Old rocks and Easter eggs

For Easter we flew down and stayed with my Uncle and his family just out of a small town called Devizes. They were amazing hosts and we were really glad we went.

The Eastery bit came with spending some quality time with my family, and their two cats and four gerbils. We also got to do a bit of sightseeing, with some of the highlights including:

Avebury (old rocks #1):







Stonehenge (old rocks #2 - sorry no photo as we did a drive-by)

Salisbury Cathedral (old rocks #3):

















Roman Baths (with Ele & Steve) (old rocks #4):

















Nothing to do with rocks, but the cats 'watching gerbil TV':

More climbing

Steve and I went off climbing again on the weekend before Easter. It was a similar format as the last time - Saturday in Glencoe (Stob Coire nan Lochan) and Sunday on Ben Nevis, except it was a lot whiter this time so proper winter climbing all round.

Unfortunately we never really got a decent freeze so conditions weren't that great - made for quite tricky conditions but luckily Steve was there to lead the harder bits (thanks Steve!) and we had a good trip.

It was my turn to forget my camera so these are all Steve's photos. It was also my turn to hurt myself so I whacked myself on the finger while driving in a piton. Ow!

The Mighty Deerstalker

Mark entered in a 10km race. It wasn't just a boring, ordinary 10km race, oh no - this involved big hills, scree, obstacles, ponds, rivers, culverts, dark, rain, strange costumes, oh, and it wasn't really 10km, it was a bit longer. Welcome to the Mighty Deerstalker!

I was the support crew and so I enjoyed my book and cup of tea in the light drizzle at Traquair House (the oldest inhabitated house in Scotland, did you know, and visited by 28 kings!). Luckily it was a good book because when the 1st wet and muddy runner came in a long 1hr 24 had passed.

What was even more amazing, was that shortly after the first runner (22 minutes to be precise), Mark came in, finishing an incredible 31st out of 525 finishers (never mind those losers who didn't turn up or didn't finish), which was seriously spectacular. I was so proud he even got a congratulatory hug in his wet, muddy, cold and sweaty state. Mmm.

I've stolen some photos off the Deerstalker website so you can see what fun he had on the course (http://deerstalker.cmsdevsite.com/):

Climbing Scottish style

Steve and I headed off climbing for the weekend. Because it's been quite a mild, dry winter (generally), it's almost like late spring conditions in the mountains. Consequently we climbed a rock route (on cold rock) on Saturday and found some ice high up on Ben Nevis on Sunday.

Buachaille Etive Mor is the striking mountain that grabs your attention when you turn from Rannoch Moor westwards and enter Glencoe. Like a sentry in a way - a big fat one.

It has some classic rock (and some winter) lines in gullies and on ridges. We climbed one of these classic scrambles, Crowberry Ridge, but via a technical start up a classic rock climb called Agag's Groove.


Another pair of climbers on neighbouring Curved Ridge, another classic scramble. It's a great atmosphere, since you're already a long way up by the time you start climbing proper. Very airy.

It was this big! Actually, this photo was taken beforehand, but this was about the size of the rock that Steve pulled down on himself while seconding on Crowberry Tower. We estimate it weighed several hundred kilos, it didn't do much good for his hand or his shoulder. I was a bit worried at the top - no vocal communication, just a fall on the rope and then the sounds of a mammoth rock crashing down the gully! Steve, hard man that he is, was OK.

Interesting rock formation.

Sunday - we climbed Glover's Chimney, this is the final mixed pitch. 150 m climb my arse! My rope's 60 m and we climbed well over 3 rope lengths. It was quite a busy day on the relatively small number of climbs that were "in", so we saw lots of other teams.

The descent, Number 4 Gully. Took a bit of finding (asking) in the low visibility on the summit plateau.

Our route is the obvious line in the centre.

Schiehallion

Hilary and Andy visited us a few weeks back, during the last couple of weeks of their around-the-world trip. They did choose a fairly miserable few days (weather-wise) to visit us but at least it did mean that we had some snow to go walking in! We picked a nice day and headed up Schiehallion. It's quite a popular climb, and a Munro (ie. mountain over 3000')



We had a nice day for it, windy and cold, with the clouds coming and going, but at least we got some sunshine :-) The snow was shin deep with drifts up to knee deep. Fortunately it is a popular walk, and we started quite late, so 20 or 30 people had already plugged steps for us!

The ruins of a farmer's croft. Imagine what life must have been like living in a draughty old stone building like this, the winters used to be a lot snowier and colder in the Highlands too.

Unfortunately it clouded over by the time we got to the top so we didn't hang around too long. We got lots of nice views on the way up.

Hilary and Andy had ditched all their mountaineering gear once the left South America. Andy was able to borrow a pair of my boots but Hilary ended up looking like a bit of an amateur. Disappointing really. Actually, we all did - everyone else had at least walking poles and generally an ice-axe as well. I suppose when you throw away your old stuff and get the latest model of everything each year, you want to make sure you take it for a walk, otherwise you haven't had your money's worth!

It's said that cold weather significantly improves friction for bouldering, but I think Andy really struggled with the conditions.

He even fell into a crevasse!

Mmmmm! Beer.

I hope this blog post finds you well. More exciting mountain adventures in the next post.