Colin’s

Glen Torridon routes

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 00:10:35 +0100

I was asked why a climb was called Mechanical Sheep. The answer is below along with some other route names.

This is probably of no interest to most people.

Page numbers are from Northern Highlands South guide book (SMC).

P 201/202
Telegraph Pole E2)
Rock Agus Roll (E1)
Nematode (VS)
Che Guevara (VS)
Gondola (VS)
Had a bit of a gaelic theme, these were words I heard on the gaelic programs on BBC2.

Lysfoss (E2)
Is a 100m long ship that ran aground near Mull.
Photo above is Lysfoss, Tobermory on the left, lifeboat on the right, two people on the rock on the port side.

We are sure this big black crag is Creag Dubh an T-Sall but Andy does not agree, possibly because that is not exactly where it is marked on the map.

P 210
Two Bolts and Some Bailer Twine (E2)
Morris found the bolts wrapped up in twine on a shelf just above the base of the crag, they are probably still there.

P 219
No Brats (E2)
Rab seemed to have climbed everything, Yan found some rock that Rab hadn’t climbed!
No Brats is an anagram of Not Rabs.

P 220-224
Andy Had Fish and Chips for Tea (E1)
Andy wanted me to change the route name ‘Two Bolts and Some Bailer Twine’. He reckoned it meant nothing, it was just like saying ‘I had fish and chips for tea’.

Nasal Abuse ((E1)
I turned round quickly while abseiling the route and smacked my delicate little nose off the rock.

The Age of Confusion (E3)
We did some routes which I wrote up and gave to Stephen Kennedy but he ended up doing a couple of our routes thinking they were new (and getting different grades). We did this route after I worked out what had happened.

Mechanical Sheep (E2)
There was an advert on TV for car insurance filmed at Bealach na Ba, Applecross. A car came down the hill swerved to avoid a sheep and hit a tree. There are no trees so one was cut down at Loch Carron and moved there. The sheep was mechanical.

Off With Her Head (S?)
When I got to the top I went right to look for a belay, I was trailing ropes which pulled off a block, it nearly killed Louise.

Porpoise Scandal E1)
A porpoise jumped onto a fish farm net, so died. Norwegians working there cooked a bit of it. That was considered barbaric by some environmental expert. I think putting a porpoise into landfill is barbaric.
Apparently it was very good and tasted like whale.

P 231-233
Torridown Man (E2) (sort of highland Piltdown Man).
A Million Years B.C. (E1)
There is an old structure at the crag so I wanted an ancient man theme but the frog bin theme won.

The Great Brush Robbery (E4)
We stopped at the garage in Loch Carron and Yan ‘borrowed’ a wire brush, after he cleaned the route there wasn’t much brush left so he didn’t go back. I was the getaway driver.

Bolted Gabbro

Sat, 1 Jun 2013 17:45:34 +0100

The weather forecast after mid may was good (finally), so we went out to Coll on the 19th. There was only one other tent on the campsite, soon found out it was Andy MacDonald’s (Andy is the shy manager of Nevisport in Fort William). Photo above is on Coll.

Andy Hyslop took us to a wee south facing crag 10 minutes from Fionnphort.
We all seemed to be struggling with ill health so it became Afflictions Rock. Pete’s affliction was the most impressive having just spent eight days in hospital with a leg infection, he was still leading 5c.

Andy started developing The Grey Cave, possibly the only bolted gabbro in Scotland, if you don’t include the bolts from the 50’s in Coire Lagan.
His first route is Drop Jaw Crack F7a+ (Pete Whillance photo).

Pete and Andy found another crag so we started developing that. George Szuca and Mark Garthwaite did a few routes there in the 90’s but didn’t write them up.

Bambi Bucket

Wed, 15 May 2013 22:47:45 +0100

April was exceptionally cold and dry.

At Gribun there was a lot of snow and ice but the crag was a lot dryer than it should be at that time of year, so I bolted a line at the right side of the main face.
We climbed it one Friday night and put the Scottish Sport Guide out of date before it came out. Next morning we did a project at Stac Liath then went home for lunch. Ben Buie in the afternoon was cold so we didn’t climb on the gabbro there.
Found some shelter on Erraid the next day and did some short routes there including a new thing I had cleaned in the winter.

Smoke over Cruach Torr an Lochain

With the dry weather there were a number of fires. One got out of control so Karl was called to put it out. The Bambi Bucket is weighted to collect water from the nearest loch, the pilot drags the bucket through the water then flies over the fire and opens the bucket. This one carries 700 litres.

Karl the Pilot stopping for essentials- cigarette, toilet, coffee and aviation fuel.

Got a new bag from my sponsors.

Malta

Thu, 9 May 2013 21:33:01 +0100

Flights to Malta were booked for early March without much thought, then I looked at Wikipedia.

Malta is about a third of the size of Mull. Mull has 2 people per square km, Malta has 1,300.

Photos are here Malta

Helen the vet asked if I could remove a sheep from a crag on the west side of Mull as it was going to starve to death. I took a quick look and suggested she get her first aid kit, I was fairly sure it would jump.
Just after I started abseiling it jumped (about twenty feet), I thought it was dead but when Helen arrived below with a steroid injection it ran away. It died later.

In 2006 Rab Anderson asked if I would write up two hills on south Mull for an SMC book. I had not had much success with the task. On one of my attempts on a night one November I gave up when cloud obscured the moon.
After a reminder I walked the hills again at the end of March. There is a fine little glen between Ben Buie and Creach Beinn and I found some pleasant little gabbro slabs to solo.

Coll

Sat, 2 Mar 2013 12:20:27 +0000

Graham Little wrote up Coll for the guide but I was writing the introduction which was a bit odd as I had never set foot on the island, so I decided to go at the start of February.

The Hebrides are brilliant in winter, no tourists and no midges.

I left Glencoe at 05.10 to catch the ferry. On Coll I got a lift to the bunkhouse which was a good start but after that all the traffic was going the wrong way so I walked the four miles to the road end. The Hogh crags are an easy walk from there.
I had a great time and soloed 14 short routes on perfect gneiss in the winter sunshine.
I am hoping to get sponsored by Sportiva or Dunlop.

Another weekend I went to Balmeanach with the drill. I knew the crag would be wet so lacked enthusiasm, I sat in the car for a while then decided against it. On the way home Ben More was just clear so I went up there in my wellies (ice axe in the car, map and compass at home). I could see Coll from the top.

With a good forecast at the end of February I decided on Coll again. I thought I would be able to make better use of my time if I took the car. I phoned Calmac at Craignure but got Gourock! They asked the usual stuff, what’s your mobile number in case of bad weather (I don’t have a mobile and I didn’t expect any bad weather). He wanted me to pay and said the ferry might be full as it was the end of the school holidays. I said I didn’t have my credit card so would take my chance. I had forgotten the set reply, “I’ve already got tickets”.
When I got to Coll they announced “All vehicle drivers and their passengers make their way to the car deck now”, the announcement was for me as my car was the only vehicle going onto Coll.

I had a look at some different crags at Hogh and soloed a few routes, then drove north to see that part of Coll.
I had a pint and talked about otters with an islander, I later found his otter blog.
http://ottotheotter.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/first-meeting-my-friend-peter-opened.html

Next day was cold and windy so I did the tourist bit; went to the castle and beaches and looked at a crag at the south west of the island. In the afternoon I went back to Hough, managed to get out of the wind and soloed a dozen routes, most of them new.

The third day was a short one as the ferry leaves before mid day. I looked at another crag. There was a slabby buttress at the left hand side that didn’t have any routes on it so I started soloing. My fingers were getting cold and a couple of small holds broke so I reversed then scrambled round to have a look at the finish, the top of the crag was coated in verglas so I gave up.
‘The Isle of Coll enjoys a relatively mild climate, influenced by the Gulf Stream, with frosts and snow being a rarity!’
The man from Calmac showed me where to park at the pier. I had never met him before but he knew what I had been up to, he told me about several crags he had climbed on and where he bouldered, I suspected my new routes the previous afternoon were not new.

My photos are here Coll