Helmet's Story

Helmet and his Shiny Blue Coat

This is the sad story of the Petzl Meteor II no. 13,456 Helmet . Helmet was created in the Petzl factory in 2003 and given a wonderful metallic blue coating. It was here that Helmet learned of the privilege of his purpose: he was to protect his owner’s life and ensure his owner could climb with increased safety. Helmet was shown many gruesome images of what could happen to peoples’ heads if a helmet was not worn; Helmet now felt suffused with purpose and meaning, even vowing to make the Ultimate Sacrifice himself, if it meant that his owner would live on.

In the shop, many people tried on Helmet and commented on his nice colouring, but Helmet ignored them. He wasn’t there to make people look nice. Finally a young lad tried him on and Helmet just knew this was going to be his owner. Helmet’s heart lifted when he heard his new owner chatting to the shop assistant “Aye, I am going up to the North West this weekend, and thought it was time to get one of these lightweight jobs. Should be good for the winter stuff too”. A proper climber then! Helmet looked forward to a long and fruitful relationship with his owner. Helmet got worn a few times in the wind and sunshine and even acquired a few dents-the mark of a real climber’s helmet!

Helmet and me, Expecting To Fly E4 6a, Stac Pollaidh

And then the long dark waits in the back of the cupboard started. At first Helmet reassured himself, that not everyone could climb all the time not even this super keen lad. But from time to time, Helmet noticed that the other gear would go missing for days at a time. So, the Lad was climbing without him then! And with the nuts and cams too! Helmet felt betrayed, hadn’t the Lad brought Helmet to protect himself just like all the other gear? Surely not to be stuck on a shelf collecting dust, sinking deeper and deeper into a purposeless depression.

A rare outing for Helmet on Angel, Etive Slabs. Helmet came in very useful on this pitch as I fell off twice getting to this point and slamming into the lower slab... (S.Richardson)

One magical day, Helmet got taken winter climbing and he really showed the Lad what he was made of then as he deflected all the snow and ice that came tumbling down and even once, an axe that popped out of a placement. Helmet was ready to forgive the Lad if it meant more days like this but sadly, he never got taken out onto the white stuff again. One time, Helmet was put in the bag and taken off to a crag where he simply sat on the grass and didn't get worn at all. He even heard the Lad saying to his partner that because the crag was steep and the rock solid, he didn't need to wear a helmet!

Hadn't the Lad learnt that rock is unpredictable stuff and anything could happen like a foot slipping and taking a swinger into a jaggy corner? Or when a flake decides to detach itself onto a belayer? Or what about a backward fall onto spiky boulders?

Helmet got angry at being left on the shelf for longer and longer periods while the other gear went out and had all the fun. Occasionally some of gear didn’t come back, having made the Ultimate Sacrifice for the Lad. Helmet now hates the Lad and wishes that someone who did not climb such "steep and solid rock" had chosen him. Resigned to his fate, Helmet collects dust and dreams of days of feeling the sunshine and wind...

Sad and angry, Helmet sits and waits and collects dust

Mingulay

Wednesday, the day for our mid-week transfer to Mingulay from Pabbay. I wake up to the sound of heavy rain on the tent. I go back to sleep. Nobody even bothers to check the bay to see if the boatman appears. Everyone seems to be chilling out today, Dan and I don’t feel too bothered about get anything done; down time after the excitement and stress of new-routing the previous day.

Thursday, a much brighter day. The boatman picks us up. I ask how the weather’s been on the mainland as we’ve had it pretty good with three days of solid sunshine: “Floods. England. Rain.” A man of few words but gets his point across without any fuss. We all feel smug, soaking in the sun and the fresh wind whilst knowing the rest of the country is being soaked.

The last time I was on Mingulay three years ago, I had a bit of a mare on the Creag Deargh (the Red Cliff), an immaculate face balanced a 100 meters above the sea and choss. I lost my bottle, to put it bluntly on an E6, and retreated with a bad case of the wobbles. This time I wanted to face an old demon and get on the hardest route on this cliff, Steve Crowe’s The Scream E6/7.

Aren’t belayers wonderful people? Not only do they stand for hours on a small ledge the size of a chocolate bar holding your ropes but they also put up with your repeated down-climbing and resting on ledges whilst you wait for the sun to dry out the rock. And after many aborted attempts at the crux with the ensuing down climb to jugs whilst you try and work it out. And then they have to listen to your Tarzan like yells as you swing out ,high upon the void, hand traversing and kung foo-ing sloppily as your feet regain the rock. Yes, they are fantastic people indeed. Very strangely, Ali couldn’t be bothered leading anything after his three hours of belaying me on The Scream…

Another hard route repeated, another down-grade? I felt that The Scream, was hard E6 but did not warrant the original split grade. Yes, there is a run-out bit, but this is on good rock with fantastic gear in a flake and the technical crux is only just above this flake, plus, the entire lower section was wet up to this point…

But, I can’t help but feel that I am turning into a serial down-grader of routes especially with these split grades. Credit to Steve for climbing this route, absolutely amazing effort for the ground-up (shame that hold snapped on the first ascent, eh?), however this is part of the problem when climbing new routes and the subsequent grading.

Contrast following a route description and knowing the difficulty, even knowing exactly where the crux is to climbing into completely unknown territory with knowledge of absolutely nothing ahead of you: no idea if there is gear, no idea how hard the moves are going to be, no idea how good the rock is, no idea where the line really goes and no idea where you are going to end up on the cliff. A whole bag of uncertainty compared to simpler task of just following the guide and pulling hard on some holds.

So, of course it’s going to feel harder when onsighting new routes as you hold on harder and climb more conservatively: this approach gets reflected in the proposed grade. It happened with my own route, Geomancer which Dan repeated only a few days earlier, going from E7 to E6. Basically, repeats of routes first done in this style may not feel as hard on the second and third ascents (or is that a gross generalisation?).

Part of the problem with down-grading routes, though, is that it can be perceived as a personal slight towards the first ascentionist. The down-grader in some cases is seen as saying “I found this easier than you, therefore I am the better climber”. But personally I think I am guilty of the attitude that if I can climb something then it just can’t be that hard, in a kind of inverse modesty, conveniently forgetting the amount of effort that the route required. I am glad grading’s not an exact science because it fuels about half my conversations with other climbers!

Team ascents of the four star Big Kenneth E5 6a on Dun Mingulay were made the following day and the rest of trip passed by in a more relaxed vibe. Everyone myself included seemed a bit climbed out and lacking in psyche by the last two days. Poor Fiona, though had a major fright abbing down after her partners only to discover that the abseil rope had been completely shorn of the sheath 70 metres above the maelstrom (don’t worry, she made it out alive). Whilst staying in Castlebay overnight on the way back, I heard that some very drunk visitors had managed to row out to the Castle and scaled the church roof during the night…tut tut.

(Apologies for lack of photos on this post-Nobody could be bothered taking any pics by the time we got to Mingulay)

Pabbay

This was my fifth visit to the Southern Hebrides Isles of Pabbay and Mingulay since 2002 so it's fair to say that I am an addict. There is something very unique about the islands that is hard to pin down, other than the sheer quality of the climbing: big steep lines on hard, sculpted, funky, crystalline gneiss that feels incomparable to any other rock type in the UK. But there is also the soothing ambiance of these islands: from waking up in the tent next to a white sandy beach; to the walk over the moors to the cliff; to racking up above a glittering sea. Above all though, is the inescapable feeling of isolation: there are no cars and roads to battle with; no Tescos or Morrisons to endure whilst grabbing some crag food; no parking tickets or petrol to pay for. Just you, your mates, the climbing and your beer at the end of a great day.

Racking up above the Sea, Pabbay (Hot Aches)

On the first day on Pabbay, Ali and me made a beeline for Banded Geo. I've had something of an affair with this Geo since my very first visit to the island, the Ship of Fools wall leers out like a galleon in full sail. Long and steep at 45m and 5m in the respective planes it offers fantastic climbing on incuts and scallop-sculpted walls. My attempt at repeating Ship of Fools E6 6b (first put up by the original pioneers of E5+ routes in the Isles, Paul "Stork" Thorburn and Rick Campbell) in 2002 proved problematic as I went horribly off route, cutting through the lower roof with an extremely difficult sequence and then rejoining the original route ten metres below the top. Tim Rankin, a few days later repeated it via the correct line at E5. The following year I returned and added an independent start and finish to my variation, naming it Geomancer E7 6b which turned out to be an optimistically high grade, more on that later...

Ali set off up SoF after I had pinpointed exactly where to climb through the roof dispatching this with ease and then forging into the sea of jugs on the headwall. My intention was to climb a line to the right of SoF, so when I seconded Ali, I was dismayed to see chalk highlighting the holds on this line: someone had beaten me to it! However, the chalk had suddenly veered into SoF at half height, at least I could finish it off with an independent finish. An hour later I sat on the top of this wall, pleasantly surprised at the amenability of the line, a three star E5 6a. The Hot Aches boys who were out filming for their new project, Committed, however were disappointed, they wanted something hard and dramatic, not this stroll in the park. My investigative work since getting back has revealed it was Jonny Clark who had climbed this line thinking it was SoF, thus Jonny Scuttlebutt was born .

Banded Geo, Ali (orange speck) seconding Jonny Scuttlebutt (Hot Aches)

A few days later I stood under the Ship of Fools roof again, waving my arms about and describing to Dan McManus where to go on Geomancer. Dan seemed nervous, muttering about hard boulder problems through the roof but then discovering a slightly easier and more natural solution by traversing left on the lip before cruising the next thirty metres to the top. I followed, surprised and embarrassed at how easy the climbing felt: oops, definitely not E7 then. I had to agree with Dan on a reassessment at E6 but thankfully retaining all of it's three stars.

Dan climbing Geomancer with ease (Hot Aches)

Eyeing up a line at the back of the Geo where there were no existing routes, a dark and gothic cave that severely undercuts at the base, only touching down in a few places for sixty metres. From one of those places, sprang an impressive stepped corner on good rock that led to an obvious rising traverse across the cave and into a choice of corner systems. I had pointed the line out to Ali a few days before who immediately baulked at the thought of doing the rising traverse on the admittedly awful looking rock. Luckily (and with Machiavellian timing), I had persuaded Dan to do Geomancer earlier that day: he was now indebted to me belay-wise...

Stepping off the boulder, the pristine texture of the rock, the sea crashing and roiling, the sun disappearing behind the overhangs; nothing but an inconsequential pinprick on the skin of this cliff. A microbe that has flickered,fleetingly, into it's geological existence. Suddenly, I am bought back to my own time, fighting on matchstick edges, heel hooked high and pulling into the bottom of the corner. The crack is wet! I throw in some gear, rest briefly and continue up the corner which is now leaning out alarmingly. After some hard, piston-like bridging, better gear is reached and then a vertical wall with a thin but positive crack-sheer bliss...The last of the sun hits me on the belay and Dan follows, confirming the difficulties of the first pitch.

Grooving up the first Pitch of Redemption Ark (Hot Aches)

Tentatively Dan starts out the next pitch, we both know it's going to be loose but seem to be choosing not to acknowledge that fact verbally. Dan's body language reveals his anxiety on this pitch: creeping, inching, testing, checking, doubling back, sussing and faltering he made his way along the blocky traverse. A hold rips and I am pulled forward from my hanging belay, Dan is now level with me swinging on the end of the ropes, a clattering below that will become a familiar sound over the next two hours. Curiously, the fall seems to have relaxed Dan and after he climbs back to the ledge, he completes the thirty metre traverse. I contribute further to accelerating the erosion process on the part of the cliff as more lumps rattle down to the back of the Geo.

Dan on the second pitch of Redemption Ark (Hot Aches)

The final pitch. A choice of three loose looking corners. Dan begs me not to take the one above the belay, I note for the first time that we are not wearing helmets, stupid...Stepping to the left and away from Dan, I find lots of gear but I don't trust any of it, the rock is wet and I keep pulling half of it off. Contrasting with the powerful and positive first pitch, this final pitch is draining me with the nervous tension. I keep my hands and feet tautly in position, stretched tight and responsive as another hold crumbles away. Cramp is creeping into my legs. Many options present themselves and then immediately discarded: the flake with my left, nope it moved; the jam with my right, the side of the crack falls off; move my foot onto that edge, it snaps. Really hating this now, why can't I do something nice and safe like watch football on the sofa (no, better make that golf, not as exciting as football) and drink beer and then go to the pub and then watch crap t.v? Finally, better rock is reached, relief washes over at the top. Dan comes up smiling, escaping into the amber light of the sunset.

Redemption Ark E6 6b XS, and where did the name come from? My favourite science fiction book of the same name, suitably dark and gothic: a very well thumbed book on my shelf.

Next Post: Mingulay

Prelude to the Islands

In Profundum Lacu E5 6a, Pink Walls Pabbay (C. Adam 2005)

Today, I and about ten other like minded souls head out to Pabbay and Mingulay for a week. This is my most favourite climbing area in Britain, I usualy always have a good time here and some of the routes are big and long, hmmmnnnn. The weather's looking a bit squiffy at the moment but hopefully I'll have loads to report when I get back...

Reflections on the Road

The long drive up from Edinburgh to Sheigra on the far NW corner of Scotland. Five and a half hours behind the wheel. Ali's asleep in the passenger seat, having had a busy night shift as a fireman. The mind starts ticking over. Mine starts grinding over with the sound of rusty cogs...

In 2001, I onsighted my first E6; back then, I had only onsighted one french 7b+ and could occasionally onsight 7b ; redpointed 7c+ and bouldered font 7b "straight up" (7c if you count traverses: i.e. Consolidated). Now, six years later I have onsighted french 8a; redpointed 8b and bouldered font 8a. And in all that time, I have continued to onsight E6es up and down the country, with the occasional failed foray into E7 territory.

The Herbaloner E6 6b, Pabbay. Steve Crowe climbing in the background. (Photo: C. Adams)

So why? Oh why, have I not managed to push my trad onsight grade in a similar manner? Going by the improvements in my sport and bouldering grades, surely I should be onsighting E8 by now?! Well, no. Not really. If we examine the nature in which I climbed those first E6es and analyse my improvements in sport and bouldering then it will be seen that the apparent physical progress in sport and bouldering does not correspond linearly with an increase in trad grades...

Take my first E6, a scruffy little wall by the name of Helmut Schmitt at Stoney Middleton in the Peak. I remember a sketchy blur of slapping hands on the crux and of poorly placed gear, too pumped to place it any better. Not so much throwing caution to the wind as chucking it into a hurricane. This approach pretty much summarised my style at the time and on subsequent E6es over the next year. I was in my early 20s, felt invincible and that I had something to prove. A bad combination for my belayers I am sure. At Gogarth recently, (see earlier post: Scotland vs North Wales), I did a wide variety of E6es: pumpy ones, technical and scary ones, cruxy and run-out ones. And on each of them, I remember placing the gear really well, hunting out the elusive rps; taking a considered, calculating approach; locking off every hold statically and in full control.

The above descriptions sound like two completely different climbers, and they are in a sense. I have definitely changed over the last six years, from the young tyke to a more mature climber (I hate using that word, I sound old!): one who doesn't want to take unnecessary risks; one who wants to climb again next week; one who knows that it isn't worth risking everything just for one route; one who has had an accident but gotten away lightly and one who has settled down with their partner, realising that they don't have the right to put their own lives in such jeopardy again. While my trad grade has stayed the same, I have actually improved and consolidated the skills and fitness required at this level but I am no longer prepared to take the same approach to onsight E7 as I did when I first started onsighting E6es.

Bouldering at Ben Ledi, experimenting with body positions

Looking at my sport and bouldering abilities, at face value they seem to indicate a huge improvement in physical strength and fitness. But on examination, these have only played a small part, the main contribution that influenced my progress was that of skill acquisition in each discipline. For sport onsighting my biggest jump ever came from learning about pacing on routes: learning how to "sprint" up overhanging routes and climbing in a slick, economical manner. For redpointing, it was about remembering all the sequences and in particular the foot sequences on cruxes. In bouldering, I learnt how to experiment with subtles nuances in body positions and to persevere at a given sequence until success.

Rosanna 8a, Ceuse, learning how to sprint

In saying all that, I know that I am stronger and fitter than six years ago, but this is really only a fraction of the overall climbing equation. With over 40 E6es onsighted at this point, I feel I have created a huge base to move forward from, but this is tempered by a more considered and conservative approach than in the past. I hope that I can move into E7 territory without the precariousness that characterised my first E6es.

Sheigra

Sheigra Beach and Campsite. The climbing is just over the hillock.

Ali wakes up as we pass by the convoy coming home from the Rock Ness festival. We talk about Sheigra which we've never been to before and our forthcoming trip out to Pabbay and Mingulay next week. We arrive and set up camp at the beach, the landscape and the location makes us feel like we are on Lewis and when we start climbing on the gneiss later, it further cements that impression of being on a hebridean island.

Gneiss has been absent from my climbing diet for two years but now I remember why I love it so much: solid rock (mostly...), great gear, good friction, steep walls and an abundance of crimps, pockets and incuts. Ali easily dispenses Monkey Man E3 5c and What the Pool said On Midsummer's Day E5 6a. I battle with the now greasy conditions on the classic Here and Now E6 6b, feeling a bit more pumped than usual at the top, so much for having consolidated this level. Steep for Five Minutes E6 6c then succumbs to an easier sequence found one metre to the right of the original crux at E5 6a.

We wait for it to get dark, but even at 11pm it remains light enough to read outside, it's summer Solstice next week and we are very far North. At 12pm it gets a smidgeon darker and we turn in for the night. Ali seems tired in the morning, a cold coming on? But he spends the day leading some amazing E4s including Dolphins and Whales which seems reminiscent of Ceuse, except it was on trad. And above the sea. And in the North West of Scotland. Oh, and without the hour long walk in too.

Ali and me waiting for it to get dark (photo taken at 10.30pm!)

Something Worth Fighting For E6/7 6b doesn't really put up much of a fight for me; maybe I am climbing well today so I turn my attention to Maybe Later E7 6c. A MacLeod creation from last year, it takes a blank but pristine looking wall up a dark streak to undercuts (gotta be good cams in there...) before turning a gentle overhang. The 6c technical grade unsettles me, if Dave has given something 6c, then it will be hard. But could this be the breakthrough that I have been dreaming about? To finally, cleanly onsight an E7? Ten meters up, I get good cams in, move up and gain a shake out at the start of the dark streak.

The Inner and Outer Walls of the 1st Geo at Sheigra

Suddenly my world inverts and my hip violently smacks into the lower wall, the remnants of the hold clattering off the boulders below. The hold had snapped off and I had plummeted head first with the good cams holding my fall easily, leaving Ali and myself, upside down on the ropes, with the bug-eyes.

Why? Oh Why do things like this keep happening to me? I sit down feeling a bit shaken. Two years ago, in Ardnamurchan a foothold snapped on me as I was rocking over onto it. Down I had gone, ripping all the gear out of the bendy flake and fracturing my ankle. The resulting crawl back to the car took an hour and a bit. Emma had taken full control of the situation and spurned me from my weepy episodes of shock with the lure of the bouldering mat as a rest (Joe Simpson, I was not). Five weeks later and I was out of my cast, but the process of getting my head back together took longer and I had vowed not to climb on bad rock and bad gear again. So here on an otherwise solid cliff, a hold had decided to rip off: ambition and caution collide within.

The Inner Walls of Sheigra, the dark streak of Maybe Later is directly above me

I remember then, that on Dave's ascent a hold had also ripped off, funny how and when the conscious mind chooses to acknowledge such things...I climb back up, ostensibly, "to have another look", but I feel heavy this time. When I reach the gear I decide to take it out and climb back down to the ground, feeling like a big jessie. A quick rest later and a flick through the guidebook reveals an E5 6b that had used a high side runner in a neighbouring route: Ape Escape, better take the opportunity to clear up that little indiscretion then.

Twenty minutes later a small part of me is regretting that decision. The fatigue of the five and a half hours driving, the lack of sleep from the twilight night and the previous routes seem to be counteracting with the need to turn the flared crack and reach an incut flake in a very runout position. The ledge below me seems to get bigger even though I am not looking at it. The sanctuary is reached with difficulty however and much gear thrown in after some saturday-night-fever goes through my legs... The top is reached; harder than Here and Now and Something Worth Fighting For? A small consolation after wimping out of the main challenge of the wall.

A quick stop-over at Ardmair the following day and I meet my Nemesis. The (apparently) uber-classic Burning Desire E5 6b. At the initial crux, jamming crack and after much huffing and puffing and hands jabbing in and out like an epileptic raver (and about twenty falls later), I give in and aid up the damn thing. Ali then floats up the crux without too much bother... As I write this, my hands are just starting to scab over in little patches. Mental note: avoid "classic" jamming cracks!

Bored at Dunkeld

Ali Robb starting up Morbidezza

Plans for a day on the Cobbler yesterday were thwarted when driving up to Stirling to take the A811 west, a murky grey wall of water appeared in the direction of our destination and rain started hitting the windscreen. We panicked (well me and Ali, Tom was fast asleep by that point) and decided to head for Upper Cave, Dunkeld. Ho, hum. Although I'd not been there for nearly two years, I've definitely spent far too much time at this crag in the past: I knew exactly where all the loose rocks on the path were whilst walking up.

Racking up, I didn't have that feeling of excitement that usually accompanies a day out at a new crag or going for the on-sight of a route. So I was bored; partly because I've done everything worth doing and have even added some new routes to this crag (if you don't believe me then check these out), but also because when I go climbing I want to get psyched up to do something new and challenging not treading the same old ground. Yes, the routes are fantastic and the long and pumpy (if getting a bit trashed) sport routes are unique in Scotland, but for me here, there is no longer that invigorating sense of exploration at a new crag or the intense novelty of problem solving an unknown sequence on a crux.

Ali on the Arete of Morbidezza

Some lobbing practice was had by Ali and myself on Morbidezza and Lady Charlotte Direct (both E5) respectively, Tom got stuck into High Performance (E3/4) and I managed a link up from Morbidezza into In Loving Memory (E6) which I would recommend over the original arboreal start up the tree.

Lastly,I attempted to flash Gordon Lennox's new 8a on the sport wall, squeezed in between Marlina and Silk Purse. In fact it's so squeezed in, that it requires vast amounts of exotic matter to unfold it out out of the 4th dimension and into our space. Crimping and snatching, I followed the new line of bolts into the finish of Silk Purse. Upon being lowered to the ground, Ali (who witnessed big Lenny's ascent last year) helpfully informed me that I had used about 47 "illegal" holds. Ho, hum. I think it would help to wear blinkers and not move your hands past the width of your shoulders, definitely a local's eliminate.

Tom Charles Edward on High Performance

However, starting up this blog has forced me to dig out my camera (which I hauled up to the crag with a team of Sherpas), so I entertained myself by pretending to be a photographer in between routes, on this are the best that I managed.

Next Week: Fresh Pastures...