25-03-11, Reiff and Stac Pollaidh - Rock Climbing

Today I drove North to find some dry rock. First stop Stac Pollaidh - dense drizzle still at 11am so onward to the sea cliffs of Reiff. With the crag drying nicely in the breeze the sun also soon started to shine, I did some climbing about 10 easy routes in the pinnacle area. I really wanted to head back to Stac Pollaidh and seen as the skies were blue and the rain gone, I headed back. The mountain isn't a Munro or a Corbett, but has got to be one of the best Grahams around. It has a striking pinnacle ridge back bone, when seen from the side impressive cliffs doom above, and from the edges a triangular peak - how mountains should look! I did climbed a couple of routes at about VDiff, they were OK but the mountain is good. It is made from Torridonian Sandstone, rough with breaks, cracks and slopers. Definitely a mountain grit crag though plenty of lichen growth in the big cracks that absorbed the mornings wetness!

27-01-10, North-West Highlands - Rock Climbing

With an initial plan to go and climb some of the winter gully
lines on Beinn Dearg. However when we arrived at the car park it was raining and the temperature was plus 10 degrees. Knowing that the rain would still be rain on the summit of the mountain we decided that ice climbing wasn't order of the day! While we were up in the North West with such tropical temperatures, armoured with big boots, quick draws, 10 nuts, 3 hexs and 10 ice screws we went rock climbing.

The Reiff Peninsula has some great rock climbing on awesome sandstone in a beautiful setting. Mainly single pitch between 8m and 25m, some tidal geos (zawns) and others non-tidal with massive platforms. It is a good location as you can still grab a quick route between the rain showers and find somewhere if the tide is high even with rough seas.

We managed to climb several routes between VDiff and Hard Severe, between the rain showers and high tide with big swell!