Petestack Blog

Today Jamie Bankhead, Rich Parker and I headed north-east from a wet Lochaber in search of dry rock. With Plans A & B to visit Duntelchaig or Glenmarksie crags still looking like damp squibs after smartly bypassing the former and optimistically driving to Strathconon to look at the latter, Plan C finally took us to Cummingston on the Moray coast, where climbing that’s steep, juggy, sandstone and ‘different’ (home of the overhanging Mod?) can be strangely compelling even for a delicate slab creature like me…

Not too surprisingly, we took it in turns to lead, with Jamie choosing Doubtless Wall (Severe), me taking the central corner (VS) of the logically named Left, Right and Centre trilogy and Rich attempting (and eventually backing off) the supposedly soft E2 of The Prophet. After which Jamie led Bombproof (Severe), I took Doddle Diedre (same grade) and Rich the spectacularly spiky neighbouring arete of Stegosaurus (VS), which I’d found striking enough on my only previous visit to say (after a single look, and despite not normally ‘doing’ steep) ‘I want to do that’ and done that day!

So it might have been a long way to travel for a few short climbs but, driving smugly back into the rain along Loch Laggan side after a very satisfactory chippy in Aviemore, I’ve no doubt we all felt it had been worthwhile.

Today I climbed Styx Right Wall (V Diff), Resurrection (VS) and Three Pines (Severe) at Polldubh with Angus, 50 years to the day after Resurrection’s first ascent by Clough and Lakin. Have already posted an account to the UKC Forums (under the title of The Polldubh 50th Anniversary Game), so quoting that here:

Something I’d noted last autumn and kept in mind for some motivation to get back onto rock when the ice starts to melt (as it’s being doing for the past week) is the number of Polldubh routes from the great days of Ian Clough and Terry Sullivan coming up for their 50th birthdays this spring. So the first one I had in my diary (yes, really!) was the beautiful slabby ramp of Resurrection, but never expected to get it today after yesterday’s rain and a miserable forecast. However, we woke to something (sunshine!) far more attractive than expected, checked another couple of forecasts, thought a drying Polldubh more enticing than melting ice or pulling plastic and headed up. Got there about 11:00, had to wait an hour or two for a 10ft weep down the crux narrows to dry up, so popped up Styx Right Wall and grabbed a quick bite to pass the time before deciding things looked good enough. And they were, with just a few damp spots at the narrows and some more obstinate wetness to make the chimney fault above a little more awkward than usual, and we did it…

A very special ascent of one of my favourite climbs by a climber whose story continues to interest me, and all the more satisfying for being accompanied by my brother on what I think might be his first VS. Have uploaded a photo here and will be back to link it in or link to same on my site if I get today blogged before the photo gets approved.

So what of the ’50th Anniversary Game’? Don’t have all the dates to hand because (shock, horror!) I don’t have ‘Highland Outcrops’, but know we’re looking at:

Iche, Fidelity, Enigma and Kinloss Grooves on 11 April (this Saturday)
Pandora on 20 April
Vampire and Secretaries’ Direct on 21 April
Wanderlust on 22 April
Storm, Flying Dutchman and Phantom Slab on 3 May (a Sunday)
Heatwave on 22 May
Spike Wall on 28 June

(NB Three Pines and Crag Lough Grooves were both 50 this March, so too late to include in the ‘game’.)

So did anyone else do Resurrection today and, weather permitting, who wants to play? Haven’t ever done Iche, but took a look today and think 11 April looks like a good day out if it’s dry! :-)

Might add that I never used my chalk bag because it wasn’t warm enough to need it before we left, but did make use of modern rock shoes and protection! Also have to say I found the final groove of Three Pines (which I last did in 1990) polished to ******* (supply your own adjective!), but it’s still a fine little climb.

Yesterday I took Angus to Polldubh to climb Heatwave, Flying Dutchman, Pine Wall and Secretaries’ Direct in glorious spring sunshine for what amounted to a quick ‘best of Polldubh Severe’ tour.

Now, perhaps I’d already climbed Heatwave more often than any other route (at least seven times, including three solos), but all my previous ascents were in 1990/91 and things weren’t quite how I’d remembered them. So the initial ramp felt a little harder (although I’d describe the protection as spaced rather than poor as suggested by most of the guides), I’d forgotten that it landed you directly below the Storm crack and the rightwards traverse from its top looked all wrong. Which briefly confused me into thinking I’d made a mistake, so I took a stance before the traverse, brought Angus up and we abbed off through some holly before realising (as I must have known all along) that of course it was Heatwave and went back to do it again! No problems this time with the traverse actually being much easier than it looks, so we took in the Vampire groove to spice up the second pitch before finishing up the slabs above, and will put the preceding debacle down to a combination of amnesia and first-rock-route-of-the-season-itus.

Flying Dutchman was as good as ever, with its brilliant second pitch traversing under the roof on holds that feel small for the grade, but still positive and all there where you need them most. This time we skipped the VS ‘direct’ finish to head straight up the ridge, which is probably actually more direct!

And so to Pine Wall, which I’d soloed onsight in 1990, repeated in 1991 and not climbed since. While it’s surely overgraded (from a technical point of view) at Hard Severe, it’s not that easy to grade with most of the first pitch devoid of protection and effectively soloing for the leader. Probably just Severe, but a fall would hurt! And it’s still a very nice route…

So how could you improve on a Polldubh Severe day taking in Heatwave, Flying Dutchman and Pine Wall? Simple, just nip up to Secretaries’ Buttress to grab the Direct before dark. Three more enjoyable pitches on the kind of slabby ground I enjoy most (and had also soloed onsight as long ago as 1990 before repeating more than once since), and the perfect ending to a nearly perfect day.

Yesterday I climbed Tower Ridge on the Ben with Jamie Hageman after a ludicrously optimistic trip to the start of Point Five on the second or third day of a monumental thaw convinced us not to try that, and have to say we were thankful we’d left it when most of the routes we could see (and hear) spent the rest of the day falling down! So large chunks of Smith’s and the Indicator Wall routes were breaking off (it was raining ice down Observatory Gully) and at one stage we heard a stupendous crack from the opposite direction (somewhere over Coire na Ciste way).

Since my only previous ascent of Tower Ridge was when I took my cousin Donald up it in June 1991 (on which occasion we took in the Douglas Boulder by Left Hand Chimney), it was good to get a ‘winter’ (spring?) ascent at last even if the first half was largely rock climbing and the second a mixture of rock and soft snow. But this time (approaching after starting to descend from the base of Point Five and deciding that the ridge looked nice in the sun when we’d all but decided just to go home) we simply sneaked onto it by a right-trending ledge that landed us just above the Douglas Gap. Needless to say (?), that tempting sunshine slowly turned to the usual clag, but it was still a very satisfying day.

There were at least four (possibly five) pairs on Tower Ridge, and another on North East Buttress. Also saw (from the crest of Tower Ridge) some folk heading for the Ciste… no idea what they were planning, but Davy Virdee’s blog mentions ‘a brave team on Comb Gully’!

Think the Point should still come back in with a good freeze, but it’s really ridges/buttresses (with lots of bare rock lower down) only right now.

Today, with the north face of Ben Nevis starting to look snowy again after the thaws of the past fortnight, I climbed Number Three Gully Buttress (III) with Adam Thomas. There was more new snow than we expected and perhaps not many routes at anything like their best, but that didn’t seem to stop ‘Team Petzl’ (with Ueli Steck among their number?) racing up Coire na Ciste to film some hard stuff. We also met Andy Nelson from Glencoe on the hill.

After I’d spent some time setting up a belay (impeded by constant showers of spindrift from above) at the top of the lower snow bay, Adam led off up the first pitch but, despite being first on the route, we were outflanked by two other teams avoiding the obvious short ‘icefall’ we took direct, and had to wait some considerable time above to get at the subsequent pitches. (So the overtaking might have been slightly cheeky with the second team actually passing us on the traversing second pitch, but the banter was good and we’re not declaring war over a sociable climb!) Spending much of the day getting cold and wet while watching others tackle what we yet had to do did, however, sap my morale enough to be glad that the trickiest part of the subsequent traverse fell to Adam (who despatched it very nicely indeed), although my motivation returned enough to enjoy leading a fine, long last pitch that seems to match the ‘steep icy chimney’ alternative better than the continuing traverse and ‘finish up icy slabs’ (not that we saw much ice anywhere!). We were followed up this final pitch by a fourth pair from the Lakes who’d spent much of the day wandering all over the Ben in search of a route in condition and seemed to be climbing comfortably and quickly in comparison to the teams preceding them.

Overall, we thought it a fine route (as a three-star classic should be) and technically straightforward, but feeling somewhat insecure under soft, new snow with little beyond buried rock hooks solid enough for the picks on the steeper sections. The Red Burn bumslide is suffering, however, with some very big holes that could take the unwary travelling at speed metres into the burn and under the snow with potentially serious consequences!

Got a text from Matt Watts on Friday afternoon telling me he’d seen my photo in MCofS magazine Scottish Mountaineer, so checked my newly-arrived copy as soon as I got home and, sure enough, there it was… one of the pics Dave MacLeod took of me on Secretaries Superdirect at Polldubh:

Trad climbers operating in the low E-grades or below can sometimes lose hard-earned fitness from winter indoor climbing due to the nature of the easier trad climbs. Peter Duggan getting a good psychological, but not physical, workout on Secretaries Direct (HVS), Glen Nevis.

(NB the grade is right but it is indeed the Superdirect.)

Dave’s article (which I’m so surprised to feature in that I’ll forgive him that rather cute caption!) is also available online at http://www.mcofs.org.uk/assets/getactive/mcofs%20coachwise2%20by%20dmacleod%20(paged).pdf. And, Matt (if you’re reading this), I’ve had one of Dave’s pics up on my Climbing Home Page for some time. :-)

On Sunday 22 February I climbed The White Line on Ben Nevis with Stephan Mors from Glasgow. An absolutely cracking route done in eight pitches of alternating leads, about half-and-half steepish ice and easier snow climbing, with two rope lengths of dripping icefall (freezing at 850m, aye right!) followed by two of snowfield, another two up a ‘chimney’ that’s maybe more of a groove leading to a gully with one very steep section, and another two of mostly easier (and much crisper) snow with some icy sections and no cornice to finish.

Have to say I got most of the best bits after Stephan chose to lead the first pitch, with the second icefall and steepest part of the upper gully (which both fell to me) providing the most sustained climbing. Now, that second icefall is *long* (60m ropes would have been better than our 50s here because we had to move together briefly to reach a decent belay above the second terrace), but the third just wasn’t there. However, since what we found seems to tally with Mike Pescod’s photo at http://www.abacusmountaineering.com/webpics2/bigwl1feb09.jpg and we took a very similar line (round the rocks above the second obvious terrace) to the one he’s marked, I’m guessing that this third icefall (‘sometimes difficult to start’) simply doesn’t form so readily? (Must ask Mike sometime!)

Overall, it was another great climb made all the more memorable by being snatched from another unpromising forecast. Might mention a slight whiff of possible sandbag at III in the conditions we found it in, but haven’t really done enough similar routes to be sure. However, I thought it was probably harder and certainly more sustained than Green Gully last weekend. No photos because the camera was intentionally left behind.