Seasonal Affected Disorder: February 2008

Last week Gaz, Konnie, Duncan, Becky and I went to climb the Old Man of Hoy, a sea stack off the coast of Hoy in the Orkneys and at 137m, the highest one in Europe. It was quite an adventure, involving a five and half drive north from Edinburgh to Thurso, a ferry to Stromness on the main island of Orkney, a night dossing in a boatyard by the harbour and then another ferry across to Hoy, a proper holiday in minature. The weather was spankingly good on the day we climbed, warm and still and it was definitely a cool thing to have done it in mid-winter. The Original Route on the stack goes at E1 5b, I ended up getting a rather rude awakening having to lead the crux, an overhanging sandy groove thing after Gaz (fresh from his V7 send) backed off. Everyone else said it was dirty but I quite enjoyed it, but then again it was my style of climbing. The rock on the Old Man is actually pretty crappy, but the situation magnificent, especially the last pitch, a 20m corner crack with big holds and exposure. at the top the crack splits the stack in two and you can see right through. The abseils down are pretty scary, especially the last one that's completely free hanging. The sunset was beautiful with sea mist milling around the bottom of the Old Man as we made our way back to the bothy in Rackwick Bay. A top day out.
Then on sunday I sneaked in a couple of routes on Etive Slabs with Helena, Spartan Slab (VS) that was 95% dry and Hammer (HVS) which was traumatically wet on the last two pitches. Still, not bad for February and the snow fairies might start to come out again next week.