Monday 10 September 2012

Inchnadamph. Its Gneiss

For the past 2 weeks I have been on a field trip up in the far North West of Scotland. We stayed at a hostel at Inchnadamph, on the North shore of Loch Assynt. The region itself is called Assynt and is very interesting in geological terms. The rocks here show what happens when continents collide and the crust shortens. This is going on right now beneath the Himalayas.
The process which shortens the crust is called thrusting. Rock units get thrusted  on top of one another. The main thrust in the area is called the Moine thrust where Moine schist has been thrust upon the younger cambrian succession. This can been seen at Knockan Crag, near Elphin. There are lots of other thrusts in the area but this is the major one. At the end of the two weeks we had a mapping project around Cam Loch, which is near Elphin.
Despite my previous post saying that I wasn't going to get out and climb much over those two weeks its proved not to be the case and I managed trips to the Rhue Blocks, Ardmair Beach, Ardmair Ruins and Achmelvich beach.
My most frequented venue has to be Ardmair Beach. Here I have ticked all but 5 routes. The most notable thing I have done is Boulder Ding, at font 6c+, although I found Jumping Bristletails (font 6b) much harder.
On the trip whilst looking at rocks I did notice lots of things that should be climbed so I will hopefully be back in the not so distant future to add some new routes too.
Prior to the trip I managed a few days out. Firstly I went to Bowden in Northumberland with Joanna and some freshers. I spent most of the day bouldering but I did managed to lead Stretcher Wall (E1), which is well named. I finished the day by climbing Dog Eat Dog (font 7a).
Danielle seconding New Gold Dream (Photo Credit: Joanna Lisowiec)
Later in the week I went to Limekilns with Joanna and Danielle Arnott, who has taken my old room in GBH. Here I climbed Marleys Ghost and New Gold Dream, both E2. Joanna had a good day and managed to onsight her first E2, Elgins Crack. She managed to make it look really easy aswell!
The day before leaving I went to North Berwick Law with Joanna and John DL. I climbed Necktie (F6b+), Dosage (F7a+) and ROWYCO (font 6c). I was very close to onsighting Dosage, but fell from the last move of the crux on my first attempt.
Dosage (Photo Credit: Joanna Lisowiec)