Dangerous Dancing

After our failure on the Walker’s flank, three weeks of bad weather passed, and ideas changed. Terry King turned up, and Gordon Smith came back from Leysin. They directed their considerable charms towards the Croz Direct. I wanted to do the Dru Couloir and teamed up with Nick Colton, an ‘aristocrat’ from Manchester and one of the scruffiest people on God’s earth. Once, having just had a vision in which he had cleaned the Fissure Nominé, he threw away all our hardware except for an ice-screw and a couple of bugaboos. (ever lost eighteen krabs and twelve pegs at one go!) That night, two ‘enlightened’ persons perched themselves on top of the Petit Dru, to freeze in the teeth of a north-easterly and study a starlit and by then plastered Jorasses North Wall. Visions of Armageddon faded, and around midnight we cracked. We decided to go back for another try.

Which indeed we did, though we nearly didn’t because I left my head-torch behind and so dedicate this affair to the congenial Froggy who lent me his, and to the half-roll of Sellotape with which I repaired it. 10.30 pm, on August 6, 1976, found two little lads at the foot of the Walker Spur. This time we had decided to beat the ‘schrund’ with a short left cross. Water was still running, but the face was quiet and the night clear. To start the spur, we took the left-hand rock alternative (the initial ice-slope did not exist) and followed this as far as the main ice-slope that cuts into the buttress on the right. Then it was softly, softly rightwards, to slip between the upper ’schrund and the rocks above, out on to the ice-field for a tense tip-toe affair, like ants going the wrong way up a bowling alley, with not a sound uttered lest we bring the house down.

We hung left to avoid being anywhere below the mouth of the Japanese Gully- vulnerable, so vulnerable. A roar: hearts in boots, we froze in fear, but it was only a plane passing low from the south. 2.30 a.m. We hung back on our ice screws, sorting the gear,roping up, peering and wondering, because it looked steep up there. At least, it looked steep as far as we could see, which was as far as you can throw a head-torch. There was no moon and it was dark in the couloir.

There followed five pitches in a grand Scottish illusion: steep, bulging, demanding, all engrossing, totally rewarding. Up through a spindrift flow,in the teeth of a biting wind. Belays for sitting, but not for falling. Few runners- no time-fantastic stuff. We emerged with the daylight on to the ice-field separating the two rock-bands. Around us, ropes darted in and out of the ice like frozen umbilical cords. I counted footage, but thought in cash. We rescued a couple of shiny krabs and took a hefty swing at a little blue sack, but its coffin was hard and rubbery and it would have taken an hour to release, so we left it with parting tears.

It was no place to linger: a sensational, exposed, vulnerable, 50° platform in a vertical sea, a mean place to quit in trouble. Above, fixed ropes ran up a broad shallow gully of compact looking rock, but we were hungry for ice and, a little to the left, there seemed to be a connection with the runnel above. It looked a little like The Curtain on Ben Nevis, but the first 50ft. or so turned out to be unconsolidated powder, so we took to the steep and deceptive pile of rubble on the right. It was loose, a fact to which Nick swore blind as he sailed past for a sixty-footer on to a hapless second.

“Just hold tight and I’ll monkey up the rope.” He did, and reached the top of the pitch for a belay. There followed a full and interesting run-out, on the border between ice,and rock, and finally we were through the second barrier, with 1,000ft. of sensational climbing behind us. Then it was away up the cold, blue runnel that broadens out into the second ice-field. We front-pointed. Audoubert understands:

Now begins that very special ice dance, a rhythmic ballet in four movements, a mixture of barbaric and primitive gestures and classical movement. The character before his mirror of ice makes precise steps with his front points, like a lead dancer rehearsing. In this special ballet pirouettes are forbidden. The emphasis on the  curve of his calves and the strength of his ankles equals the fierce, attacking look on his face. The best dancer, like the best toreador, strikes only once.

It was a long haul. Away to our right we could pick out more ropes, relics of the mammoth Japanese siege. Somewhere round here Lachenal and Terray passed by, but I think it must have been in pretty bad visibility. We heard voices but saw no one. The ice was hard and, after three years’ wear, my poor Chouinards (God bless him!) let my toes know there was no more curve left. What had appeared to be three pitches up the ice extended to five, and we regained the rocks with creaking calves.

The final head-wall is about 800ft. In it, a well-defined gully system curls up and left in behind the Red Tower, to join the Walker Spur about two pitches below the summit. For about 400ft. It is backed by a thin ice weep. But this wouldn’t take the gear, so we kept to the right wall. It was mean stuff: deceptive, awkward, and inevitably loose. And this was no time for mistakes, for we were tired now. It seemed a long way from that 9.0 a.m. rise the day before. In the northerly wind, the rock was bitterly cold. Above, sunlit walls beckoned, but progress was slow and any thoughts we had dared to entertain of reaching the heat receded to the summit. Incredibly, we had seen no stones all day, but Nick made up for that by burrowing away through the rocks above. In places the second is nastily exposed. I took a slate on the leg, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Nick solved the problems of getting back into the gully bed by falling off.

“What’s happening?” “Nowt-just fallen off.” and finally we arrived at the summit of a dream, a couple of pitches down and desperate for a brew.We charged on up but then there were these two little ledges just asking to be sat upon, so much more comfortable than the cold, wet snow on the other side and so much more convenient. So we sat down, just five minutes short, to dine on cheese and ham butties, with coffee by the gallon. Rare moments: we were asleep before the night came. Next morning we woke late. The weather had closed in and it was doubly bitter.

The stove worked, but the theory didn’t. 20 minutes could only provide water on the rocks. We dozed over this cold brew until shouts from below drew us out of our lethargy. Two lads appeared, fresh as daisies, despite their fourth bivi. They were the first party up the Walker for weeks. We chewed hurriedly at laces and gloves and raced them to the summit. They had come thousands of miles to climb this hill. It was like Christmas on top of the Walker.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot...... And they all lived happily ever after.

Alex Macintyre: First published in Mountain 1977

An excursion over Kirkstone Pass in 1807

On the third morning after my arrival in Grasmere, I found the whole family, except the two children, prepared for the expedition across the mountains. I had heard of no horses, and took it for granted that we were to walk; however, at the moment of starting, a cart - the common farmers’ cart of the country-made its appearance; and the driver was a bonny young woman of the vale.

Such a vehicle I had never in my life seen used for such a purpose; but what was good enough for the Wordsworths was good enough for me; and, accordingly, we were all carted along to the little town, or large Village, of Ambleside - three and a half miles distant. Our style of travelling occasioned no astonishment; on the contrary, we met a smiling salutation wherever we appeared - Miss Wordsworth being, as I observed, the person most familiarly known of our party, and the one who took upon herself the whole expenses of the flying colloquies exchanged with stragglers on the road. 

What struck me with most astonishment, however, was the liberal manner of our fair driver, who made no scruple of taking a leap, with the reins in her hand, and seating herself dexterously upon the shafts (or, in Westmorland phrase, the 'trams' of the cart.)

From Ambleside - and without one foot of intervening flat ground - begins to rise the famous ascent of Kirkstone; after which, for three long miles, all riding in a cart drawn by one horse becomes impossible. The ascent is computed at three miles, but is, probably, a little more. In some parts it is almost frightfully steep; for the road being only the original mountain track of shepherds, gradually widened and improved from age to age, (especially since the era of tourists began), is carried over ground which no engineer, even in alpine countries, would have viewed as practicable.

In ascending, this is felt chiefly as an obstruction and not as a peril, unless where there is a risk of the horses backing; but in the reverse order, some of these precipitous descents are terrific: and yet, once in utter darkness, after midnight, and the darkness irradiated only by continual streams of lightning, I was driven down this whole descent, at a full gallop, by a young woman – the carriage being a light one, the horses frightened, and the descents, at some critical parts of the road, so literally like the sides of a house, that it was difficult to keep the fore wheels from pressing upon the hind legs of the horses.

Indeed, this is only according to the custom of the country, as I have beforementioned. The innkeeper of Ambleside, or Lowwood, will not mount this formidable hill without four horses. The leaders you are not required to take beyond the first three miles; but, of course, they are glad if you will take them on the whole stage of nine miles, to Patterdale; and, in that case, there is a real luxury at hand for those who enjoy velocity of motion.

The descent into Patterdale is much above two miles; but such is the propensity for flying down hills in Westmoreland that l have found the descent accomplished in about six minutes, which is at the rate of eighteen miles an hour; the various turnings of the road making the speed much more sensible to the traveller. The pass, at the summit of this ascent, is nothing to be compared in sublimatity with the pass under the Great Gavil from Wastdalehead; but it is solemn, and profoundly impressive. At a height so awful as this, it may be easily supposed that all human dwellings have been long left behind: no sound of human life, no bells of churches or chapels ever ascend so far.

On the solitary area of tableland which you find at the summit - though, heaven knows, you might almost cover it with a drawing-room carpet, so suddenly does the mountain take to its old trick of precipitous descent, on both sides alike there are only two objects to remind you of man and his workmanship. One is a guide-post - always a picturesque and interesting object, because it expresses a wild country and a labyrinth of roads, and often made much more interesting (as in this case) by the lichens which cover it, and which record the generations of men to whom it has done its office; as also by the crucifix form which inevitably recall, in all mountainous regions, the crosses of Catholic lands, raised to the memory of wayfaring men who have perished by the hand of the assassin.

The other memorial of man is even more interesting: - Amongst the figments of rock which lie in the confusion of a ruin on each side of the road, one there is which exceeds the rest in height, and which, in shape, presents a very close resemblance to a church. This lies to the left of the road as you are going from Ambleside; and, from its name, Churchstone (Kirkstone,) is derived the name of the pass, and from the pass the name of the mountain. The guide-post - which was really the work of man - tells those going southwards (for to those who go northwards it is useless, since, in that direction, there no choice of roads) that the left hand track conducts you to Troutbeck, and Bowness, and Kendal; the right hand to Ambleside, and Hawkshead, and Ulverstone.

The church - which is but a phantom of man’s handiwork - might, however, really be mistaken for such, were it not that the rude and almost inaccessible state of the adjacent ground proclaims the truth. As to size, that is remarkably difficult to estimate upon wild heaths or mountain solitudes, where there are no leadings through gradations of distance, nor any artificial standards, from which height or breadth can be properly deduced.

This mimic church, however, has a peculiarly fine effect in this wild situation, which leaves so far below the tumults of this world; the phantom church, by suggesting the phantom and evanescent image of a congregation, where never congregation met; of the peeling organ, where never sound was heard except of wild natural notes, or else of the wind rushing through these mighty gates of everlasting rock - in this way, the fanciful image that accompanies the traveller on his road, for half a mile or more, serves to bring out the antagonist feeling of intense and awful solitude, which is the natural and presiding sentiment – the religio loci - that broods for ever over the romantic pass.

Thomas de Quincy 

 

On Great Gully Buttress

WHERE do all these people come from?” said Len. You would think nobody did any work.” “Including us?” I asked, since the day was Tuesday, in the middle of the June heat wave, and here were we, speeding north to Buachaille Etive Mor for the second time in four days. His remarks were evoked by the sight of so many sun-worshippers by every burn and bay from Loch Lomond side to Rannoch Moor.

Len had managed to snatch an additional day because he had been working over the May holiday, and the marvellous warmth and clarity of the previous Saturday had whetted his appetites After the wettest May in meteorological history, we had almost given up hope of dry rocks. Then had come our good luck, to be on Buachaille  Etive on the first real day of summer.

This looked as if it was going to be a repeat, and car windows down, we were enjoying the fresh scents wafted into us from bluebells, May blossom, rowan and gorse, all at their brilliant best together, in a world of shimmering birches, oaks and beeches. “ I’ve never seen anything better than this !” exclaimed Len. He was almost running out of exclamations by the time we reached Ben Lui, rising  above us with a, thousand feet of unbroken, snow in its corrie.

Then to Loch Tulla, floating snowy reflections from the Black Mount peaks ; and when we stopped to pay homage we could hear the vibrant “reeling” of dunlin, and,surprisingly, the “ tuleep ” of ringed plovers, the first time I have known them here.

Buachaille Etive Mor, its rocks shiny pink in the morning light,looked invitingly clean as we slung our packs and started towards Great Gully. The good weather and dryness ofthe past four days had filled Len with ambition. After our climbs on the Saturday he had talked longingly of Guerdon Grooves, a very exposed and delicate climb, so sustained at one point that the leader needs 150 feet of rope to reach a stance.

He had asked me to bring my long Perlon rope. I kept my apprehensions to myself as we scrambled up the rocks below our route, remembering that some of the best men known to me have retreated from this climb, indeed have had to “ rope-off ” it when failing to find a way. Len had done it once, and I did not know whether to be sorry or glad when, after scrutinising the buttress rising smoothly and without break for over 500 feet, he pronounced it “hopeless.” I could see why.

 The rocks were stained with gleaming patches of wet, on a route which has to be absolutely dry before there is any hope of ascent Let’s do ‘Ledgeway’ on Great Gully Buttress,” Len suggested.You take the first pitch, I’ll lead the crux.” Rock climbing has been rightly called “ a baleful sport”. I always find it so, especially when the first steps of a pitch are hard and unrelenting and I have to fight an inner voice of fear. Yet I never climb well without this ” inner voice.” It is rather like the moment of getting up to give an after-dinner speech. You may feel a sense of inadequacy for the task, but if you have given thought and preparation to the subject, then you will forget yourself as you begin to talk.

On the rocks, the mind takes over from the nerves, as the whole of your experience and training goes into the control and balance of the body,with an effect of exhilaration on your whole being. This pitch docs not let up for forty feet, and when he joined me for his lead, I was glad to hear Len say he found it hard. Marvellous rock. The best in Glen Coe,” he said as he traversed rightward from me. He could have added that it is also some of the steepest rock, and I saw the route was none too easy to find as he explored right and left before committing himself to a line that lefty the rope hanging clear in space behind him.

Then he vanished from sight, behind a bulge,and in a short while I heard his “ Come on!’. The crux was where he had disappeared, a daunting place with an overhang pushing you out with its beak. And no holds for a pull up until you make a delicate move up the smooth right wall and then you can swing boldly onto the nose and enjoy the thrill of your body tilting over the long drop below.

The next pitch was mine, right over Len’s head,for a hundred feet of sheer climbing delight,never easy but never too hard. The route had us purring with pleasure and after it we crossed over to Rannoch Wall,to the foot of Grooved Arete, first climbed by John Cunningham and Bill Smith 21 years ago.

It was this amazing pair of climbers who pioneered Guerdon Grooves, setting a standard of achievement hitherto unknown on Scottish rock. Members of the Creagh Ddu club, they are still active and as good as ever * Wherever their names are linked to a route you can expect something technically exciting. This one is particularly elegant.

Len took the edge of the arête which soars up for ninty feet of small holds, where every move depends on fine balance. The crux lies above and this fell to me. The problem is to get around the crest of the arête into the groove beyond. I enjoyed it, but made the mistake of keeping too vertically to the crest above, until I found myself unable to proceed, so I had to climb down again which was very much harder than the crux.

Now we coiled the rope and followed the Crowberry Ridge over the Tower to the summit of the mountain, basking in a sunlit world of peace and silence, strange contrast to the Israeli war which had been dominating our thoughts for a week. Boots off, we gave thanks in silent contemplation of the Lost Valley snows, still filling the cream jug between Bidian nam Bian and Stob Coire nan Lochan.

All too soon we were scrambling down the Curved Ridge, marvelling at the changes which four days of sun had wrought in the hanging garden beneath it, with clusters of buttery globe flowers, sprays of yellow roseroot, starry saxifrages amidst red campion and the white flowers of fleshy scurvy grass.

We felt the world was a pretty good place as we took the winding track along the foot of the crags, stopping now and then to look up at the pink edges of soaring rocks which have given us such intense delight over the years.

* The legendary John Cunningham was killed when coasteering on the Gogarth sea cliffs, North Wales in 1980. He drowned whilst attempting to rescue a student who had fell in the water.His body was never recovered.

Tom Weir: 1967 

 

Applecross days

W. N. Ling and myself- from sundry hints that there was a first rate 'Chioch' on the Scottish mainland, in Ross-shire, not on Beinn Bhan, and not marked on the one-inch Ordnance- came to the conclusion that it must be somewhere in the Strathcarron district, so Friday, 5th June 1908, found us en route for Strathcarron Station. We arrived at mid-day,and after lunch set out for a walk past the Bailachulish then up the hill at the back of the village, and over to Kishorn. The road after ascending 400 feet descends for about a mile through a fine glen beside a burn. On leaving this glen we saw in the far distance two magnificent hills. In 1908 it is too much to hope to find anything good and new in the hill line, but all the same, we felt disappointed when we simultaneously cried “The Red Coolins."

We got some glimpses of crags in the Applecross district, though the sun was too much behind them for us to make sure of any detail,but all the same we altered our plans for the morrow,and agreed to make for Applecross instead of Fuar Tholl. Our way back was cheered by the sight of a very fine buzzard wheeling about, but after we reached the summit of the road, real rain, a present from Skye, pursued us the whole way home, which was considerably shortened by keeping a bad path across the moors, avoiding Janetown, and coming out near Strathcarron Church.

Next morning was fine, and we rose at 6 A.M., and after some delay drove away at 7.45, through Janetown and across to Kishorn, seeing the buzzard again in the rocks above the stream, probably it had a nest there. The sun this time was shining into the Applecross Forest, and we got a fine view of magnificent rock scenery, big bastions of sandstone rising in tiers from the usual horizontal terraces. About eight miles away we passed Courthill, a very southern sounding name for a very Scottish lodge, situated where the finest views of the hills opposite can be obtained.

Just beyond here, and up the hill are the ironstone mines which we were popularly supposed to be prospecting, an ice-axe and an excursion in this direction as soon as we arrived being ample reasons to start the locals gossiping. At last our driver had to ask if we were not going to them, adding that if they were only a success a large seaport town might spring up there — there of all places, as seen on a fine spring morning, with as fine a view as there is on the West coast."But", he said, "they would never have such luck in this glen ! "

We drove a mile and a half beyond Tomapress, and left the machine nearly opposite Courthill, waiting a few  minutes to watch the time-saving driver take the ford and splash across to the east side. We then took to the hill about 9.30, turning over the south-east shoulder of Bheinn Bhan, and were soon looking down on to Loch Coire nam Fharadh, with the magnificent bastions of Sgorr na Caorach rising above it. There was no mistake which spur to make for, and we hoped against hope that this was a find, but felt sure that it was the Chioch. We circled round it, like wrestlers looking for a grip, but obviously there was only one spot from which a start could be made on the south-eastern side, and the route to the top seemed likely to be continuous. The north side had a long grassy ledge leading up towards a gap where the first pinnacle gained the main cliff, but as well as avoiding the climb, it looked as though a slabby cliff, such as one finds at the end of some Torridon gullies, might prevent us reaching the gap.

We lunched at 11.45 (1100 feet), and then set off,keeping always as near to the edge of the rounded first pinnacle as we could, although at first forced a good deal too much in the direction of the big gully. We went up a succession of short chimneys, which a few moments before we had waltzed up in thought. Alas, what a difference when once one tackled them in earnest, and without any slander, the grand old hills of Torridon sandstone are uncommonly deceiving, there being a lack of handhold when one reaches the top of each pitch of rock. The chimneys were lined with steep grass and loose and rounded rock; we went up these, always keeping an eye on our right hand, as we were undoubtedly too far from the magnificent but unattainable face.We turned to our right and made for a steep wall up which there was a narrow crack, but this route was given up as the top overhung, and it is no use hoping for a handhold where you require it on sandstone.

We were afraid that we might have to go leftward to the main gully, but to our joy a way was found round a corner to the right, up steep, but good and firm, rock,with a very sensational outlook, owing to our being on the edge of the arete. Above this we took to a belt of heather which led us to a narrow chimney where the rocks need careful handling, and then over slabs and crowberry plants we practically walked to the summit of the first pinnacle. Alas a cairn..." Collie," we cried, hoping we would still find that it had been some stalker who had ascended the comparatively easy big gully, and descended without tackling the magnificent face of rock in front of us.

As a matter of fact, Collie had ascended the big gully on its right whilst Slingsby and his partners tackled the face at about the same line as ourselves. We sat here for some time admiring the perpendicular view below, and the work in front, about 300 feet of it; then we made a start first down across the head of the dividing gully, which reminded me of one or two Lofoten dips of a similar nature; then up a very pleasant staircase of sandstone, with an occasional small traverse — one of about 15 feet to the right remains in my memory — rock good and outlook to match, but no place or need to slip.

Above this we are under the final cliffs of the main tower, some 150 feet of slabby rock.When aeroplanes become commonplace, say in three years' time, I hope to possess a 6 Sparrow-power Vol au Vent, or a 60 Eagle-power Soarer (according to the state of my physical and financial nerves), and I intend to circle around some of these towers to assure myself how really easy these cliffs would be to climb straight up. Meanwhile we chose one of the very few routes open to us.

We first of all went to our right along a very sensational ledge about 2 feet wide, which probably contours right around the face, and is an ideal traverse walk in calm weather, but as we could find no route commencing from this, we went back again southwards, and up an open stretch of heather to the foot of a big gully. Up this is easy scrambling until a jammed stone pitch is reached. Ling here made good progress and I fixed myself under the stone, whilst he with the usual tactics and a considerable amount of skill wormed himself up on the (true) left side. Once he announced himself firm, I,well aware of his poetical tendencies, had to remind him that " hold the last fast, says the rhyme." Once above this a few feet of scrambling took us to the summit of the tower, and we sat a few minutes discussing whether this was the Chioch or not, and we decided, rightly, that it was, as although there was much vegetation everywhere, still there was a suspicious cleanliness about the likeliest handholds.

We then set along the long broad summit ridge, a walk,except where intersected by the heads of gully and the small rocks at these places, can be either scrambled over,or turned on either side by descending a few feet, and so eventually reached the summit of Sgorr na Caorach (2,539 feet) at four o'clock. The summit is part of an enormous plateau sloping gently westward.

After a rest we remembered the sixteen-mile trudge homeward, and reluctantly descended towards the Applecross road which stretched across the plateau. We reached the famous Bealach nam Bo and the hairpin bends, and are reminded of the exploit of our President, G. Thomson, who professionally assisted in conducting a Martini car up the same pass. I wish he had left one for our use.  The scenery on this pass is very fine, but we could not see much rock of a climbable nature, and we lightened our way homeward by noting how one could ascend  some fine cliffs by walking along sloping grassy terraces.

As the tide was out we crossed the loch, about 300 yards from Courthill, at the north end of a small wood, the water was only about a foot deep, and the sandy bottom everywhere firm. The remainder of the day was mere work until we reached Strathcarron Inn at 8.45. Next day, Sunday, broke grey and cold. I claimed an  easy day, and was let off with a stroll of fourteen miles, partly over some of the roughest going I have met with in Scotland. We went to Couiags by as flat a road as any in  the Lincolnshire Fens, and from there made up a good deer path past a keeper's cottage, from which we were temporarily followed; but as we had a fair start and the weather was then really moist, the occupant soon returned to his den,whilst we wound up a very Swiss path on a loose moraine, until we reached a bealach between Ruadh Stac and Meall a Chinn Deirg — thence across to another dip — whence rise the grey grey slabs which slope to the summit of Ruadh Stac.

Here we were met by a strong south-west wind laden with such chilly rain and sleet that we could see nothing, so we determined to clear out below the mists, and turned down and across the extraordinary slabs at the back of Ruadh Stac : after lunching by a small lochan (crouched behind any boulder we could find), we had a mile of the roughest going, following a stream down the Allt nan Ceapairean, which name, under the circumstances, afforded us an opportunity for much feeble and diluted wit, which the reader may invent for himself if in the same place and circumstances and so minded. Absolutely wet through,we arrived at Strathcarron at three o'clock.

Next day — our last chance for that year — we resolved on an attack or at least a look at the face of Fuar Tholl in the Achnashellach Forest, Being early birds, we took the 6.50 train, and arrived at Achnashellach, on a warm pouring wet day, and inquired for the keeper. We had previously  been warned about new brooms, etc, and only too truly, as the keeper objected, averring that not even the owner dare go up to fish in the corrie below Fuar Tholl at this time of year.We tried to impress him by pulling out some very damp visiting cards as a sign of respectability, but our old gabardines, wet and frayed, were too much for him, and our day's climb degenerated into a twenty-seven miles' walk.

First retracing our way along the line for a mile or two in company with a wet but cheery shepherd, then back along the road past Loch Dhughaill on to Craig, we crossed the railway and went a long way up the Allt a Chonais, before we could cross the burn, then turning south we struck a bealach between Sgurr na Fiantaig and Ben Tarsuinn. At the top of this we went off a short way south to look down towards the Morar country, as by this time the rain and mist were away, then down a long glen to Loch an Laoigh, back to the inn down Glen Udale, nowhere seeing any climbing rocks.

The district around Strathcarron is a glorious one, and given fine weather, the explorer should be rewarded with several more good climbs, although Professor Collie, I expect, has taken the best with the Cioch. A word of warning : if Strathcarron Inn parlour is as we saw it at first sight, do not be discouraged, we were very comfortable there for four days. 

George T Glover: First published in the SMC journal 1911