Spring has arrived in Donegal with a blast of glorious sunshine and without further ado Louise O' Connor and my good self made two swift visits to "Beyond the Ends of the Earth Crag." The first of these visits was on a day of uber bouncy south west seas running and alas the crag was taking green and white to walls and roof of the cave at the back of the crag. We abandoned any cunning plans and went and visited an old friend along the coast, "The Unforgiven" sea stack now has a new and slightly less emotional exit point. :-)
The second visit to the crag resulted in equally bumpy sea conditions BUT seas were running from the west and allowed us to abseil into the cave at the back of the crag and climb a superb 40 meter high line traverse across the wall, all in glorious sunshine. "Exposure Explosion" is an excellent traverse line with superb juggy rock throughout the climb.
Exposure Explosion film
"Beyond the Ends of the Earth Crag" is surely a prime contender for the most remote rock climbing location on mainland Ireland. It sits approx 5 km from An Port road endand the walk in is along the wildest stretch of coast line in Ireland. I have been playing out on this area of coast since May 2008 and have made over 500 visits to the sea cliffs and sea stacks living along this coast, it really is an outstanding place to be. I have never failed to have fun on this coast in all my visits in fact it gets harder to leave and return to the real world on every visit.
DJ Locker Traverse film
The above film shows the first visit to this remote sea cliff as Peter O' Toole joined in the nautical action for a 70 meter low level traverse above an equally tetchy ocean. The climbing on this route is of the same high quality as "Exposure Explosion," but being much closer to the sea it is prone to much more nautical action as the above film shows.
Ideal winter climbing conditions in the Donegal mountains are a rare beast indeed, requiring a prolonged mix of freeze/ thaws cycles and a good couple of dumps of snow. Alas with the relative low altitude of Donegal's highest summits and their very close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean the prevalent conditions in the uplands are greatly influenced by the North Atlantic Drift and it's warm and wet air stream.
What this all means is, if the correct climactic conditions occur to allow frozen cascades of ice and gullies filled with pristine néve then it is case of, get out and play, because tomorrow it may all be gone.
View from the start of the climb
After several e-mails back and forward to Noble Bother Laurence Glynn (Larry), we finally got an alignment of the planets and a small weather window to allow winter to make an attendance in County Donegal.
After a week of heavy snow and several nights of minus temperatures, the hills of he county were beginning of show great signs of being winterized.
Pitch 1: Arrive at the gully
Base of "Gully of the Gods."
We met early Sunday morning and we sorted our climbing rack and headed to the North Face of Muckish Mountain. By our weather watching and calculations the center of this north facing corrie would contain suitable refrozen frozen snow and good winter climbing.
This was Larry's first dabble with winter climbing and as we parked the van at the old mine working at the road end, the North corrie of Muckish looked extremely atmospheric and thankfully very winter indeed! :-)
Pitch 2, in the Gods proper
Winter Climbing in Ireland
Muckish Mountain view
We parked the van at the lower roadside parking and headed up into the corrie. Underfoot the snow was showing great signs of consolidation and all ground water was frozen solid. We headed straight up the centre of the corrie as this allowed us to see into all the gullies on both sides of the corrie. What we were looking for was the most complete and thickest tongue of néve running down the best looking gully.
We decided on and headed straight to the base of "Gully of the Gods," a superb grade I/II gully running up the back of the corrie. Approx 40 meters below the start of the gully we roped up and rigged a belay as the steep ground around us had a light covering of windslab and several runnels indicated previous avalanche activity.
Mid height in the gully
Mid Height in "Gully of the Gods."
100m up the route
Once in the gully proper the snow firmed to become solid néve and the ground steepened to give perfect grade 1 climbing on perfect snow ice. We continued to pitch the route in 30 to 50 m pitches and the higher we climbed the better the néve became. he final 40 meter pitch was solid néve which allowed us to climb on front points and axe picks, the finest type of winter climbing there is.
It is one of the great joys of winter climbing to be on a steep face of solid snow with you held in place by approx 4 inches of metal, one inch on each foot and hand, all the time with a 500 meter steep drop at your heels. :-)
Larry arrives at the final belay
Topping Out onto the summit Plateau of Muckish
Winter climbing in Ireland
Whilst Larry and I were at play in The Gully of the Gods, Adam and Patrick Tinney climbed a new grade 1 gully to the right of the chunky tower and the "White Reverence" Face. This excellent looking gully is the most obvious on this side of the corrie alas it is prone to catching any sunshine that is going and is prone to a quick thaw and disappearance. Nice one gents!
And Sho, the quest with Donegal's rock climbing guidebook continues, we are currently approaching 2900 recorded routes though out the county. I have sub dived the entire county into 21 sub sections each with it's own free downloadable PDF guide. As it stands at the moment 17 of these 21 sections are live on the Unique Ascent website and available to download free. The remaining four sections await good weather and calm seas to get suitable topo photographs, Owey Island's seaward facing cliffs are being particularly nigglesome. :-(
And on to phase three in the cunning plan, I am currently editing a short film for each of Donegal's 21 main rock climbing locations, each of the films will be approximately 3 minutes long and will show as much of the location as well as the climbing as possible.
Crohy Head is an excellent wee location on a huge forgotten peninsula just to the south of Dungloe. Aidan Mc Ginley, Louise O'Connor and my good self played out there on several occasions over the summer adding another dozen or so new routes to four new crags. The most surprising routes were two 30 meter lines of the main crag at the far end of the good rock both routes went at very modest V.Diff but in a spectacular location. This whole section of coast is prone to monster seas and very much like Malin Beg offers excellent wave battered climbing.
The ever dependable Cruit Island has very quickly become the most popular climbing venue in Donegal and new routes now tickling into E grades are continuing to be sent in by visiting climbers. The are currently over 370 routes on the island on 34 separate crags. What makes the island such a dependable locations is many of the crags are facing different aspects and with a tiny bit of nautical knowledge it is possible to climb under almost any sea states and motion. None of the crags required any cleaning prior to any first ascents thus the crags are permanently cleaned by angry winter seas.
This year on Donegal's sea stacks was spent visiting many old friends and introducing a large collection of people to the edge of the real world. Three new stacks were climbed and 12 new routes added to existing stacks, perhaps the most important find was a new unclimbed 130 meter high sea cliff in, by far the most outrageous location in Ireland. Alas the cliff is prone to monster green and the easiest looking route looks mildly terrifying. The cliff also contains the mother of all exit points and so a very cunning plan to climb and jump off the edge of the real world begins to take hold. :-)
The above film was shot on a day I had intended to circumnavigate the island in the wee dingy, alas overnight monster green appeared from the West and simply getting to the island was a bit of a mission and involved a wetsuit. :-) Owey is top of the list in the spring for a visit and a circumnavigation to get the sea ward facing cliff sorted.
Mainland Donegal from Owey Island
Glenveagh National Parkis next on the list for a short film with only two more locations to be visited and editing begins. :-)
It has just turned November and I am finally in agreement that summer is over in Western Donegal, BUT it has been a most outstanding and very long summer. The Rosses summer officially started on the 28th of February and finally came a rain soaked halt on 25th of October. During this extended period of blue skies well over 150 people have stood on the summits of a shade over 100 sea stack summits along the coast of Western Donegal and pretty much all of them had no previous outdoor climbing experience. Hurrah! :-)
The bulk of the visitors to Donegal's sea stacks came from all four corners of America, with another large proportion coming from Canada, a small portion came from mainland Europe inc the UK and a tiny portion travelling from all over Ireland.
This blog post is a small selection of the you tube films we posted over this summer from around the coast of Donegal.
Glenlough Bay on 28th February 2013
The summer kicked off at Glenlough Bay on February 28th with Josie McGee, Glenlough Bay is Ireland's largest raised shingle storm beach and is located in one of the most remote places in the country. Our cunning plan was to make an ascent, probably the first of Ulsters highest free standing tower. Cobblers Tower is a 110 meter high spike of land connected to mainland Donegal by a very loose knife edge ridge, alas a mildly tetchy Neptune and a 40 meter white water sea crossing meant we paid a visit to the summit of Tent Stack instead.
Donegal's Highest free standing tower
Made a return visit to Cobbler's Tower with Noble Brother Steven "Jock" Read and this time with an UBER calm sea paddled around Tormore Island from the Entrance to Shambhala to land at the base of the north face of the tower, we scrambled up the north face to a very insecure and mildly scary summit.
The most remote place in Ireland
Made a return visit to Pyramid Stack with Andy Cronin, this very remote archipelago lives 300 meters out to sea from the base of the 1000 foot north face of Slievetooey. It sits approximately 22 kilometers from the nearest main road, 5 kilometers from the car and in a very inaccessible location open to both west and north sea states. This was the 2nd ascent of the stack the first ascent being a solo affair back in 2008.
Slieve League Sea Stack
With the sea so calm and with Ireland gripped in the middle of a heat wave it would have been rude not to go for a wee visit to the sea stack at the western end of the Slieve League massif, this time with noble brother Des O'Connor, (no, no thee Des O'Connor) access to this stack is by a 500 meter paddle out to sea from Silver Strand at Malin Beg, one of Ireland's most beautiful beaches.
Cnoc na Mara
Cnoc na Mara, Ireland's most popular sea stack had six ascents this year including an ascent by 15 year old Jake Scollay from Scotland and Steven "Jock" Read. This 150 meter route has now been climbed by over 25 people in the last five summers, not a massive amount of people but still makes it easily Ireland's most climbed sea stack. :-)
Luke
In the midst of these nautical misadventures young Luke was born, arriving safe and sound into the world a week early. :-)
Beyond The End's of the Earth Crag
We opened a new crag slightly further away from the real world than "End's of the Earth Crag," climbing with Peter O'Toole (no, not thee Peter O'Toole) and a very angry Neptune this excellent single pitch venue provides a very atmospheric place to place where solitude is guaranteed.
Owey Island on 24th October 2013
A final wee explore was a solo trip out to Owey Island with the last of the summer sun forecast to disappear in the evening of the 24th of October, it would have been rude not to go out for a look.
The county of Donegal currently plays host to over 2800 rock climbs on pretty much every rock climbing medium that Ireland has to offer. From overhanging mudstone, multi-pitch mountain crags, uninhabited islands and off course, nearly 100 Sea Stacks, I tend to think of the rock climbing available in Donegal as Ireland in miniature. The Donegal on-line guide gives details of all these different climbing mediums and locations in 20 free PDF guidebook downloads, CLICK HERE.
The peninsula of Inishowen in Northern Donegal is in rock climbing terms, Donegal in miniature, with a huge collection of climbs and locations around its coast. From the stack and sea cliffs at Leenan Head, the slabs, corners and cracks at the ever popular Malin Head (Ireland's most Northerly point) along the coast to Culdaff and down to Kinnego Bay. The current Inishowen climbing guidebook is available as a free PDF download CLICK HERE.
Dunaff Head rock climbing film
Residing on the west coast of Inishowen lives the huge Dunaff Head, this headland is 210 meters at it's highest point and covers an area of approx. 4 square kilometers. Running along it's north face is a very impressive and slightly imposing sea cliff. Alas being a north facing cliff it sees very little direct sunlight and is thus very vegetated and is prone to feldspar leaching. It is in essence a huge wall of loose hairy sea cliff, very impressive to look at but alas not so impressive to climb.
Living approx 200m out to sea from the base of this wall is a superb 50 meter high sea stack.
Inishowen Sea Stack
And Sho, a swift E-mail from Sean and Julia, who were across in Donegal on a short break from London, it was descided a wee play out on the Dunaff Head sea stack would be a suitably adventurous activity.
Julia on the storm beach
Access to the stack from the surrounding cliff tops is an emotional affair, which involves descending the huge full crag height gully to the south of the stack. This 200 meter long gully descends steeply passing down through one 60m near vertical section below half height. We descended through this steep stepped section on a tensioned back rope using each other as anchors. This part of the gully was loose, wet and very overgrown in places and it was with a hint of relief we lowered down the final steepening and onto the boulder apron below.
Sean at the base of the gully
We continued to descend down the gully apron and the more we descended the larger the boulders became until we were approx 30 meters above the sea. Below us the boulders were more the size of houses and stacked in a way by Neptune that there was no easy way down to sea level. We made a very convoluted path through the boulders to a huge flat topped house sized boulder at approx 10 meters above sea level.
A swift inflation of the wee dingy and one by one we made the 250 meter crossing to the sea level platforms at the seaward side of the stack. This is a very remote, isolated and committing place to be standing as stretching either side of us for at least a kilometer is the 200 meter high walls of Dunaff Head's north face. The sea had gone from being flat calm to a half meter swell from the North West and the winds were now blowing at 19 knots. A deep depression was moving in from the North West and with it an inch of rain was forecast for the following day.
Due to our location and the height of the facing cliffs this stack does not get very much direct sunlight, especially in mid October, and so it was still very damp and very greasy. We worked our way around the sea level platforms and made to boat journey back to the bottom of the gully. Landing the boat was now a tad move complex as the boulder beach was now surrounded by slightly annoyed white water. A suitable harbour was found to the south and a short coastaleer later we were back at the base of the outstanding gully.
Back on mainland Donegal
An hour later we had re-ascended the gully and were standing on the clifftos once again overlooking the sea stack. As always nature has the last laugh as it had now been over 8 hours since we had left the car and this was the first time we had been in sunshine all day. It had of course been blazing sunshine on the summit of Dunaff the whole time we had been climbing. :-) It was at this point that the sun finally hit the stack.
September has been an extremely busy month with everyday bringing a new place and a very varied selection of slightly foolish activities. With a 15 day tour of the coast of Ireland taking 11 international visitors up all the highest summits in the country. Another 7 days were spent private guiding, taking a couple of gentlemen to the summits of several mildly scary sea stacks and another few days spent preparing a young trooper for their first visit to the greater ranges. September has been a truly excellent end to an excellent summer in the vertical world of the North West.
With a call from Fáiltre Ireland last week it was a visit to Fanad Head Lighthouse. The cunning plan was to do an interview for the TV cameras and abseil off the outside walkway at the top of the lighthouse.
The forecast was a tad breeze blowing 30 knots from the east but thankfully no rain was on the cards and sunshine had been ordered for about 1pm.
Fanad Head Lighthouse Abseil Film
It is always a tad surreal to be playing out under the ever watchful eye of a film crew. This is third time this year doing this type of thing under such scrutiny of the lens. The trick is to arrive early, get everything set up and in this case do the abseil before anyone else arrives. As when the film crew arrives there is always a flood of preparatory questions prior to them switching the cameras on. BUT much more importantly it also means you do your first abseil with its customary moment of mild concern as you weight the rope over a 30 meter drop and "Elvis entering the building," is not captured on film. HURRAH!
Anyways, 6 abseils and an hour long interview later, job done, it was duly noted that Oscar the dog also regained his crown as Donegal's most filmed dog. :-)
Living at the base of Slievtooey's north coast in one of Ireland's most remote and isolated locations, there lives a 100 m high flat topped island. The island sits approximately 6 KM from Maghera caves to the east, 8 km from An Port road end to the West and 4.5 KM from the nearest place to park the car to the south. Whichever way you approach Gull Island it is a long way across open, unpathed and rarely visited uplands.
Access to the raised shingle storm beach which separated the island from mainland Donegal is by a 100 m steep grass / loose rock down climb and scramble.
This marathon walk in and careful descent of the surrounding slopes takes you to an outrageous location as you stand on a huge horseshoe shaped raised shingle storm beach surrounded by a majestic back drop of the 300 m high sea cliffs of Slievetooey.
But it is what stands out to sea in front you that instills your first rushes of primal fear. The landward face of gull Island is quite simply an enormous 150m aréte of near biblical proportions. Standing at the base of this aréte tying into your rope and preparing to climb is where your internal battle with your inner demons begins. Inversely it is also what makes this type of adventurous rock climbing in potentially very serious locations one of the most foolish and rewarding activities it is possible to participate in.
Gull island Rock Climbing film
It was in April 2009 that I made the first of many visits to this island, in attendance on this first visit was Martin Bonner and Andy Mcinroy. At this time both Gull Island and stack behind it were unclimbed. Our intent on this first visit was to climb the 80 m high twin summited sea stack off the seaward face of Gull Island but alas due to Neptunes rage and us being scared we opted for the "less chance of drowning "option of the landward aréte of Gull Island.
Martin and myself climbed this monsterous aréte in three very dangerous feeling pitches. We used three pegs at the top of the first unprotected 45m pitch and placed an abseil stake on the summit and backed it up with a cairn. All in all an excellent and mildy terrifying day at the end of a rope.
The original route description I gave Gull Island kind of speaks volumes of the type of climbing ans situations involved.
Gull Island XS 5a 145m
Pitch 1: 50m 4a To the left of landward aréte climb the soaring corner crack until the grassy rake. Traverse upwards and right to gain the aréte proper. Two good gear placements in 50m, fall and you will die)
Pitch 2: 50m Climb the aréte by a very atmospheric scramble and up the jenga tower to the perched boulder at it's summit.
Pitch 3: 45m Crimp left and up superb rock and continue to the summit by your easiest convenience. Iain Miller, Martin Bonner 24/04/09
Many thanks to our cliff top voyeur Andy Mcinroy, Andy's Photographic site is HERE.
Gull island, Donegal
And sho, with these rather worrying memories lurking in my head it became time for a return visit to Gull Island and it's landward aréte. In attendance on this occasion were Aidan Mc Ginley and Louise O'Connor, both Aidan and Louise have been doing work experience with Unique Ascent over the summer as part of their FAS outdoor instructor course. And what better way to finish a work placement than a visit deep into the Realms of Chaos.
Storm Beach at the base of Gull island
Pitch 1
And Sho, Gull Island round 2. We left our homes at an unsociably early hour in the morning and had a clandestine meet up and car share in Ardara to our real world exit point on the south face of Slievetooey. It was a misty, wet and pretty miserable two and a half hour walk over Slievetooey to the cliff tops overlooking Gull island and Satan.
A swift abseil over the 100 m high edge and we pulled the Ab rope and scrambled / down climbed onto the huge storm beach. It was indeed the scary place that I had stored on the back shelves of memory as we racked up and prepared to climb. Louise and myself were to climb whilst Aidan was our photographer.
Pitch 1
I led pitch one very carefully digging about for any meaningful gear placements and with a modicum of relief reach the tri-peg anchor at the top of the 45 m pitch. In total seven gear placement alas only three of them would have held even the smallest of falls and up came Louise.
At the top of this pitch, 45 m above the storm beach we crouched on the 10 cm mud ledge as a passing shower paid a brief visit.
Pitch 3
On pitch 2 due to the instability of the 15 m jenga tower, I built another peg belay on solid terra firma and Louise joined me for tea and tiffin.
Pitch 3 is the beast in the back garden as you edge your way higher and higher above excellent gear amidst a sea of uncertainties. This pitch has a vast selection of unpleasant charactaristics which include a crimpy slab and an overhung jug haul to the salvation of a huge flat topped summit and it is a most outstanding sumit.
Louise and myself had a wee wander around this football pitch pitch sized summit and all too quickly we began the descent.
Crux Moves on Pitch 3
The descent from the summit of Gull Island involves two 50 meter abseils and a wee bit of guile and rope trickery in the middle section and we were back on the beach.
with the addition of the peg belay at the top of pitch 2 and the digging about for gear placement I have altered the route description to allow for a more up to date idea of what an ascent of this stack involves.
Gull Island E1 5a 125m
Pitch 1: 50m, 3a. To the west of the landward aréte climb the huge corner crack until it terminates. traverse right and ascend the ramp to gain the aréte and a tri-peg belay. (3 good gear placements in 50m, fall & you will die)
Pitch 2, 25m. Continue up the aréte by a very atmospheric scramble to the big block overhang at the base of the boulder field. (2 peg belay)
Pitch 3, 50m, 5a. Climb the stack boulder field to the two big boulders perched on top. Crimp left and ascend to the summit through the two rock bands
The summit of Gull Island
Rock Climbing is not a spectator sport?
Gull island Panoramic
Fear is not a negative emotion, fear is an understanding we have nothing to fear.
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