Tuesday August 14 2019
Monday night I felt like it might be possible to climb the
Old Man of Hoy, the forecast was even better than Monday and Monday was sunny
most of the day, so I was mildly excited.
Got up early to catch the 7:45
Ferry to Hoy, the mountains of Hoy stood out, well not really mountains, the
very tall hills. It was an exciting ferry ride and the bus/taxi was waiting for
us with the same driver as last year. He drove us out to the top of the island, and
we were dashing down the trail, Paul paid for the taxi, we did the 3 miles in
48 minutes, set up at the top of the cliff, looking out over the old man, and
bad news: climbers already on the top of the first pitch, and 3 climbers
waiting at the base. We ate our egg salad sandwiches with chutney and farmers cheese. The midges were swarming, so I doused my head
and face with deet, wrapped tape around my hands and we headed down the
precarious trail to the base of the intimidating sea stack, 4 pitches to get to
the top. I checked out north face
routes, then went up the first pitch to ask the climbers how long they thought
they would be. Came back down, then we headed up the first pitch, 4c I think. I was worried about
the 2nd pitch, which involved a long unprotected traverse then
gained a crack, everyone we watched struggled with it. Once you leave the belay at the top of the
first pitch you are not only out of sight of your belayer, but far to the
right. But I made the crack, easier than expected, now I was out of the wind
and very hot from climbing, made my way up the difficult combination of wide
crack, overhangs, semi chimneys, needing more big gear, which I was walking up
the crack. I was a little slow in a few spots, but I made it through. Amy was all excited, lets climb it and sign our
names at the top, she said, but I really did not think we had enough time. We were at the top of the cliff just after 9
AM but did not start climbing until after 11.
But after that 2nd pitch, I decide to see how fast I could do
3 and 4. I climbed pitch 3 fairly quickly, more difficult than I expected, hopeing to link 3 and 4 together, I started up an ugly looking crack, chossy, mossy, lots of bird poop, so finally
I decided this can’t be right and down climbed to the ledge, slow and difficult,
removed gear as I climbed, and went around the corner for the real 4th
pitch, which was a beautiful clean crack.
We make the summit around 3:30 (we had to catch the taxi at 5:45 to
catch the 6:20 ferry back to Stromness, where the car was).
Amy signed the book while I set up the rappel. We rappelled fairly quickly down the first 3 or 4
rappels, and I thought surely the 5th would be our last, but as I went
down, I noticed the ropes were still at least 20 feet off the ground. But what was worse, I was now hanging space! I had a back up prusik on the rappel line,
found a longer cordellete on my harness and made a prusik on the rope above the ATC, it was
funny, I was had just mentioned how I difficult it is to prusik up a
rope. The long prusik I used to stand up
in, then laboriously moved the prusik below the ATC up, after pulling rope
through the ATC, this was a difficult very tiring process, moving up slowly 1
foot at a time. I should have taken the time to rig a more efficient system. Exhausted, I finally
made it to the overhanging rock, where I managed to climb back into the
original crack we had climbed earlier. Did I
mentioned a baby seagull barfed on my ankle on the way up? Did I mention that all the anchors were an unsightly collection of old mossy ropes, rusty pitons
wedged in rocks, a rats nest of old cordallets, with rusting belay rings?
After moving into the crack,
laboriously moved down, putting gear in to keep the rap line close to
the rock (it was over hanging), finally making an improvised rap anchor at the
lower of 2 ancient two by fours, (about 5 inches long) wedged into the rock. We threaded
the rope, abandoning two green carabiners, and I
headed down. I thought surely the ropes
must be on the ground now As I peered over the edge, about 20 feet out, I could
see the ropes were still dangling, but from 80 feet up, I could not tell
exactly how close to the ground they were.
The first belay anchor was impossibly far to my left, so I decided to
rely on rope stretch to get me to the ground.
Now quite enough rope stretch. I was dangling 5 feet of the ground, over
the rocks at the edge of the Atlantic ocean.
No choice but to rap of the end of the ropes! I hit the rocks, fell backward, and lay on my
back, to tell Amy, Don’t let the rope slide through the anchor! She thought I had broken my ankle, I was just
laying there shouting. Instead I just
gouged my hand and was bleeding profusely.
I started to build a stone tower so her feet would have a landing. I built one, then one next to it, then when
she was most of the way down, had to move it so it was under her feet. She landed on the top, unscathed.
We were down, scrambled up to the backpacks, and make the
hike back up the cliff, the slippery, somewhat perilous hike. We got to the top, to see the sun setting behind the Old Man of Hoy, very beautiful, but not when you are stranded on the island. My plan was to call Dougie
Adams, who had a boat, to come pick us up, but had not phone reception. We hiked to the corner, where we
could look down on the few houses in this part of the island, but still no
phone reception. Then my phone decided
to just give it up, anddied. We stopped
in at the Getwick hostel, where two Dutch ladies let us use their phone. I had blood all over my hand and wrist, which
were wrapped in climbing tape, from climbing those cracks. I called Dougie, he said he would be right out (price had gone up 20
pounds from last year), I called Fae, the taxi driver, who said she would be
right over. We talked the to Dutch
ladies, they showed us their drawings, and just as we drove in the pier an
Moaness, Dougie pulled up in his boat. I
stood in the cabin next to him during the beautiful boat ride back to
Stromness, he was telling me stories with such a strong Scottish accent I could
understand maybe every 3rd word.
The drivers get things done!
It was a full beautiful yellow moon
as we drove back to the youth hostel, getting in around 10:30, getting bed just before midnight.
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