On Wednesday I had a day productive day exploring some unclimbed crags on the Ross of Mull. Despite a damp start to the day the gamble paid of and we found dry rock. The pink granite is superb to climb on with excellent friction and crack lines. The south-west corner of Mull is a great spot with big sandy beaches, blue seas and loads of quality unclimbed rock to go at.
We climbed 7 routes between VDiff and HVS 5b,6 of those being new. Not a bad effort for 2 1/2 hours climbing.
I’m back out on Mull for a few days this week for a bit of canyoning and coasteering training prior to some work later in the summer. Today I made a descent of the Ben More Canyon with Andy, Danny and Cherie. I made the second descent last year and I’m reliably informed today was the sixth. 10m jumps into pools and abseiling down waterfalls – good stuff!
I’m back home after an enjoyable week on Mull with Danny providing a challenging range of activities for a young group from Ayrshire for Hebridean Pursuits. Over the course of the week the group challenged themselves with coasteering, canyoning, climbing and hill walking. I also got a chance to explore a potentially undeveloped sea cliff (might have to revisit this one later in the summer) and put up a couple of new routes on a crag on the North of Loch Scridain at about HVS.
With the soaring temperatures over the last few days, Charlie and I made the sensible choice to swap ice tools for sun cream and embarked on a couple of days rock climbing in the Northwest. We visited Diabeg and Applecross climbing a number of classic lines on perfect rock. There looks to be only a trace of snow on the highest peaks and the crags are dry! Time to wake the arms up after a long winter.
Charlie and I made the drive over to Ben Nevis yesterday and climbed Orion Face Direct. The freezing level was above the summit for most of the day making the climbing conditions pretty bold and slow going towards the top. There were teams on Point Five, Hadrian’s Wall and Tower Ridge amongst others. The Ben could do with a big freeze for the ice route to firm up but in the mean time the ridges look great.
