Sunday 4 January 2009

New Year in Scotland



I have just returned from a fun New Year in the far North, staying in the hamlet of Oldshoremore near Cape Wrath. The stable weather provided 7 days of blue skies and light winds, though the temperature rarely rose above 2 celcius.

There was little in the way of winter this far North, except for heavy frosts in the Glens. There was however plenty of rock climbing with a variety of single pitch crags on gneiss and sandstone, including the sea cliffs of Sheigra. These were 30m in length, steep but with jugs galore (also the name of a 3 star HVS route). The stack of Am Bauchile was close by, just an 1hr 15 min walk-in. Climbing the 50m VS was the easy bit of the day.

For water-lovers North Scotland recieves exceptional surf. We spent 3 days on the North coast at a variety of breaks on clean 4-6ft surf. My newly repaired surf kayak was happy to show off its speed, I'm sure the others were jealous in their slower plastic boats!

No comments: