Well, what can I say…apart from the fact that Pabbay was awesome! Not just the climbing but the whole ‘being there’ experience. Having been to the Outer Hebrides twice before, I knew what I was in for (Mingulay was a difficult act to follow) but being on Pabbay for a week – away from what we now class as ‘normal’ life- was a special treat.
We were lucky enough to see some fantastic wildlife; an eagle, sea otters, an array of sea birds with chicks, seals and even a basking shark. We also had starlings nesting right by our tents which was kind of nice, although they were pretty noisy and we occasionally caught a glimpse of the illusive corncrake.
The weather was actually pretty good, it was quite windy most of the time but as it turned out this was a blessing. One morning the wind died and we started to get nibbled by midges, so we were relieved when the wind picked up again and thankfully had no more midges to deal with.
The team was Myself, Tim, Steve McClure, Rab Carrington, Martin Boysen and Neil and Claire Foster. A jovial bunch psyched for the climbing and cranking out on all the classic routes. Rab came prepared with a gigantic mess tent. This was to be the bonus of the trip, without it, campsite life would’ve been a chillier experience. We could all easily get in there in the evenings, cook and shelter from the wind and share stories of the days’ climbing events.
Our first day was without doubt the coldest, we headed to the Poop Deck, which was catching the chilly breeze. I think we were all wondering if we were going to have enough warm clothes for the week but after that day we made better choices of crags and the wind changed direction too. So when the sun was out (which was quite often), we were fully getting tanned, how cool is that?
My first day was great as I onsighted a big E5 (Jonny Scuttlebutt) on Banded Wall after we left the Poop Deck. This was an amazing outing, with a very steep ab. The start and initial roof seemed to have very poor marginal gear, so I had to psyche myself up to get round the roof and commit to the climbing. This was my first E5 of the year, so it was a good wake-up call.
But I later found out that I hadn’t read the description properly (typical me, I’ve never been one for pouring over guides, I just like to see a line and climb it rather than have too much info). There was a bomber cam just right of where I was, I did have a good look round when I was there but there was nothing obvious, it must have been a hidden pocket.
The other schoolgirl error I made on that route, was to forget to take my rope down! Fortuitously, Steve brought down a 70m 9.1mm sport rope, so I climbing the route on that. Obviously it wasn’t ideal, by the top the rope drag wasn’t funny, even with very long sling extensions on the gear. But hey…After the initial bold bit the climbing was amazing steep jug hauling to the top, really fun and pumpy. As it turned out, this was one of the better routes I did on the trip.
Also, I wasn’t really expecting to climb any hard routes (as my injured shoulder has been dictating my climbing level for the last year), so it was nice to get an E5 in the bag and feel that I had some resemblance of fitness. Those foundry sessions over the winter with Katherine were paying off.
Me climbing on the top pitch of U-ei.
Taken by Martin Boysen and his injured hand!
The next day wasn’t the greatest weather, rain showers, so we headed to The Bay Area. This is a sheltered smaller crag with some good lines on. I did another classic E5 here called The Hebrudean, which was great. It was absolutely lashing down at the time but we didn’t get wet at all, just the start seemed a bit greasy. It had quite technical bridging and I was never quite sure if my feet were going to stay on. I was also nearly doing the splits which my tight hamstrings and adductors didn’t appreciate at all. I must start doing my yoga again!
This route had a bit of everything; bridging, a funky traverse, then steep pumpy jug hauling- great!
Part of the plan for the trip was to have a go at repeating Lynn Hill and Cubby Cuthbertson’s big route on the Great Arch. This feature is one of the most impressive on the UK’s coast and is definitely very alluring. Steve was obviously the candidate for the crux pitch that goes through the roof, this pitch is given 7a! So after climbing on the first few days, he was abbing down to this pitch to check out the fixed gear and try and work out how to climb it. This showed great dedication, as it was very windy and cold on the arch at those times and he wasn’t getting back to the campsite until gone 10pm- luckily he’s a night owl.
So I knew we were probably going to be getting on this route at some point in the week, as he seemed quite positive about being able to climb it, so by the third day I was starting to think I needed to drop my grade a bit just to rest my muscles. There was no way I wanted to get on this very hard route feeling wasted.
But day three saw me getting on an E6- what was I thinking? It was actually amazing and I’m glad I went for it. We’d plumped for the Grey Wall recess, it was nice and sheltered from the wind and was actually hot at times. We climbed an E2 (U-ei) and an E4 (Elysium) to get to the E6. It was incredibly steep but said there was good gear, so I thought why not? It just looked so cool!
I had an amazing climb on it and got crazily pumped, hanging about putting gear in and doing big burly moves up to not awesome breaks. I finally got to a ledge feeling very pleased with myself but knew the crux headwall was to come. I was able to rest well here and in between shake outs, climbed up a couple of moves to a goodish flat hold and put 3 bits of gear in a break. I had to go up and down 5 or six times to this hold to work out gear sizes and fiddle about putting it in. It was just so steep, you couldn’t hang there long. There was no chalk on this route, so it took me a while to work out which way I wanted to attack this last crux section. I finally plumped to go up to my gear placing hold and do a long lock to a break. So feeling vaguely rested I launched up with a positive attitude- suddenly I was flying through the air!! No…my gear placing hold had failed me and come clean off in my hands, damn it! I screamed down to the parties below, terrified that it was going to hit someone, but fortunately it missed everyone and disappeared in the sea- hmmm gutted!
I pulled back up the ropes, got back on the route and climbed angrily to the top. I hate it when that happens, I’d fully onsighted the route, done all the hard climbing but couldn’t really get the onsight tick. Hey ho, it doesn’t always go your way. To be honest though, I have to just be satisfied that I climbed well on it and was not expecting to get on and do anything near that hard on the trip. Even Ste said it was hard when he got to the top and that doesn’t happen very often- there’s not much that he finds hard! After this outing, we abbed down to Pink Wall and Ste did an amazing E5 called In Profundum Laco, which even to second was stunning. It was also good to get down and see the ‘climb me’ lines on Pink wall for the first time.
After this day I was happy and tired and headed back to camp while Ste trudged over to the Great Arch to have another recce, that boy’s energy knows no bounds!
Martin's hand with a chunk missing!
The next day my arms were aching and my body was tired. There’s a lot of walking up hills with heavy bags to get to the climbing areas, so it can get tiring. Luckily, Rab said he’d climb with Ste, which left Martin and I having an easier day.
Martin wanted to do an E3 on the left of Pink Wall but it was so windy that we decided it would be a cold grim experience so we abbed back down the 90m to Grey Wall for Martin to do U-ei. I went down first then Martin came. He arrived on the platform covered in blood! I rushed over to him to find out what had happened and if he was ok. It turned out that he’d got his hand caught in his belay plate due to the initial jerkiness of the heavy rope; he’d had to just yank his hand out of the plate and ripped off a big chunk of skin. There was blood everywhere and it looked very painful but like a trooper he just carried on saying that leading would take his mind off the pain, what a star!
For someone of his ability (even at the age of 68yrs) this route wasn’t a problem and I just followed the pools of blood. Next, he decided to go for a stunning steep E3 crack pitch. Again, he absolutely walked up this, barely putting in much gear and made it look about VS. I followed a bit shocked at it’s steepness but enjoying the climbing and jams.
I finished up the last pitch, which again was of the highest standard and covered some great ground at 5b.
Martin’s hand was now very sore, so we called it a day and wandered off to check out Hoofers Geo and then back to camp.
The evenings were lovely, we were right by the beach and it was great to explore around and go for some nice walks in the late evening sun. It wasn’t getting dark till gone 11pm, which I absolutely love. There was always something to see and investigate.
That evening a plan was concocted for Ste and I to go for the Great Arch route. He had managed to look at the roof on his recces but hadn’t been able to look at anything else due to it’s steepness. So an adventure was waiting to happen…
Steve climbing our first pitch of The Great Arch route
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