11th August 2024
After a brief climb at Tomb of the Eagles the afternoon before (a friend once told me VS, stands for very scary), and a late meal in Kirkwall, I met Alasdair Lowe for a leisurely start that Sunday. We made ourselves away from Kirkwall and arrived at Yesnaby by 1130.
The Castle o’Yesnaby, first impressions on the day…
Our objective was the stack. The wind was howling, the waves were crashing; and rising tide seemed to make any climbing at Yesnaby that day a distinct impossibility… We retired to Stromness for a hot drink and lunch. After a while, the sky brightened, and we headed back optimistic.
We spoke to a few walkers, locals and tourists alike, whom all seemed to be cheering us on and good-humoured although some guarded with the sea-state. The voices egging on yay or dismaying nay in my head, reflected in their chatter.
The sea seemed a bit calmer, but was it really? We talked ourselves into abseiling down with all the kit and waiting on the large landward platform.
I joked, “Ali, this rock climbing’s got a bit out o’ hand.”
At this point I voiced serious doubts and was completely psyched out. Earlier joking around taking a jet boil across for a summit cuppa was completely silenced. We managed to keep our self-directed encouragement to the point Ali was in his swimming kit, ropes tethered to the platform and me ready to ‘belay’.
Repeating my voiced doubts, Ali told me to shut up, and we waited. After agreeing to plunge first and being the more confident swimmer, he got primed to go and bided his time, ankle deep on the rocks, waiting to pounce. Some of the larger wave sets were fierce with a period of c7 seconds sometimes two back-to-back rogues cleaning the stack on either side and booming against the backwalls of the landward caves.
We discussed and planned a swim line. After an agonising wait, I had Ali on belay and he timed his moment, launching himself into the chop. He swam strongly, confidently and fast, treading water a few metres out from the stack, looking up between swells and then going for it, scrambling onto its base. The swim took him about a minute. A disbelieved moment passed with him triumphant, standing in the stack’s arch. I rushed around stripping and fetching the dry bags to tie to the static.
I had massively underestimated the distance of the swim, stretching my 50m abseil rope to length! I thought we may have been able to leave it rigged in situ, how wrong I was – a full rope length swim. I found myself de-anchoring the rope from the platform and tying myself into its end. All the doubts I had were thrown overboard. I gave the oncoming waves then Ali a glance, who gave a shrug, then I tossed the dry bags ahead and launched myself into the swell after them – we were committed now.
After a brash swim across rolling blue and white water, feeling seaweed brush me underneath, I arrived a metre or two from the platform, to pause and look up. I was close to making the last metres before I saw it coming and dove backwards to avoid the rocks. A larger rogue wave wiped me out and I was fully submerged for some seconds before fighting back and standing on an underwater ledge. I was battered a couple more times by the set, this time scraping the barnacles, but I was able to find the same ledge and corner as Ali and struggle my way out of the water and onto the platform. Ali hauled the bags up and pulled the rope tight as I scrambled on. It was all over in under 2 minutes. I looked down and blood seemed to be oozing from several barnacle scarred areas. We had made it. It was on.
Strip down, gear up and set off (Martin Gray)
We shared a few hilarious, absurd and adrenalized moments, now on the safety of the slimy base under the infamous archway. We stripped, changed, and played rock paper scissors for the lead. I won, scissors beating paper on the second round. That was it. I could put the swim behind me and focus on my task. After faffing to hang gear and anchor the static rope to something, I racked up, climbed the initial ledges to a seated position and donned my shoes. My harness was wet and climbing ropes damp making chalking and attempting to dry my hands a frequent activity.
The pitch – original south face route – was excellent. After some easy but bold step ups on a ledge, I found the breaks and suddenly climbing onto steep exposed ground. Good holds and good feet, but essentially vertical, very sandy with sparse trustworthy gear placements. Two old rusting pegs, presumably from the first ascent, were clipped for historical and psychological purposes before committing to the traverse left to a good flake (crux). Exposed and airy, I tentatively stepped and worked my hands left before reaching the sanctuary of the crack behind the flake, which had good holds and comfortable, though exposed, positions. Ali screamed in celebration up to me, I think relieved that our goal was nearly in the bag, and truthfully that he wouldn’t have to lead the pitch as well.
I screamed back excited, strip-the-willow-esque, “Whoo-hooo!”
Sun sea and stack (Martin Gray)
After negotiating a few loose holds I worked left up the flake in some outrageous exposure, a sheer drop from near the stack top to the rushing sea below, plugging my last gear placement before scrambling up easier but looser ground to the summit where old tat was strewn across thrifty turf. I found a large flake and slinged it, clove hitched the abseil stake with another sling and lowered myself down to a ledge where I found a good cam.
These three points created enough confidence to shout, “Safe!”
We were in business.
Safe!
Topping out (anon)
I realised now that there was quite an audience on the landward clifftops with some taking to photos. I hauled the ropes until Ali was tight and belayed him up. He dispatched the pitch without too much hindrance but commented on the sparsity of trustworthy gear. We both felt the experience was well worth E2 (Extremely Severe 2, for those not familiar), but the climbing felt relatively low in the grade.
Ali, seconding above the surf
He climbed over my trusted belay set up and topped out where I joined him, we hugged and savoured the moment, sitting on the stack-top, giddy and delighted.
After deciding to leave a long sling on the ‘good’ flake, we rigged it up taught with the rest of the ancient tat, along with a new mallion. Ali opted for a double fisherman’s’ to tie our double ropes together as I flaked and then threw them down. I abseiled first past the flake into space free hanging for about 20m. I swung to a touching distance of the very bottom where we accessed the stack from the sea, and pulled myself in.
“Rope free!”
Ali abseiled rapidly and joined me. We were still giddy and bagged everything before stripping once again, braised for the swim back. After tying in, Ali scrambled down then jumped first again into the swell and made short work of the crossing carefully negotiating new obstacles revealed by the falling tide. I tethered the bags and scrambled gingerly on the down climb with their weight hanging then perched on and around the awkward corner and barnacle inhabited ledges. I looked at incoming waves, then to Ali and plunged into the water once again.
The swim there and inevitable return journey was the most psychologically feared part of the adventure for me – the crux, if you like. I’m not a confident swimmer, though I know I can swim, I find it uncomfortable and feel I never had the knack or technique for good swimming refined when I was younger. I push too hard, find the demand too much on my muscles, work up breathless discomfort, quickly feeling panic. Time to stay calm.
Here I was faced with one last dive into the Atlantic attached to the rope, Ali ‘belaying’ (more like hauling) physically and more importantly encouraging me to make the journey across. The main challenge now were the heavy dry bags one of which was being filled with water and the ropes soaking more wet weight. I crossed the first section, then beached over the now partially uncovered rock between the stack and the mainland platform, soft and rubbery tangles slid underneath me as I fought into the second stretch pushing the bags ahead.
The onshore waves were rolling onto me and my bags but aiding in direction this time, and I made it to the ledges which were a struggle to pull onto with the weight of the bags, the 20L one containing 2x 50m ropes and most of the rack now with three or four spouts of water shooting out of its wounds. Not the prettiest, but made it, all intact.
Laughing and adrenalized again, we fist bumped and set about our escape up the much easier looking cliff ahead. We changed, though I opted to climb in my soaking wet shorts, then I set about tethering our bags, dry shoes, and 50m static to the left abseil rope we used to access the landward platform. Ali racked up meanwhile and then set off leading some Severe ground in wet rock shoes back to our original abseil anchor, which it felt like I may as well have set up sometime the day before, the adventure had been so consuming.
I noticed the ropes drag around the top cliff, as it turned out Ali couldn’t hold in his curiosity and excitement after some garbled exchanges and mis-interpreted sign language to tourists-come-photographers whilst we were on the summit; he located an email address scribbled on a note in one of our bags. Result! We were going to have some photographs to show people in addition to our mind-imprinted and etched images of each other battling the waves and scaling the sandstone stack.
After topping out and packing up finally we made our way back to the car, exchanging beta, thrills and most importantly valuable camaraderie. It’s not the sort of objective or adventure for everyone, even some of my closest climbing partners. Ali was up for it, and without him on the day, I don’t think any other team with me would have succeeded. I hope he felt the same.
After failing a few places, we ended up walking into Lucano in Kirkwall, the local Italian restaurant to celebrate, share and message friends. A bottle of red went down well, and we even got a prompt reply from our would-be photographer. Even more surprising was after a quick check in hope that some locals had posted pictures on the generic local Orkney Facebook group, perhaps on their leisurely Sunday stroll. I found there were some superb pictures of us, taken by local naturalist and beach-comer Martin Gray, getting lots of online attention. Slightly embarrassed, I was expecting more scathing comments but was warmed to see many positive ones. Perhaps our apparent success gave the impression we knew what we were doing.
Local celebrities…
The route and all its details were of course analysed, with judicious reference to UKC. We discovered an apparent unpopularity with our chosen route, despite prominence in the new Wired SMC Guide “Scottish Rock Climbs”. At time of writing just the 4th and 5th logs, and first since 2010.
The landward eastern arete was more popular with almost annual ascents in the past 5-10 years. It has closer access to the given guidebook abseil point and we figured it was more convenient for rigging a Tyrolean and necessitates just a single swimmer. In any case, we were pleased to have followed the line of original ascent, with modern knowledge and equipment of course. I felt that special blend of challenge, suspense, skill, brashness and fulfilment which makes climbing rocks, and dramatic features like this one, so special. And as a brought-up Orcadian, immense pleasure in ticking a local county classic.
Both of us were not phased by the principle of getting wet at first; and the adrenaline pumping Atlantic surf, giving hard very choppy conditions, resulted in neither of us feeling the cold at all… Though, I did wear a helmet.
Gearing up in the arch (Martin Gray)
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