The original plan was for Jo (pronounced Yo, and short for Johann!), to spend a day taking me and one other scrambling in preparation for his MIA Assessment. However, one other cancelled at the last minute, so instead of the two of us going scrambling, we made a last minute decision to 'just go cragging' and ventured over east (where the forecast was better) and to go to one of Scotland's premier roadside crags, Creag Dubh.
Creag Dubh is a fanastic crag, being steep, ten mins from the road and generally the rock is of good quality. However, the crag has got a reputation for bold climbing due to the lack of gear placements, and perhaps not a place to 'push the grade'. With that in mind, and given our time constraints and the risk of rain, we thought that a day of ticking off some of the easier routes would make for a good day, so first up was 'Strapadicktaemi E1 5a'. I led up the first pitch, and it was quite clear why the route had been given that grade. The climbing was great and all on very positive jugs, however, with some long run outs, a fall was pretty much out of the question. Jo then led through, up to an in-situ abseil point, although with abseiling being the only means of descent from the top of most routes here, I don't know why something more permanent could not be set-up to abseil from i.e. chains/cables rather than masses of unsightly tat.
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| The first pitch of Strapadicktaemi |
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| Looking across 'The Great Wall' of Creag Dubh. |
We then repeated 'Inbred HVS 5a', which I think is technically slightly harder than 'Strapadicktaemi', just with better protection, and finally 'King Bee (Direct Start) VS 5a', before calling it a day, and driving back to a wet Fort William. It was nice to be out cragging after such a wet May. Fingers crossed we get some more dry days soon!
