Edinburgh Is A Capital City

by D. J. Farrant

My friends have always accused me of taking jobs in places deliberately close to mountainous areas and indeed such suspicions might be to some extent justified. My first choice was Brecon, admirably situated between the fruitful and often unexplored region of the Brecon Beacons, the Black Mountain and the Carmarthenshire Van. Next came St. Bees, an ideal spot, which led to four years’ continuous exploration of every corner of Lakeland. When, however, I moved to Edinburgh some five years ago, I was assured that for the first time I had put business before pleasure and that my mountaineering activities would henceforth be seriously curtailed in comparison with earlier freedoms. Well, what a challenge to a Yorkshire Rambler!

The first thing to be done on arrival was to examine the local prospects and Edinburgh must be unique among British cities for providing rock-climbing of a high standard right in its principal thoroughfare. Castle Rock is a large, black, forbidding buttress looming above the Princes Street Gardens; routes of some severity have been achieved on it but all such climbing is strictly forbidden. The usual visitors to this crag are either ambitious small boys or moonstruck tourists with ideas above their station (for those with an intimate knowledge of Edinburgh topography this last comment is not without its point). The invariable result is a shout for help, followed by a winching operation by the Fire Brigade and subsequent police action. Nevertheless the practice continues: only a few weeks ago when on top of a bus in Princes Street I spotted a marooned cragsman waving frantically. I waved back.

Within five minutes’ drive of Princes Street in the Royal Park of Holyrood are the famous Salisbury Crags where climbing has taken place for at least a century. Strangely enough though, nobody has official permission to climb upon them and such permission cannot be granted without a special Act of Parliament. Thus once more the climber is liable to arrest. In practice however, climbing is done in the early hours of the morning before the Park Rangers come on duty at 9.00 a.m., and certain university and school climbing clubs in the city have established a type of customary access which the police patrols look upon with benevolence.

There are several other, interesting climbing possibilities in the Edinburgh area and these are now summarised in a newly published guide to the outcrops in the district. The magnificent Bass Rock at North Berwick has routes upon it but approach has to be made from the sea and there is a high objective danger of being speared by an enraged gannet. Traprain Law at Haddington offers a wide variety of excellent routes on sound rock and is probably the best local prospect. The sea cliffs at Aberdour, across in Fife, offer some good routes but the quality of the rock is suspect and this time it is the fulmars that provide the aerial danger. Here, when suspended from small holds on the cliff face, one gazes down at the gurly sea that foams beneath and thinks of Sir Patrick Spens lying fifty fathoms down. The Currie Railway Wa’s^[1] on the outskirts of the city were opened up by Dougal Haston who lives nearby and these also provide fascinating practice even for the lesser mortals. The hazard of an occasional goods train ended with the closure of the line but there is still the prospect of young spectators spitting from above. A final possibility, a quarry near Castle Campbell at Dollar, was once suggested to me by someone who used to be a friend of mine. This possibility was nearly final in more ways than one. Never have I climbed on such a death-trap and my companion and I felt fortunate to escape from a face route when we discovered that the whole crag was gently rocking in the breeze.

Having considered some of the interesting local problems, I turned my attention to the possibility of using Edinburgh as a centre for rather more extended day trips. To my delight I discovered that by rising early on a Sunday morning and being on the road by 7.00 a.m. I could reach wonderful climbing country in time for a full day on the hills.

One of the first expeditions of this type was a memorable February one to Balquhidder with a friend who, despite living in Yorkshire is a member of the J.M.C.S. The previous day had been foul: bitterly cold with a high wind and sleet squalls howling in from the river. The forecast for Sunday was even worse but, nothing daunted, off we set in the dark at the statutory hour of seven and drove through Stirling and Callander to the head of Balquhidder; the seventy-five mile journey took ten minutes under two hours. We set out from Inverlochlarig, the traditional home of Rob Roy, and made straight for the southern ridge of Beinn Tulaichean. It was raining lightly and as we got higher the rain changed to a drifting snow-storm which was bearable only because the snow was moderately dry. After about half an hour’s upward trudging with our eyes dully fixed on our footsteps, we looked up and without warning the sun suddenly burst through the snow, dispersed the clouds instantly and gave us dramatic views of the twin peaks of Ben Vorlich and Stuc a’ Chroin away to the south-east and the graceful Stobinian ridge just beside us. This faculty of the Scottish weather for sudden diametrical change is something that never ceases to amaze me; it is a pity when a promising day loses its bloom, but it is infinitely wonderful when a glorious day is formed out of nothing. It means that in Scotland one need never climb in bad weather without genuine hope of a clearance.

Our route up Tulaichean continued in splendour: the snow conditions were excellent and the sunlight was so strong that snow goggles were essential. The view from the summit was a vast expanse: Ben Lomond and the Arrochar hills, the An Casteal horseshoe, the up-reared pinnacle of Lui, the distant scimitar of Cruachan, the massive collection of hills in Glen Etive and above Bridge of Orchy, and away around to the hummocks of Tarmachan and the bulk of the Lawers. The descent to the col with Cruach Ardrain was easily accomplished and we then cut our way happily up the steep and rocky slope to the summit. We wanted to complete the ridge round to Stob Garbh but the glazed rocks of the north-eastern face presented some problems. First of all we turned the awkward corner by cutting down the precipitous north face with considerable care and then engineered a direct line across the snowfield to rejoin the ridge just above the col. This had provided a sporting challenge, the consequences of which we were able to appreciate more clearly from the top of Stob Garbh when we could see the enormous drop above which we had been traversing.

The descent into Inverlochlarig Glen is heavily fringed with crag on the map so we investigated carefully first. In this we were joined briefly by a beautiful fox who scornfully rejected our route and stepped delicately away across the crag face with all the grace of a born mountaineer. To our pleasure we found a deep gully absolutely choked with soft snow and we galumphed heavily and happily through it to the burn far below. The last part of the day’s walk down this exquisite glen still in glorious sunshine gave a sense of completeness to a magnificent day.

Later in the same year, with the autumn colours enriching the countryside, my companion and I set off at the usual time and were up at Loch Moraig on the edge of Glen Tilt before 9.00 a.m. It had been a pleasure in itself to drive unimpeded up the usually traffic-choked A 9; although the morning was rather damp and misty there were encouraging signs of an improvement. We started off for the Beinn a’ Ghlo and made our way first up the southernmost peak of Carn Liath. This provided quite easy going and we reached the summit in about an hour and a half. We went along the ridge in the mist with just a few misgivings about the lie of the land, but trusting to our ability at compass reading. We need not have worried for soon the mist swirled away to reveal a golden autumn land of large rounded hills linked by narrow but gentle ridges. They seemed to have something of the characteristic of the Cairngorms which could now be seen rising firmly to the north, and yet they also possessed a charming Lakeland echo that could almost have been Borrowdale at its best. Far below us we heard the thrilling roaring sound of the stags as they stepped proudly through the glen, secure in the knowledge that they could not now be stalked for another year.

Our ridge swung round in interesting but capricious directions and revealed a deep and impressive, if unmenacing, corrie on our right. Then it led us over a finely denoted col to the second summit, Braigh Coire Chruinn-bhalgain. With the sun now shining fully, we had a splendid view from the peak: north to Ben Macdhui, Derry Cairngorm, Beinn a’Bhuird and Lochnager; east to Glas Maol and Glen Clova; south to Lawers, Schiehallion and the Fifeshire Lomonds—a wonderful panorama that stood out with a fine clarity of definition. We continued our route round to the principal peak of the range, Cam nan Gabhar, then followed the attractive southern ridge down to the track. We were down at the car in good time, having been out for about seven hours.

Just over two months later, in the New Year, we again took our familiar route to Callander and Crianlarich and drove through to Forest Lodge at the head of Loch Tulla. The conditions were very depressing as we set off up the Glen Kinglass track: the mist heavy and thick, we could not see a thing. At this stage we doubted whether we should even find our objective, Stob Ghabhar. However, we found the tiny hut at the bottom of Allt Toaig and made fair progress by following the rise of the burn. As we got up to the col between Stob Ghabhar and Stob a’Choire Odhair we discovered to our delight that we had up to now been held in a valley mist and that the tops above were sparkling in the January sunshine. We worked our way round into the huge main corrie of Stob Ghabhar and cut above the frozen lochan to face the superb north-east buttress. The steep, narrow strip of the famous Upper Couloir looked quite formidable but our hopes of attempting it were dashed by lack of time and inadequate snow conditions. Instead we moved into a broad open gully to the east of the couloir and took our line up this. The snow was quite crisp in most places, although its quality was variable, and we were able to kick good steps without great difficulty. Although the going was straightforward it became progressively steeper and we were always aware of the abysmal slide below us into the distant lochan. The last hundred feet provided a splendid climax, the slope became almost vertical and we had the sensation of climbing up a ladder on the last few holds.

The final step that gave us access to the ridge brought a whoop of joy, for the valleys were still filled with the thick white mist that looked as if a boiling, turbulent sea had rolled into all the glens. The peaks alone stood out triumphantly above the chaos writhing at their feet. The extent of the view was thrilling: southwards to the Lomond and Arrochar hills and even down to the Paps of Jura; west to Cruachan, Ben More (in Mull), Starav and the Etive hills, Bfdean nam Bian and the Aonach Eagach; north to the Mamores, Nevis and the Grey Corries; far out eastwards to Beinn a’Ghlo and the Cairngorms—an unbelievable panorama.

From the summit we circled above the crags of this fine main corrie on to Sron nan Giubhas and admired a fine cornice overhanging the edge. Here it was that we put up our only pair of ptarmigan of the day; they were completely white and almost impossible to distinguish when motionless on the snow. The line of descent on the eastern ridge was quite sharp and narrow but we had no problems until we had to cut down into the corrie. We had some difficulty getting into our chosen gully and once in it there were a few tricky moments, including the necessity to turn an ice pitch. We got down without incident and completed the day by climbing the subsidiary peak of Stob a’Choire Odhair. This had seemed quite close and accessible from the col, but it proved a much longer plod than we had bargained for. The view from the summit was again superb, especially of the sunset over Cruachan, but daylight was fading fast and we only just got down the steep nose of the mountain to the track before night was upon us. We made a torchlight procession back to Forest Lodge and were amused to find ourselves plunging back into the mist once more, conditions that apparently had prevailed all day.

After experiences like these I have proved to myself that as a mountaineering centre Edinburgh has a lot to offer. I have made many other more extensive trips from the capital that have lasted several days, but these do not fall within the scope of this article. It is perhaps interesting to record that Edinburgh folk have done some remarkable things in a week-end: climbing both Ben Hope and Ben Klibreck in the far north of Sutherland; putting up new winter routes in gullies in the remote parts of the Fannichs in Wester Ross; doing the full traverse of the major peaks in Arran; and all with managing to be back in the office on Monday morning. My own favourite plan is to leave the city at mid-day on Saturday (the earliest I can get away) and return for 9.00 a.m. on Monday, having climbed the Pinnacle Route on Sgurr nan Gillean in the meantime. This depends on the operation of the Sunday ferry, but I am sure it can be done and I am looking forward to the pleasure.

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