Pterodactyl Attack

 9 October 2016

After a long hard summer of work, injuries and disappointments, Craig and Mark got out onto the Cobbler today with a psyche to climb in the sun.

A not too early start saw them leaving Glen Croe for the slog up the Cobbler via the west face.  An hour plus later, they arrived at the Beallach and dropped down to the wonderful face of the north peak for some action.

They climbed Incubator six years (jeez!!) ago and decided it needed a revisit.  It's a meaty HS 4b with three lovely pitches offering their own challenges along the way.  Craig headed off up the first pitch, a pleasant introduction to the joys of mica schist in the dry...grippy but hollow rock in places.

P1 heading off

Mark coming over the lip of P1

The next pitch is short with a sting on leaving the stance; an off-balance overhung sloppy hold type move with little confidence but well protected.  Despatched with aplomb, Mark brought Craig up to the crux balance-centric, bridging fest with a weird phallus rock protrusion half way up.

Craig won the rock paper scissors duel and headed off up the steep crack corner, lacing it up like a wild Western bar girl trying to look thin.  Half way up, the crack line terminates and it seemed churlish, if not irresponsible, not to make use of the phallus rock for safety, despite the sense of inadequacy it engendered...

Craig on P3

Mark leaving the crack line and heading for the haven on P3

The pitch kept on giving and involved some balance moves to escape the line right into a notch/haven and first available stance.  Mark followed up with style and led off up the final short rock moves which we didn't really recall from 6 years ago.  The guide book may reveal the proper finish if we got it wrong but it all seemed logical, unlike the heat from the October sun!

Craig coming over the lip of an awkward move on P4

Coupla geezers...

An old egg sandwich for Mark and smoked salmon for Craig saw them back to the car in the sun in jig time for coffee and cake in Arrochar.  A grand day in the hills for the boys, knocking off their THIRD!!! rock climb of the season - where has the time gone?

Crikey, roll on the winter season...

A ubiquitous new species of plant...?

Sad that people are so despicable in the hills...one of many we retrieved on the walk out!