Colmcille Climbers

Winter? Cold and Wet? High Winds? Drizzle? and so to An Port..........

 Spurred on by the promise of good weather a day out at An Port was the obvious solution to the crisis! I was not expecting to participate in any foolish endevours, BUT did pack a wee bag of niknaks and party essentials, a 25 kg pick and mix of deflowering gear.

 Arrived at the road end and sat in the car, watched the angry white water as the exeptionally low cloud fell on the windscreen. There was blue sky over Killybegs, 50 KM to the south, it was bound to come here! HURRA!

 Headed North, had a couple of lurking plans, and dependant on conditions......

 An Hour and a few KM's later was at the clifftops overlooking Tormore Island, RESULT! Glenlough Bay.

 Glenlough Bay sits a shade over three KM's from the road end and contains two prominent sea stacks and a tower that sits high and dry on the beach. Descided I'd try wee experiment, in the quest to find the shortest access to Tormore I began to descend the first wide gully down the 200 metre slopes at the south end of Glenlough Bay. Things got  bit sticky half way down, a snow bar and an angel wing abseil saved the day! HURRA!!

 Arrived at the beach facing the largest stack and finally removed the 25 KG beast! The object of my desires was the Big Daddy center stack, at a tad over 60 mtr high and about 50 mtr out to sea. Alas the sea passage was choppy and we landed on the bottom of the landward face soaked and it was not the Tropical blue sea of an An Port summer. :-) Climbed up to an excellent wee recess on the slabs, secured the boat, sorted the toys and rung out the clothes.

 Rigged the ground anchors and climbed the diagonal crack running upto and across the center of the slabs. After 60 or so meter reached the bottom of a north facing ridge and followed this to the summit. HURRA, a 100 mtr route of atmospheric climbing at about DIFF. Built a cairn and took took photos of future adventues. A full 60 mtr abseil from a big block on the summit ridge and I was back at the boat. :-)

 ALAS, ALAS, ALAS, the 50 meter channel seperating me from my super sour gummy worms was uncrossable. It was the turn of the high tide and monster rollers were causing grave concern.

 What to do? What to do?

 The solution to the crissis was to climb another route and by then Neptune would hopefully be in a better mood? The second route climbed a direct line up the south edge of the slabs on excellent rock. 75 mtrs of V. DIFF climbing later I was back on the summit. HURRA! Abbed back to the boat, an hour and a half had passed and the channel was a bit friendlier looking! Derigged and packed the toys. Launched the boat and paddled like a loony, as I approached the steep pebble beach a monster curler swallowed me, the boat and the toys whole. A second in the washing machine and we were all high and dry on the beach! HURRA!

 Oh, how we laughed! :-)