The tidal causeway - finding mussel shells
Rock art on the wee island
The next couple of days were spent getting down to Kilmarnock for a D of E Assessor Accreditation day - no pics of this as it's paperwork stuff! Nice to get some ideas of what groups do in different areas as their qualifying assessments, especially with regard to the purpose of their exped. It's not all about flora and fauna with some great imaginative projects like re-enacting the story of MacBeth in photo's!
When I got back to Lewis the weather was beautiful, so I headed up to the Clisham to check out the scramble on the south side of the hill - Coire Dubh Slabs, grade 3. It's a lovely wee route and a surprisingly short day out, taking me only a little over an hour to get to the scrambling and 3 1/2 hours in total car to car... Even though I stopped for lots of pics!
Looking in to Coire Dubh, the slabs are obvious just left of centre
Mmm... Gneiss!
Great views of mountains and sea :)
After such a warm day on the hill, we took the girls for a quick swim in the sea after school and I was happy to join them and take the heat out of my shoulders which managed to get a bit pink even with my factor 50 on!
Friday I headed out climbing with a couple of guys from the HebSAR team, Neil and Charlie. Neil found a route which went at about HS/VS, and I found a line that went at VS or so until the last couple of metres when the rock changed in character. The lovely positive edges that had seen me up the slightly overhanging rock disappeared and became lots of rounded stuff. I ended up backing off, much to my disappointment! I felt slightly better about it when first Charlie, then Neil both backed off at around the same point, and even more so when Charlie struggled up it on a top rope... We were climbing at the crags at Riof beach. There aren't that many bits of rock large or continuous enough to provide routes especially at amenable grades, but there is a lot of great bouldering - next time the mat is definitely going to go in the car.
Charlie working out the (lack of) holds on the top part of my attempted route
Charlie seconding the route that Neil lead
The line I spotted - it looked good!
Saturday Roddy and I were out with the HebSAR team for some rigging training. 3 of the team have just come back from a rigging course run by the MRCofS so it was a chance for everyone to share the information they had picked up and make sure we were all up to speed with it. We set up lowers with IDs and Rescue 8s, using a mix of stakes, hedgehogs, slings and rock gear to secure anchors. A very productive day with lots of ideas thrown in to the mix and interesting for me to see how organised rescue differs (and is similar to) the improvised sort that we learn about as instructors. HebSAR don't get the volume of technical rescues that other teams like Lochaber or Glencoe do, but with climbing on the islands steadily increasing in popularity it's important to make sure the skills base is there.
John briefing the team before the first lower
Sunday was spent chilling on the beach at Riof (yes, again!) with Roddy and the girls. With bodyboarding, rock pooling, sand castles, exploring little rocky islands and some sit on top sea kayaking they were pretty tired at the end of the day... And so were we!
Playing on the bodyboards and dodging moon jellyfish!
I'm off to the mainland for some climbing and some work this week, so here's hoping the sun shines some more...
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