Saturday 26 July 2014

Church Door Buttress....at last!

Iain enjoying the exposure on the top pitch of Temple of Doom
I have wanted to climb here for a long time.  Probably Glencoe's finest crag but one that takes a long time to dry.  Fortunately the weather has been warm and dry and the crag was perfect.  I made the long walk up to the 950m high crag on Bidean nam Bian with Blair and Iain, both who made the walk up earlier in the week to climb a new route on the crag which Iain graded E7.  Fortunately for me, E7 wasn't on the cards today and we chose to climb 3 of the uber classic routes.  We worked from right too left starting on Temple of Doom (E3 6a), a superb route with 2 outstanding pitches feeling like old school E3...which means quite hard.  We had an abseil set up so we made rapid descents back to the ground before setting up on the Lost Ark (E4 6a).  Again another sensational route and worthy of it 3/4 stars.  The exposure and positions on the routes were just incredible.  Finally we finished on Kingpin (E3 6a), a 4 star route, and Extreme Rock tick and just pure brilliance.  The rock on the crag is so rough, very similar to gabbro found on Skye.  It was a great day, we finished our last route at 10pm, back to the car at 11pm and having dinner at midnight.  What a great day! Shame the rain is on its way now.

Iain setting off on The Lost Ark

Iain on the 

Iain heading into nothing on the crux

Dr Fyffe's attentive belaying

Blair on the top pitch of The Lost Ark

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