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 […]
Tag Archives: hard rock
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… […]
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 […]
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 […]
Swastika
Swastika was the third of my Hard Rock objectives for this long-weekend blast to Lochaber. Scorching temperatures on Friday and Saturday made it an easy decision to opt for the […]
Raven’s Gully
Hamish MacInnes has a legendary legacy when it comes to climbing in Scotland, but his contribution to Hard Rock (at least in the author’s opinion) was a bit of a […]
The Bat
The Bat on Carn Dearg Buttress on The Ben has a fearsome reputation, and barring The Scoop, was potentially the toughest assignment of the remaining ten routes on my Hard […]
Slanting Slab – just 10 Hard Rock routes to go
Slanting Slab on Cloggy is the only route south of the border remaining on my Hard Rock tick list. After a reconnaissance last year… … all the ingredients fell into […]
Yo-Yo – North Face of Aonach Dubh
Friday of the Jubilee Weekend dawned bright and blue, and it was shaping up to be another cracking day as I left Craigallan for an 8am rendezvous with Jim at […]
New Year Hard Rock tick – Kilnsey Main Overhang
Staying in the UK for the majority of 2021 was a good opportunity to get some outstanding routes from Hard Rock ticked, including: Extol, Engineers Slab, Centurion, North West Girdle […]
Cloggy Revisited
Having polished off the Lakes section of Hard Rock over the Bank Holiday weekend, the ticking focus moved on to the remaining Welsh routes – Vember and Slanting Slab; both […]
Birthday Climb – North West Girdle, Almscliff
I usually try to grab a memorable climb to celebrate my birthday with. Sometimes these are epic / exotic https://rockaroundtheworld.co.uk/2019/09/01/outer-space-eldorado-canyon-and-a-memorable-birthday/ Often they’ve been at Gogarth https://rockaroundtheworld.co.uk/2017/09/01/flytrap-on-gogarth-north-stack-birthday-adventure/ Or involved a “tick” […]
Engineer’s Slabs, Gable and a long overdue encounter
I first leafed through Hard Rock almost 40 years ago – a hallowed tome on Pete’s (my father-in-law to be) bookshelf. At that time, and for quite a few years […]
Buachaille Etive Mor – Slime Wall
The unappealingly named Slime Wall on the Buachaille is actually a fabulous chunk of rock, set on the shady north wall of Great Gully, but as you’d imagine, it needs […]
Centurion – The Ben
Having been climbing for 40 years, it’s hard to believe I’ve never done a summer climb on The Ben. Much debate about factors such as proximity (it’d be “on the […]
Shelter Stone Crag – The Needle, Steeple and Haystack
With tricky access to anywhere Alpine, Paul and Andy had pencilled in a short week away somewhere in the UK, and were happy to have me along as a third […]
A Feast on The East
According to Hard Rock: “The East Buttress of Scafell is the finest crag in The Lakes. A great lonely crag. Its walls overhang. Water drips out instead of down.” Quite […]
RockAroundTheWorld 