Colin’s

Twenty Years of Neist

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:05:13 +0000

It took me a while to appreciate Neist.
Alan Moar photo above.
When I first drove there it seemed to take forever. After the ferry crossing from Kyle there was a lot of driving to do. Over the years I came to realise how much fine and varied rock there was, combined with a stunning outlook, lots of wildlife and better than expected weather.

In 1990 George Szuca (Effing George) and George Armstrong climbed some great routes including the fine Wish You Were Here. I had been to Skye with George Szuca for a few days in 1988 but we didn’t visit Neist.
We camped in Coire Lagan till the mist made things impossible then moved on to Kilt.

George’s tent at Kilt

The only route I ever did with George Armstrong was the classic Deep Space (my first route in Pembroke) also in 1988, he now lives in Joshua Tree, California.

George belayed in Deep Space

In 1991 I led the corner below the lighthouse fog horn, Bruce Taylor decided we should call it Horny Corner.
In 1992 I climbed various lines with different partners in Bay 3 because it was warm and sunny, that gave us hot route names like Solar Furnace and Tinderbox. These were opposite the routes Ice Diamond, Wind and Wuthering and Cold Turkey that had been climbed in winter ten years earlier. Bay 3 is very public with tourists passing on their way to the lighthouse so we got more names: Tourist Attraction and Cameras Clicking. Neil Horn was cheered when he got to the top of one route.

Neil Horn climbing on the sunny side of Bay 3

One woman saw me cleaning and accused me of Disturbing the Wildlife, so that became the name of the route.
In 1994 I drove to Neist from Torridon then we climbed ‘The best route at Neist’: Supercharger. Yan Taylor led the first pitch, it was good but we were very cold. I got the second pitch, it was green and had nests of puking fulmars, one scored a direct hit on me. Yan did the next pitch which reminded us of Auchinstarry Quarry and I did the last short pitch to the top.

After Supercharger we did a short route we called Warmer Cleaner Better: well it was. Then I drove back to Torridon (Yan ‘acquired’ a wire brush on the way) where we did another route we called Warmer Cleaner Drier: well it was. We met a pair from Aberdeen in the pub in Torridon, they had been on Supercharger the day before us and said they would give it 0 out of 3 stars. Yan replied “That many?”

In the same year Noel Williams led Baywatch near the car park.

Climbers finishing Baywatch, Rum behind

In 1995 the Skye bridge opened so it was then possible to cross any time of day or night.

Over the years there were a number of protests when locals refused to pay the toll, it was several times higher than the Erskine and Forth bridges. The toll money didn’t even go to Westminster but to the Bank of America. Morris MacLeod from Kyle, who did new routes with me at Neist and elsewhere, was one of many who had to go to court after refusing to pay tolls during the protests. In those Conservative days of open competition a proposed car ferry at Kyle was refused permission to operate.

In April Noel led Sonamara (next to Baywatch).

Me on Sonamara Cynthia Grindley photo

In July Stevie Abbott led Noel up a fine route north of the wall near Wish You Were Here. It was called Wall Street and started a theme for financial route names.
Noel led Shocks and Stares.

Shocks and Stares Grahame Nicoll above me below.

Two weeks later Noel also led Insider Dealing

Stephen Kennedy on Insider Dealing

And Stevie led Venture Capital

Andy Hyslop on Venture Capital

In 1996 I asked Noel Williams for the text from the nearly finished guide to Neist (Skye and The Hebrides) so he e-mailed it to me. In June Michael Tweedley and I repeated a number of routes in the Financial Sector. I spent a lot of time cleaning a route at the left end (I hadn’t realised how much work was involved and wished I hadn’t started) there was still a lot of soil on it when I led it so I called it Earthbound. When I told Noel we had climbed it he said I was a dog, I hadn’t thought it might be a project of his. Earthbound was too late to make it into the guide but somehow got into the index!
In August Willie Jeffrey led Bridging Interest.

Andy Hyslop on Bridging Interest

Whenever we climbed at the Financial Sector (which was in the shade in the morning) we would look down to a cliff in the sun. I started climbing there with Louise Gordon Canning in June 1997. I thought Poverty Point was a fair name for the place and it seemed a reasonable contrast to the Financial Sector. The first day there we did Superlager for Breakfast, Recovery Day and At The Whelks.

Billy Hood climbing Superlager

In July I did Giro Day (the steep crack just left of Superlager) and Homer (the fault left again) with Morris MacLeod.
From Poverty Point three features always caught my eye: the big corner of Bad Dream above to the south, the impressive arch beyond and below it and the crack of Shimmering just to the north.
We did Bad Dream that year after I dreamt I fell down it when my abseil point failed.

Neil Smith near the top of Bad Dream FA

In April 1998 Gary Latter led The Old Warden near the lighthouse.

Bruce Taylor on The Old Warden

In November Stephen Kennedy climbed a route on the point to the north of Poverty Point with Morris MacLeod and me, he called it Man of Straw. He then started cleaning another line, I couldn’t be bothered to wait and I was getting cold so went off and soloed a route Chugger’s Elbow at Poverty Point, I now suspect I had Tennis Elbow but Billy Hood decided it was something else. When I got back they had finished the route, it became Cogless.
As this point was beyond Poverty Point we asked what was beyond poor, Robbie Watson said being destitute was worse than being poor so it was named Destitution Point.
Greg Strange told me later that he and Rob Archbold had climbed a couple of routes there (before us).
At the end of May 1999 I cleaned the other line I kept seeing from Poverty Point. On my way home I stopped in to see Neil Smith at Kyle and told him what I’d been up to. He went there with Roger Lupton during the week and did two lines beside the one I had cleaned. I did my route later with Louise Gordon Canning. Neil’s routes were Deep Blue and Shining Path, mine was Shimmering. There seemed to be a lot of light reflected off the sea.
In July Stevie Abbott and Paul Airley climbed Black Scholes.
The next year I had booked some holiday to go climbing with Paul but he backed out just before the trip. Luckily Cynthia Grindley could get time off at the last minute so we went to Ullapool, it’s Paul’s fault that Cynthia has to put up with me!

Cynthia Grindley on Black Scholes, Andy Hyslop photo

2002 was a low point for Neist, a number of private signs were erected and a small caravan was installed at the car park to collect money from visitors. There was a chain across the path to the lighthouse with a ‘No Access’ sign attached: I ducked under the chain and soloed a route; I called it No Access.

Neist car park

That year Andy Nisbet asked if I wanted to write up the Skye Sea Cliffs for the guide book he was working on ‘Scottish Rock Climbs’.
I made a list of routes that didn’t include Supercharger. That didn’t go down well and I was informed it was a three star classic.

The Skye bridge became toll free in 2004.

In January 2005 there was a severe storm. A family in Uist (west of Neist) were washed into the sea in their car and perished. Conditions in their house must have been hellish for them to try to move in the middle of the storm.
Direction of wind is so important and it was fine where I live.
The Misty Isles Hotel in Dunvegan was badly damaged. The caravan for collecting money at Neist knocked down a wall and scattered itself all over the moor.
I walked round Neist after that storm and I was amazed at the damage done. A new route Adrian Hart led us up A Type of Cooker was washed away, but I remember thinking at the time that Adrian was fairly bold to climb it, to me it wasn’t all that secure. New rock was exposed at many places after rocks and turf had been ripped away. The hundred foot arch I always looked through from Poverty Point was removed.

The scar where the arch was, Poverty Point is behind the yellow rock.

In 2005 Scottish Rock Climbs came out.
I had suggested Conductor Cove but Andy wanted Baywatch instead which was fine.
Financial Sector had to be in but I wasn’t sure what to put in for easier routes. I repeated the routes at Destitution Point again but decided instead to put Poverty Point in, just as well because Cogless was removed by another winter storm four years later. We put up Fool’s Gold at Poverty Point, so that there would be another easier route I could put into the guide.
Andy had suggested 16 routes for Neist but I managed to squeeze 35 routes past him.
In September Gary Latter led the obvious line left of Wish You Were Here. He had tried it on sight with Louise Gordon Canning a few years earlier throwing off loose rock as he went before giving up. I kept expecting him to come back, but when he finally did it he said he had forgotten what a good line it was.
In February 2006 we did a few routes near the lighthouse, Morris and Bruce had to rush off because Morris was taking his youngest son Lea to a piping competition.

Me with my stylish hat FA Bagpipe Deadline Bruce Taylor photo

In September we did a few routes on the sea cliffs. Nobody had climbed on that part before and nobody would be there for a year (after the routes were in print) so I didn’t care what I left behind!
But Mick Tighe was there the next day and he found the evidence I had left on a ledge! Turned out he had also climbed there six days before me, so he named a route he climbed six days before my visit Moodyloo. Retro-naming routes is a despicable practice that the SMC needs to stamp out. When I found out (a few weeks later) he had been at Neist I checked my photos and found people.

The Tighe team near the sea just right of centre

In October Louise said that a lad from Norway wanted to climb in Scotland (for the first time). I thought it would be good if his first routes in Scotland were new routes so I went to check out some lines the day before. When I got to the top of the crag I found Mick Tighe, Kathy Tighe and Paul Rosser so we climbed some routes together.
I started up one crack and got soaked by the waves, Mick was belaying so he must have got a good drenching, I called it Waterworld.
Mick then led some routes.

Mick Tighe and MOAC FA Short but Sweet

I went to Diabaig with Adam the next day, he was surprised that there were not loads of climbers on these fine routes.

Adam Rybojovik on Route 2

In June 2007 Andy Nisbet (belayed by Brian Davison) led a route at Poverty point, he assumed it was an established route but as he threw off loose holds I shouted across to him that it had not been climbed before.

Andy Nisbet on FA Rhubarb Crumble

I then pointed Brian at one of my projects.

Brian Davison FA Slot Machine

Next day we were down at the lighthouse and climbed on the wall where the pipe from the lighthouse empties. I was going to call it Raw Sewage Wall but Stephen Kennedy thought Gardyloo Wall would be better. Stephen led Silent Witness, after seeing Cynthia pulling off a block and taking a leader fall on the first ascent of Gloom, after I had just cleaned it. Cynthia and I both thought the block looked solid.

Bob Hamilton FA Silent Witness

In 2009 Scottish Rock came out which had over 100 Neist routes it also had topos for the first time.

The new Neist guide with over 400 routes should be out in the next few weeks.

Cover photo supplied by Tom Prentice

Late season granite

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 20:21:30 +0000

On the 5th of November we had a late start at Neist, so we only had time for a couple of routes. Stephen Kennedy led Insider Dealing (photo above). I’ve done the route about twenty times and I always jam my feet in that crack!

Next day the cloud was well down on the Cuillin, a lot of us went to the Quirang.

The following weekend we went to the Ross of Mull granite.
Last year two year old Freya Forrest has been developing one crag (Iain Forrest photo).

Andy Spink and friends have been developing another crag south of Knockvologan, I repeated a few of Andy’s routes last summer and offered to leave the other potential routes to him, but that was over a year ago! We repeated two of the earlier routes and did a couple of new things.
Steve Jones on Peak Potential (Cynthia Grindley photo).

Red River Gorge

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 17:07:41 +0000

Years ago my brother-in-law got a job in Pittsburgh, a few weeks later my sister was going out to join him. I was to get up in the middle of the night and drop her off at Glasgow airport, but someone had driven a burning jeep into the airport the day before, so I slept well that night.
KLM had told her to check in as normal even though the airport was closed!

Last Christmas the Pittsburgh pair gave me the new guide to Red River Gorge.
On the cover it states:
‘The Red River Gorge in eastern Kentucky is one of the best rock-climbing areas in the world. Its solid well-featured sandstone makes for steep, spectacular climbing, with an almost equal mix of sport and traditionally protected pitches.’
I booked the flights.

Eight months later we turned up at Glasgow Airport to check in.
“We need your US Visa Waiver numbers.”
“We don’t have any?”
“Registering and paying for Visa Waivers at least 72 hours before travel is mandatory. Your tour operator should have told you about it.”
“We don’t have a tour operator.”
They said we could get online at Starbucks to register. We took the luggage east to Starbucks but they didn’t have internet access. We went back west past check in and found some computers, I started to feed pound coins into one of them. I ticked the usual lie about not having been on a farm but my Visa Waiver application failed again and again because the date of travel was ‘not acceptable’. Panic was taking over; the plane would soon take off without us. I ran back to check in and the girl from US Airways, fortunately, came over to the computer and persuaded it to give out some visa numbers.
Going quickly through duty free they were offering samples of rum, it was nearly 10 in the morning; I took one.
We landed in Philadelphia and were instructed to ‘deplane’.
First thing I was worried about (I had no inkling what Glasgow would be like) was the man with the gun that takes your fingerprints and face recognition photo.
It was the start of his shift and he was in a good mood, he showed us his scowl that he uses later in the shift when people annoy him. As we had come to USA for climbing he warned us about gravity and let us in.
We then flew on to Charleston.
I had read somewhere that New York was no longer the least friendly city in America, Los Angeles had won the title (and Charleston was one of the friendliest). When we got to the car hire desk at Charleston the lady didn’t do the usual “You will need more insurance” but instead told us we didn’t need extra cover! She drew a map so we could find where we were staying the night. Cynthia told her we were knackered as it was two in the morning our time. We left the airport, found our car and started loading it with our stuff, then the lady from car hire walked over with two black coffees for us!

Second thing I was worried about was rain, I had expected a lot of it.
On the one day when it rained (heavily) we still climbed on cliffs sheltered by roofs. One Canadian was very relaxed on dry rock while it chucked it down.

The sandstone at Red River was excellent but a clip stick would have been handy. We got by with branches that we found, runners before the first bolt, borrowing clip sticks and very occasionally boldness.
On the Friday we did a few routes at Summersville (West Virginia).

Then went onto Pittsburgh for the weekend where we saw a Bald Eagle.

The plan was to climb at New River Gorge the second week but it was raining in West Virginia, so we went back to Red River Gorge.
The drive back to Red River took me 9 hours but there was a diversion because of a crash which slowed things up.

A pawn shop near Red River Gorge was selling guns, that was tempting for the deer that eat everything in my garden but I didn’t think the officials would understand.

Photos are here Kentucky and here West Virginia

Back home I sent off about 50 nest records, they included 19 Oystercatchers nests and 3 Great Skua nests. Skuas were not keen on me stopping to take a photo.

Topos and Maps

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 23:43:33 +0100

Trying to mark where routes go on photos is proving harder than I anticipated. I’ve had to revisit a number of crags to check exactly where the climbs are. The photo above is of a crag I know well, of the 34 routes there I was not sure where 3 of them went, so I scrambled round the base last week as in started to get dark.

At the weekend we were back at Sunshine Wall upgrading routes and trying to confirm where some of them went. Julian Lines quickly sorted out a query by e-mail.

I sent a link to my last blog to Todd Swain in California. While we had been putting up thirty foot routes Todd was putting up bigger ones near Bishop. The route below is 5.5, 5.10b, 5.10c then 5.11 out right below the big roof.

John Thorn has produced maps without copyright that he wanted to make available to everyone so I offered to put them on my web site.
I picked the biggest of ten folders that Matt Munro supplied. My apple reckoned it would take over twenty days to upload it, there were over 270,000 items in that folder. After twelve hours my apple refused to carry on. Like the apple I was ready to give up, but Matt thinks we will get there.
I’ll start again next month.

Bananarama

Wed, 7 Sep 2011 07:55:49 +0100

I didn’t climb much in the first half of the month, went and looked at a couple of crags I hadn’t visited for a few years.
Pete Whillance was in Birmingham on Friday the 19th, he went home for a short sleep then drove north for a weekend on Mull. I had let him know that the weather forecast was not great.
Saturday morning he did a couple of routes at Scoor with Cynthia while I was at work, then Steve and I met up with them and we went to Karen’s Slab. I got Pete to start on a route called Heather (photo above). We then did a couple of new things. Pete said his was a boulder problem but he had some runners in and there was an ankle breaking block at the base so I gave it E3.
He fell asleep before he got back to my place and went off the road; maybe it’s an age thing, sleeping at every opportunity?
Next day we went back and Pete did another E3 (photo below), a banana shaped crack he named after an 80’s girl band!

Tuesday night I drove through heavy showers then did a couple of short routes behind The Slab at Scoor with Steve, I had cleaned them in the winter.

On the 28th we went to Spain with Tam Cook then drove to Glen Esera. Next morning we climbed on the schist and I took my first leader fall of the year after I pulled off a flake, the flake hit Cynthia on the head.
In the afternoon we went to the gneiss. I dropped Cynthia lowering her off a 33m route, a stupid mistake, time to stop for the day.
Rest of the week we climbed on gneiss, granite, schist and limestone and didn’t see any other Brits.
A few photos here Aragon