audrey gariepy's blog

I spent 10 wonderful days in Scotland from Feb 10th to 21st.  I was there with Mathieu Audibert, Ines Papert, Ian Parnell and Hans Hornberger. 

It was my first time there before going I've heard a lot of story about how the climbing there can be great, but the conditions often very bad. 

I thought it was worth a try anyway....and I must say that we got incredibly lucky with very good winter climbing conditions and blue sky almost the whole time!!! 

                                         Ian Parnell, Fall Out Corner

Day 1  Ines and Hans's flight have been cancelled because it was snowing to much in Germany so Mat and I went climbing alone with the almost Scotland local Ian Parnell.  He brought us to do the Fall Out Corner  VI,7 Coire an Lochain 1 (Cairngorm).  That was a good first experience of the Scottish good winter conditions!!  The whole wall was cover with 6 inches of fluffy snow that made everything way harder!  Ian lead the 50 metres pitch and we got to fallow and see how the ''protections'' are suppose to look like in these frozen cracks!!


                                         Mat, Smith's Gully

Day 2  Mat and I went to climb Smith's Gully VI, 5 in Creag Meagaidh.  Lots of local climbers were there too to enjoy the good conditions in route that rarelly forms. 

Day 3  Rest!!!!  With the long approach in Scotland of 2 hours and the jet lag.....I felt like it was time to play the tourist instead of going climbing.



Day 4  Ines and Hans was now with us.  We went all together to climb 1959 Face Route V, 4,  450metres in Creag Meagaidh.  We started the approach in poring rain, but it changed in snow as we walked up. 

                           Ines, Mat, Ian and Blair enjoying the sunshine in Glen Coe

                          Blair in the first pitch of Central Buttress

Day 5  Ian teamed us up with 2 very nice local climbers and we went in Glen Coe.  Mat, Blair Fyffe and I climbed ''Central Buttress'' VII, 7 on the Stob coire Nan Lochan while Ines and Ian (not Ian Parnell...but I forgot his last name!) climbed the ''Unicorn'' VIII.  The ''Central Buttress'' was just perfect.  Very interesting climbing and good protection. 

                           Myself in the third pitch of Central Buttress

Day 6  Another rest day!!!  We drove around, dry out our stuff and met with Ian Parnell and Simon Yearsley to go to the Norht West with two campervans.  Simon has 6 campervans to hire for about the same price than a rental car.  I think it's a smarter choice because after you don't need to find a place to stay everynight.  So...on the road for two days in the NW.

                           Mat starting on Central Buttress

                           Myself fallowing Simon's pitch

                           Myself suffering in the thigh chimney

Day 7  Mat, Simon and I climbed ''Central Buttress'' VI, 7 on Beinn Eighe while Ines and Ian climbed ''Blood Sweat and Frozen Tears'' VIII,8.  Mat and I had a very good time climbing with Simon.  Very nice person to climb with...always has a funny story to tell!!!  The climb is very classic too...going from technical to good hooks and keep being exciting all the way to the top with a squized chimney!!  Both my partner seemed very pleased with themself when we got to the bottom of it and it was my turn to go!!!  It was so narrow that I couldn't turn my head in it!!!  Good time, especially when I was out of it!!!

                                         Ines in Blood Sweat and Frozen Tears

Day 8  Mat, Simon and I climbed a very nice ice route ''Poachers Fall'' V,5 on Liathach while Ines and Ian went back on Beinn Eighe to open a new route ''Little Nipper'' VI,8. 

                                         Mat in Minus 1

Day 9  Ben Nevis!!!  I didn't want to go out of Scotland without a day on the higgest peak of the UK!  Ines and Hans did ''North East Buttress'' IV,5 while Mat and I climbed ''Minus 1'' VI, 6.  We got very lucky to have this line in good conditions because it's rarely the case.  Anyway, get to climb it and came back to the car a little later than expected while Ines and Hans were patiently waiting for us!  We drove back to Edinburgh that night since our flight was early morning the next day. 

Amazing 10 days.....good people and very good winter conditions.  I was going to Scotland with low expectations since I wasn't sure at all I would like the climbing there.  But I come back positively surprised and I'm sure I'll be back there sometime. 

I just came back from a month of climbing in China (Yangshuo) with my friend Mathieu Audibert. We had a really good time there, both for climbing and visiting this country so different than our. Even tough I traveled a lot in the past few years, the culture of China was very disorienting for a Canadian person!!







Climbing now!  I wouldn’t say it’s the best sport climbing area that I’ve ever seen.  The limestone is most of the time very polish.  There were two main walls that were awesome which are White Mountain and Moon Hill.  There were also some other nice routes on other walls but they are spray out.  

Overall, it was worth going to China.  Amazing country with lots of smiling faces.








Photos: Erwan Lelann