I am feeling a little embarrassed that practically all of my posts for some time have been in the “Birds” thread. It’s probably justified since I have done very little climbing of late. The inevitable geezer decline, for those not named Donini, has accelerated in the last couple of years due to various physical setbacks. I seem to be in perpetual convalescence or rehab mode. My last real climbing adventure was well described by Darwin,The Stairs of Kirith Ungol. Since then I had a total ankle replacement in June, 2010. Just when I was getting back up to (relative) speed, my hip started acting up leading to a hip replacement a couple of weeks ago. I now find myself with too much time on my hands, so I thought I would rectify matters a bit by dusting off some photos of a climb I did of the sea stack The Old Man of Hoy in 2006.

First a little background. Despite its remoteness, this climb is rather famous in the UK. It was first climbed in 1966 by the illustrious team of Rusty Baillie, Chris Bonington and Tom Patey with a little aid. In 1967 the BBC did a live broadcast of an ascent by Joe Brown, Ian McNaught-Davis, Pete Crew and Dougal Haston, who also added a couple of harder routes. This sea stack got its name when there was a second leg forming an arch as depicted below. As late as 1750 it was shown as part of the mainland. The regular route is rated E1 5b. As far as I can tell this is about 5.10a/b, which means it might even be harder – maybe 5.9+.

Here is how it looks now.

The event that triggered this climb was when Yvonne and I were kindly invited to join friends Debbie and Pierre for a trip to the Shetland Islands. They had traveled a lot in Scotland and wanted a more extended time in the Shetlands. Since we were going that far, I wanted to add at least one climb and I was familiar with the Old Man as a result of reading Feeding the Rat by Al Alvarez. I knew I could probably only manage this if I hired a guide. I had never done this before. Well, actually when I climbed Mt. Kenya in 1999 I was roped up with a guide, but I had to treat this as simul-climbing due to rather lax protection traditions there. After a bit of digging, I contacted a Scottish guide, Dave “Smiler” Cuthbertson, who was willing to meet us there for the climb. To help the pre-trip psyche-up, I had received the DVD via Jaybro put together by Dogfather with recorded TV shows with climbing. One of these included a Wide World of Sports broadcast of a climb of the Old Man by Ron Kauk and an English lass. Unfortunately, I would find out that the editing had removed any footage of Kauk making the crux moves, not that I could necessarily copy them. I think Werner was involved in rigging for this show.

Of course we had a great time in the Shetlands. I highly recommend it as a travel destination. Debbie and Pierre were quite patient with our birding delays. Actually, they were quite interested, but just not as gonzo as us. There are many seabird colonies, including Puffins, and amazing scenery. After ten days, we parted ways and headed to Orkney Mainland. The nomenclature is bit confusing, since Orkney Mainland is an island, just the largest. We hired a car and traveled by ferry to Hoy and on to our cottage at Rackwick Bay.

The next day Smiler made the long journey via ferries from his home on Loch Ness, and we met Smiler at the dock and headed back to our cottage. We got acquainted and walked out to scope the approach to the climb. Smiler had done the climb a couple of times, but not for some time.The next morning we woke to pretty good weather. It would remain so for most of the climbing day. On the way to the climb:


The scariest part of the climb was the descent to the shore over steep, slippery ground.

We roped up at the base of stack and Smiler led up loose rock to a big platform. At some point the rope dislodged a football size rock which came careening toward me. I watched as it made the last bounce and dodged my head to the left and saw it fly practically over my shoulder.

The second, crux pitch traverses right to a crack system with two roofs. The first roof is passed using pretty good holds along the arête.

Smiler continued up, out of sight. Next it was my turn. Since I couldn’t see above the first roof, I wondered what I had in store for me. I did hear Smiler lament that he had pulled on the sling again, despite planning to skip it this time. The traverse and first roof went pretty easily, but had great exposure. I continued up towards the second roof which was preceded by a Bombay slot and followed by a fist crack. I chimneyed up the slot and then was befuddled by the moves exiting the slot. Before it becomes fist-sized the crack is a smooth, flared, poddy thing. After a couple of futile efforts, I succumbed to temptation and grabbed the ratty slings attached to a wooden wedge.




The rest of crack was a nice fist crack with some footholds on the walls, ending on a great triangular platform. The next two pitches were pretty easy climbing from ledge to ledge, but were still heads-up due to the sandy surface and wetness resulting from frequent rain and mist.

There were some bemused spectators.

There were many Northern Fulmars flying around and nesting and perching on the ledges. There was only one on the route, though. I had been warned to wear clothes I was happy to discard in case one of them chose to eject the foul oil it uses as a deterrent. This Fulmar seemed to be used to climbers coming by. I tried to move very slowly and smoothly to avoid alarming her. At one point she stood up and I thought “Here it comes”, but she was just changing position on the egg.

The final pitch is a completely classic crack-corner.

Near the top the crack goes all the way through.

Of course, it has a fabulous summit. You have to walk carefully because of the wet grass.


We headed down via steep rappels, including one on a diagonal that we had to fix on the way up.

We headed back to the cottage, where we celebrated with a few wee drams of whisky.The next morning we took Smiler back to the ferry and returned to our cottage for the rest of our stay.

The next day I hiked out to the cliff with my DSLR to get some long shots of the Old Man.


We couldn’t resist this shot, given the unstable nature of the formation.

Of course, we found some good birds.




Epilogue:
We had such a good time, we ended up going to Scotland again in 2007. This included a stay at Smiler’s cottage in Dores, on Loch Ness. During a single dry day, we did a couple of climbs in the Cairngorms on Ardverkie Wall. We also visited the Orkney Islands and the Hebrides. These are other highly recommended destinations. Orkney has amazing archeological sites. Some of these are as good as Stonehenge without all the crowds and New Age crap. I almost forgot to mention starting off the trip by meeting Darwin in the Peak District and climbing on gritstone.

Edited to fix several typos. I left the whisky misspelling, though.