In the Hands of the Gods

That's how it felt yesterday. Lots of idea's for climbing, but after another sunny week, it was a very unsettled weather forecast in the Highlands this weekend. In the end it looked marginally better on the East and we headed to Strathconon a local glen to look at Salamander, a HVS I've been wanting to climb for ages.

It feels very remote as you drive up the endless glen... We ditched the van eventually and used bikes to get up Gleann Meinich on the forest road. The crag rears up on the right as you get to the end of the glen.

Before the rain!

Leaving the bikes it started to rain, and looked pretty grey... but as it's a steep walk up to the crag we pressed on, hoping it was a passing shower.

Jack latching the belay ledge on pitch 1

It's pretty tortuous ascending the steep heather slopes, but we got to the crag eventually. Wow - what a ticky place, socks tucked into shoes, endless ticks on the trousers had to be brushed off on the walk in. Amazing variation of tick, from pin head sized critters, to 3-4mm with orange backs! I knew there was a reason I'd thought that this would be a good Autumn/Winter venture!

Questing 

The 6 pitch climb is amazing! Sublime climbing on every pitch, with great variety. The first dog - leg crack started easily and then turned into a wild, but grippy off-width with good gear that you had to stem. This was followed by a bolder slab/face pitch, and so the variety went on. The 2 final pitch's are worth mention, as penultimately you get an amazing looking hanging corner (its easy but brilliant), and Jack's last pitch was an unlikely looking chimney that looked wild, but did have gear, and was okay in the end! It's also worth mentioning that the 5b variant we took on pitch 3 was better climbing and protection than the original route, and more like 5a!

Lets get out of here!

During the last hour or so on the route the wind had picked up and it was pretty cold, I just kept thinking amazing that it's 30 degree's in the South of England today as I felt I was verging on hyperthermia!

The walk down and out was pretty tortuous, but short lived with gravity on our side. I really great adventure that I felt we were lucky to achieve, as it really could have gone either way with the weather today.