1646 – Issue 3

FEATURE STORY Stacks of Adventure close to home With covid making travel quite stressful my husband and I decided we wanted an adventure but didn’t want the stress of all the covid tests and form filling. We decided to head to the Scottish Highlands in our camper van. Our rough objective of the holiday was to climb a sea stack. A sea stack is a large stack of rock in the sea that looks like a tall stone tower, separated from the main shoreline. To have a good climbing trip to the Scottish Highlands, requires the stars to align. You need good weather and enough of a breeze and sunshine to keep the midges away. Now, if you haven’t heard of midges I can best describe them as incredibly irritating biting flies that can seriously ruin your day. They can send the most passive person mad. Luckily for us we had been watching the weather forecast closely the week before our trip. Sunshine and a slight breeze. Just what we needed. Our first stop was just North of the fishing town of Ullapool on the North west coat of Scotland. Ardmair crag provides some fantastic climbing on Torridon sandstone. With a short walk to the base of the route it made a perfect start to the holiday. We climbed Shaker Loops and Gravity Rainbow, two fab E1s that swallowed cams on amazingly clean rock. I would soon be embracing the rounded sandstone climbing. Not my favourite type as I love edges and crimps and it’s basically the opposite. Someone wise once told me “The only way to get better is to practice your weakness.” If you climb regularly on grit stone then I’m sure you will be well practiced at the art of this burly type of climbing. I however need to do a lot more it turns out! Stac Pollaidh is a handsome looking mountain made up of rough grained pebbly Torridonian sandstone pillars and blocks perched high above Loch Lurgainn. It’s a fantastic rocky outcrop, left over from the last ice age and creates a feature called a nunatak. From the rocky summit you are greeted by the most amazing views of the surrounding sea lochs and islands, a patchwork quilt of blues and greens. It was one of those magical days where the air was crisp and you could see for miles. We climbed Jack the Ripper, a fine three pitch E1 with a great final pitch. Then for a more traditional climb we ascended November Grovers, a four pitch VS 4c requiring some hilarious bridging and grovelling up a rather steep grassy corner. I’m glad it was dry as the swearing might have got worse. The day was topped off by a swim in the Loch below to help us acclimatise for our next adventure. The Old Man Of Storr is regarded as the finest of the classic three old men (Sea stacks). It didn’t disappoint and what an adventure. Just getting down to the base of the climb feels serious enough. Due to it being my husband’s birthday I decided to do the swim. He said it was the best birthday present ever watchingme swimacross the kelp filled channel. I looked especially fetching in my stripy swimming costume and climbing helmet. ‘Remember danger never takes a day off” is my mantra. We were then able to set up the Tyrolean which you tie into a spiders web of old pegs and rusty nuts lashed together by some new looking tat. Phew! We decided to climb Diamond Face route, the E1 5b, to keep out the way of the majority of the nesting sea birds, mainly fulmars and oyster By Emma Warren (2000) 2 0