New Book "Between a Loch and a Hard Place

Book £12.95

Postage £3.30 1st Class Royal Mail

email davygunn@gmail.com with your address if you would like a copy. I will reply with payment details

The author was born in Oban and brought up in the village of Carnoch, better known nowadays as Glencoe village. A Highland upbringing rich in community. Glencoe is an area steeped in bloody history, surrounded by mountains and cut through by the River Coe. Known for its infamous 1692 massacre, Glencoe is also famed for its mountaineering, with people coming from all over the world to climb its majestic peaks and test themselves on its rock and ice climbs. Glencoe Mountain Rescue Team has a long history of saving lives and of rescue from the West Highlands and has had a few of Scotland’s best mountaineers as members. Not least was one of the rescue team founders, Hamish MacInnes.

This book gives some local history and insight into how a Highland boy lived beside a river that gave quietude and wonder as its silver leapers, the Atlantic salmon, forged up through its foamy waters into the mountains. And where the boy, me, was to meet mountain folk who opened his eyes to a broader world and possibilities. This book is about my upbringing, and the community of Glencoe that formed me. The reader may find the climbing and rescue tales a bit technical as I have used the terms and technicalities of the sport. The same is true for skiing. Forgive me as it’s hard to convey some of these ascents and descents without these technical details. Skip past bits if necessary and just enjoy the book as a collection of impressions and short tales.

The River is the thread

Running stitches through time

Gathering mountains, forests and sea

And binding me to this land

Lucy Morrice

Dwindle Wall basking in the late evening sun

In the late 1950’s early 1960’s a young Indian born star, living in Edinburgh studying philosophy, was shining bright on the Scottish climbing scene.  A veritable Sirius in the galaxy of rock climbing. The list of his legacy is long, even though his life was short. Killed in the Pamirs with Wilfred Noyce in 1962. Robin Smith, a name synonymous with hard quality rock climbs on Scottish mountain crags.

Glencoe is host to some of his outstanding climbs. A lesser-known Smith route aptly named Dwindle Wall, overlooks the upper Glen. Creag na Tulaich, a smaller buttress than Creag a' Bhancair below isn’t a big crag and Dwindle Wall starts at its left side in a chimney groove, then crosses its face before heading straight up to finish. When I climbed it with local Alan Thomson it was graded VS 150ft and had about four brief lines as the guidebook description. I was working my way through the graded guidebook list, and although it’s a short route it just had to be ticked off.

A sunny June afternoon and I was a bit fed up, as there wasn’t much to do after a training session on the road bike, so I gave Alan a phone and asked if he fancied an afternoon climb. He collected me in his car. We took my rack and twin 150ft 9mm ropes for the climbing.

We started off on a lovely route on the crag below called Cayman Grooves. Beautiful well protected climbing with lovely positions up to a belay on a terrace. You have to pick your time for this part of the crag as a raptor sometimes nests behind the tree belay and is best left alone if you hear or see it flying about. The next pitch goes up the left side of a big open groove without much gear, bold but easy enough climbing. The route to the right, Piranha is a lovey VS and to the left of Cayman Grooves is Walk with Destiny, which is in my opinion a superb route going at E2 5c.

Alan and I finished up and went up and over to the bottom of Dwindle Wall. I found the start and led off up the groove. It was a bit rattly if I remember right, and not much gear, although I found an old piton. Then you leave the sanctuary of the groove and traverse right along a ramp of good rock that is devoid of any protection. Very quickly you are in ground fall territory and running out rope with no gear as you move right and up.

At a point when well up the ramp disappears, then it’s up the steep wall above. No move is particularly hard. Maybe sustained 4c, but by this time you are 80 feet above your last gear and have another 40 to go to the top. I was about 15ft from the heather at the top above me when the rope wouldn’t move. I had run out of rope and there was still a couple of sketchy moves to make. It was hot and I was having to dig really deep to keep it together. I shouted as loud as I could for Alan to start climbing and gave a hefty two tugs on one of the ropes.

 Alan had some starting moves of about 5a on less than perfect rock, so this was a pretty serious situation. I felt some give on the ropes and waited a bit. Alan thought I was on belay, and he was safe. Was he fuck! I started slowly moving up and was a wee bit scared. Really scared actually, as I would fly if I fell, and go away past the bottom of the crag and would die.

 Alan wouldn’t be unscathed either. Eventually I got to near the top and its extreme heather pulling to get over the top. As a climber and rescuer going into shitty places you become accustomed to heather pulling and testing the quality of Calluna vulgaris for pulling on. This wasn’t good but grab enough then pull and hope. I got over with just enough rope and as Alan ascended I just kept walking, ready at any point to just fall down and grab anything if Alan should fall off.

Eventually I reached a spot where I could sit and brace myself against a big rock and waist belay Alan up. Fairly safe at last. 150ft (45m) ropes were just not long enough and 50m or even better modern 60m ropes would be better. Dwindle Wall is a bold route typical of Robin Smith, and even with modern gear I suspect it will test nerve and not be for those who are not accustomed to a bit of soloing or soul searching. Smith was truly a great climber. His route Marshalls Wall, down in the lower glen is also very bold. Named, I believe, after Jimmy Marshall, who to wind Robin up had called a winter route first ascent "Smiths gully" as he knew robin had it in mind. Retaliation from Robin Smith was naming Marshall’s wall after Jimmy, possibly as it was a line Jimmy was after. Tit for tat between young and old maestros of rock and ice.

Robin Smith aka "Wheech"

A Mountain Day, from Sunrise to Sunset

Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset,

Swiftly, fly the years,

One season following another,

Laden with happiness and tears

Jerry Brock

The small dark hours of an early January morning. Leaning over carefully so as not to awaken Fiona, I pull back a curtain, just a chink, and I see bright twinkling stars and hoar frost over cars parked outside. My night has been restless. Fear and anxiety about what I might do with this day. Then at times a light slumber and calm, as I think, no, I will just have an easy day at home.

Mind games. Somewhere deep I had already decided what I was going to do. But my gremlins were scaring me out of it. My human put the chimp back in its place when I pulled back the curtain and saw the stars and frost as I could already feel the mountains calling. Anxiety for survival, and taking risks to live life fully. The solo climber’s paradox.

Sliding out of warmth and safety, creeping quietly down to hastily eat something with a coffee. A prepacked rucksack. Planning or precognition? Had I subconsciously decided what my plan was? But to sleep perhaps I needed to know I wasn’t going to follow through.

A note is left. “Gone up Stob Corrie. Just some easy climbs. Back midafternoon. Parking at Pipers Layby.”

The Pipers

Our car is frosted, but the newspaper covering the screen comes off clean. In some fateful irony the inside page was covered in details of a mountain tragedy a week before, where a roped party had fallen. Tom Patey the ardent soloist had a definition of a roped party as being two people falling together. A quick key turn to start the car, reverse out, and a short blind drive away from the house to do a proper scrape and defrost, then I am on my way up the glen. It’s bitterly cold, and sunrise is still a couple of hours away. Perfect.

The short drop down from the car park to the bridge begins to warm my legs, ready for the toil ahead. That long grind up, with the East face of Aonach Dubh and memories of lazy warm days on easy classic climbs made by an earlier pioneering generation. And some harder climbs where more boldness was required. At my back, the Aonach Eagach and its siren call in winter, plastered in snow and inviting me to a mini alpine adventure. Tempting, but not the day plan on the note I left of where I am going. I will climb some routes. I will decide which ones, if any when in the Corrie.

Across the burn and a last slog up into the Corrie by following the burn outline in the glow of a headtorch, watching for the buried lochans. You could be forgiven for thinking you were on an alpine adventure where a crevasse might eat you up, but in this case soak you and kill you from hypothermia. Into the Corrie proper as the light changes subtly from night to not quite day. I see Boomerang gully just catching some light at its top. Crampons on, axe in hand I plodded up in soft snow for a bit then hit perfect snow ice in the gully. I love moving fast using my fitness which is hard earned from days cutting trees, running, and racing my road bike. The former to earn a living, the latter purely for getting fit for moving fast on days like these. Also, for stamina, as when my climbing day ends, my rescue night might sadly begin when a call comes to get the team out. It’s a fine line between warmed up and fucked.

I go up Boomerang fast, reaching a very short snow ice steepening, then onto a shoulder, reaching it as the sunrise hits me. Everything turns dark orange. I stop and look around at the now lit up summits and take in this atom of delight. I could be summiting Everest, Denali or any famous giant, but I don’t need to think that way, because it’s not about imagining greater ranges. It’s pure delight that I live here, this is home, and this is sublime. It’s more than enough for me. Some of the time.

I plod up to the summit and take in the views, then drop down to the top of Broad gully then down into the still cold and brightening Corrie. I can see other headtorches on the way up the path now, and it’s getting lighter. Before more folk arrive and get on the popular climbs I decide Forked gully right hand should be next, and on good snow ice quickly ascend through the ice pitch onto the ridge then back climb down the left fork until I come across the trough carved out by climbers traversing below the climbs on the previous days. I then go up into Twisting gully and find it has good ice not hacked to bits by other ascents, so I quickly go up and across its steeper bit, then crampon up to the cornice which has a slot cut in it. I’m back on the ridge again and the air is clear and the light bright. I can see my house still frozen in the village fridge as we get no winter sun, and the house will now be stirring with breakfast being made. It’s a reflective moment. Am I selfish up here on my own?  Yet this is who I am. That brings responsibility too. Don’t fuck up being the main thought.

Coire nan Lochan

Pondering this, I go down the ridge to the top of NC gully and back climb down, then traverse across to Central Buttress, then across into SC gully. I climb a long steep strip of snow ice on bomber axe placements, move across the ice pitch onto a ramp, then climb up into the narrow steep confines of the upper gully. Steep calf aching cramponing to just below the gully rim where there is a cornice. Standing below this pondering the best way, with a big death drop below focuses all the chimps in my paradox. I decided to traverse left up to an easing angle where South Central Buttress joins and where there is a smaller cornice. Both axes planted shaft first, over the top with a heave I am up and safe.

I sit on a rock and ponder for a bit. I have the physical energy for one more climb, but I don’t have my head in the game anymore. All the chimps have been silenced. I have quietude.  I think - finish early and get home to the family.  I make my way down the NW ridge into the Corrie and meet many people whose climbing day is just about to start as my one ends. They will have a good day and good sport as the routes are at the top of their guidebook grade not banked out by very much snow yet.

Central Gully IV4 ScRBeith

Winter climbing is a funny old game. It’s tough but rewarding, and unforgiving if you don’t learn to heed what the mountains in your mind and in front of you are telling you. “Discretion is the better part of valour” is a truth. Sometimes like this day, the mountains let you in, other days they spit you out. Wising up to this can give a lifetime of adventure or a lifetime of hurts. There is nothing quite like it.

Down home to a busy household of young children, warmth and safety. Most of the afternoon still ahead and time for walk with the family before the early dusk and winter darkness sets in. On a frozen loch snow angels are made in the hoar frost, and another atom of delight as I observe family happiness while also still feeling the satisfaction of feeding the climbing rat that some of us are afflicted with. Until the Rat moves to a different home. Thats rare. 

Rebekah Gunn

Just as the sun sets and darkness arrives, and I feel relaxed, the radio goes, it’s the team leader calling us out to a fallen climber on Stob Coire nam Beith somewhere in the region of NW or Summit gullies. Pre mobile phone coverage in the glen, the fallen climbers friend had to run all the way down the steep path to the Elliots cottage to get help. I quickly get ready, grab my kit and go across to the A82 where another team member stops and gives me a lift. Others pass and collect our rescue van from Hamish MacInnes’s house at Achnacon. We get to the Elliots where I meet the fellow who has come down to get help. His friend has a badly broken ankle from having fallen with crampons on, and as they dug in broke his ankle and dislocated it. The van arrives and the police with it. It seems a helicopter is due in 55m. As its not life-threatening folk decide to wait for a lift up. I’m amped up, so grab a medical gas bottle and splint and take off up the path into the Corrie. Saving a bit of energy earlier in the day, and after lots of food when home I felt quite good. Tired, but it is amazing how long you can sustain an aerobic threshold and reasonable pace when trained. Its quite a mindful and satisfying feeling as your body burns fat for energy. Probably a remnant of our hunter gatherer past from chasing game across savanah for days.

I made it to the casualty at the foot of the first ice pitch in NW gully in about 55m just as the helicopter arrived below at the base. I gave the casualty some pain relief gas, then re located the ankle with a satisfying clunk, straightened out the leg, and put on a good splint. I had direct radio contact with the team and helicopter. The helicopter flew straight up, dropped down the winchman who double stopped the casualty up and away to the Belford Hospital Fort William. Then it was a slow tired walk back down to the base and home again. Two hours start to finish, home in time for tea with the family.

I later fell asleep in a chair until two in the morning. Tired

Sunset over the Cullin

Darkness and Light

"The wound is the place where the light enters you" - Rumi

Its just after midsummer. On my own in reflective mood. Wandering old haunts and old thoughts. Old hurts, injuries, and a consciousness of those who have gone. Some by misadventure, others by their own hand. Many more when their time has run out, life lived. 

Thinking, as the sands of time run through we live more in the past than in the future. I talk of bygone days more. "Back in the day", "remember when?", "I remember the day ............." 

On a hill in the dusk of Wednesday night while walking, aching hips and old pains nagging, up I go on a path to the Aonach Eagach. I thought of this thinking of the past, and why it doesn't have to be that way. We allow ourselves to diminish with age perhaps?  As I wandered stiff and sore up the hill, my mood lifted. Into the dusk and impending darkness I felt light as I slowly got into my old hill walking rhythm, which no matter what weight I had on my back I could sustain for hours. That rhythmic breathing and steady heart rate, which as you warm up allows your pace to get faster as you go, not slower. As I went up into the gloom the years passed off and a great optimism and feeling of gratitude and love entered. I looked around and across at places where I had been fortunate to quest among great cliffs to find my sense of self and who I was as a young man. And just occasionally where I would find others less fortunate who were more physically lost than spiritually, needing a helping hand from me when a rescuer. I came off the hill after that evening wander a younger man again. Despite injuries and age the boy is still in the man and wants the sunset to last longer. That means climbing higher. And that's not always up a mountain. 

The weather plays a huge part in our moods and life in the West Highlands. It can lift you to ecstacy in a sunset, and bury you in profound seasonal depression in endless rain and darkness. Bipolar weather that triggers cyclothymic feelings. Unless you embrace the unpredictable weather it will drown you in despair. The good days are the rapid chargers. Even just a little bright sun sends wattage into your soul and lifts your spirit. I like to take pictures of these days to remind me of them.

Sunrise from the East over the A82 January

Looking West from Ben Lora March

Morven from Cuil Bay July

Climbing Grades and some Glencoe Climbing History

Crowberry Ridge. Starting Abrahams Ledge

Rock climbing as a sport on the Scottish mountains in its own right really got going in the late Victorian era. Although there was initially a residual feeling that Scottish rock climbs were only training for the Alps or greater ranges. As folk took up the sport an element of competition set in. The formation of the Scottish mountaineering club was an important part of that, as club members vied for the best line up a mountain (a line being the most aesthetically pleasing route up the rocks). Also, competition for the first ascent or making a repeat ascent of the hardest route up a rock face. Competition came from visiting climbers, from places such as the Lake district, where  there was already a small but established rock-climbing scene.

One Glencoe route Crowberry ridge via the direct line made by the English Abraham brothers in 1900 was Scotland’s hardest and most sought-after climb pre-WW1. It was not just the men. Alpine club pictures of ladies making guided first ascents of the European alps wearing the cumbersome attire of the day, show they were as good and perhaps better than some of the men. And in they were also leading at the sharp end not just belaying.

1908 Pauline Smith and Lucy Rankin on Salisbury Crags

The early climbs were graded from moderate to Severe, then later Very Severe was added. This remained the hardest technical grade for nearly 80 years in Scottish guidebooks. As climbs received ascents word of mouth would spread the information as to a routes falling off potential and injury or death likelihood. And how technically hard a crux (the hardest climbing move and point of no return) was. To indicate the very hardest of these very severe routes, a graded list would be compiled in a guidebook, with the hardest and most serious routes at the top, and the easier ones at the bottom. Supposedly based on consensus. Being subjective and at the whim of egos this could result in anomalies. No climber liked to admit a route was desperately hard for them, and so some were placed much further down the list than they should have been. Climbers had a term for routes that are harder than the grade in the list and called them “sandbags.”  The unwary could find themselves with the dreaded vibrating sowing machine leg from fear and have to dig deep in themselves.

Buachaille Etive Graded List

The more experienced climbers always knew grading was a lottery and kept a bit in reserve, or they could push through this fear, but the less experienced could give themselves a big fright. Grading evolved and later Hard Very Severe and Extremely severe were added to the grading system as folk pushed the technical boundaries of rock climbing. Also, better safety equipment placed into cracks or features in the rock as protection, and post WW2 the advent of more dynamic ropes. Coming off might result in a frightening fall, but not hitting the ground and getting maimed or dying.

In the 1980’s The "E grade" an Extremely severe grade (previously just written as XS) became a number system to represent the risk of falling, including a falls consequences came into use. This occurred in parallel with a number system to indicate the hardest technical move on a climb, or an indication of a succession of less hard but endurance testing climbing moves. Many of the graded list routes at the top of the graded list from the 1950’s onwards received extremely severe as a new grade along with a technical grade; these climbs were ahead of their time. In the following chapter you will read of Smith, Marshall, Cunningham and the invader Whillans, all of whom were the very best climbers of their generation, and well ahead of the rest of the Scottish climbing fraternity in boldness and technical ability. Robin Smith in my opinion was technically the best and the boldest, and Marshall the most prolific, with an eye for the best line. Their legacy is stamped all over the Glencoe and surrounding area in climbing guidebooks.

Rock climbing grades:

Moderate – A scramble such has the Aonach Eagach

Difficult – Steep but on good holds. Bear in mind the early pioneers climbed in nailed boots so it would have been difficult climbing even if not technical. Bowstring on Aonach Dubh is a classic example.

Very Difficult (V-Diff) - Steeper, longer and careful use of hand and footholds required. Archer Ridge Aonach Dubh as three-star example.

Severe – Up until about 1920 when the Buachaille Chasm on the Glen Etive side was ascended, this was hardest grade in the Glencoe area. Later the caveat Hard Severe (HS) was added for some routes that were not quite very severe but had a higher risk of catching out the average leader. Rainmaker Gearr Aonach is an example of Hard Severe and not to be underestimated as the approach requires thought, and it is a mountain route. It is probably VS 4b/c but historically remains HS.

Very Severe (VS) – Technically demanding rock climbing for the best climbers of the day pre-WW2. Crow’s Nest Crack Buachaille Etive is the epitome of a short mountain VS and it deserves its 3 star rating as an outing.

Hard Very Severe – A later addition to the traditional grading system. Although probably no more technically demanding than Very Severe with similar fall consequences. Routes falling into this grade are often a bit more physically demanding than technical. Spider on Aonach Dubh is a fine example of the grade, and a very fine well protected pitch up a steep wall.

Extremely Severe – Routes that are technically demanding and therefore with a very much higher chance of falling. “E” numbers reflect this. Routes now go up to E10 and beyond. Definitely death potential on some of the highest E numbers. At the lower end of the E grade, routes like Bloody Crack, YoYo, Big Top and Trapeze are fine examples of Glencoe E1’s, with Shibboleth and Lechers Superstition E2’s

Davy Gunn Ardverikie Wall- Boots

Technical Grades:

4a - Fairly easy but technical climbing on good holds. Often equates to Severe

4b - A little bit more thought required. Hard Severe or easy very severe.

4c – Very Severe. Often with a distinctive crux climbing move requiring some thought. As mentioned, Crow’s Nest Crack on Buachaille Etive was regarded by locals as the definition of VS. Routes were often referred to as harder than, or easier than Crow’s Nest Crack by local climbers.

5a – A little bit harder than 4c!

5b – Harder and more strenuous. Many classic mountain routes of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s in the book “Hard Rock” are technically 5b. Often graded E2 5b to represent a multi pitch route with more than one crux pointm and many places where a little boldness helps.

5c – Technically hard sequences of climbing moves, or a short very hard section. Hard climbing. Carnivore Villains Finish with its sting in the tail, and the excellent Clearances on Aonach Dubh are examples. As you go up the technical grade, the difference between the higher numbers narrows and can be subtle. As an example making two 5c moves in a row feels like 6a

6a – Hard technical climbing. Often alongside E4 as small holds and complicated sequences of climbing moves. Freakout on Aonach Dubh is a well protected example. The Clearances on Aonach Dubh's North Face at 5c should feel easier, but it doesnt feel like it as a more serious place. As you can see climbing grades can very subjective. There is vast difference between an E3 5c on a roadside crag and two pitches up looking down 2,000ft to the road from Aonach Dubh's North face. The same can be applied to a Polldubh Glen Nevis VS 4c which is a world apart to the atmosphere of a route graded the same such as the excellent Ravens Edge on Buachaille Etive. Technically similar, but one is quick hit and the other a memorable day out looking into the bowels of Ravens gully. 

6b, 6c, 7a,7b, 7c and up, things just get harder and more desperate!  

Pre WW2 hard routes were sometimes done in plimsoles. Routes such as "Satan’s Slit and Red Slab climbed in September 1939 were bold routes on Rannoch Wall. Climbed by Ian Ogilvy and party in "rubbers" as they called them. After WW2, the Vibram boot sole allowed harder routes to be climbed in boots. Rigid shanked boots on a rubber soled boot allowed precise placement of feet. The Vibram sole instantly made damp or wet routes like Clachaig gully technically easier, but not shorter or easier to find your way up its 30+ pitches (The 5 main pitches in the middle are the most difficult). Around 1950 a dedicated rock climbing shoe made by Pierre Allain in France, the PA as it became commonly known as, revolutionised technical rock climbing. Followed later by the Edmon Bourdonneau shoe known as the EB after he bought out Pierre Allain. Not until the advent of the Spanish made "Fire" rock shoe with its tacky and sticky formula one tyre rubber 30 years later was there an improvement.  However, us oldies still call our modern sticky rock shoes "EB's" regardless of who makes them!

A late 1960's and 70's Classic from the top of the graded list. Carnivore