Surveying the weather patterns across the UK, in advance of the Bank Holiday weekend, you’d be forgiven for just sticking a pin in a map. Meteo Blue were offering a 20% predictability 24hrs out, which I’m guessing means: “bu@@ered if I know”. Jake and I were literally considering options from Land’s End to John on ‘Groats (or at least Wick) and ended up picking the Aberdeen Coast in a coin toss over Pembroke.

Six hours drive later and we were settled in at the RSPB reserve at Fowlsheugh for the night, and meanwhile (probably due to a butterfly flapping its wings somewhere in the Amazon) the forecasts had flipped and we were potentially looking at a four-day washout. An evening wander along the clifftops made it fairly obvious why there’s no climbing on these cliffs…

… but did yield a solitary puffin sighting amongst thousands of razor bills and gulls.

Next morning, once the drizzle had cleared, we embarked on some crag reccies (… rarely wasted…) and checked out Craig Stirling. Impressive series of crags, pi$$ wet through…

and with the added inconvenience of the tidal ledge at the base being underwater.

Crag 2 for the day was Earnsheugh – this gets a huge write up in the brilliant “Great Scottish Seacliffs” – multi-pitch extreme adventuring above the sea.

They forgot to mention the shooting range opposite! Shades of Pembroke, but these punters are just playing at it and I suspect their safety procedures aren’t as tight – talk about objective danger. Atmospheric spot, but the conditions didn’t encourage us to stay long!

Crag 3 was South Cove, and the delightful meander down through the old quarry hinted at the possibility of redemption – dry rock!

Sure enough, Main Face had some definite patches of dry between the dampness and guano. Game on! Insect Groove provided a 3* HVS experience as advertised.

The main event hereabouts is Red Hole Cave Walls (also featured in “Great Scottish Seacliffs”), with a dozen or so spectacular lines in the E4-6 range. These were clearly off the agenda (wet and birdy), but they’re skirted by an unlikely HVS The Hedonist. Jake went down the appropriately named Optimists Gully “for a look” but reported back more soggy birdiness.

However, it wasn’t actually raining and it was some time until dark, so we retraced our steps to Craig Stirling for Crag 1 Take-Two.

Sure enough, the top (visible) part of the crag had dried up a bit and the base was out of the water. Jake rapped down the classic HVS corner of Grand Diedre to report the bottom (hidden) half to be absolutely gopping, but a shuffle over onto the barrel-shaped side wall suggested that Clockwork Cat, E3 5c, might just go.

The severely overhanging lower wall was dripping but juggy, but the quest through the lichen at the top was largely dry. A pretty pokey lead in the conditions!

Three crags (one of them twice!) and two routes might seem a poor haul but You Either Climbed Today Or You Didn’t.

We escaped the wetness around Aberdeen the following day with a dash to the north / Moray coast and a visit to Rosehearty (see the next blog post) before returning in the search for dry rock the next day. This took us to the Red Tower area, just south of Peterhead. The guidebook description of the approach as circuitous but scenic is spot on…

Fabulous rock architecture…

Our objective was The Escarpment, a south-facing wall on an isolated buttress, with a fistfull of attractive looking routes. You might just about make out Jake striding across the gently sloping top of The Escarpment in the centre of the photo below.

All looked promising and Jake headed down to check out the highly rated E1 Jungle Book, only to find the lower half covered in frictionless slime. The adjacent E5, Hole in the Wall, was clearly out of the question…

… but he reckoned we could maybe salvage the visit with Neanderthal Man, E2 5b. How hard could it be?

The answer to that turned out to be “really quite hard and VERY BOLD”.

The dampness was definitely a contributory factor, but there’d be a lot of climbing even in the dry, and the first bit of bomber gear isn’t until above half-height. It looked to be every bit as harrowing as the E4s and 5s Jake ticked over the rest of the weekend!

Mid-afternoon and not actually raining, but having exhausted the options at our chosen crag – groundhog day! We had a choice of an early escape to the pub, or to roll the dice again…. “I don’t suppose there’s any way that Earnsheugh might have dried out by now…”

Sure enough, back at Earnsheugh (only 30mins down the coast) things looked a lot more appetising than they had 48hrs previously. For a start, we could actually see the crag, and for another thing the firing range is closed on Monday.

It’s a free-hanging ab of about 40m down the classic E1, Death Cap, and twirling downwards it was remarkable to see how dry the rock was. Weirdly stratified slatey rock and seemingly more solid than first impressions might suggest. The route itself is excellent – steep bridging on superb incut holds on the first pitch, leading to a commodious stance, and then a wild, airy adventure out leftwards to out-flank the final overhangs. There (hopefully) comes a point on any far-flung trip when the needle on the “faff/time/cost/effort V achievement/enjoyment/satisfaction” dial flips from minus to plus. This was that moment. What a route! And we still had another half day to nudge the needle further…

Back to Earnsheugh the following morning (early enough for a chink of sun, if only there had been any) and Jake had Prehistoric Monster E5 on the agenda. A plan to nip down with a brush was stymied as the end of our 60m ab rope dangled above the grassy bank, some way from the foot of the route.

The pitches, 5b, 6a, 5b cried out for a Dad-Jake-Dad Alt leads strategy, so I racked up with a little trepidation. 5b pitches on E5s can come with all sorts of hidden horrors. The first 20m pitch is steep, juggy and exhilarating, with a great belay ledge from which to admire the P2 crux. A ledge-shuffle towards the right arete and a cluster of gear…

… lead to some stiff pulls up very steep terrain…

… to beneath the crux roof.

… and then a teeter back leftwards to a tiny perch.

Pitch 3 involves more extreme shuffling, with eye-popping exposure first left then back right…

… to finish with the same top out as Death Cap.

Another stunning route – worthy of comparison with anything equivalent at Gogarth or Pembroke – and the “faff-fun” needle for the trip was definitely well into the black. Happy days!