinach is being grown! The helicopter landed but they had to wait for Helen the Vet (her parents farm there) to turn up and show them which areas to spray. She had a couple of animals to sort out first so there was time to take some crag shots. The pilot washed the window for me then we took off.
Again the photos were not great but I hope they will be good enough for topos.
I had reported my phone was out and I was told an engineer would be out on Thursday. Steve worked overtime to fix it on Wednesday night, he said it had gone during the Ben More thunder storm. The next night we went climbing at Kintra. On the way back to the cars Steve was given some mackerel fillets so he passed a couple onto me. Two days later the helicopter lifted him from the crag at Kintra, I never told him how good the mackerel was.
Tuesday, 7 August 2012