The Wrong Side of the Waves

Old Man of Stoer, May 2002

Text and photos by Ian Hall

On first sighting the Old Man of Stoer is alarmingly top heavy and with a respectable swell bashing against its base it looks a little precarious. A narrow channel separates the stack from the land but fortunately the water here is sheltered and the sea just slops benignly back and forth. On the day a thick froth from the seaward breakers had concentrated in the relative calm of the channel.

Thankfully Caroline was up for the swim. Purposefully she stripped down to lacy black underwear and filled her dry bag with clothes and air. We did comment that she was maybe over dressed for the task at hand. Our jibes were ignored as she tied into the middle of the static line and lowered herself without a squeal into the water.

Pushing her dry bag as a float in front of her she swam breaststroke legs and cut a neat swathe through the froth. In some bizarre fashion I was reminded of an otter. This illusion was broken as soon as she hauled herself out at the other side.

Our next task was to tension the tyrolean. I felt slightly incompetent as we faffed with various prussicks, slings and krabs trying to work out how to get that elusive mechanical advantage. We sorted it in the end and fat bastard ended up going over first as Ali was still untangling her climbing ropes. With the help of a pulley wheel I was over in no time and sunning myself with Caroline on a warm ledge (She had put her clothes back on by now).

Phil joined us next and he handed me the rack, pointing towards the twin horizontal cracks that would get us to the start of the original route. Three friend runners later I was looking out to sea from a large triangular ledge at the corner of the stack. My hands were a little sore from the jamming but I was feeling good.

Phil was supposed to follow on but there was some confusion at the tryrolean stance. I dangled my legs over the sea and waited patiently, thankful for the warm sunshine and blue skies. The story behind doing this route today was that Ali and Caroline had attempted it two years previously as part of a four-woman team. On that occasion Ali had taken two attempts to lead the sea level traverse and they had eventually baled out after a prolonged duel with pitch 2. Feminine pride was at stake here.

The next event caused me to believe that that pride was about to take another bashing. Ali was reversing the tyrolean. I had no idea what was going on but concluded that she must have forgotten something. At halfway the combined previous stretch effect of two fat bastards and two petite ladies was evident in the dip in the tyrolean. Ali was facing an uphill struggle using one prussick loop and with her feet flailing in the froth. Sensibly she gave up and was hauled back to the wrong side.

The call came out to me and between the crash of waves I discerned that Phil was relinquishing his place and that the girls were relinquishing their feminine pride. The compromise was won on the grounds that Phil had climbed the stack before and the girls would prefer to do it with a bloke in their team than not at all. In the confusion we also foolishly relinquished the girl’s 60m ropes and ended up climbing on Phil’s and my 50m ropes.

While waiting for Ali and Caroline to tie on I was disturbed by a firm gust of wind from the sea. The effect of the stack on this gust was that a vortex was created above the landward channel. I watched mesmerised as clumps of froth detached themselves from the sea and began to rise in an elegant lazy spiral. As they climbed higher the bubbles dispersed until the space between stack and land was filled with airborne white flotsam. My gaze followed the suds upwards and I watched some of them stick and wobble on the overhanging rock above me.

The pronounced ‘paunch’ of the Stoer overhangs on all sides. The original route stitches a devious line between fringes of projecting blocks that cantilever further and further out over the waves. Although the climbing is technically straightforward, the moves all seem to be made while contemplating a large slice of void. On most mountain crags I would relish such situation when combined with big holds. On this sea stack however I was never able to shake off a feeling of unease.

Ali led the crux second pitch and in doing so made whole what had been gnawing away over the last two years. The third pitch was undemanding 4b climbing but I was in the centre of a face that was undercut below me. Looking down I could not see the base of the stack, or even any rock beyond that which I was standing on. I would have liked to shrink from the void but leaning blocks were pushing me out of balance. I was not comforted either by the fact that over my shoulder I could see Phil lounging in the sun on the mainland, or by the awareness that in front of me was less than 10m of sandstone and that at the top I was unlikely to find any security.

The belay ledge when I found it did not have enough clearance to stand up, but the gear was good and above a bulge I could see the V groove that would hopefully lead away from the exposure and back into the sunshine. Caroline was adamant that she was not going to lead. There was an edge in her voice that made it clear that this was not the place to develop confidence. In the manner in which I have become accustomed, Ali accepted the rope with determination and stepped hesitantly off the ledge to disappear upwards.

The sunshine when it came was a rush of comforting warmth. The summit was small but the abseil block good and sturdy. I was also pleased to see that we had an audience from the cliff top opposite. There’s nothing like receiving a little implicit awe and admiration - even if they were really thinking ‘mad bastards’ or ‘yeah, I climbed that years ago, not in the same league as the Totem Pole though’.

The view to Cape Wrath was stunning and the apple that I had smuggled up tasted crisp and bittersweet. The afternoon was getting on though so we sorted our ropes for the abseil. The Old Man of Stoer is 55m high. We were going to regret leaving those 60m ropes behind. Tactics were discussed and we opted to go for the established procedure of rapping to a narrow ledge and tat some 10m above the tyrolean.

Paying careful attention to my autoblok prussick I double-checked and then lowered off. The crowd on the cliff top watched with interest. At the widest point of the stack I paused and contemplated the two snaking lines that hung free to the knots 30m below. I could see the tat sitting flat on it’s ledge and also that although my ropes went past the ledge; they were not really near the ledge. Instead they were hanging a metre or so out and rather unhelpfully, still significantly above the sea.

In a slow controlled descent I spun helplessly in space. My view alternated mainland, sky, stack, sky, and mainland and downwards, waves. The ledge rose to meet me, tantalisingly close but out of reach. Transferring the control of the abseil to the autoblock on my legloop gave me hands free. I leaned back and began to pendulum, grateful for childhood practice on Tarzan swings. Patiently I gathered momentum until from the next apex I could reach the rock above the ledge and bring my feet on board.

On inspecting the tat I was not encouraged to see that it was tied through two wobbly pegs and one firm peg, all driven downwards into the ledge and coated in salt patina. There was no way of assessing their state of decay so I clipped them anyway and crouched low while awaiting the girls. Now normally I would like my tat at waist level or higher. This makes lowering off easier and means that if I were to slip off the ledge I would not shock load the pegs. By crouching I was closer to the gear and this made me more comfortable somehow. The wall of the ledge was also leaning outwards which made standing precarious.

Caroline arrived next and I was thankful to see that she was using a prussick too. This enabled her to flick the ropes to me so that I could pull her onto the ledge. She clipped the dodgy tat and clung pensively to the rock to await Ali. The process was repeated until we were all perched somewhat uncomfortably ready to rig the next abseil.

‘Pull on orange’ reminded Caroline. I fed the orange rope through the tat and Ali untied from the abseil. We then held our breath as we hauled downward, waiting for that reassuring feeling that the knot joining the two ropes has not snagged. On this occasion it ran free and we were just about to pull through when Caroline alerted us to the knot in the end of the green rope. It is normal practice to tie knots in the free end of abseil ropes, this prevents an over zealous decent from continuing off the end of the rope. In order to pull the end of the abseil rope through, this knot needs to be undone to prevent it snagging. Not normally a problem but in this case the knot was hanging free a metre or so off the ledge and we could not reach it. I confess to feeling slightly incompetent again. Incompetence is not usually rewarded in awkward situations and in this case Caroline was lucky to be able to snare the rope with the knotted end of a long sling.

Our audience had watched this delicate operation with morbid fascination and were now waiting to see what would happen next. We all crouched on the ledge to inspect the pegs. I was prepared to go first but decided to back up the anchor with two friends in a flared crack above the ledge. This gear would not be weighted but in the event that the pegs failed would hopefully absorb the fall. The last person would remove the friend backup and trust the now tested insitu gear. This argument seems perfectly sound to the first people down, but to the last person there is another argument, that the pegs may have just been tested almost to failure. Ali understandably wanted to leave a friend behind. This caused some debate about whether the fact that it was Phil’s friend made any difference. In the end another suggestion won the vote.

We traversed along the ledge until it widened to our second belay stance. Here we knew there was a bomb proof hex placement and a much more comfortable descent platform. Within minutes I was back on the triangular ledge where I had watched the foam rise several hours before. The drawback was that from here we would have to reverse the sea level traverse. Although technically this was the hardest part of the climb, psychologically it was easy because we had already done it and besides, a fall would only result in getting wet.

Looking up at the cliff top we were obviously deemed to be out of danger because the spectators had gone. Ali was left to purge the final pitch and soon we were back on the right side of the waves and thanking Phil for his patience, and for tensioning the tyrolean while he was waiting. Caroline elected for another swim.