During a busy summer the go further team have still found some time to put up a few more routes in Wester Ross. There is a lot of rock on the Poolewe to Slattadale path near Gairloch but few sections hold much potential for worthwhile rock climbing. One exception is an obvious clean corner of gneiss to the east of the path about 1km south of the A832. Paul has established four new sport routes here with a good spread of grades:
Creag na Oisean (Crag of the Corner)
From R to L the four routes are:
The Otter Final 7a+
Oshan Toshan 6a
A Game of Towels 6b
Stormy Monday 5+

Paul is pictured here on the first ascent of Otter Final.

Another location with few established rock routes is Dundonnell. Colin has also put up four new routes here on a substantial sandstone outcrop - Creag Nan Ord (Crag of the Hammer). The routes, all at least 25m in length, offer varied climbing on immaculate rock. Ray Wilby is pictured (below) on the crux of Siostan (6c).This month also saw the first ascent of the crag’s best route - Guga, (7a) - a 30m line with a strenuous start and a delicate finish. More on this crag soon.

Tags: otter final, Creag na Oisean, Creag Nan Ord, Siostan

go further have had several family climbing days this year where we are able to use excellent venues to give children some outdoor climbing experience while giving Mums and Dads the skills to take the family rock climbing independently.The Mackay family, Muzz, Karen, Sol aged 12 and Molly aged 9 managed to squeeze in a day of rock climbing just before the school holidays finished. Paul took them to Kuhjo Crag near Poolewe. With a five minute walk-in, it means you spend time climbing rather than walking, Kids love that, don't we all?

Paul gave them instruction on placing gear on trad routes, sorting out belays and top belaying. They practised how to abseil safely and of course climbed. Karen was joyful to get up her first outdoor climb and realised that she could in fact go to the crag and join in with the rest of the family given the right venue. Muzz tried his first 6a which was a great eye opener for him and the youngsters Molly and Sol ran around jumping on everything, doing their first outdoor leading, safely belaying Dad and just lapping it all up.

Tags: Kuhjo Crag, poolewe, family climbing, Clown slab

Here’s our latest route profile - this time a two-pitch trad route on one of the best outcrops of Gneiss in Scotland. We were there earlier this month.

Diabaig’s ‘Main Cliff’ is known for its steep first pitches followed by technical slab climbing after good ledge belays at mid-height. Northumberland Wall, with two 5c pitches, takes an unlikely line surmounting the steepest section of the crag. The three-star route starts up an obvious corner to the second small roof shown in the shot below. The line then takes a delicate traverse right before the crux section through the black streaked rock in the top right of the picture. From below the first roof the pitch is sustained, demanding good route finding with a crux move to get established in the upper crack.


Colin Meek on the first pitch of Northumberland Wall - Diabaig Main Cliff.

The second pitch starts up a hard-to-protect slab before traversing left under an obvious overlap (easily seen in the picture below). Above that, the route leads through a steep slab using a thin crack that becomes steadily more useful. Hard moves then lead to a broken feature with better holds.


On the crux of the second pitch.

Generally thought to be a tough E2, it is undoubtedly one of the best routes at Diabaig. The climbing at Diabaig is about 30 minutes from Torridon village and, with a range of grades on fantastic rock, it is a great venue to try some multi-pitch climbing. South facing, it has to be in one of the best positions on the West Coast. More route profiles from Diabaig soon.
See our pages on Guided Climbing for more.

Tags: Diabaig, northumberland wall, Gneiss

The Old Man of Hoy is one of the UK’s most sought-after ascents and gofurther Scotland has made two successful trips there either side of our amazing winter. Last weekend gofurther’s Paul made the trip with Malachy and completed the climb on Saturday during a spell of cold weather blown in on a light northerly.

The 135m Old Man is one of the country’s most inspiring rock climbing venues with a sense of adventure and isolation that you get in few other areas. The classic route, now graded E1, takes the original line up the landward face of the stack with the second crux pitch negotiating an awkward move out of a niche onto the face directly left of the main crack.



The sensational final pitch (with Malachy pictured below) is on perfect rock up 20m corner to the summit. With waves swirling below and stunning views over to St John’s Head (the tallest sea cliffs in Britain) it is certainly one of the most spectacular rock climbing moments.



Below, Malachy reaches the summit with incredible views over to St John’s Head and the hills of Hoy.




After 5 pitches a multi-pitch abseil descent is needed finishing with a 60m free abseil to the bottom of the stack on the landward side.



See our pages on Sea Stacks for more options.

Tags: hoy, old man of hoy, Sea Stack Climbing, Sea Stacks

Happy 21st to local climber Megan Macrae pictured here on the crux of Superblue (7b+) at Creag Nan Luch - not far from her home.

Creag Nan Luch (Crag of the Mouse) is one of Scotland’s best sports crags and is found at the West end of Loch Maree near Poolewe and Gairloch. For more information see Superblue (7b+) below.

Tags: Superblue, Creag Nan Luch

April has brought some of the best mountaineering and climbing conditions we've seen for a few years. The month started cold and dry with a few frosts down to sea level. As the days turned increasingly sunny, a sharp easterly breeze with very low humidity meant the North West Highlands had the best weather in the UK. All of these pictures were taken in the last two weeks. The first shows the snow-capped Torridon mountains taken from the Melvaig peninsula; the second is action at the sheltered south-facing Kuhjo Crag near Gairloch; the third is An Teallach taken on a guided day out to the summits.

Tags: Kuhjo Crag, An Teallach, Wester Ross

Loch Tollaidh Crags, Wester Ross, is the best single pitch trad venue around Gairloch. The climbing is always technical and sustained. To get a real appreciation of the quality of the climbing here you need to be operating at HVS and up.
Hidden Crag has the longest routes and the rock is truly immaculate clean, rough Lewisian Gneiss. Water Lily, E2 5b, and Buena Vista, also E2 5b, are classics. It is very hard to decide which is the better of the two so it is best just to do both!
Paul Tattersall and Jim Buchanan are hard at work updating the Loch Tollaidh Crags topo for wildwesttopos.com with over sixty new routes to add since the original topo was published, it will be ready for this spring.

Tags: Loch Tollaidh Crags

Over winter we've decided to profile some of the best routes in the North West - so thanks to Jim Buchanan of Wild West Topos for these awesome pictures of Michael Lee on Superblue - graded 7b+. This line follows an overhanging curving crack line on a bulge of perfect gneiss at Creag Nan Luch (Crag of the Mouse) at the West end of Loch Maree near Poolewe and Gairloch. Strenuous moves lead to a tricky and powerful crux at the top of the crack.
This route was bolted by gofurther's Paul Tattersall just after the first clutch of routes were equipped in the middle section of the crag. Several more routes have since been added on the upper and lower tier starting at around 6a.
The range of routes available make this a perfect venue if you are moving from indoor cragging to sport routes or if you looking to push your grade with coaching on technique. See our rock climbing pages for more.

Wild West Topos produce a range of easy-to-use photo-topos of the best rock venues in the area.

Tags: Climbing, sport Climbing

The recent spell of incredible weather saw some new sport routes added over the Christmas period. After Murdo, Paul and Colin first equipped a series of 7s on the main wall a few other lines are now established on Goat Crag. Most recently, Paul Tattersall finished a line left of Teepee - Tom Paine's Bones at 6c. Nearby, Am Fasgadh finally has a sensible warm up thanks to Ian Taylor - The Groove 6b+, the right hand line of bolts following the groove - vaguely.
Right of The Crack (7b) Paul has also bolted The Shield at 7a+ which has rapidly become a classic. Left of The Crack, Ian Taylor and Lawrence Hughes equipped Primo - 7c - which goes all the way up the headwall of perfect rock above the quartz band to a lower-off at 25m. Thanks also to Murdo for sorting out several of the lower-offs at this crag before he was injured. More on Goat crag and Am Fasgadh soon.

The picture shows Jenny Cunningham and Paul 'Storkey' getting to grips with Mac Talla and The Prow respectively at Goat Crag.

Tags: sport Climbing, rock Climbing, goat crag, Am fasgadh, mac talla, the sheild

The settled spell clung on until Christmas day before it broke down completely on Boxing day. This picture was taken at about 1.30pm on Christmas day looking North East to Beinn Ghoblach. Again, it was taken from close to the summit of Carn na Glaic Buidhe where we stumbled on this promising sandstone erratic. It doesn't look like there are any decent vertical problems but, as it overhangs on three sides, it may be worth a visit to train on the 360 degree traverse.

Tags: Bouldering

The gofurther team were hoping to bring you some news about new routes on some of the best sports crags in Scotland; but that will have to wait. Instead we have some bad news at the end of the year....This is a picture of Murdo on Mac Talla (7b) at Goat Crag. Taken the day before he had a serious accident in Torridon. While we're assured he will be fine, he's expecting to be out of action for at least six months and probably around a year. We all wish him as fast a recovery as is possible and a complication-free 'rest'.
Murdo will be sorely missed at the crag, on the mountain and around the table afterwards.

Tags: murdo, goat crag

There was a buzz of activity in the Gairloch Leisure Centre last Saturday afternoon (November 24th) as well over a hundred people of all ages tried their luck at the Gairloch Climbing Wall Event.
The activities circuit involved 12 stations. Scaling any (or all four) of the routes set up on the climbing wall was the main challenge. Some of the other stations were; doing pull-ups, teetering along a balancing frame, knot tying, and completing a climbing quiz. Points were awarded and scores were kept with prizes for the top three in various age categories.
The event was primarily organized to raise local awareness of the campaign to get the existing climbing wall upgraded and expanded. On the day £450 was raised towards the project. Estimates for the cost of a new wall have come in at around £100,000. Through a local contact, petro-chemical business Ineos offered £25,000 towards the cost which gave the whole idea a kick start. Having applied to various funding bodies to try and find the remaining £75,000 needed the best hope seems to lie with Sportscotland, a government body, who have intimated they would fund 45-50% if the other 50-55% is secured. So there is still a lot of fund raising to do, any ideas then please get in touch.

The organisers of saturday's event, Jim Sutherland and go further Scotland's Paul Tattersall, would like to thank everyone for coming along and making it such fun, with a big thanks to all who helped out behind the scenes and on the day. Thanks also to the local people and businesses that kindly donated raffle prizes and to the generous prize sponsors, namely Torridon Activities, W D MacPherson & Sons Climbing Shop in Inverness, North West Outdoors in Ullapool, Tiso in Inverness, Craigdon Mountain Sports in Inverness and Rua Reidh Lighthouse near Gairloch.
There certainly were a lot of little smiling faces at the end of the prize giving.

Tags: Gairloch, Climbing Wall, Climbing