The Monar puzzle

Me and chizzy rolled into achnashellach, intending to head to bearnais bothy and then over to monar.

The initial section to bearnais looked easy. We walked out the village, through fields, into a forest, looking for the bridge (which we found later was dreamt up by the kalidiscope mind of an OS map boy in the eighties) . After about 3 hours of looking for the imaginary bridge, we gave up and waded the river, straight into an enormous gorse field. Once we'd battled through it, the walk to bearnais was easy, passing some inspiring lines on the way.

Central crack line looks wicked, hopefully doesn't ice over with seepage in the cold. It's less than an hours walk in if you don't get lost, so get on it.

We got into bearnais midafternoon, faced with a dilema whether to go out and suss it out that day, facing certain benightment, or wait till tomorrow.

An excellent late lunch settled the decision.

Need to get a bigger pan.

We decided to get up at 4am the next day, jumped over the pass to monar, very swampy.


Saw some sawn off unicorns (or possibly silver ponies), the cloud lifted, the sun came out, everything felt lush.



Saw two particularly brilliant projects. No pics of them till I've done them.

1) A wall with a corner on one side, the corner is pretty steady bridging to begin with then slopes off to an easier slope then gets gently overhanging, ballpoint V ish. A direct finish rather than sloping off looks desperate, bold and thin, will try it in summer if it ever dries up.

2) A magical slab, broken up by 6 roofs, each bigger than the next, one line of weakness that's still gonna be really hard, serious.


Nights are drawing in, write your story in the mixed.

Have eight legs, party all night, weigh a gram

Moving effortlessly up my wall, the spider shows the way, no hesitation, the only holds it needs are in it's mind. On the topout, a bird swoops and eats it.


Bored with the inverness wall, which consists of textured panels at a vertical angle, and problems which are mostly easy or desperate, I decided to make a change. A days work and I have a board. Been adding more and more holds to make it easy for me to get to the top, it's ace rolling out of bed, out to the garden, on the board.

At a 35 degree angle currently, it is adjustable down to about 55 or so, but 35 is enough to make me fall off alot.

We made most of the holds ourselves, apart from the small footholds, pretty easy to make 50 holds an hour when you get the method dialed.

It is brilliant, next for some soft big numbers trad games or a fashionable finger injury...

Beinn Eighe

Me, chizzy and sam rolled up to the poolewe palace for a few days. Adventures were had, during which chizzy broke his arm, once back at the palace, I made an excellent splint out of a wooden spoon, we whisked him to raigmore, picked up mckinns and headed out west again.

We then mourned the death of chizzys arm with eating.


Scone and tunes, when we do it we do it big.

We headed up to the hills around beinn eighe for a look.


I especially liked the look of this gently angled corner, one to come back for for sure. The steep wall above might also be good.

Morocco

good eating, good climbing, sun and every prickly thing you can imagine pretty much sums it up.

We got on an excellent route up a gully, featuring an interesting section with an overhanging flared offwidth, actually pretty easy as the footholds were there. However, the exit slopes were softening so we bailed, descended, got a little unaware of where we were, then ended up doing 3k ascent that day, by the end of it we were suffering. The next day, we went for a hike, deciding to have a nap in the sunshine at the top of a pass, it was amazing.

Steep stuff was everywhere, caves, long, short, generally good holds, it was ace, inspiration to convert to the cult of bouldering. The rock quality was amazing, plenty of worrying breaks to poke a hand into and hope that nothing bites. We did an easy footless traverse across this cave while eating lunch and enjoying the shade.

The choss enthuasiast would not be disappointed either.

Lots of inspiring things to go at dans l'hiver, decent gully line right to the summit. This ridge line looked ace but we didn't get on it.
Lightening was present as usual, though mostly just the pleasant late afternoon/dinner bell stuff.

We got to the top of toubkal (biggest mountain in north africa at about 4000m but not technical) one day to hear a rumble, within 10 minutes we were enveloped in it, hailstorm, dodging a few rocks dislodged by it, it felt just like being back in the alps, wouldn't have fancied abbing off a route in it. We stopped under the shelter of a rock and watched it, chilling with a few oranges, ace.

Great trip, keen for a winter visit.

Sweden

was a washout. Apparently, west sweden is the new west highlands.

We went to Utby, did one route, it looked like it could be alright when dry. We decided against Hono. We went to Marstund, the rock momentarily dried out, the DWS was ok if you like friction slabs and ledges, it was fun, the routes were short, no swims were taken. Soon the rain came back.

Gothenburg in the dry looks like a great climbing city, the locals are keen and the routes are soft, and plenty of potential, not much steep stuff but everything else is there.



And the baked goods are great.

Old School Training and Summer Plans

Hidden away in the corridors of uni, there is an old wall. It's always deserted, holds polished, sharp and snappy with an array of bizarre jamming cracks. In places, it's polystyrene innards spew out. It's six years older than I am. The landing is unforgiving. If you are lucky you might land on a passing medic to cushion your fall.

It's awesome.

Uni finished, summer plans include a couple of trips abroad, morocco and sweden. Both look brilliant. The cham alps calls but I'm not that keen, good lines are still there to be climbed, keen parteners everywhere, offer of free accom, but I've fallen out of love with it, well not all of it but I'm not psyched for 20 pitches of easy rock and ice in a day, dodging missiles, down to the valley, repeat until death/end of trip. There was a line on the freney I wanted to do and the ginat in lush neve conditions looks balling as well, another look at the dru, the gulley on mont dolent. Spring and autumn look like the time to go, winter is for scotland of course, summer in the alps seems to consist of everything being out of condition and chatting bs in the valley, excessive pasta consumption, rest day frolicks on bolts, being outclimbed by goats, man it's so good.

But this summer is about scotland for me.

Monar

Ben Alder

Carnmore

Orkney

Mullach Coire Mhic Fhearchair

Hell's Lum

Corrour

Barns of Bynack

Need to be fitter, stronger, cleverer. Feeling inspired.

A quick trip to hell

Fantastic weather meant I was thinking of a route in the cairngorms that I've been wanting to get on for a very long time.

We arrived in coire an t'schneada about 7:30 after a very early start. Spent some time looking for crag swag, was pretty successful, another couple of trips and a decent rack would be aquired. If you've lost gear on it and want it back, holla at me.

Then we ran up fiaciall ridge, which I'd never been on since our previous epic descent of it last winter, gazing at some hard winter lines which looked very doable when they're not snowed up.

Onto the plateau, checking into a few nice snowholes, over and down to hell's lum, a few people about, loads of people on the shelterstone, all climbing one route in a caterpillar train, possibly the needle, looked class.



Must be very intense in winter indeed.


Wasn't entirely sure where the line I wanted went, eventually figured out where it might be.

6 feet under.



Chopped our way up the neve, a schrund big enough to eat you, had a look, decided falling into the schrund would be bad times, left it for another day.


We then headed down to loch a'an for some bouldering.




Mclellan on boulder.

It was actually really good, we did a pile of stuff, I'm beginning to understand why boulderers go bouldering, as opposed to climbers who go bouldering to get strong for routes.

Particularly fun was a steep roof on excellent holds. Want to do a really excellent arete I saw but the landing was pretty poor, and it was hard enough that I wasn't sure I wouldn't come off. Loch A'an is not the place to hurt yourself. Will go back again with a pad.


Psyched for shovelling.