July 2011 - Walking/Climbing - Ben Nevis

Skimming stones behind the CC hut

This trip was many things to me. It was the highest Munro, not to mention the highest mountain in the UK (Ben Nevis); it was a route that has been on my wishlist for ages not least because it counts as a through route, i.e. going through a fully enclosed hole (Tower Ridge); it was the neighbouring Munro that I'd wanted to do since I saw its aesthetic profile when I stood on top of Aonach Mor in winter a few years ago (Carn Mor Dearg arete), it was a trip with two friends I no longer see as often as I'd like to, and it was another step closer in achieving my aim of ticking all the Munros before I'm 40. Simon and Claire arrived at mine on the Friday evening, and we enjoyed some of my home-made alcohol beverages and discussed the route. On Saturday morning I attempted to prep us for the long drive with butcher's bacon and home-made tiger bread, then we began the drive up to Fort William. We arrived at a reasonable time, did a bit of shopping, moved up to the hut at Roy Bridge, Si and Claire whipped us up a tasty curry, then we had a wander along the river, and were in bed by 9 without getting too badly devoured by midges.

Things had gone well so far, but that was the easy bit. Sunday morning started early, but inauspiciously. We woke just after 5, and got to the Nevis Range ski centre car park to find I'd left my hiking socks in the hut. Secondly, we had the Climbers' Club key for the forest gate and higher car park, but according to a chap in the hut the foresty commission had changed the locks the previous week without letting the Climbers' Cub know, and on top of that we couldn't even get to the gate to check as we found there was a motorbike world championships being held in the Leanachan forest and their fences in the car park were blocking access to the forest track. Thirdly, while we were considering these problems some night security came over and told us only event VIPs could park in the car park, although as it was so early there were no staff there that knew where we *could* park. Also, despite the weather having been nice all week by all accounts, today the forecast was for showers and low cloud, and sure enough it was pretty overcast with a certain amount of dampness in the air. Nevertheless, none of these things were enough to cause us to change our plans, so we went back to the hut for me to pick up some more socks (I later found the others had rolled under the bed), and parked in the North Face car park instead. We began our walk in at 7 to 7, at first steeply through the forest then a more relaxed ascent up the banks of the Allt a' Mhuilinn to the CIC hut (altitude 680m), which we reached after an hour an a half. It was a little surreal to pass a 'digging in progress' sign along with two wheelbarrows and the digger itself under the cliffs of Ben Nevis 5km from the road, but it seems they are improving the path by the hut. Another half an hour later and we were at the start of the route.

We decided to miss out the Douglas boulder to save time, and went round the back via East Gully instead. I went first, and followed a little path which first went up easy grass and rock, and then steepened up a loose, muddy scree gully. I steadily picked my way up not yet sure of the friction on this terrain, at times having to bridge on holds that weren't quite big enough to inspire confidence in big boots, and holding onto rock that was clearly not well attached. I found it unpleasantly loose and was fervently hoping the rest of the route would not be like this. This gully took us to the Douglas gap, from which an open chimney left up onto the ridge proper. Claire took over here and carefully explored the holds and made progress up to safety. Thankfully the rock here was much more solid, but this meant we had to start from scratch 'finding our feet'. It was pretty steep, and I was glad that Claire could remember the moves she'd just made and pass the knowledge on to me to aid my upwards progress. We didn't get a rope out, but made a mental note not to feel ashamed to request one if we met another such obstable.

North Face of Ben Nevis

The information we had with us said that the next section was easy going, and indeed it was, and we made fairly rapid progress. Claire carried on picking the way upwards, and at some point I took over being in front. The scrambling was luxurious and despite the complete lack of views due to the lowe cloud I was really enjoying the gorilla like movement over the rock now. We kept our eye out for the Little Tower, which one description said was inconspicuous but another had some advice on how to tackle. We reach a little steeping that may have been it, but couldn't work out the advised approach of starting on the left and trending right up an awkward ramp to a corner, so instead took it straight on which was given as an alternative, since this way seemed worn and was marked with crampon scratches. I decided to be brave and stay in the lead, despite my climbing skills have falled into disuse, and although a little harder than the previous section it was never hard or scary and still fun.

This easy section of the ridge seemed to go on forwever, but after eventually we reached an area where the crampon scratches ran out, and there were several options, none of which seeming that likely. The left hand flank seemed most amenable so I tried a couple of grooves but although each led up a little, the slab above them looked like it would repel further progress. Claire retreated a metre or two and found a stepped groove that I'd missed, so we went up that. Then came an akward bit on a par with the earlier chimney, and decided that this was probably the Little Tower, as a ramp led righwards. Claire teetered across it, and gave us some feedback, before pulling stylishly over a steep block onto easier ground again. I approached the ramp in a different way, staying lower so that I was more in balance and not pushed backwards by my rucksack. That bit was okay, but I didn't like the feel of the move over the block so remembered my previous mental note about gear, and got Claire to pass me down a couple of slings that I attached to myself for safety for that one move, which I then made much more happily. I'm well aware that slings don't have any 'give' and if you fall on them you can generate a lot of force, both on your body and on the sling and rock, but in this situation the speed advantage overweighed all that, all that was needed was a little backup.

We carried on on more easier ground, until we reach the unmistakeable Great Tower, a vertical wall which could have been climbed but was of a quite different level of difficulty to the route so far. We had been expecting to summit the Great Tower direct since the route description had said to climb to its 'very ramparts', but reading further we realised that we were already at the ramparts, and it was here that the Eastern Traverse led off to the left to avoid this difficulty. Claire spotted the traverse and it was reassuringly wide, albeit in a fantastic position on the edge of the cliff and I'm sure it would be vertigo-inducing for many. At about this point some eerie whoops and cheers reached us through the mist, other people on the mountain somewhere, and we whooped back. The Eastern Traverse led us straight to the tunnel, which was my 'through route' section, and I dived eagerly ahead to thrutch myself up the inside of the fallen block and out of the hole at the top. It wasn't greasy as one description had warned, just fabulous. With the other two still engaged in this bit, I explored the next section which was described as steep with good holds. Steep it was, climbing the broken left wall of the Great Tower with triangular blocks jutting out so your body was always pushed outwards even if your hands and feet were in the niches above and below. It was reasonably okay though, no need for a rope although I did thread a sling through a hole and attach it to myself while I figured out the steepest move, and then all three of us were at the cairn on the tower.

We knew we were nearing the summit now, but still had to face the infamous Tower Gap, and were feeling a little jittery at the prospect. We first paused off the back of the Great Tower for a replenishing snack, then it was Simon's turn to be the intrepid explorer at the front so we sent him off across the next obstacle - between the Great Tower and Tower Gap the ridge narrows into a metre wide gendarme with vertical sides dropping into gullies that lead down to the coire floors. This bit in itself is particularly memorable, carefully sliding on your bum over the gendarme which a kind of rock gangway, the exposure from the sheer drops each side causing you to shrink down onto the rock and pray for high friction to hold you there. Simon investigated Tower Gap at the end of the ledge while Claire and I waited on it, enjoying the situation at the same time as trying not to think about it too much. There was already a rope in situ so Si clipped in to it, but there was a bit of a delay before he actually descended. From my vantage point I coudn't see what was going on, I just knew I was getting a little chilly and also a little damp as it had started to drizzle, but when I arrived I saw that someone had tied a knot in the rope to bring the two strands together. This knot was half way down the gap, so the rope wasn't actually much use as an abseil rope until you'd actually managed to lower yourself down to the bottom of the gap. Simon threw himself valiantly down it, and climbed skillfully up the other side, using the ab rope as protection although the higher he got the more horizontal it became - thankfully the difficulty eased with the height. Claire followed, then me, and I accepted the rope Si threw over to me, so I had direct assistance from above. Then we stowed the gear for the final section.

The refuge at the summit

The ramp leading away from Tower Gap was much easier than it looked from below although Claire wasn't keen on one of the moves - we were all a bit wobbly after the pause and confusion of Tower Gap and the odd rope work. Even after climbing up the other side I was worrying about the bit in the description noted as a 'final steepening' with no mention as to whether it was hard or easy. As it turned out it was barely noticeable, and suddenly we found ourselves standing on the summit plateau, an unexpected situation after being so absorbed by the route for so long. The mist still brought visibility down to around a hundred metres, but we could hear all manner of noises up ahead. Captivated, I gingerly stalked onwards while the other two sorted something out behind me, until the view cleared a little and I could see ghostly figures passing in either direction in front of me - we had reached the tourist path leading up from the right to the summit on the left, and there was a steady flow of people ascending by that route. In no time at all we'd joined the masses and covered the last couple of hundred metres across the plateau to the summit, and were standing there amist the sodden walkers and climbers, the ruins of the observatory, a war memorial, a trig point, a wooden roofed steel-box refuge, and a number of cairns, each artefact appearing out of the mist as the other faded in to it.

It was the first time up here for all three of us and we sat and had some food and drink. We'd made good time, 2 hours for the walk in and 5 hours on the route, and it was now 2pm, meaning we had time to descend by the CMD arete as planned.

We set off on a bearing, but then I made a brief error and led us over to the wrong shoulder, forgetting there were two. I soon realised my mistake and we backtracked 100 yards or so and found the path down the correct shoulder. We zig zagged down steeply for a good way, and had our moment of vindication when we found a levelling along with the the pole marking the escape route down Coire Leis, showing we were in the right place. There was also a feature that looked like a large rock chalice, which turned out to be a series of abseil posts, marking another descent option. Our route carried on ahead, with the flanks steepening again into the CMD arete. We followed the path along the back of it instead of scrambling along the crest, for speed's sake and because we'd already put in a good deal of toil on the way up so didn't need the extra difficulty at this point. There were still no views, and the rain that had started at Tower Gap had not stopped, so we were plodding along in waterproofs. It was a little disheartening having to walk with poor weather and no visual rewards, but at least it had held off while we were climbing. I personally was still enjoying the terrain, and imagining what a stunning situation it must be on a good day. The ridge curved round to the North and it didn't seem too long until we were only 1km from the summit of Carn Mor Dearg, and then 200m. Then a short hop along to the subsiduary top, then all that was left was the epically long path that descended mercilessly slowly to the Allt a' Mhuilinn.

We'd expected to descend fairly steeply back down to the valley floor, but the path we picked up seemed to be heading in pretty much the correct direction albeit staying high, so we followed it deciding it would be quicker than going off track. At points we thought it would never descend nor converge with the Allt a' Mhuillin path, but eventually we saw over a rib and were reassured that it would. As we came down out of the clouds we started to get a couple of views. Unfortunately by this point Tower Ridge was out of sight, but we saw the western part of the North Face, and round to Lochan Meall an t'Suidhe and beyond to Loch Linnhe. The rain stopped too, meaning we could take off our waterproofs, which was good as it was getting steadily warmer the lower we got. There was also a brilliant moment where I observed that we hadn't seen much wildlife except for the odd little brown bird, and added that I nearly always see Ptarmigan on Scottish hills… then as if by magic, just as we passed a bump on the path we stumbled over the largest flock of them I've ever seen, and they ran around for a bit before flying away, flashing white under their camouflaged grey backs. We saw some deer in the distance too, the other essential tick.



When we finally reached the Allt a' Mhuillin we wished we were still up on the flanks as it was pretty midgy, but thankfully that didn't last too long as it started drizzling again which kept them away - we weren't complaining this time. The path back along the river then through the forest began to drag, our feet were aching and our knees were sore. We didn't quite make it within 12 hours, but we reached the car at 7 past 7 having left at 7 to 7, and 12:15 isn't bad at all for such a long day out: 14km and 1480m total ascent with a fair amount of scrambling. The question is whether to go back and do it again on a fairer day, there are so many other Munros still to do but I think it would be worth it!

June 2011 - Walking/Climbing - Skye and the Cuillin

(The full set of photos accompanying this report can be found here - https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150304811000498.379331.618910497&l=5a9656f7d1)

The hardest Munro is said to be the Inn Pin (Innacessible Pinnacle) as it requires a rock climb to get to the summit, and on top of that it is part of the Cuillin Ridge on Skye which is fairly continuous scrambling over 12km and often done in one or two long days, so I was keen to get there this year before I forgot how to climb. The best time to go is in May or June when the snow has melted but the midges haven't yet descended en masse, however my planned trip fell through and nobody else could take a week off at short notice. Then I received an unexpected message from a friend who was on shore leave for a couple of weeks and interested in a little Munro bagging or climbing, and suddenly the trip was on.

We liaised over facebook chat, working out what to take and researching the route. We would head to Skye on Monday 20th June, staying until Sunday 26th at the latest and hoping for a weather window. I had already planned to go Munro bagging with a different partner the weekend before, so arranged to stay with some friends in Glasgow on the Sunday night to save coming all the way home inbetween, and enlisted a neighbour to look after the chickens.

The typical weather on the first day

The first weekend didn't start well, driving for ages down winding, damp Glen Orchy with Paul looking for a suitable spot to hang his tarp and me desperate to just put my head down in the passenger seat and catch up on some sleep. When we finally stopped, spent a while settling down, and curled up in our respective spots, the camper vans next to us started pumping out repetitive techno music. I tried to ignore it. I really tried, and every time I went to do something about it (move myself, move the car, ask them to turn it down) it seemed quieter and bearable so I'd lie down again, and then once again it would take over my entire brain and pervade the world around me - boom, beep, boom, beep. So eventually I got out of the car in my t-shirt and shorts and wandered over to Paul's bivvy to see if it was queiter over there, it was a little so I resolved to get my tent, then I was suddenly aware of a toxic, needling pain all the way up my legs and realised there were midges everywhere. I ran back to the car with Paul's keys saying I'd return them shortly, but when I reached the safety of the car, sobbing and scratching, I knew I wasn't getting out of there for a second time. It would be like willingly leaving the trenches into enemy lines without any kind of fire power. So I sat in the car in self-pity, feeling doomed to a sleepless night that would impact on my energy on the hills, then was overjoyed when Paul appeared at the window and said we'd move down the road. We found a non-boggy layby and I dosed up on anti-histamines, and finally at 1am I went to sleep, peacefully and deeply. Saturday started a little ominously with the initial path peppered with cows, but things steadily improved. The weather took a while to catch on, and it rained all day, but that couldn't take away from my elation that my knees weren't hurting one bit on the downhills, they've been improving more and more over the last year, and the steady plod up and down hills was blowing away the cobwebs that had accumulated since my last Scottish trip at Easter. We did 3 Munros on Rannoch Moor - Beainn a'Chreachain, Beinn Achaladair and Beinn Mhanach - gaining barely a single view through the cloud, but we struck up a steady conversation of shared experiences and for me the day passed without drudgery. In order to bag an extra 'top' I half deliberately mistook a county boundary for a footpath and dragged us directly up Beinn a'Chuirn for a bit of added interest. We were rather sodden by the end and grass-skiing all over the place in our soaked-through boots, but the impacts of that were lessened by adjusting our original plans to camp for the night and booking into the last available beds in the backpackers hostel in Tyndrum, which has a reasonably effective drying room.

Winding path of Ben More

Sunday was a better day, some low cloud but no rain, and we ticked off Ben More and Stob Binnein, near Crianlarich. The descent was quite steep, boggy steps round the side of the hill, and I wrenched my knee a little, so had to engage in a little wrong-way-round-traversing trickery to stop it getting any worse, which seemed to work, but apart from that it went mostly smoothly. We even got a couple of views. It had served as a good warm up for the impending week on Skye, I didn't tire myself out too much and the skin on my still-recovering toes held up fairly well. We'd had a late start as I'd left my gaiters in the drying room, and a later finish as it took longer than we'd anticipated (it's quite a slog up Ben More, although thankfully I like uphill slogs), but I made it to Glasgow in time for tea, shower and bed.

After a leisurely morning of sleeping and shopping, James met me in Glasgow and we headed on up to Skye, with a couple of photo stops on route to stretch the legs. We made it to the north end of the island a bit before sunset and walked into a little bothy where we planned to stay for the night, a converted coastguard lookout with a fantastic view over the lower headland and the Outer Hebrides. The bothy came with a grumpy Scot in situ, but he soon left with displeasure at the disturbance on his peace and quiet, and we settled down in our own peace and quiet, with a book, the view and a whisky.

Old man of Storr

The next two days were spent doing a little touristing as we needed Tuesday to recover and the forecast for the wednesday looked dubious. We visited the Kilt Rock viewpoint, the brewery shop, the Talisker distillery and the fairy pools beauty spot. Wednesday was actually a nicer day than anticipated which boded well for the route being dry. Unfortunately the forecast for Thursday had moved in the other direction according to metoffice, saying hail and a risk of lightning, but the other forecasts still said it would be fair, so we had an early dinner and an early night as planned. We squeeze into one tent as mine was packed for the ridge, and when I took it down I found a perplexed mouse underneath it wondering where his house had just vanished to, been after my food no doubt. Added to the Eider ducks in the bay and the corncrake we could hear in the neighbouring field the campsite was quite a good setting for wildlife.

James on the approach to Sgurr nan Eag (right) and Gars-bheinn (in distance)

At 4:45 am Thursday morning we were breakfasted, packed and ready to begin. James had been ready an hour before with his watch still set on French time and was a little miffed that I was still snoozing, until he realised his mistake. There are a couple of ways you can begin the ridge - either by boat from Elgol (not practical at that time in the morning), or from Glen Brittle, either traversing round the base of Gars-bheinn (the start of the ridge) and ascending it direct, or walking up past Loch Coir' a' Chrunnda to a col mid-ridge, dumping bags, and backtracking to knock off Gars-bheinn and Sgurr nan Eag (the first Munro on the ridge). We opted to do the latter, as it meant you can fill up your water bottles in the loch at the top and do the majority of the ascent with lighter packs. I normally drink more on the walk in than throughout the day, so took half a litre of squash in my platypus and managed to time it perfectly so I'd just finished supping away when we reached the loch. With an extra 3kg of water our packs were significantly heavier but at least we were only one final slope before the ridge. I think there's a definite line between my bag feeling 'light' or 'heavy' and it was definitely now the wrong side of it, but on the plus side it would only get lighter as the trip went on. The path we could see zigzaging up the scree looked to go up the wrong side of the coire ending too far along the ridge meaning more to backtrack (and ascend), but we followed it anyway and it did somehow lead in the desired direction, although we seemed to end up a little too high if anything. At the ridge proper we wedged the bags behind a rock and scampered over Sgurr nan Eag and on to Gars-bheinn, occasionally stopping for a photo or two. It's quite a long way, but the going is easy (even easier if you stick to the ridge rather than trying to take the runner's detour round the side of Sgurr a'Choire Bhig) and where there isn't an obvious path you can choose anywhere to walk. We got to Gars-beinn just after 9am, a little after the recommended time of 8:15 (and that's for slow people), but those times were for a speed 1-day ascent, and we were carrying big packs.

Death approach to Sgurr Dubh Mor that wasn't death

We returned to our packs and continued North East to take in Sgurr Dubh Mor which isn't quite on the ridge but is the second Munro. It was very difficult to continue with our previous sure-footed rhythm due to our heavy packs (12kg+) playing havoc with our knee strength and inertia, but we continued as fast as we could hoping we'd get used to the weight. The way to Sgurr Dubh Mor looked from afar to be a bit of a death trap, with scree ramps followed by a loose gully, but everything was reassuringly solid. That was one of my overriding memories of the ridge: the rock (in the majority) has amazing friction, there's nearly always something good to hold on to, and the loose boulders seem to be securely wedged, even at impressively steep angles. That did a lot to reduce any impact of the exposure - there were only two places on the rige where I felt at all exposed, when the drop was sheer, the rest of the time I didn't fret about my position at all, there were gradual slopes beneath you and it was just a fantastic place to be and afforded unobstructed views. And views there were, the cloud base was about ridge-level and lifed slightly as it reached the summits too, so we could see clearly down to the valley floor, with the various islands to the wets and the azure waters and sailing boats in Loch Coruisk to the South East. I'm not a religuous person but I was actually praying that the weather held, and promised that I would do all manner of good deeds in return.

We left our packs on the ridge again for the final interesting scramble up Sgurr Dubh Mor, which had a couple of tricky moves that would have been hard to reverse, had we not found an easy way back down again. Then on to the TD gap, the bridge between us and Sgurr Alasdair. Just before this there is the first of the aforementioned exposed sections (the second being the Inn Pin, and the drop off to the right hand side), a few metres of vertical scrambling up to the belay spot. James tentatively climbed up this, declared it not as bad as it looked, but dropped me a rope which I tied round my wait so I didn't have to fret about plummeting to my death. It was actually quite straighforward although I'd still like a rope if I did it again.

TD Gap

At this point it was 2pm, only 2 hours behind the 1-day schedule, although I think that time is actually for the far side of the TD gap rather than the near side, so we would have been further behind still. However, following that timescale we would have made camp at 5pm, and it was light until gone 11, so we weren't too fussed about sticking to it, just useful as a guideline. The TD gap is one place where you can lose time getting stuck in a queue, and sure enough there were a few parties strung out at various places on the far side of it, moving upwards. However by the time we'd faffed about abseiling in to the gap, shivering in the mist and drizzle which had picked an inopportune moment to descend (there vanished my promises to the man-up-there), they were off and away. In the deteriorating conditions I lost my confidence, and we made a little faff of climbed on the two big boulders that sit in the gap, in order to reach the start of the rock climb. James found the easy way up, and we roped up for it, attached ourselves safely into the proper belay stance, then James set off up the climb. He had been a little nervous as the rock here was smoother and lacked the friction we had enjoyed on the rest of the ridge plus he was wearing approach shoes rather than rock shoes, but at least he could leave his pack with me and haul it up after, and in actual fact he climbed it pretty quickly, finding it a lot nicer than he anticipated. I enjoyed it too, not least because the clouds lifted just before I started. I had a hiking boot on my right foot and a rock shoe on my left foot, I couldn't be bothered to change them both but as it happens I got the pefect combination as my hiking boot wedged nicely in the wide crack at the back of the corner.

The next section was thankfully easy, and downright enjoyable. Sgurr Alasdair was a quick hop up an obvious scramble next to a bealach where we'd paused for a snack. Thearlaich was a little perplexing as the guide we were following doesn't tell you how to get up or down it so we made up our own route, retracing our steps a little until we could find a way to scramble up, and carefully scrambled off the back too, James ahead picking a viable descent. The other parties seemed to climb it directly as a rock pitch, and possibly abseiled off the back of it.

Collie's Ledge

We crossed rapidly on to Mhic Choinnic, and the location of King's Chimney (VDiff). It isn't actually necessary to climb this so to save time we opted for the alternative of Collie's Ledge and I'm glad we did, it was my highlight of the ridge. It's an exposed traverse round the side of the mountain, with a completely smooth, flat, natural, jagged edge ledge for your feet, and always good, high-friction handholds. It takes you a little past the summit, so we deposited packs again somewhere they wouldn't roll off, and scampered up and back - Munro number 4! (Although we thought it was no. 5 at the time, forgetting that Thearlaich wasn't one).

It struck me at some point that when you are in a situation where you know you don't really have options and know you just have to keep going, you don't really question your morale or choices, you just get on with it. As a result of this I wasn't really sure how much I was enjoying myself as I was ignoring the usual questions that tumble around in my mind, such as whether I wanted to be there still or how my morale was holding up or if I was tired, just in case the answers were undesirable, I could go over all that once I was safely back at the campsite. This led to a rather remote enjoyment of the experience, for the first day at least. A restrained mind is not bad though, it keeps excitement and fear in check. The first time you take on the challenge of the Cuillin ridge it's a massive unknown, each section could be tricky and there are so many of them that if you let the anticipation of each one get the better of you the effect would compound and you'd be a shaking wreck. I knew that I could quite easily be nervous about various sections if I wanted to, but instead I was wearing a matter-of-fact cloak, and I'd just take each challenge as I got to it, as there was no way of knowing how it would turn out when until I got there. I first realised I was doing this on the traverse to Sgurr Dubh Mor, as the scree looked horrible but I didn't panic, and when we got there it was actually completely fine. This made me aware that it was actually a good way to tackle things, and although doing it unconsciously I knew that this approach stood me in good stead for the rest of the challenges, made them pass in a kind of oblivion.

An Stac (lump in the middle), the brown ramp round it, and the Inn Pin (high fin)

We had been wearing our harnesses since the TD Gap, and had drunk over 1/4 of our water, but we were still tiring a little by now. We were no longer looking at the clock, just making progress as our bodies and minds would allow. Looking on there were two options - the towering bastion of An Stac, which was described as a Mod rock climb, like a taller version of the Inn Pin and just beneath it, or a brown, slippery-looking ramp round its left hand side - neither of which looked that appealing. We continued scrambling onwards until the moment that we had to make a choice, James had been keeping a good eye ahead on where the parties ahead of us had gone, so knew the decision point. Studying the options myself, I was drawn to the sight of immensely steep scree slopes leading from the side of An Stac right down to the valley floor, and commented that my worst nightmare would be to end up on something like that - and then my jaw dropped to the floor when I spotted tiny ant like people happily ascending and descending it. That both reassured me, as it obviously wasn't suicidal as I thought, and terrified me lest I had to partake in a similar experience on a later descent. This discovery didn't help me to come up with a preferred onwards route as on the one hand An Stac looked taxing - from this distance it was hard to tell whether it was more akin to scrambling or climbing and the party in situ were pitching it suggesting the latter - but on the other hand the brown ramp involved walking across the top of the scree and the person in front to do that had sent a portion of it clattering far, far down the slope (thankfully not following it himself). The brown ramp would save time, but miss out a notable section of the ridge. This latter catechism led to our decision - we knew that it is advisable to take time-saving bypasses, and considering that I was there to bag the Munros it wasn't the end of the world if I missed out a non-munro pinnacle, even if it was a notable one. Furthermore, I had mis-remembered the notes as saying that this bypass 'gives the legs a rest if not the brain' so I thought that might mean it was loose and scary, but James reminded me that it had said that the bypass 'gives the brain a rest if not the legs', so bypass we did. It was actually okay, a wide, featured slab, easy angled enough that you didn't feel that you were going to slip down it, but steep enough that you had to scamper up it on all fours.

James on the Inn Pin

The rock here was interesting, rounded brown lumps held in by a kind of natural mortar that was flaking away in places leaving large brown pebbles scattered about. You could ascend it anywhere, although I stayed towards the right-hand side where the rock was more featured and the exposure was less - I'm more confident on slabs than I used to me but they're still my weakest area. Despite the fairly trivial terrain, the slope was relentless, partly because the angle lent it to a speedy ascent and no resting. Nearing the top, which pops you out right at the base of the Inn Pin it started to rain again. I increased my speed lest it get treacherous - it did get slippery, but we made the step rightwards before it got scary. Then we were standing on a big flat ledge, with a few other people, staring at the dramatic fin of the Inn Pin - like a small, more defined version of An Stac, but higher, and this time compulsory in order to tick the 5th Munro. The rain wasn't giving up so we pulled on waterproofs and sat there glumly with moments of enthusiastic conversation while we waited for the other group to climb the route. The rain abated before James started climbing, but of course picked up again as soon as I came to second it. James made short work of both pitches, despite wearing boots and a rucksack it is only a Mod. I decided I couldn't be bothered to put my rockboots on despite carrying them with me claiming I'd find them essential. After enjoying a rainbow spanning the valley floor, it was my turn to climb. The first pitch was okay, not quite as easy as the scrambling despite James telling me it was, but no dramas. The belay I arrived at was less than ideal, James had draped a couple of slings round spikes as expected but one was too high for me to inspect and the other seemed to lift off at the vaguest touch, so I belayed one handed while clinging desperately to a very good handhold, and using added knee and elbow power when I needed both hands for the rope. On the second pitch, despite the belay above being much better, I was fretting audibly, as the angle had dropped off and I was clambering horizontally along the tip of the ridge, the left-hand side ending at the ledge we'd been on but the right side was fairly sheer for a long way down and had I fallen off I would have struggled to find any purchase on the rock and would have been dangling there, further inhibited by my pack. So despite the moves being easy, each one felt serious. I made gratuitous use of my knees as it meant I could take smaller steps and keep my centre of gravity lower, and so remain in balance. Due to the rain I didn't enjoy it as I had the TD Gap, and I was very thankful to reach the abseil chain and make myself safe. The abseil was exposed but didn't bother me, I was on a rope and going back down! We promptly packed up the gear, walked up a short continuation ramp and hopped over the back of the perpendicular ridge line to have a sit down, and discuss another choice we had to make - what to do next.

The Inn Pin had been particularly time consuming and suddenly it was 7pm, and we had been going for over 14 hours. It didn't feel like a lot, because we knew it would be a long day and you just have to ignore it and keep going, but we had to start to consider that it might be time to stop. Only it didn't look like an ideal place for a tent. Plus we were still three Munros away from the point we had hoped to set up camp. Although we had also hoped to be there by now. Should we carry on? The next section of ridge looked easy, but there was no guarantee we'd find a place to pitch the tent, and on second inspection the location we were at looked like it wasn't that ridiculous. Then again, given that it was still raining and we were feeling a bit disillusioned, perhaps we should descdend all the way down, we still had time? There are plenty of escape route along the ridge, only the one nearest us didn't sound particularly nice in the wet. It was like a tombola, each option we came up with sounded equally likely, and the final decision was a likely to happen purely by which one the conversation ended on. Neither of us had a strong opinion either way, I don't think either of us knew what we wanted to do, for me my decision making mechanisms were fixed in 'don't think, just get on with it' mode, so we were almost communicating via telepathy. We decided to stay put, and try to pitch the tent here. We knew we wouldn't complete the whole ridge in one more day, so we agreed to see what the weather was doing in the morning, and have an easy day, ideally do at least 3 more Munros, meaning we'd have competed the entire western portion of the ridge.

Bivvy spot on the back of Sgurr Dearg

From a certain way along the ridge, there are pre-built bivvy spots, semi-circles of stones to shelter behind in a bivvy bag. One of these off the back of An Stac seemed to be wider than the others and floored with fine gravel, and wasn't on a scary angled sloped, so while the rain surrealy turned into snow, softly plopping around us, we popped the tent up, weighing down the pegs with rocks and tying some of the guy ropes on to other rocks, then piled up our damp kit in the porch. Sitting inside the tent it was obvious it hadn't quite gained the structure it should have, but it was warm and somewhat steamy, and dry. Neither of us were hungry but we knew it would be silly not to eat so James tucked into his Jamaica loaf and I my yummy and squidgy banana soreen, followed by a few swigs of Laphroaig quarter cast that James had brought along in his new hip flask, purchased that week in the Talisker distillery. Then, we with got on with the only exciting task remaining - sleeping! It took me a while to drop off, first afraid that the wind, light but gusting, would pull the pegs out of their tenuous placements. Then it rained more, and the sound distracted me further. Eventually though, sleep overcame me.

A good few hours later, well past dawn, I heard James mumbling about getting dripped on, and he got up and went to sit in the sun which was shining with renewed vigour. I was dry and warm so I stayed put, but the disturbance of the tent and the rearrangement of space seemed to anger the fabric, and it desposited a steady stream of water on my head, so I too got up and wandered outside into the dry.

Typical path, descending towards Banachdich

After a relaxed breakfast we packed up our kit and continued along the ridge. First up was a winding scree descent down a fairly broad flank on the outside of the ridge (the ridge forms a curve around a volcanic crater, loch Coruisk is on the inside while Glen Brittle and the Sligachan are on the outside). For most of the ridge James was ahead as he was more sure footed, and even if I started off first there was bound to be a divergance as we picked a different step or two and James would overtake and pass back in front. Sometimes my mind started to numb at taking none of the responsibility of route finding and I'd request that he hang behind me for a while so I could take a turn in the driving seat. This kept the status quo and kept things fair without introducing an uneccessarily precise division of labour. (At the climbing sections I still let James do all the work of course, much faster that was and we both knew it made sense, me having retired my climbing shoes in exchange for Munro ticks). I went ahead here, following scree zig zags downwards and losing height. We had to descend a little to the left of the ridge so that we could then traverse round and reach the bealach between Sgurr Dearg and Banachdich, rather than trying to descend the steep, jagged rocks that are directly on the ridge. The path here became less obvious, perhaps because it's the kind of terrain where a path won't stay put, as this is the only part of the ridge we did that didn't seem so stable. We picked a way around a perpendicular rib and across a wide screen gully, and then thankfully it returned to normal again, with a more obvious track up the scree on the other side and round the back of Banachdich to the true summit.

À cheval on Sgurr a'Ghreadaidh

That section was quickly forgotten as things got more and more enjoyable as they day went on. The next section of the ridge is described in the guide as mind numbling but we didn't find that at all. Thormaid, the sub-peak after Banachdich, had earned a little description in the guide (most of the easy bits were just given as notes on a route map, but the tricky bits were details underneath, Thormaid being one such), but thankfully it was a piece of cake, scrambling straight over then walking down a terrace of sloping ledges. A mixture of flat path then minor scrambling led us round and over the two peaks of the Midget ridge and we were in our element, poles away and scampering along the rock. Then we got ridge fever and obliviously went straight over some pinnacles rather than using the path around the side. I'm glad we did though, a fantastic à cheval position and my second favourite section of the ridge. We relished the two peaks of 'Greedy' (Sgurr a'Ghreadaidh) and the area between them not at all complex despite the guide saying it is, then picked our way across and down a couple of easy scrambly bits towards An Dorus.

Final Munro for us!

An Dorus is a bealach in a notch like an easier version of the TD gap, and the short downclimb to it caused us to stop and scratch our heads momentarily. James went down one way and I paused at the top of another until he came to receive my bag so I could then climb down it in balance. We left our bags on a ledge and set off up our last Munro of the trip, 'Moody' (Sgurr a'Mhaidadh). This was also fantastic fun, more secure scrambling of a 'go anywhere' variety, with blissful hands and footholds. We were up in 15 minutes and down in 10. Inbetween that we sat on the summit for a very long time, just drinking in the views, the peace, and the situation. I knew it made sense to end our adventure, it was quite a distance to the last 3 Munros past the three tops of Mheadaidh and the confusion of Bidein Druim nam Ramh, and here was a practical place to descend as it would bring us back to the road at Glen Brittle youth hostel not too far from the campsite, rather than significantly further along towards the Sligachan end of the ridge... but I had been thoroughly enjoying moving over the rock and didn't want to stop. We satisfied ourselves by taking many photos and scrutinising every aspect of the view, the tiny fin of the Inn Pin in the distance poking into view behind the perpendicular ridge of Sgurr Dearg, our camping spot on the near side of that ridge, Gars Bheinn even more distant still where we had started the ridge, Loch Coruisk, and the three remaining summits with their as yet undiscovered craggy ups and downs. The air was still, and we were in special world, fairly close to civilisation yet entirely separate from it just given the difference in altitude.  Finally we returned to the bags and started off down the An Dorus gully. This gave a couple of easy steps down some rocky ledges, then another zig zag path rapidly losing height down more solid scree. This went on for a fair old while, and eventually took its toll on our legs, and we were thankful for the slackening of angle at the Allt a' Choire Ghreadaidh. Here we shunned the path and wandered along the bank of the river, more cascades and plunge pools akin to the ones we'd photographed at the Fairy Pools two days before. At a more open section we sat and took our boots off and dunked our feet in the ice cold water, trying not to scream out in comical pain at the soothing but intensely cold temperature.

Descent down An Dorus

We were still 2km from the road and this last section, although pretty and reminiscent of an alpine meadow, was agonising. Perhaps due to the heat (losing 700-800m we would have gained 7-8 degrees in temperature) my feet were screaming, which was odd because I hadn't had a single problem with them on the ridge. The blisters on my little toes, although not as bad as they had been a couple of weeks ago, started rubbing noticeable, and my heels kept cramping up and causing me to stop and grimace. I was overjoyed when we met the road, as although still 2.5km from the campsite it meant we could hope to hitch a ride. Unfortunately traffic was sparse, only 1 car passing in 1.5km and they waved apologetically to indicate that they didn't have room. Thankfully a lady and her daughter in the second car stopped to take us the last kilometre back to the campsite and we were so thankful we picked up every hitcher we saw over the last 2 days of our trip.

Celebratory haggis, neeps and tatties in the Sligachan

Back at the car, we relaxed, smiled, sorted kit, then enjoyed a little self pampering - a shower, almost a massage (the showers there are awesomely powerful), hair dried with the free hairdrier, moisturised, cleaned teeth, and clad myself in lovely clean smelling clothes. After that I could almost walk again, and we upped sticks and decamped to the Sligachan, enjoying a 3 course dinner and a couple of posh whiskies, before battling the dense cloud of midgies at the adjacent campsite for a bit, then having an early night and a good sleep.

Saturday dawned misty and damp giving us no inspiration to get up and allowing us a bit more recovery sleep. Then we visited a couple more sites of interest before beginning the long drive home.

Kylerhea ferry, we went to Skye and came back from the 'Isle of Skye'

All in all it was a pretty memorable trip. It holds a bit of an odd place in my memory, as it was organised last minute, didn't follow a strict plan, and didn't feel like a holiday, and we didn't complete the whole ridge, but it was a fantastic experience and didn't leave me wanting, although has left me making virtual plans for the future - return and do the remaining section in a day, and then possibly another trip travelling light, just water and food, doing the whole thing in a day and missing out the climbing section (perhaps asking someone if I could join in on their rope on the Inn Pin). I'm definitely happy with the way we approached it for our first attempt - happy that we didn't hire a guide, despite all other two day parties that we met having hired one, the paper printout was more than sufficient; happy with the gear we took, yes packs were heavy but in order to pre-stash water you have to do another significant day of ascent or descent beforehand, and I wanted the confidence of having overnight kit so we could stop and sleep whenever we wanted. Before I went, I didn't know what to expect, how serious it would feel, how tricky the terrain would be, whether we'd need to do any short roping (we didn't). People can relate their experiences, but words are difficult to hook up to your own impression. I'd read that it is possible to descend from various places along the ridge, and I now know that I'd feel confident doing that, so if I return I can do so with less kit, and just bail out if the weather turns rather than having to be prepared for all eventualities.

November 2008 - Climbing - Red Rocks

Calico Hills, Tiger Stripe Wall

Colin on the First Pullout Approach

The first few days were a bit of a familiarisation exercise.  The first and third days we went into the Calico Hills as it's mostly single pitch (and half of it is bolted for sport climbing).  It's the first bit of rock you hit when you drive round the 13 mile loop road, and faces across to the canyons proper.  The rock on the Calico Hills is in three diagonal bands - one that's pink and swirly, one that's deep red (the Chinle sandstone), and one that's beige (the Aztec sandstone).  The rock here and in the caynon is covered by what they refer to as varnish - a hard, flat, cracked, black coating that provides you with amazing jugs and gear as the sandstone around it erodes leaving plentius jugs.  Sometimes the edge of the varnish is very thin and it feels like it's going to snap, but generally it doesn't (although you sometimes have to be careful).  Underneath, or where the varnish is lacking, the sandstone is a little softer but still has good friction, and is incredibly featured.  You get bands with chicken heads, bands with deep purple dots, bands with red and beige stripes, etc.etc.  Even on areas that look purely beige from a distance, there's still likey to be small varnished holds, and rippled sandstone slabs.

Mount Wilson

 

On the second day we went for an epic popular link up - Johnny Vegas (4 pitches of 5.6) followed by Solar Slab (9? pitches of 5.7).  Despite an early start there was still one party before us which was a little frustrating - they were quick on the climbing, but still gearing up when we arrived.  Johnny Vegas was brilliant, some fantastic varnish features, nice climbing, and never hard.  My fourth favourite route of the trip.  Solar Slab is loooong!  The first pitch was 185 feet, with the first 30m or so being unrotected 5.4 slab.  It was quite straightfoward but required a lot of concentration, so when the gear arrived and there was a crux move, I was quite thrown and it took me a while to figure out the move.  Second pitch was 165ft of wide bridging up a flake chimney, then I had the third.  At least a bit of it, until I reached a stopper move and couldn't see gear above.  We didn't have time to finish by then anyway, so retreted with multiple raps (abseils, but when in Rome...).  I'm not sure if it was just due to not being used to the rock, or because it was a slab, but this route seemed a bit of a sandbag to me whereas everything else we did (except one route in Joshua Tree) was very amenable.  It made me quite wary of the grades, something that made me wary for the rest of the trip and I kept panicking we wouldn't get off the routes by dark!  We kept planning to come back for a rematch - Solar Slab Gully (parallel to Johnny Vegas but easier), Going Nuts 5.6 (which would have taken up to the base of my failed pitch), then the rest of Solar Slab, but it was never as high on our priority list as the rest of the amazing sounding routes!

 

we had more luck on the rest of the multi pitch, here's a summary of each:

 

French climber on Belulah's Book

Cat In The Hat, 5 pitches of 5.6 up a tower called the Mescalito in the middle of a canyon entrance.  This route had a great 3rd (mine) and 5th (Colin's) pitch up lovely varnished cracks.  The top of the 5th pitch is scary as it changed from varnished jugs to smearing slab above gear - glad Colin got that one!  The route also has a great big ledge on top of the 5th pitch (not the top of the Mescalito, but it's where most people finish) where we ate our lunch before going back down. The route's also greedy, it ate my no. 8 nut - jammed solid, every whack with a nut key just seemed to reshape the soft metal into a fatter shape which made it even more unlikely to come out.

 

Group Therapy.  7 pitches of 5.7.  My third favourite as it had a couple of offwidth pitches (although tye mostly involve placing gear in the offwidths and climbing the face - still fun though).  This was even more enjoyable by the fact that you actually top out and walk off, rather than rapping down.  Quite a lot of the multi pitch routes are only climbed for a certain number of pitches, as they become friable or epic further up (with complicated summits and descents), so rap bolts are necessary to get back down.  Group Therapy was trad the whole way, not a bolt in sight (Tunnel Vision was similar, sharing a walk off and having just one bolted belay).

 

Colin seconding first pitch of Johnny Vegas

Birdland, 5 pitches of 5.7, looking towards the Mescalito.  I really liked this (second favourite) was it was a bit different to the other routes we'd done, not just varnished face climbing.  For example, my second pitch was varnish, but without edges to no judges - it required manteling and balancing and some strange three dimensional climbing.  The top pitch (Colin's) gave us another photo tick (the (brilliant) guidebook has a good selection of photos of routes at amenable grades) and was a thin crack with just enough varnished holds.  We met a nice friendly group of 6 Americans who were following us up this.  I had a bright idea we could swing raps back down so save time as somebody could be setting up the next rap while somebody's pulling through the last one, but there was an initial delay of about an hour before the plan could be put into action!  The belay ledges get smaller and smaller the more pitches you go, and the top one's not big enough to share, so everyone that went up the last pitch had to come back to the small ledge at the start of it, and unfortunately the last person down was the one that had the rope to set up the next rap!  I actually made it to the ledge below them as I was the first to rap - we all thought the ropes (60m half ropes) would be long enough to rap two pitches on one - they weren't, I came to a stop 4m above the desired ledge!  Luckily there were enough people there that there was a rope next to me in situ, so I didn't have to prusik back up with one prusik and a sling, phew.  The rest of the raps went without too much excitement, although the two remaining Americans (we only shared with 4 of them) got their rope stuck (quite common due to all the features - we were lucky for the trip and only got one minor snag) and were still trying to free it when we walk out in the dusk.

Seasonal room in the Bellagio casino

 

Dark Shadows, 3 pitches of 5.8 up the back of the Mescalito (actually 4 pitches, or more if you continue, but we didn't bother with those).  This was a route Colin really wanted to do but I wasn't at all psyched by it.  It was in an amazing location though since it rises out of the only wash (river bed) to have any water in it.  You look down onto ponderosa pines, and decidious trees of bright green and yellow, starkly contrasting with the black and white rock.  The first pitch is a run out slab, which I got scared on a bit too much, so downclimbed and gave ALL the leading over to Colin ;)  We just did the first three pitches.

Crux on first pitch of Solar Slab

 

Tunnel Vision.  6 pitches of 5.7+.  My favourite route, and our last one, and my turn for the two crux pitches.  The first of these was a short but bold hand traverse and a serious rope drag inducing short chimney where the rope just got wedged between chockstones and the side walls, despite me climbing down to free it once.  The second crux pitch was an amazing crack, which it is possible to bridge across - or get stuck right in as I did!  For a long portion the only gear if you do it my way is a walked up no. 6 (and no. 4.5 for a bit) camalot, which is kind of nice as you always have gear always above you - as long as you don't look down to see how long the run out would be if that one piece blows!  The 5th pitch was the fun one - the tunnel.  A huge parallel sided squeeze chimney through the cliff behind an enourmous (30m wide?) flake, followed by twin jamming cracks (one in a corner, one flared one up the face), followed by some romping up huge juggy pockets.

The Mescalito and Magic Mountain

 

Each of these long days required a 5am start so that we could hit the loop road when it opened at 6am, so that we wouldn't have to queue for the route and could get down before dark.  We overslept a couple of times, somehow happening to wake just in time to get to the route just before any other parties and get it done and get back to the car before getting ticketed as we kept forgetting to apply for a late exit pass (which enables you to stay in the car parks later than 5pm). 

 

The pitches (and routes) are so long they require a different mindset.  It's no good identifying the crux or the finish and just trying to get that over with, you kind of have to see it as a bit of a voyage.  As an example, I led a connecting pitch on Birdland (well, I call it a connecting pitch as it's just face climbing without any defined single feature where you have to route find your way to a base of a crack) which was 120 feet long.  The end of it looked miles away, so I just had to focus on the immediate couple of moves... you have to look ahead plenty as it's in the back of your mind that if you go the wrong way it might be very hard to escape, but there's no way of telling if you're getting it totally right so you just have to trust and keep going.  I was just getting into the flow when Colin asked if I could see the anchor so I looked up and there it was, just a couple of metres in front of me, had no idea I was so close!

 

Colin seconding third pitch of Cat In The Hat

We interspersed these long days with shorter, single pitch days (I soon realised Colin just doesn't *do* rest days!).  Apart from the two days in the Calico Hills we also did one route in the Calico basin (round the back of the hills), one day on White Peak (or perhaps Windy Peak, I get them confused) where we didn't do Ragged Edges as intended as I had a finger tweak that I was trying not to aggravate, but did a couple of easier crack routes instead.  Plus one day at a crag called the Rad Cliff in the main canyon which we'd gone to so we could 'rap from the dementor tree' (all the routes there are Harry Potter themed) was a bit of a disaster - the two star 5.7 (Chamber of Secrets) appeared to have fallen down, the 1 star 5.7 seemed impossible to get to the base of (it was hard enough just to get to the crag), so we settled for the no star 5.7 (The Basilisk Fang) which looked quite fun.  Turned out to be very friable, two (varnished) footholds snapped on me, and another solid looking horizontal one cracked in two when I stood on it.  I got quite freaked out by 1/3 way up when I couldn't find any more solid looking holds or gear, so decided to downclimb to the only decent gear since the start (a good nut and huge sling round a protrustion a few metres below) and retreat off those - losing only 2 maillons, a frayed no. 8 nut (no number 8 nuts left on the rack now!) and some cord.

Shoe Tree on route to Joshua Tree

 

We also went to Joshua tree for a day.  Top tip - if you go for a day, make sure you get directions for the quickest route.  If you follow a sat nav, then with have a brief stop for breakfast (and to have emergency naps on the way home!) it takes you 5 hours each way, eek!  We still have time for 4 great routes though, including one particularly good 5.8 jamming route which I sent Colin up as I wasn't feeling up to it but didn't want to miss out ;)

 

I was the sole driver on the trip to save $10 a day adding another one, which was only a problem on the Joshua Tree day.  I only tried to kill us once, turning the wrong way into 4 lanes of (thankfully distant) oncoming traffic, luckily the roads out there are pretty wide so I had room to do a swift u-turn!

 

We met some very friendly Canadians at the Ragged Edges area who we kept bumping into.  We saw them before starting up Birdland and the day went so well we decided they were a good omen!  Saw them the next day before Dark Shadows although I didn't enjoy that route, although they'd been on the way back to the car as Tim wasn't well, so maybe we were just sharing their pain!

 

Joshua Tree

So we didn't do Epinephrine (16 pitches of 5.9) that we'd wanted to be good enough to do (although we did have a look at it on the Rad Cliff day), and in fact I didn't lead anything over 5.7+, but we got a fair amount of really cool stuff done!  I think our final tally was 34 routes and 49 pitches.  We saw a lot of different places - for the first week and a bit we didn't repeat any canyons (there's about 10 canyons down the main bit of red rocks, they go west to east and the cliffs goes north to south).  We did 3 multi pitches in the Pine Creek area and two in the Windy Peak (or was it White Peak?), but apart from that everywhere we went was new to us.

 

Black Velvet Canyon

Of course I have plenty of excuses for not climbing harder ;)  On top of struggling to keep up with never-endinginly-psyched-and-energetic-Colin, my tendons were feeling tweaky and the cold I was just starting to get over when I flew over came back with avengeance due to the dry and sandy Las Vegas air.  My sinuses were blocked up and I was on the verge of going to a doctor's when it finally started to improve.  The other disadvantage of the air was that I had to take my contact lenses out every night as I felt like my eye had been sandblasted if I tried to sleep in them like I'm allowed to.  But it's a small price to pay for 15-25 degree temperatures (warmer than expected, the climate stats online say 5-15 for that time of year), plenty of sunshine, and only the briefest (three) patches of rain (one of which we managed to avoid by escaping to Joshua tree, another by going to an airshow, and the first was the day we flew in).

 

It wasn't all climbing, we experienced a bit of Vegas too (ventured outside the motel every third day perhaps, the rest of the time we just crashed with a good book unable to do much else).  We went to two all you can eat buffets at the Paris casino, one breakfast ($15) and one dinner ($25), and looked round several of the big casinos.  Some have particular attractions, like the world's largest TV screen (the Fremont Experience), a water slide through a tank of sharks (Golden Nugget), fountains set to music (the Bellagio), a highly decorated seasonal room (Bellagio again), a lion enclosure (MGM Grand, although the lions were out in their 12 acres of roaming land when we went there) etc.  We succumbed and had a go on the slots on the last day (hard to avoid, every where has slot machines, even the airport and pharmacies!) in the Luxor (the big pyramid).  I bet a grand total of 2 dollars and lost it all.  I have a friend over in Vegas who we visited too, once to play pool and play on the Wii (I lost miserably), and once for a board game evening (I won, woo!), and went to the airshow with.

Barrel Cactus

 

Colin on pitch 3 of Dark Shadows

The food was a big highlight - there's so much exciting stuff to eat out there!  Some of you will have seen my new facebook profile pic where I'm tucking into a ginormous ice cream.  Then there's the foot and half foot long subs as standard lunch fare, turtle brownies (chocolate brownies topped with caramel and pecan nuts, indulgent), jalopeno bagels, lots of cookies, any numer of chocolate bars with peanut butter in, breakfast biscuits (like savoury scones), pink lemonade etc etc.  Oh, and Colin's favourite - ginseng flavoured iced tea.  We went to the cheese cake factory two days before coming home, and promptly went back the next night as it was so good - we thought it would be a little tacky but it's quite smart and the menu is extensive and immensely tasty.  I've never seen so many bizarre flavours of cheesecake either!  I've brought three boxes of jello back to eat raw - it's not like our rubbery cubes (which are great climbing snacks), but it's a paper back of sherbert type stuff, lovely to quaff in big mouthfulls!