No Rain??

With a decent forecast it was time to get out and make the most of it over the weekend.On Friday Michelle took me for my first paddle, 26k down a river near Beauly. It was good to try a different sport and see the area from a different perspective.

View from the kayak

In the gorge near the end of the day

After paddling it was a busy drive back to the Fort through holiday traffic and home to have a BBQ, cool way to end the day!

Johann, Suzy, Kieran, Sarah and myself before copious amounts of alcohol were consumed!!

Rested up for most of Saturday between hangover, the heat and left hand being sore from paddling then went up the Glen to check out a line. Sitting up there chilling out on my own is a great way to relax and get focused.

On Sunday it was up onto Tower Ridge with Craig. The only other people on the North Face were a party on Observatory Ridge and a worried soloist who caught us at Tower Gap and we roped across.

Quick piece break before heading to the Eastern Traverse

Craig scoping the Gap before the soloist appeared

After we got down the weather was still holding so it was up to Sheepfank Wall to get on the E3 I was psyched for. Suzy was keen to come up and get some pictures. I had tried this route before but couldn't get my left thumb to hold the crux in the heat. Last night was cooler and with a breeze to keep the midges at bay it was perfect.

Approaching the hard sequence - Pic - Suzy Devey

It was good to get back on a fairly bold route to make sure my mind hadn't been affected by falling last week. In a strange way I feel more comfortable since it happened. I do not know why this is. My left foot slipped at one point but I felt no worry and simply climbed on like it hadn't happened which is good for my head.

In the middle of the crux - Pic - Suzy devey

Another Tumble

Having been up the Glen scouting for routes with Suzy the other day I'm still mega keen on finding projects to work at here so when Dave called yesterday to see if I fancied a blast to Polldubh to have a go at some stuff I thought it was a good idea. We headed up in the afternoon, Dave onsighted Black Friday then we went to Road Buttress to have a look around. After finding a relatively dry route I proceeded to try it while on 3 'bomber' cams. I rested with my feet at around 10ft (maximum) when suddenly the first 2 cams ripped, that familiar and horrendous noise of ripping gear, the feeling of plummeting, enough time to wonder if the next cam will hold, realising it hasn't, the stomach churning noise as I hit the ground in a lying down position, the pain of being winded, then turning and in what must have been a split second seeing Daves legs in the air (knew there was something wrong at that point) and the rope speeding away, grab the rope, Dave runs up to check I'm okay, we laugh a lot, me because I'm glad I'm not badly injured, Dave probably because he's glad he doesn't need to carry me out the Glen ,again.

Stunning sky on the descent from the Ben

I got home around 5 and decided I was fine to carry on with my plan of meeting Johann and heading up the Ben. We battered up to Castle Ridge at a fair old pace and did the supposedly more interesting start, not one I'd recommend, on the way down I started to feel a bit iffy but simply put it down to an adrenalin come down. Got up feeling really ill this morning and spent most of my day in A&E, the outcome being I have concussion, few days off then I had better get back to it as I cannot afford to be scared in the build up to Tolerance!!