Donegal Rock Climbing 2015

The Story so far in 2015..........

 So far in 2015 it has been a very mixed bag of weather and sea conditions with a 3 week tropical heatwave at the start of April to the thunder storms and the near return of winter in mid May. But no matter what the weather brings we have been out to play pretty much every day, with visits to every main climbing location in Donegal so far this year and all, I hasten to add, in glorious sunshine.

Owey Island Rock Climbing

Owey Island Rock Climbing

Tory Island Rock Climbing

 On a wee visit from the U.K. Ian Parnell, Ben Wilkinson, Jon Winter and Henry Jepson made hay while the Donegal sun shone with visits to Owey Island, Sail Rock, Lurking Fear and Cruit Island. With new routes by the Holy Jaysus Wall on Owey and Lurking Fear Stack, the sea and the weather played ball.

Cnoc na Mara trio

Lurking Fear Stack

 No visit to to the cliffs of SW Donegal is complete without a look at Sail Rock. We arrived mid afternoon and after an abseil rigging and a 100m rope uncoiling session two teams were at the base of the face. Ian and Ben going for Mainmast and Jon and Henry nipping up Roaring Forties.

Sail Rock

Sail Rock in evening sun

  In classic bouncefest fashion and with a modicum of mild concern five different stacks have been climbed fourteen times so far in 2015. A considerable number of mainstream climbing press have had forays into the shady world of sea stacks climbing. It is an entirely different sport taking people onto sea stacks whom you know are going to publish their thoughts in well read publications. Taking someone who has never climbed a stack before (and in most cases never climbed before) onto a nautical summit through white water rage and into the pits of hate is a bit of a mind blower and it never ceases to be enormous fun.

   Sea Stack Climbing

The Sturrall Headland

Donegal Sea Stack

 Off course, sea stack climbing is not all about The Pits of Hate and Davie Jones Locker it also has a much lighter side and when Gaia and Neptune allow, a day out on a nautical summit will be a most relaxed affair with close encounters with many sea creatures in their natural habitat and a visit to your inner self. 

  

The End's of the Earth Sea Stack

Sea Stack Summit View 

 When not out playing I currently spend far too much time lying under a laptop editing the future Donegal Guidebook. A couple of months ago I thought it was finished alas my knowledge of publishing matters was sadly lacking and as it turned out there was still much to do. Where Dave Flanagan and myself are at the moment is we have approx 2/3rds of the book complete. As it is a select guide and covering the entire county what crags and routes to include was always going to be tricky but that is done and what we are doing now is all the nitty gritty editing that I did not realise had to be done. :-( Below are a couple of screenshots of finished pages, Gola island and Muckross as random samples.

 Donegal Guidebook Screenshot: Gola

Donegal Guidebook Screenshot: Muckross

 One of the great ironies of writing a guidebook is that even before it is published new crags and new routes are being found and climbed, that there is simply not room to include in a select guide to the county. So in essence you spend an evening editing a crag and the next day you go out climb a new route thus making your previous nights editing out of date. :-) Below is a couple of shots of Beyond the Ends of the Earth Crag, the first being a new two star route climbed with a couple of America visitors to the county last week. I95 take the centre line up the highest part of the crag at about 30m long and graded Hard Severe.

 Donegal Rock Climbing

Donegal Rock Climbing

 Living in such a fickle climate so close to the Eastern Atlantic it is always a case of good prior planning as to where to play out on the almost endless vertical mediums found around Co Donegal. 

 Sunset at Muckross Head

Adventure Climbing in Ireland

 And Sho, hailing from the depths of Hereford, Geoff and Sarah Corbett arrived in the sunny County of Donegal with a single express mission in mind and that mission was to paddle off the End's of the Earth.

Adventure in Donegal

 And so, to Cruit Island for a day of vertical pleasure, we arrived to the usual Cruit Island welcome of bright blue skies and a shimmering seas. We spent the day in the company of a very calm and relaxed Neptune and went about our task of safe adventure climbing practice. Half a dozen routes later and a wee visit to a ringside seat  at the deep and we were all set for the task at hand, for the next day was forecast to be a wee bit emotional.

An Port Bay, Donegal

 The following day we arrived at the portal to the other world dimension that is the Port road end and began the clifftop walk north to the view point over looking the mighty Cnoc na Mara. The entire Slievetooey peninsula was in outstanding condition with the clearest brightest skies and massive vista's in all directions. 

 We descended into Glenlough Bay and arrived just beyond The Ends of the Earth Crag to arrive at our goal.

 The Ends of the Earth Stack is an excellent 30 metre high sea stack sitting approx 300 metres out to sea in one of the most remote location on the mainland of Ireland. 

Donegal Sea Stack Climbing

Geoff arrives on the Sea Stack

 A swift sea passage and Geoff alighted onto the landward tip of the stack, a further swift sea passage and Sarah was duly transported onto the same wee platform. Alas, this meant we were still a wee bit of a coastaleer away from the base of the parent stack. Between us and the base of the End's of the Earth Stack was a subsidiary summit and a superb wee sea ridge joining the two summits. So we made our way over the first summit and crossed the sea ridge on to the base of the End's of the Earth sea stack. We were now standing on one of the most remote and mildly scary points of land in Ireland. :-)    

The view from the stack back to Donegal

Sea Stack climbing in the sunshine

  At this juncture the North winds were indeed beginning to freshen and the northerly motion was starting to liven, and thus haste was the key. We all raced up and onto this very remote piece of land and watched as the legions of the damned approached from the north.

The summit at The End's of the Earth

 A quick abseil down the landward face of the stack and a re-tracing of our steps on the sea ridge and we were back at our ferry boat launch pad. Alas by now the winds were funneling and nautical navigation through the skerries was a touch emotional. :-) 

Sea Stack Climbing

 There are very few places on earth where you can have a true adventure without travelling through time zones and spending a fortune. Off the coast of Donegal sit a collection of summits that fewer people have stood on than have circumnavigated the Moon or jumped to Earth from the edge of space. 

Donegal Climbers Guide Books

Just finished guiding a week long walking tour of Ireland following the sunshine through the counties of Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim, Donegal, Londonderry, Down, Louth and Dublin.

   Northern Donegal

The Rosses

Glenveagh

Muckish Mountain

Down Hill Strand Antrim

Fair Head

 I've updated the climbers guide to Cruit island adding 6 new crags and over 50 new routes, there are of course still many gaps and potential for new routes especially in the extreme grades. :-)

Cruit Island Guide

 Whilst I was chained to the laptop I updated the Donegal Sea stack guide making it a tad more interactive by live linking all the u Tube films to each stack and linking each stack to the appropriate section in the on line guide. There is also several new stacks and another 20 or so new routes added.

Donegal Sea Stack Guide

  The remaining 24 sections, 2000 routes, 300 topos of the Donegal guide are currently being PDF'd, edited and shuffled into place to make a working guide.

 The finished guide will, I feel be my legacy of a mid life crisis! :-)

The Mick Fowler seal of approval, Donegal Sea Stacks.

 And sho after nearly a decade of cyber correspondence regarding such maters of state as St. John's Head, The Needle, Cliffs of Moher and of course, Donegal Sea Stacks. It came to pass noble brother Mick Fowler came to play on Donegal Sea Stacks alas the weather forecast was unseasonly unpleasant for an August in Donegal, and so the most remote location on mainland Ireland was the obvious solution to the crisis.
 Ends of the Earth Stack sits at the north end of Glenlough Bay and is as far as it is possible to be from a main road on mainland Ireland.

Glenlough Bay

 An hour or so walk from An Port in the lashing rain/sunshine and we arrived at Ends of the Earth stack to bright blue skies and sunshine.

The walk in to End's of the Earth Stack.

End's of the Earth crag & stack 

The Land Ward Face

 A swift paddle out to the stack though the outlaying skerries and we coastaleered our way around onto the sea ward face of the stack. The sea ward face of Ends of the Earth Stack overhangs alarmingly and Mick made the executive decision that this was the line he was to lead. The route takes a series of huge quartize spikes and flakes up this overhanging face with increased exposure and concern the higher you climbed. The finale was a tricky wee summit groove with considerable air beneath your feet. (link to film at end of this blog post) 

 It would have been rude not to climb another new route and so the immaculate smooth slabs on the south end of the landward face were climbed at about Hard Severe.      

The Sea Ward Face

Mick Fowler on the sea stack summit

Mick Fowler & Iain Miller on Summit

 A few days later wee visit to perhaps a more family friendly location was called for and so Berg Stack was the obvious choice being close to the Port road end and with a much shorter sea passage. With the full complement of the Fowler family, Caoimhe Gleeson, Stephen McCann and two UBER keen dogs in attendance we made the crossing to Berg Stack and several routes on this excellent wall were climbed in fine style. 

Descent to Sea Level

Awaiting calm seas

Berg Sea Stack sea crossing

Berg Sea stack & Vertical Picnic

Access to Berg Sea Stack

 Alas the Fowler eye have noticed the unclimbed north arete of Vertical Picnic Stack and so Mick and Nikki  went and climbed this outstanding unclimbed feature, whilst the rest of us continued to play on Berg Stack.

New route on Vertical Picnic Stack

 A swift abseil off the unclimbed south face of Vertical Picnic back to the awaiting dingy and we were all back to terra firma. 

Mick and Nikki ab off Vertical Picnic sea stack

An Port from the South

 A most excellent couple of days out with team Fowler and for me having Mick Fowler (no slouch in the sea stack department) agree that Donegal's sea stack were indeed a most suitably adventurous location to play out in was indeed excellent! :-) 

Ends of the Earth Stack Film