The old man of Stoer is an iconic section of rock in the north west highlands of Scotland. First climbed in 1966 by Tom Patey (Ullapools’ local GP at the time).

Having climbed the old man of Stoer once before I knew what I was letting myself in for, at least I thought I did. With the forecast looking marginal and the windscreen wipers on driving out to the light house we all had our doubts. This was not helped by the words of doom from the woman who runs the cafe at the car park. She insisted it was the worst possible weather for climbing the stack and that because it was such a horrible day nobody would be around to hear our cries if we got into difficulty.

Well in true Scottish fashion we put our waterproofs on and went out to have a look anyway. Stood at the top we realised the swell was not as bad as thought and the channel where the necessary swim is required was actually sheltered. Not only that but above the first traverse access pitch the rest of the rock was dry! bonus. So we geared up and got ourselves ready. Laura did the honors and swam across attaching the rope to the stack on the far side.

Once all three of us were across the tyrolean it was time for the dreaded traverse pitch. This 20 meters of so is possibly the make or break of the climb, it is permanently wet and greasy with nothing to hold onto but damp slopping sandstone, chilling, but not as much as the thought of getting it wrong and ending up in the sea. With the traverse was completed we could start the ‘nice’ climbing. As I had climbed the VS 4c Original Route before I opted for the more direct E1 5b called Diamond face route. The first chimney proved to be the crux of the first pitch but there was still a further 20m to get to the ‘cave’ belay which is shared with Original Route. Above the cave comes the crux pitch and an interesting mantel shelf type of move, followed by a further 25m of climbing to gain the summit and a lot of tatt around the boulder.

Then there’s the exciting abseil back to the tyrolean. The abseil is over hanging and so it’s just free hanging in space for about two thirds of the distance. It didn’t help that I wasn’t sure I was going to actually manage to land on the ledge and not in the sea. Also the weather and whipped up a storm of foam and so everything was covered in a layer of bubbles.

Once back on ‘dry’ land we pulled the roped back and marched out to finish with red wine and a photo show.

Thanks very much to Graham More for all the best photos.

Old Man of Stoer, Hamlet Mountaineering

Tim Hamlet nearing the top of the Old man of Stoer

Tyrolean, old man of stoer

Euan Callus makes takes the Tyrolean traverse to the old man of Stoer

Old man of Stoer, climbing, sandstone

Full team on top of the Old Man of Stoer

Old Man of Stoer

Foam party!

Old man of Stoer, Diamond Face route

Laura Hamlet on pitch one of Diamond Face Route

Selfie, Old man of Stoer

Summit team

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