Sunday 5th May 2002

1963 climb -
Jug Rib

I had been fascinated by the description of the Alladale Wall ever since the 1994 SMC guidebook had been published. It just sounded like somewhere I wanted to climb; somewhere that might feel like all Scottish mountain crags used to. A long drive, a long walk in, no other climbers, no evidence of human hand on the rock. I wanted to emulate the pioneers in the Corriemulzie Club who had first touched this rock.

We made our first attempt in late October 1999 and followed the guidebook approach to the wall. We were fortunate enough to get the car all the way to the Alladale Lodge, so that the legwork was reduced to only 7km. But we were unfortunate enough to find the slabs dripping wet from a damp summer. Nevertheless, I was impressed with what I saw and resolved to try again in the future.

The timing was right in early May 2002. We decided to try to combine a hill walk as well as the rock climb into an ambitious three day expedition and set off from the locked gate just off the A832, 3km east of Aultguish Inn. Three hours, and 15km later, we pitched the tent at the entrance to dramatic Glenbeg. In the afternoon, we made an 18km round trip ascent of Seana Bhraigh, plodding through endless peat hags on the extensive plateau to the east of the summit.

Finally, the next day, we set off for the Alladale Wall. Climbing out of the clutches of Glenbeg into the bright sun, we were forced to weave a way through the peat hags again until we found much faster walking on the high top. A herd of deer stood shimmering on the horizon, just down from the summit of An Socach, near where I planned to dump the bags. As we slowly approached, they cantered off, skipping through some melting snow patches.

We geared up, and set off down the steep ground into the head of Glen Alladale, skirting the wall to our right passing several waterfalls cascading off the plateau. We could see the wall now in profile- it set my heart racing- I don't remember it being that steep! The wall is unlike any mountain crag I have climbed on, being exceptionally clean of vegetation and loose rock. There are no obvious lines of weakness and no obvious starting points. The rock extends very nearly to the valley floor so that you are almost stepping off the grass beside the river onto the initial slabs. The only scree is from a small tongue extending from the central gully and even that is almost covered in heather. As we skirted the crag, I thought about this unique situation. No scree means no loose rock peeling off the crag; if there's no loose rock then there's no cracks for water to penetrate, freeze and expand; no crack lines means no protection; no protection means an exciting climb – bring it on …….

The route description was vague. I could identify what I thought was the Jug Rib at about half height, where the crag steepened in it's convex sweep to the plateau but the rest of the route looked pretty featureless. We started below the obvious roof at the foot of the wall, balancing on steep grass to shake out the ropes. I climbed up the left edge of the roof onto the base of the slabs where I could see the wall ahead. It was a spectacular sea of rock with small ripples to step between as I headed for the cleanest line. The guidebook mentioned three pitches up to the base of the Jug Rib, I decided to try it in two since belays were pretty non existent. Sally kept me informed of the rope distances by radio as I swarmed up these first two pitches and soon I was resting on some steep heather at the base of the Jug Rib.

The next three pitches were excellent. I set off onto the Rib trying to keep to it's crest and followed it's curve to the left and then back right until I was belaying on a ledge directly above the previous belay 25m below. Above was a small overlap broken by a passage of steep juggy rock- it looked quite hard from below but for once I could get some decent gear and made light work of it. The fifth pitch proved to be the crux and I was glad of the best belay so far to start from. It was a good thread belay behind a large block resting against the wall in a recess. I stepped onto a blank looking rib heading up towards two obvious roofs. The rock here was immaculate and the moves felt very exposed without protection. I headed for the left hand roof which had an obvious crack below where I managed to place two bomber pieces. Looking up, I realised my original intention of climbing through the roofs was not a good plan – the slab was covered in lichen and moss which wouldn't provide much friction. I stepped down and managed to traverse under the left hand roof and then up its left side. Continuing up, the angle of the wall fell back until Sally was out of sight and I belayed on a heather terrace. Sally then led through on more broken rock until we could untie and scramble into the sun on the plateau.

We found the sacks and lay back on the short grass in the afternoon sun on the plateau and enjoyed the glorious views all around. The Fannichs and Beinn Dearg glinted snowy white to the south, and Ben More Assynt dominated the northern horizon. The unmistakable ridges of Ben Loyal highlighted the far distance; with Ben Hope and Klibreck it's more bulky neighbours.

I reflected on the climb. The route had met all my expectations and it was clear that this cliff was not frequented. The usual signs of approach and descent paths, obvious belay points with dying vegetation and in situ-gear were all missing. It felt like we had climbed a new route on a huge undiscovered wall. I wondered if the pioneers felt the same way thirty-nine years ago.