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Skye The Cuillin, authored by Mike Lates, has just been published by the Scottish Mountaineering Club. Mike competed at the first round of the Scottish Tooling Series and donated a copy of his new book to us to use as a prize! We asked Pete Hill to take a look over the latest addition to the excellent SMC guidebooks.
This is a welcome and timely update to the SMC’s large list of Scottish climbing guides. Covering summer and winter routes, the guide covers all the obvious areas in the Cuillin, along with a number of outlying areas that may give better climbing when the main routes are not an option.
The action photographs are in colour and inspirational, the very clear topo photographs, also in colour, are well laid out and are aspirational. There are plenty of both types of photograph from beginning to end, they are well positioned and do the text justice. One of my favourites is on page 11, a classic picture by Ashley Abraham from 1906 showing Henry Harland and Alfred Binns on Waterpipe Gully, VS.
Following the very in-depth and well researched history section, a few general notes then lead on to the climbing. The text is in the standard format, and each section has an introductory paragraph or three that describes the style of climbing, followed by useful information about the best approaches to the various areas. As far as the mix of routes is concerned, I had no idea that certain corries held so many lines, nor that so many buttresses existed in tucked-out-of-the-way places, and I can see that a large part of my next visit will be taken up matching the topos with what’s around me, accompanies by lots of pointing and ‘ooo’ noises.
Mike has done a sterling job with this book and the finished product will enthuse and educate many of us for years to come. Highly recommended.
Fiona Murry and Ellen Barber dominated their respective classes at last years Scottish Tooling Series in the last profile article we look at the two leading ladies!
Fiona Murray is a very strong winter climber and on this sort of terrain is certainly the country’s best female. With at least 4 M10s under her belt.
In 2005 Fiona and Dave Brown of (hot Aches) both had time on their hands due to changes in work circumstances and headed out to Canada to play on some of the cutting edge mixed routes. The results of the trip were documented in the Hot aches Film “All Mixed up in the Canadian Rockies”
ll Mixed Up – In The Canadian Rockies
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Fiona Murray on Caveman M10- Hoarhouse Cave, Canada (2005)
In 2006 Fiona succeeded on Fast and & Furious first female ascent and competed in the Ice World Cup!.
In last year’s Scottish Tooling series Fiona was a dominant force from start to finish. Fiona has recently re-located to the Aviemore area and is looking forward to making good use of her proximity to the mountains!
Fiona competing in the Ice World Cup 2006
Fiona competing in the Ice World Cup 2006
Ellen Barber – ROCK CLIMBER FOR EVER!
Youth Climbing Series 2009
Ellen Barber is one of The Extreme dream Dream team climbers and although the junior girls is the smallest contested category in the series Ellen always excels in both qualifying and in her displays in the finals.
Ellen has been competing in all of this years events and continues to dominate at the head of the leaderboard!
You can follow Ellen’s blog here
Stevie Addison is no stranger to dry tooling.
Any big trips during this year?
Not really went to Italy and Switzerland at the start of the year for the Ice world Cup!!
Did your indoor tooling last year spur you to any outdoor routes?
I really wanted to do Too Fast Too Furious but had no time to get down to try it.
Have you done any specific training for the comps?
Just in my shed doing laps on wooden blocks
Sum up your experience of winning the series last year in one sentence!
Amazing and totally psyched me on for this years comp
Stevie you competed in the ICE world cup in 2008 and 2009 what did you take from the ice world cup experience?
That I need to work on climbing in crampons and practice climbing really long moves on bad holds and on ice.
The experience was great in both Val Daone and Saas-Fee with so many top climbers from around the world.
You can keep track of Stevie on his blog
Following the dust settling at Avertical world the focus now turns to the next round of the tooling series at EICA Edinburgh.
However we should no move on without thanking the all involved with the first round of the event at Avertical World.
Avertical staff created a great set of problems which gave real challenges to everyone involved and a Adult final route that was exciting to watch and interesting to climb!
The staff have a hugely busy day coping with 50 people wielding sharp metal objects while still finding time to keep us hydrated and explain all the problems to those of us who don’t bother reading the problem sheets!
The team will be busy creating problems for their winter Bouldering series staring on the 23rd of November so make sure to make a note in your diary!
AVERTICAL WORLD – UP AND COMING COMPETITIONS 09 /10
Our Autumn – Winter Boulder Comp Series
23rd October, 20th November, 22nd January, 26th February.
The Series moves to EICA ratho next on the 24th of October and if the rumours are true will feature a final route on the articulated competition wall.
Mark Mosgrove was the Adult Male series winner of the 2008 Scottish Tooling Series with 2nd place in no less than three of the five competitions.
I remember talking to mark before the Final of the first event of 2008 at avertical world with some experianced climbers in the holding area for the finalists.
“Ive never been in a climbing competition in my
life before let alone the final”
Mark attended all five events and remained in the top end of the results thoughout the competition a worthy series winner!
What have you been up to since winning last years series?
After the tooling comps I got out into the hills a few times and got some routes done before heading off to Canada for the whole of February. Spent a week boarding in Whistler before a bit of an epic drive to the Rockies and our hostel in Canmore. Spent the next three weeks climbing ice and mixed routes with the highlights being Polar Circus – a 500m WI5 ice route where each pitch is harder than the one before with the final pitch putting you in an outrageous position. The other standout route was Red Man Soars which was only a 2 pitch M5 but it had a real Scottish feel to it. It was trad protected, the snow was coming down pretty heavily and it actually had a walk-in!
Polar Circus WI5
Have you been training hard for the 2009 Series?
Up until recently I wasn’t sure if I was going to enter the Dundee Comp or any of them for that matter. I haven’t done any real training for it but a guy at work who’s mega keen and only did one round last year has convinced me it’s a good idea so i’m off to go and get my file out and do a few laps on my board before Saturday. Apart from that i’ll be crossing my fingers and maybe lay off the beers on Friday…
Sum up your experience of Winning the series last year?
I can sum up my experience of winning the title last year in one word – unexpected! In a sentence it might be “Cracking banter and completely unexpected!”
