At weekend Serena very kindly offered to give me a belay on some sport climbs if I wanted. This was extra kind, because she made the same offer last weekend and we spent that Sunday crashing through the woods of Stronachlachar trying to find the sport crags! Not very successful. I had wanted to visit Stronachlachar as I've set my self the goal of leading a F7a before the summer is out, and I thought that this crag had a route that would be well suited to my style of climbing. I tend to favor climbing thin, technical routes and not thuggy powerful moves on steep overhangs. The SMC Lowland outcrop book describes one of the Stronachlachar crags as 'A nice alternative to the steep and thuggy climbing normally associated with mica schist sport climbing, offering technical, off vertical climbing' and there was a 2 star F7a there called Hideous Kinky. Great I thought, lets go and have a play on top rope and see if it has red point potential. But we couldn't find the damn crag. Personally I blame the guide book [well anyone but me ;o)] as it said go up the 'left (east) side of the woods'. Well the left side of the woods was on the western side........ Took a gamble and walk up the east side, think that there would be less room for misunderstanding between east vs west than left-handside vs right-handside. Oh how wrong was I. The cut this rapidly-becoming-long story short, last weekend had no climbing.
So this weekend I decided to pick a crag that would hopefully be easier to find. I first heard about the sport climbs at Ardvorlich in 2006 on the Stonecountry blog. The photos that I saw of the climbs on Scottishclimbs look really idyllic. After a short lie in we jumped into the car and headed up the west coast of Loch Lomond. Negotiating the cattle on the approach track we arrived about 11am. The guide had said that the routes was sportingly bolted and its wasn't joking. The bolts do seem fairly well spaces, espically if like me you have been leading indoors all winter! I started off on The Groove, a F6a with what looked climbing on good holds - a nice introduction. It took a while to get over the run out nature of the climbing, but also I found that the route at Ardvorlich required a fair bit of route finding. There appear to be looks for pockets to use, but on closer inspections many were very small. There was therefore a lot of down climbing a few moves to take a different approach. Lake Lomond was another F6a, that went easily. Dilemma, a F6a+, was a bit more of a battle. The climbing was fine but my feet, squeeze into a my new Five Ten Slippers, had other ideas. About half way up the route cramp and the dreaded foot pump struck. The holds on Dilemma, while not bad, aren't exactly big and as my feet started to give on the small edges, the prospect of taking a swipper started to stare me in the face. A quick shout down to Serena that I might be off in a minute, and I made one last effort to get up to the large holds (and foot holds) above. Thankfully, I finally worked out how to get past the thin move ahead with my rapidly weakening feet and reached the lower off! Phew!
With this little battle fresh in my mind I was a bit reluctant to have go at anything harder. I had a look at a F6b called Magic Carpet Ride, but decide the prospect of a groundfall was to great - the space between the first and second bolt appeared greater than that between the ground and the first. Not very sport route like! This left Drifting From Shore, given F6b/6C (isn't that F6b+?). This route involved climbing up to the right of The Groove, over a bulge and on the the slabby head wall. The crux is said to be getting over the bulge and onto the head wall. This went surprisingly easily. The second clip was done in an interesting horizontal position, but I was quickly on the slab. Another clip higher and I came up against what felt like a blank wall (well in a 6b+ kind of way!). No matter what I tried I just couldn't find away to the next bolt. I could start to feel my feet pumping out again and thought I was going to have to back off. How frustrating, I'd gotten past the crux and then became stuck! One last effort - I down climbed a couple of moves an approach the bolts left hand side apposed to its right. A cross through with the right hand, a big step with the left, small left hand crimp and yes, a good hold and clip! My hardest onsight climb to date. 
My first F6b+ onsight
Still need to work on some finger strength if I'm going to make progress towards my F7a goal, but I'm getting there. Can wait to head back to Ardvorlich
