After a couple of great weeks enjoying the delights of climbing across Scotland with Helen, she made a family tag-team swap with Jake so I could extended the tour by another week. I had an agenda to make some further inroads into the remaining eight gaps in my Hard Rock tick list, whilst for Jake this would be his first climbing north of the border since a family ascent of Agag’s Groove over 15 years ago. Plenty of scope there!

We decided to start in the Cairngorms, where Creag an Dubh Loch holds a couple of HR targets: King Rat and Goliath. This left a half-day gap in the agenda, so Jake perused the inspirational new Wired Guide for options whilst I chauffeured us north and eastwards. He settled on Upper Cave Crag on Craig a Barns, with Rat Race, a 4* E4, being a prime goal. This also features in Extreme Rock, so maybe Ticking the Rat might have been a better title for the post.

The Craig a Barns crags are pretty unremarkable from a distance, scattered over wooded hillside overlooking the cutesy tourist village of Dunkeld. The Cave Crags aren’t completely obvious to locate on first acquaintance, but after 15mins zigzagging up through pine trees we arrived at the crag to a friendly welcome from a team of half a dozen Glasgow-based climbers.

The Upper Cave Crag runs to a height of around 40m of swirling schist, and has a Jeckle and Hyde nature. The left side is an overhanging bastion of hard trad routes (E2-5) put up in the late 70s whilst the right hand side (just as steep but less featured) had to wait for the evolution of sport climbing in the late 80s to be developed with a clutch of 7s.

Our new friends were on The Sport Wall with the clips already in a couple of 7bs and in projecting mode, with plenty of team psyche and banter, and sharing of detailed beta.

It was an interesting perspective on the diverse (and somewhat arbitrary) nature of climbing as I uncoiled ropes beneath Rat Race whilst Jake racked up with the paraphernalia of a trad climber, and the locals found it hilarious that this was just Jake’s second route in Scotland after Agag’s Groove – “… That’s quite a jump!”

Rat Race follows a massively overhanging crack system, which looks thuggish but pretty “basic”, but the hoped-for glorious jams and bomber gear fail to appear. Most of the slots are flared and a bit disappointing for either hands or protection, and the resulting battle is well worth its E4 6a as well as its 4*. There used to be a mid-height stance on poor (now ancient) pegs, but it is more typical now to do the route in one pitch. Probably lucky for me as I might have been tempted to swing leads for the “5b” roof. This is tough for 5b, but it would merit E3 (maybe even E4?) in its own right, with wild moves above the void, a long way above gear, and on sometimes rattly rock. Not that any of that bothered Jake.

Moving leftwards, and upwards through the grades, Jake set off up Lady Charlotte, E5 6a, with a seriously run-out start to holds and gear in a break around 20ft (conflicting descriptions and lines between the definitive and selected guides, both chalked, both bold!) The crux is probably getting from this break to a downwards-pointing (and cheerfully named) “death flake” (took me a couple of goes on a top rope), and then things ease slightly to halfway where the route joins with an E3 skirting in from the left. If you’re expecting a “path” to the top from here you’d be very disappointed – a few very long, steep pulls with spaced gear are necessary to finish the route. Another belter!

Nine E-points in the bag on a travel / rest day; not a bad start as we continued our journey to Creag an Dubh Loch.

The parking for the walk in at the Loch Muick car park specifically permits overnight parking (£10 for a van) which makes for pretty handy logistics. A late arrival contributed to a perhaps overly laid back 10am departure in the morning, considering we’d got a 2hrs 40mins approach and were planning on two routes totalling 11 pitches and almost 400m of climbing.

The walk in is gorgeous, though the first hour on the flat, gravel estate roads is a bit of a drag and would be speeded up with a MTB. This gets you as far as the Royal hunting lodge (it’s all part of the Balmoral Estate), the front lawn of which is also a popular wild camping spot when the Royals aren’t in residence (there’s even a bothy).

Another half hour gets you to The Stulan Waterfall…

… and the end of An Dubh Loch comes up at about the two hours mark.

The guidebook advises taking the south shore to get to the Central Slabs. It looked 50-50 for Central Gully Wall so we approached via the south shore (starting with Goliath) and returned via the north shore (from the foot of King Rat), concluding it was indeed six and two threes.

On our way past the Central Slabs we bumped into Neil and his mate just setting out on Black Mamba. Nice to have some company, and especially when you’re a long way off the beaten track.

We reached the vicinity of the foot of Goliath in spot-on guidebook time, but then spent quite a while trying to identify the start and line. It’s an impressive and somewhat bewildering face!

We eventually shoehorned the available rock features into something bearing a vague resemblance to the description…

… and I set off along the traversing 4b entry pitch. “A serious lead” according to the guide – I should say so!

I arrived at a candidate corner for the stance, and vestiges of ancient pegs suggested it might be the right spot, but the upwards view looked unlikely for 5a.

I spotted another rotting iron relic further right, and then another, and by the time I’d quested a further 10m in search of a more likely stance I’d decided that a) we were probably right in the first place and b) a slip on the way back would probably be terminal. There’s a #4 DMM Walnut and a krab if you fancy some crag swag (spoiler alert – see next post for a happy ending)

Back at the stance (maybe?) we’d chewed a good hour or so of faffing. Jake followed across and then powered up our best guess of the 5a crux pitch. Even he thought it was tough.

Here’s my best effort at capturing the line we took – I’d be really interested to know if it’s right; follow it at your own risk!

I trundled onwards for a 60m rope stretcher, parts of which bore a more than passing resemblance to the description of P3 & 4 (huge corner, cracks in right wall etc)

… and we were soon gazing down on An Dubh Loch from the summit.

The descent down Great Gully isn’t too grim.

Back down at the sacks, time was marching on, but we had plenty of daylight and neither of us (but especially me) was keen to leave with the job half done. At least the start of King Rat is fairly unmistakable, and the glowering roof at 50m is a good aiming point.

Here’s Jake heading up for the crux pull through the roof (originally aided, it is supposed to be 5c – quite a tough pull, but more straightforward with a traditional tug on the peg).

The remaining 200m is supposed to be only HVS or even VS depending on what book you read, but I’d suggest having a fair bit in hand.

Neil took this shot of us as they were leaving the crag around 7.15pm – you can just about see me around 2/3 height (I’m about a tenth the size of the red box).

Another summit shot (with the sun notably lower!)…

… followed by some great vistas of the crag as it caught the last of the sun…

… and a fairly tired and tiresome tramp back to the van had us tucked up in bed shortly after 11 (and fast asleep very soon after!)

After a well deserved lie-in we were in the market for an easy-access, high-quality venue en route from the Cairngorms to Fort William, and Creag Dubh Newtonmore was the obvious candidate. Stupendous climbing only 15mins from the road and a 5mins diversion off our route. Helen and I have made a few trips, usually dodging some iffy weather in the mountains but once in a heatwave, and really enjoyed all of them.

Creag Dubh, Newtonmore

The couple of routes we’d done up the full height of the Central Wall are especially memorable, and each time I’d rapped from the shared ab point at the top I’d been hugely impressed (and a little intimidated) by the territory I’d covered. This is home to, amongst others, a couple of stupendous 4* lines: The Hill and The Fuhrer.

Creag Dubh (or Creag Death to give it its morbid nickname) is renowned for its paucity of gear. The Hill is E2 5b, but relies heavily on an ancient and now bent peg to protect the crux, with a likely ground fall in the event of it failing (I suspect it is sacrilegious to suggest its replacement or an upgrade to E3). It’s a pity as it really is a fantastic line with steep, sustained climbing on generally juggy holds through unlikely terrain.

The Fuhrer, E4 5c, steps up that theme further, with a bold but steady solo to gear around 20ft followed by a big runout to about 50ft. Simple maths suggests you want Usain Bolt on belay duty if there’s any possibility of coming off.

More tough, runout climbing follows through a quartz band, and then there’s a further sting in the tail through some massively folded wavy layers (though at least there better gear here). Another fabulous line that I thoroughly enjoyed from the blunt end of the rope, and another Extreme Rock tick to boot. Next stop: The Ben.