After last week’s recce with Michael I returned to finish the giant prow. Both of us were very excited just to climb on it, whether we succeeded or not. It’s a mega piece of climbing and one of the best lines of it’s grade in the country for sure. I cleaned an extended start first of all - a 30 move F8c route to come back to.
The last go was the formality, just to finish me off. I didn’t think I’d even drag my expended arms to the crux. But of course, on this try I managed not to make any mistakes, and leapt for that finishing jug with full commitment. The walk back seemed even more scenic. A classic not to be missed if you climb the grade and you like exploratory Scottish climbing.
Doing a new climb here is something special. It’s not the same as a good session at your local crag, or down the wall. For me it’s an order of magnitude different. It’s an experience that really does inspire and last. The distance to go there, and the risk of wasting a day or two in the rain is nothing compared to what you have to gain if you get to walk this coastline past Screapadal and the sandstone towers and find amazing lines hidden between a jungle of rocks, some unclimbably soft, some perfect.
On the outer rim of the Ben Nevis volcanic caldera is a ring of granite surrounding it’s andesite centre. The granite is the stuff that gently baked the mica schist of Glen Nevis, giving it it’s honeycomb texture that makes it so great to climb. But not much of the granite is exposed as crags unfortunately. I’ve often passed small outcrops of the stuff on various approaches to the Ben and thought it would be nice to find a good crag or boulder made of this stuff since it’s some of the nicest rough granite I’ve ever seen.
One place I kept meaning to look were the obvious slabs high on the slopes of the Ben, directly above the car park for Steall. I say high - they only look high because of the savage slope leading up to them. They are actually only about 6/700m altitude. On last week’s run I went past one of them and found an immaculate 15 metre slab of granite with four routes to do on it and an even bigger slab above. Two lines in particular stood out as the best gritstone style E7/8 slab climbs I’ve seen. A bit like the classic Cairngorm E7 ‘Firestone’ but with even better rock.
Kev and myself couldn’t resist checking them out and so we slogged up and had a play on them. As suspected, a pair of fantastic but very bold climbs to be done there. An E7 6b and E8 6c. Something to go back to when feeling rather confident. If I'd remembered my helmet, the E7 line may just have got an ascent. But probably best to have to go back with a strong mind anyway.
Video of me doing the repeat of Daniel Woods problem Mystic Stylez in Switzerland a couple of months ago. The clip comes from the Polished Project’s film about my reflections on climbing which is on the way.
Finally needing a climbing rest day I went for another fasted run before breakfast. The weather was fine so I opted for Ben Nevis, straight up the slope from the Glen Nevis road end in a brutally steep glycogen burning continuous climb straight to the summit. Going as fast as I could, I could start to feel the glycogen tank emptying after only 45 minutes, motivation to keep slogging dying off and being replaced by a strong desire to lie down and sleep.
Having a few of these runs in the bag recently is meaning I can now keep going a fair bit better once the tank is empty and I’m making glucose out of body fat. The next 45 minutes to the summit felt predictably hard work, but some good tunes got me through it and all of a sudden strolling over the plateau to the observatory.
I sat down in the cool breeze among the crowd of summitteers, for a few minutes. I couldn’t stay though, I was pretty damn hungry and the sound of many sandwiches being munched all around me was deafening. Get moving!
My legs felt worked but were still strong to bounce back down the boulderfields in a good run and off into Coire Gubishean and onto to upper Steall. Running through Steall I could really feel I was burning fat and stopping running even for a moment to clamber over rocks on jelly legs gave me an overwhelming urge to lie down. So I cruised on happily down the familiar path back to my car and an egg roll in town.
Today, I’m 34. Birthday itinerary: Swimming with the girls, book writing, feeding midges at Steall.
For ages Michael and myself have been keen to go and look at the huge Triassic sandstone cliffs on the east coast of Raasay and scope out what potential there might be. After a hard day at Steall we decided now was a good time for a day trip and sped up there.
First up we checked out this huge slot of Sandstone. Beautiful rock formations and good stone. But maybe a little too sheltered to get dry enough very often. I could be wrong though. You’d get some lovely E8 and upwards 25 metre solos in here, or some great sport routes!
Then we headed along the lovely coast past Screapadal and the now long abandoned crofting communities that existed in this remote spot. As we expected, there was a TON of rock. Towering sandstone cliffs over 100 metres high with only a handful of the very easiest lines climbed, and the slope below covered in countless boulders.
Mega boulder, 20 metres high. Unfortunately made of cheese.
Both the cliff and boulders were a little dissapointing on closer inspection. The main face routes would make one of the best sport cliffs in Scotland, or some death defying barely protected trad which didn’t really inspire me too much (maybe it’s just not St John’s Head?!). We spent ages looking round the boulders finding countless problems in the V0-V3 range that looked great, but not much for ourselves. But finally we stumbled upon one line that changed our psyche - the biggest, baddest Font 7c/+ roof in Scotland!
It looked simply awesome. But we were now counting down to run for the ferry time. The landing was full of big holes so we moved rocks for an hour and built a mega landing. I got the holds clean and moves done rapidly and then looked at my phone; we should have left 20 minutes ago to catch the last ferry! There was time for one try.
It was 22 moves long, pretty techy and a little scary at the end. I unfortunately caught a hold wrong near the end and didn’t get it. I cursed, but there was nothing to do but scrabble to get trainers on and spend the next 30 minutes running at 180bpm to catch the ferry, which we did. So there is something to go back for. I’m glad in a way. It’s such a lovely piece of rock, and although I’m pretty sure I can do it in an attempt or two, It’ll be worth the day trip to enjoy it properly...and then try the left hand exit.
Michael gears up for another scrap with Steallworker (8b), a cloud of midges above. Get tied in, whirr your jacket around a few times to disperse the midge pack, rip the bag off your head and go!
The other day I completed a new 8b+/c at Steall. ‘Irn Age’ climbs pretty much all of The Fat Groove (8a) to the roofed groove and then pulls right to climb pretty much all of Maxwell’s Demon (8b+). Although it has two no-hands rests on it low down, it’s still a good test of stamina and a mega trip up the crag with a tough finale. I certainly felt I needed to be quite fresh for the crux of Maxwell’s Demon which is right up near the last bolt after 35 metres of climbing.
Finally I can feel the effects of my circuits in my arms, climbing The Fat Groove without getting a pump and actually recovering on the better holds high on the route. Although it’s obviously miles easier than my 9a project just to the right, it’s still a confidence booster that these routes can go despite wet holds, bad weather and the odd midge.
I’ve put in the hours on my harder project, so I have the moves really smooth. I’m feeling 85% there fitness wise. But I think the real issue might come down to conditions. Last week I had a brief go on it again and just couldn’t even hang the two crux edges. Unless it’s cold and windy the tiny crystals just cut my skin. The northerlies of this week have turned out to be way too weak to be of any use at Steall.
So there are still some hurdles, but I’m making enough progress to want to keep at it for now.
If you’re reading from the UK you don’t need me to tell you the weather has been grim. The rain has been one thing, although you can usually get round that in Scotland given our abundance of steep crags which aren’t seepy limestone. High humidity and light winds (i.e. Midge weather) have been the stopper. Actually, our rain has been very light and although there haven't been too many lovely days, the crags are in general very dry.
I could go cragging I guess, which might be good for the head. But it doesn’t feel like the right thing to do for some reason. Training feels right, or at least did feel right.
I have been doing my circuits night after night. Some strange things are going on though which I can’t put my finger on. I’m definitely getting less pumped per circuit. I’m even getting a reasonable amount done. Yet for some reason, I don’t ‘feel’ fit.
When warming up I’m feeling rough and starting from a low base. And even once I’m going I feel heavy. I’m guessing it’s just one of those periods you have to go through every so often. So I’ll carry right on, until my body decides to wake up to the message that I need it to get fitter and stronger.
To be fair, I do have a hunch that I was actually losing fitness when I was having all those sessions at Steall just on the one route. I’ve had that before and it can be quite marked. So I probably am starting from a low base! It’s quite early days too - 2 or 3 weeks on plastic after a long time away from it. So maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised that it feels like a bit of a shock to the system. We’ll see how things go for another couple of weeks and if the conditions are still poor for Steall I’ll decide whether it’s best to train more or go out and do some trad new routes. My bias will definitely be to train more. Doing trad new routes is always what I do in summer and although I love it, it might be a nice time to do something different and really make a 100% effort to do the hardest piece of climbing I’ve done.
There’s no doubt that there will be good conditions at some point during July and August. But even if it takes until September, at least I’ll have some endurance to speak of! When deciding like this I guess you have to really weigh up what success on the project would mean for you. For me, it would be the most important climb I’ve ever done (quite apart from being the hardest for me personally since it’s not my style). It would be such a great milestone to move on to something fresh.
Quite a strong argument to train like hell..