A slightly late Spring update.

Kalymnos, not a bad spot. 

It has been a while since I last posted on my blog.  The reason for this, is that I have not really done a huge amount which I have felt has been worth writing about.

After Svalbard I returned to Scotland and did a fair bit  a fair bit of avalanche work, but no spectacular winter routes. Unlike previous few years, I did not go on a Spring skiing trip. After the previous six months I felt over snow and ice for a time, and fancied some warm rock climbing. My first attempt at this did involve some good quality rock, although unfortunately it was not that warm. I had a week in Pembroke dodging the showers  and trying to stay warm (we even had some wet snow one day). I manged some nice climbing and a few good E5's, but felt I was just getting going (it was my first time of rock since September).

Myself on Delayed Attacked, a great E3 on Binnein Shaus. I also did the E5 to the left, The Wallachian Prince prince. This was cleaned recently, by Adam Russel I think. Good effort. 

Next up was Kalymnos for a bit of sports climbing in early May. This was warm, but not too hot as long as you climbed in the shade. It was nice to go sports climbing again, but compared to previous sports trips I was not exactly on fire. I guess that sitting on an ice cap for a few months doesn't do your sports climbing too much good.

Since then it has been climbing in Scotland. Between work and general life faff (which I will try to write about soon), I have managed a few good trips up the North-West, and felt like I started to remember how to climb.

Iain cleaning his new route Endolith.

The most interesting thing I managed a rather chilly day new routing in  Glen Coe with Iain Small. We did a couple of new routes (both led by Iain) on an 30m high clean buttress on the Chasm to Crowberry Traverse. The rock is good quality and naturally quite clean, technical, the angle is around or just off vertical, the outlook is great, and we thought the routes are probably worth a star each.  The buttress is just to the right of the start of a a VS from 1970 called Neolith (page 51 of the SMC Glen Coe guide).

Iain cleaning Megalith. The line of Endolith is also marked on the left. 

Endolith E5 6a  25 m
Shallow groove up the left hand side of the buttress. Start just right of a downward pointing flake. Make tricky moves up into the shallow groove. Follow this to it's top. Step right to climb a very thin intermittent crack directly to the top of the crag.

Megalith. E6 6a. 25m
Start at a diagonal groove just right of the start of Endolith. Make hard moves up the groove to easier ground. Climb up and right to the left end of an area of overlaps and a small rock scar. Step left and make hard and blind moves  directly up. Continue straight up the wall (sustained), stepping right just below the top of the crag.