The big plan was to head to Carnmore and climb a mythical remote mountain route this weekend, but strangely I found myself building stone garden steps on the 'nice' weather day as Loz's work had him working on Good Friday after all!
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| Quick coffee in the van |
While the rest of the UK is still gripped in a heat wave the West of Scotland was forecast to deteriorate on Saturday so we had to be creative with our planning. After many messages back and forth it looked like the NE Caithness coast was the best bet.
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| Loz trying to settle my nerves |
Worryingly I awoke with a horrible headache and felt very nauseous - not a good omen for the day. I did nearly cancel, but told Loz to pack the ibuprofen (I can't find ours since the house move) and we were off.
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| Zawn jumping |
I really like the drive up the NE coast passing Helmsdale and various settlements. It feels remote and somehow austere. I always think of Bronte's writings, but I'm not sure why as this area has the sea and she was all about the fells in North middle England. It's probably my association that she dealt with at times bleak, hard landscapes that evoke a sense of loneliness and yet beauty, which is what I feel up here in the far NE.
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| Loz starting the abseil down to the Pimp. Me heckling |
We arrived at a large tumbling down farm, at the end of a gravel road half a mile from the sea at Sarclet. The farmer drove in to check his sheep and gave us a friendly wave as we made a quick coffee after the 2 hour drive. I felt well again!
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| Pimpernell is the Arêtes to his right, corner system in the sun is the VS |
We walked the rolling grassy cliff edges for an hour locating the cliffs and climbs and checking the place out. Again I felt physically sick and anxious, this time from the thought that soon we would have to abseil into some abyss or zawn... I often get like this at 'new' sea cliffs when on climbing trips. .
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| Loz breaking through the roof on the Pimp |
We picked an area that had 2 VS's, and abseiled in thinking that this would be a good warm up... We cocked up! The routes were in the shade and greasy and damp given the high humidity.
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| Happy Chappy |
I ended up on a small ledge, well foot ledge 4-5" wide 2 feet above the sea on a rising tide... Loz came down and very slowly and carefully started climbing out.. I did wonder what the fuss was about, as my feet and back started to get heavily sprayed as the sea got to within inches of getting me!! But when I did eventually escape my watery shaggles I knew what the fuss was about, unnervy, greasy, insecure and higher up loose climbing.. We were both relieved to get back to the surface and sun.
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| Loz on the VS (Scarlet Pimpernel Arête behind) |
This did nothing to improve my current fragile state of mind (!) and as Loz peered down a big cliff and tried to entice me to the Scarlet Pimpernel a 4 star E1 as it was in the sun I wasn't convinced.. but after looking at another chossy cliff I agreed..
Once down after the long free hanging abseil I felt much better and think I surprised Loz when I claimed the E1.. It has an exciting bouldery start, traversing out right to gain an Arête and I dithered on this, but once established on the wall and with gear in the cracks I felt fine and enjoyed the incredible 40m route. Amazing climbing a solid clean line on conglomerate with trad gear (it's mainly bolted up here).
An incredible route, I literally can't think of any negative, never too hard, never too steep, never too far from the next runner - totally fun absorbing climbing. I sat on top with the weight of earlier lifted and feeling very content.
As we had faffed so long it was now 4pm ish, but I knew we'd be going down the abseil rope again for the VS. Groove Armada, followed a steep flake corner system from the same belay and looked hard(er). Loz declared he was pumped after the pimpernel so I wondered how this would go..
But it went very well, he flew up it and when I seconded it I grinned the whole way up. Absolute class, amazing steady (fairly easy to be honest) climbing in a spectacular position. On top we both agreed we couldn't think of a better VS in the UK that we had climbed.
What a spot, what a day, we even saw a whale swim past.. back at the van we had a cup of tea and chatted to the friendly farmers again, and he said 'aye, its getting busy up here now for climbing, we had another couple of climbers here not 2 weeks past'. Busy indeed.
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