Monday 28th April 2014 |
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Beautiful sunny day at Kingussie crag
Today I was out climbing with Jon and Martin at Kingussie Crag. It was Jon and Martin's first day of rock climbing outdoors.
What a lovely warm sunny day it was too. We had a look at placing gear and setting up anchors as well as climbing and abseiling. |
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Friday 25th April 2014 |
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Spring trad climbing at Ardmair
After the last few days of warm spring weather Gaz and I were keen to get some trad climbing done so we headed to Ardmair crag today. It wasn't quite as warm as we had hoped with a strong Easterly wind and lots of cloud.
However we did have a great day and managed 5 routes before the tea and cakes at the Ceilidh Place in Ullapool drew us away.
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Saturday 19th April 2014 |
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Climbing the Old Man of Stoer with Red Szell
After climbing The Old Man of Hoy with Red last June there was some mention of coming back to do more sea stacks. After a winter in the dull climbing walls of North London Red was keen to get back to the Highlands this Spring for more adventures. He teamed up again with Martin Moran and myself to attempt the Old Man of Stoer.
Yesterday after an early start from Achmelvich Youth Hostel we wandered out in the cold first hours of the day onto the headland above the Old Man only to discover that our tidal predictions were a tad out and after waiting for an hour the tide seemed even higher than when we'd arrived. After a total of 3 hours waiting the sea finally started receding from it's spring high and we were able to begin our adventure.
After a surprisingly simple swim and tyrolean we had a great climb up the Orignal Route. There was some sun to enjoy but we mostly shivered in the strong southerly breeze. Everything went to plan and Red climbed his second sea stack in less than a year. There was even talk of coming back for more next year... |
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Thursday 17th April 2014 |
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Two days sport climbing with Red
On Tuesday I went to Moy crag with Red Szell and Rod. We had a great afternoon of climbing in the sunshine.
Yesterday we were joined by Martin and we climbed at Creag Bheag near Golspie. Although cold and windy to start with it warmed up later in the day as the wind dropped off. We climbed many of the short bolted routes and Red did awesome (as always!) and lead his first route outdoors, an onsight ascent of a F5 with 4% vision! |
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Wednesday 9th April 2014 |
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Busy bouldering banter
Unusually there were 4 folk bouldering at Tom Riach last night. It was good to have a few others pulling on pebbles and throwing abuse! Murdo and Gaz repeated 'There and Back'.
We all tried to get the NW face a bit more wired and although Murdo and I tried 'The Link' no one did it.
There was even a flyby by the RAF Chinooks and Hercules! |
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