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Wednesday 25 September 2013

Northern Scottish Mountains and Rock Climbing in the Verdon Gorge

Two very contrasting adventures here. Summer is officially over and Ali and I have a few weeks off before his next job officially starts and before we move to Fort William so, to make the most of being homeless we have had a yomping/camping adventure up north and a sunny bolt-clipping trip to France.

Before I start with my photos, I will just add that Ali's blog is also updated and hosts some much better photography! It can be found at www.mountainstotheseaphotography.com

 From the second summit along the ridge of An Teallach, the weather was incredibly changeable and that rain storm behind Ali was very much heading our way!

 Looking back along the ridge we have just yomped along.

 Midgie hell.... Our camp spot was idyllic, by the stream, under a rainbow, by the mountains, no-one to be seen etc etc. And then the midges arrived. Great!

 From the summit of Ruadh Stac Mor (one of the Fisherfield Six) right after we have been thoroughly drenched by rain. The forecast actually was for a big storm to blow in that evening so we are just preparing to hurry off the hill before 50mph gusts start blowing in!

Ali, doing his thing.

Our adventure now got very much warmer. Excellent. The Verdon Gorge in France seems to have gone somewhat out of fashion in the sport-climbing scene but it could not have been a better place for us to have ended up. A search for cheap flights turned up Marseille and a search for climbing near Marseille turned up Verdon. Our style of climbing in the UK is usually long adventurous routes that take a full day to complete and Verdon had exactly that to offer, but with a few added bolts. We are not particularly grade focused either which was ideal here. A quote we found on the UK Climbing website about one climb, La Demande (6a), was "6a climbers would probs die" and while 6a should not usually be our upper limit, we found the climbing pretty damn hard!

 The standard Verdon View. Not bad. And this was the worst weather we had all week. Not bad either!

 Griffon Vultures. All week we could turn away from a climb to look out over the gorge and see anywhere up to eight of these birds swooping past us. They are huge and fly very menacingly close to you, but with these and the thousands of Swallows in swarms dipping in and out of corners and crevices in the rocks, the atmosphere was wild and wonderful.

 With the routes we did being up to 12 pitches and hard, I don't really have many climbing pictures but this was on our rest day where we mooched round the very easy via ferrata of the gorge. It did involve some very ancient metal-work, two exciting river crossings and an awkward diagonal abseil, but perfect for an easier day out.


 This was our view down the gorge throughout the via ferrata.

 The second of two tyrolean river crossings on the via ferrata route. This rope apparently is not always up, so after two big (non-reversible) abseils, we were quite relieved to see it! Though we did have a bit of a swim in the river later too and actually swimming across would not have been too much of an issue.

 An early morning cloud inversion, on our way to do our last routes of the trip. The little black car was our rental for the week, a Chevrolet Spark. Tiny and exceptionally gutless up the hills...

Just another classic South France view.

If only this photo had an empty pizza box, it would entirely sum up our evenings this week. I have discovered a new found enjoyment for beer (but only Leffe). The village of La Palud was such a perfect spot. It still feels small and french despite the tourist traffic that the gorge gets. It has one bakery, one tiny climbing shop, two small bars/restaurants and a little pizza shack. Everyone knows everyone and they all support each others businesses. The campsite was clean and friendly, had hot showers, always topped-up loo roll,  and we almost had to physically pin down our campsite owner just to give him some money. I would recommend the Verdon Gorge to any climber. It is hard but there is plenty for climbers of all abilities (with a good head for heights!). Brilliant.

Now for the more grown-up adventure of mortgages, jobs and moving house...