Galloway Glamping
With the weather set fair across the country it seemed like an ideal opportunity for the visit to Mull that we’d been mulling. Unfortunately, our erstwhile trusty van had other […]
Category Archives: Scotland
Angel Face, Beinn Eighe
The final installment in my Scottish Hard Rock obsession (until some opportunist produces HR3!) took us to Torridon. Arriving at the free/donations campsite provided by the village (they’ve got a […]
Vulcan Wall, Skye
With the original edition of Hard Rock finally ticked in the spring… … you’d think I’d have hung up my HR boots, but “the devil makes work for idle hands”. […]
Pabbay
Pabbay and it’s neighbour Mingulay have become part of the British climbing Hall of Fame over the last decade, jostling in amongst the established royalty of Gogarth, Cloggy, Scafell and […]
South Ridge Direct, Rosa Pinnacle, Arran – Hard Rock in the Bag
I started my Hard Rock journey in 1987, almost 40 years ago, with Helen on an ascent of Gimmer Crack. Here’s the entry from her climbing journal of 29 September… […]
Climbing in a Winter Wonderland
Jake’s shift pattern threw up a bonus three-day window for the second weekend of 2025 and I signed up for a provisional Scottish winter climbing adventure, more in hope than […]
The Scoop, Sròn Uladail or (Strone Ulladale)
The Scoop is by far the most difficult “tick” of the 61 routes featured in the iconic book Hard Rock, rumoured to have been included by the mischievous Ken Wilson […]
Dragon and Gob – Carnmore
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 […]
Spummin Marvelous at Sgaps & Mid Clyth
The biggest frustration from my Caithness Convalescence trip last year was having to watch a succession of the Sheffield crew climbing the immaculate Spummin Marvelous, E3 5c at Sgaps (a.k.a. […]
Sarclet – a Special Place
More mixed weather and more fretting over weather apps – this time with Paul as partner in crime. The final coin toss came down to Caithness vs Pembroke, and we […]
Third Time’s The Charm at Ellen’s Geo
My relationship with Ellen’s Geo has been a slow-burn affair. From a bird-infested, wind-blasted, no-route recce in 2021 to last-year’s broken rib convalescence, I’ve departed utterly enchanted but somewhat unfulfilled, […]
Earnsheugh and Aberdeen Coast
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 […]
Rosehearty Revisited
Helen and I visited Rosehearty a couple of years ago, getting a few routes done on the slabby north face; ticking the 4* E2 Afterglow, and even putting up a […]
Big Top – Aonach Dubh
Looking to continue our 4* tour around Craigallan (our 4* base in the Rucksack Club hut at Ballachulish) we settled on Big Top on the west face of Aonach Dubh. […]
The Bullroar – Buzzing and Basking on The Ben
With one of those rare Fort Bill bluebird days in prospect, the only logical destination was The Ben. Having exhausted the Hard Rock opportunities, we narrowed our focus to some […]
Swastika Ticked!
An otherwise highly successful trip last year, to tick off some of the remaining routes on my Hard Rock to-do list, ended on a frustrating note. Having done … and […]
Skye – an island of contrasts
We had two days to round off Jake’s week-long whistle-stop tour of the finest climbing in Scotland. After visits to the Cairngorms (Creag An Dubh Loch) and The Ben, an […]
A Bivvy on The Ben
There’s so much brilliant climbing on Ben Nevis that, although I’d already ticked both its Hard Rock routes: Centurion and The Bat … it didn’t take much for Jake to […]
Feeding the Rat in the Cairngorms
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 […]
Glorious Glencoe
The next weather window looked like settling in over Lochaber, so we moved base camp to Craigallan (The Rucksack Club’s hut near Ballachulish, though the word “hut” hardly does justice […]
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