The first chapter in Hard Rock features these two iconic routes, which are the most remote in the book. Accessed via an 11 miles approach from Poolewe in the far northwest of Scotland, it’s no real surprise that I’d left them to near the end of my ticking project. I was lucky indeed that Jim was in an indulgent mood, and up for an adventure, as well as willing to take our chances on a less than promising forecast.

Continuous rain on our journey north on Thursday ruled out a YECTOYD stop but offered plenty of time to pour over the runes of numerous forecasts. Saturday looked like our best chance, with only a 40% likelihood of rain, with a dryish window to bag a few roadside routes on Friday morning before yomping into Fisherfield in drizzle in the afternoon. Jetty Buttress fitted the bill, a marked contrast to my previous visit with Helen.

Gairloch – Jetty Crag and Goat Crag

We were joined by a multitude of midges…

… and a couple of teams from the Alpine Club whose meet at Gairloch we’d accidentally gatecrashed.

We did Route 6, HS…

and a couple of VSs: Route 11 and Anthrax Flake. Here’s Zander, one of the AC crew, on the latter…

Coincidentally, Zander had done Dragon and Gob at the start of the week, in immaculate weather and after an extended dry spell, and it was hard to suppress a hint of jealousy as he recounted a brilliant experience.

The guidebook suggests 4 hours for the approach (18km and about 400m of ascent on a very gentle gradient as the estate track heads over a ridge and down into Fionn Loch).

… and also suggests you can knock an hour off that time by using an MTB part way. Not having bikes, we set off at a yomp, partly fuelled by the stubborn refusal to acknowledge they might be useful.

Steady drizzle accompanied us and low clag obscured any chance of spying our objective from afar, until the causeway at the head of the loch…

… and the view of Carnmore Lodge.

No, that posh white building isn’t the bothy – that’s the low-roofed barn about 200m beyond! 3hrs 15mins – not too shabby (but completely knackered!)

We’d heard it was a bit grim so we’d carried bivvy tents, but actually it is pretty palatial and we didn’t bother pitching them (though if all 4 mattresses were taken you might be quite miserable on the floor).

Dehydrated dinner served with the inevitable nut-key cutlery (I seem to have a mental block when it comes to packing a spork!)

Not much sign of the crag first thing in the morning, so a leisurely start…

… but things started to perk up around 10ish.

Paul and Andy had recounted dire warnings of the treacherous approach to the Upper Wall in wet conditions, and these were reinforced by a few UKC accounts of 3 hours “death scrambles”. Given three days of sustained rain we decided on an outflanking manoeuvre, reversing the normal descent to the top of the crag and then rapping down the line of Carnmore Corner. We were up in an hour and 60m ropes got us perfectly to the foot of the first pitch of Gob.

Here’s the view across to the corner from around the finish of Dragon.

Jim rapping in

Atmospheric views down to the causeway across Fionn Loch.

The first pitch traverses a ledge system to weave under a roof, then heads up a groove to a huge roof. You can get a sense of the vertical grass and heather of the more conventional approach below.

The rock is immaculate and the holds were plastered in chalk – kept perma-dry by the huge roof that funnels you leftwards on the long traverse of pitch 2.

Pitch 3 heads wildly up and right from an airy pedestal perch and then eases off to top-out on the right hand side of the central roof. Brilliant sustained climbing – never harder than the advertised 4c but plenty of it! VS climbing in a HVS situation (some similarities with Dream of White Horses, despite being utterly different!)

Sticking with our death-heather avoidance strategy we moved our ropes a few metres leftwards and rapped down the other side of the central roof, reaching the start of pitch 2 of Dragon (and also avoiding the scruffy P1 into the bargain – if that disqualifies my “tick” then so be it!)

From here the route climbs a groove in a steep wall, skirting a roof before traversing left into an easier groove and romping up to another eyrie in the sky. Pitch 3 is the meat of the route, a 5b pitch with two contrasting halves: first up a wildly steep chimney / flake (soaking wet but with big holds) and then boldly leftwards following a line of unlikely flakes beneath the roof. There’s a cramped stance at the end of this traverse providing an excellent view of any trepidation on behalf of your partner (the guide is bang on: “not a place for a nervous second”). Here’s Jim displaying nerves of steel!

Two brilliant routes in the bag, and a testament to the joys of being a “compulsive ticker” – I can’t imagine I’d have bothered if they didn’t feature in the somewhat arbitrary list in Ken Wilson’s opus, and my climbing CV would have been poorer for it (though my feet might have thanked me!)

59 Hard Rock down and just two to go 🙂

Finally the sun emerges…

… and we could appreciate the full majesty of the crag.

Here’s a bit of an improvised topo of the upper reaches (Dragon on the left and Gob on the right)

What the view from the bothy should look like:

After another pot noodle and a brew it was just the small matter of another 11 miles back to Poolewe (and this took almost the allotted 4 hours – yes, I admit it, a couple of wheels would have saved the blisters!)

Back at Gairloch we’d fully infiltrated the AC meet (but weren’t enthralled by the option of a wander up Ben Eighe!)

In fact anything that couldn’t be reached in a pair of crocs was totally out of the question. We managed a pleasant morning squeezing in four routes on Aztec Buttress before the rain rolled in..

… prompting the decision to head south (drawn by the promise of a comfy bed at Craigallan, the Rucksack Club hut in Ballachulish. Not much sign of dry rock the following day, but the usual trawl of weather apps and crag maps popped up with Galloway as a possible YECTOYD stop off on the way home. Sure enough, it was scorchio by the seaside, and I introduced Jim to the delights of Laggantalluch Head – a serene and little-known spot that Helen and I discovered a few years ago. Pics below and a link to more information in the blog post beneath.

Galloway getaway