A couple of weeks after my…

Tumble off T-Rex

… we’d scheduled a spring trip to Scotland. A week into the recovery of my busted ribs (broken, cracked, bruised? Who knows?), tying my shoe laces was beyond me, let alone climbing, but as our planned departure neared things started to look a bit more positive. A week later leaving the big family celebration of Pete and Chris’ 60th Anniversary in the Lakes…

… we headed north rather than south. The Sat Nav was set for Caithness, where we were scheduled to catch up with a big Sheffield team, but we stopped off for a couple of tentative forays on the bolted conglomerate at Moy Rock and Golspie to test my ribs.

A few 6as and bs at each resulted in no ill effects, save for a bit of discomfort lowering off, so we pressed on northwards, via a great seafront pub stopover in The Black Isle.

We’d been absolutely enchanted by our discovery of…

Sarclet – “Pudding” by the seaside

… a couple of years ago and were keen to get back. The team already had a rap rope down Big Buttress and we thought the magnificent VS of Groove Armada might be an amenable first trad test-bed. The abseil gave an opportunity for some fine pics of Dave and Stan on the spectacular arete of Northern Alliance…

… and Greg (?) on The Flow and Tufty on Time Bandit

However, the award for the best photo of the day surely goes to the pair of Orcas we spotted cruising past – Magnificent!

With all the excitement and psych, Helen and I decided to up our ambition and do The Adventures Of Baron Von Midgehousen (great name, great route, and at E1 5c a good next rung on the recovery trail).

Morning drizzle the following day discouraged us from an early start, but I mooched down to Geo of Creagan Righe aka Sgaps, just in time to miss Stan and Dave climbing a very damp Spummin Marvellous – an instant classic on this superb newly discovered crag.

A bit too soon in my rehab for an attempt, but definitely 12CB4. Here are a couple of pics of Greg making a smooth ascent.

Instead, we headed over to Latheronwheel for some slightly more amenable fare, and were rewarded by half a dozen routes in gradually improving weather (happily the juggy nature of the rock makes any dampness more tolerable). As a bonus, we didn’t even get covered in Fulmar puke!

Latheronwheel

Pick of the bunch was Laphroaig – here’s Martin pulling over the roof:

Thursday was the kind of day we’d been hoping for all week – one you could imagine would have inspired Elbow to write One Day Like This (although I confess to being more greedy than he is!) We’d had a slightly frustrating recce of…

Ellens Geo

… a couple of years back (though time spent in reconnaissance is rarely wasted) and I’d been itching to get back ever since. Another stupendous recent find:

Helen and I rapped in to do the appropriately named So This Is Summer, and got a couple of pics of Dave and Stan setting off up the adjacent Hundreds and Thousands:

Having been put off by an excessively birdy experience on our previous visit (a month later and on the much more ledgy Layer Cake), our route was pleasantly bird-free and absolutely outstanding. The two contrasting halves of the pitch are characteristic of the crag: the first 20m or so on orange sandstone, enjoying positive, incut edges, before a transition to pebble-pulling on conglomerate on the upper half. Hard to think of a better E1 anywhere!

Helen was kind enough to forgo climbing in favour of clifftop yoga for the rest of the afternoon,

to allow me to team up with Stan and Dave for Non Stop Nitty Gritty. Rapping in I took a couple of pics of Donie on Fracture Clinic.

In hindsight, it might have been better (as well as highly appropriate) if I’d tagged on to that rope, rather than sign up for an E3 with a huge traverse, but the die was cast. Here’s Stan setting off…

… and questing up to the crux awkwardness to get to the roof:

Happily the traverse itself was pretty straightforward.

With three on the rope I had plenty of time to admire the antics of the local resident Razorbills. One moment supremely graceful, the next an Eddie Eagle landing!

The sun was making a concerted effort to see the day out on a high, and it would have been a shame not to make the most of it, so Donie and I teamed up for Brains as well as Braun, E4 6a. Another stunning line, this time on the left side of the crag, with contrasting burly moves around the mid-height roof followed by a sting-in-the-tail final headwall. Donie had plenty of both requisites and I was pretty happy to sketch my way up on the bottom end of the rope. Views back towards Martin and Neil on Non Stop Nitty Gritty…

Drizzle the following day, combined with the promise of a weather window on Skye, brought an end to our Caithness adventure to switch sides for the west coast. Another superb trip to this unlikely and unsung destination climbing area perched near the far NE tip of the island. Great company from the Sheffield crew and special thanks to Nick for the great organisation and inviting us to gatecrash. We’ll be back!