UKC

Time to start a campaign for the reinstatement of a disappearing route that's bothered me for years!

Talking about Enigma on High Crag, Polldubh (Glen Nevis), which has been unceremoniously swallowed up by Autobahnausfahrt on the same crag:

Enigma was a good Hard Severe on the top tier of the crag, and first climbed in 1959 by Terry Sullivan and Ian Clough, who were responsible for many of the Polldubh classics.

Autobahnausfahrt is a nice Mild VS (and longest route in the Glen) up all three tiers, first climbed 10 years later by Klaus Schwartz and Brian Chambers (another team producing their fair share of today's classics) but originally involving aid at the start of the third tier.

AFAIK, Enigma first started to get swallowed up in Ed Grindley's 1985 guide, which notes (not in the Autobahn route description) that:
'The aid was removed by Kenny Spence and Rob [sic.] Anderson in 1981 to give a very hard pitch, so the route as described finishes up Enigma, another Sullivan-Clough route.'
[Think this pitch might now be Auto Roof, but not sure.]

So far so good, but Kev Howett's 1990 Rock Climbing in Scotland proceeds to describe a 'Kinloss Grooves/Autobahnausfahrt' combination where the Autobahn part is entirely Enigma but credited to Schwartz and Chambers, and Enigma seems to have disappeared altogether from every subsequent guide (SMC Highland Outcrops, Latter Scottish Rock etc.). What's more, Latter now gives 4c to what was the first pitch of Enigma (making it the technical crux of the new Autobahn, which it probably is), but leaves the '1 PA' (for the original roof) in the first ascent description.

So it's all surely accidental, but poor old Enigma was (and is) probably the best part of the route and a combined name (possibly something like Auto Enigma) along the lines of Bludger's Revelation might have been better. Alternatively (with Autobahnausfahrt being such a glorious name as it stands!), we could now simply reinstate Enigma as a good route in its own right and accept that Autobahn now finishes after the second tier or becomes very much harder (a la Swastika) for a short out-of-character section on the third.

Autobahnausfahrt:
http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/c.php?i=65548

Enigma (yes, I've just submitted it and it's awaiting checking by Jamie B.):
http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/c.php?i=107200

In reply to petestack: Agree. First did Enigma back in the '60's, and repeated a number of times since. Its better than anything on Auto.. itself, stands on its own as a line, Auto.. doesn't connect with it as a walk along the ledge is required, and Enigma has a lovely airy character (in contrast with Auto..).

Its quite a stiff steep pull off the ledge to start Enigma, and it probably is 4c.

And I agree with you in not liking to see old routes disappear without at least some acknowledgement, particularly when so much guidebook space is now given to fairly inconsequential routes.

For a first Buachaille example, the original start to Revelation - the step across thin air to the ramp - was a total stunner, but no-one will experience that now.

And a second Buachaille example is Hiccup on Central Buttress. What most people seem to climb, and the guidebooks now describe, is actually the old North-East Crack (1942, S, Donaldson), merging into the Douglas Scott finish to North Face Route. It is correct that its about 4c. Hiccup actually goes up the wall left of that, admittedly not by a very obvious line despite its original description, and itself merges with the old route Gangway.

And there's more where these came from!

In reply to Cam Forrest:

>Auto.. doesn't connect with it as a walk along the ledge is required, and Enigma has a lovely airy character (in contrast with Auto..).

Interesting comment, we tried the overhang bit first then decided it was too hard without aid and finished up Enigma I think. This was in about 1965, think Schwartz was working in the climbing shop then and mentioned it to someone there that the top was out of keeping with the rest.

We decided that he had done the route just to try and keep as near the left edge of the buttress regardless of quality, we were less happy with it than some shorter routes such as Storm, and Phantom Slab which had no runners on in those days.

In reply to Cam Forrest:

Hmmm, could be (so I might even have soloed 4c many years ago without knowing it!), and possibly VS for that, although arguably still just Hard Severe for the good landing?


Absolutely, but the misattribution of these pitches (as opposed to grade-logical linking of the routes) to Schwartz and Chambers seems to have started with Howett misreading Grindley.


Unless they seek out and climb the original Revelation? On which note, AFAIK (without actually owning the most recent Glencoe guide) you can still piece together the route description from other bits, and the correct first ascentionists are given for the constituent pitches.


Must check this out!


So keep them coming...

In reply to sutty:

Can't have been before 1969 if my first ascent dates are correct?


Presuming it's just Phantom Slab you're suggesting had no runners, because the top pitch of Storm (where Sullivan says on the Polldubh video that Clough placed three pegs) would be pretty scary without!

Interestingly, there's already some precedent for misattribution of routes at Polldubh, with the likes of Ken Johnson's Eigerwand and Promises unknowingly credited in the Schwartz guides to Chambers/Schartz and anon respectively, but corrected by Grindley and subsequent authors. So perhaps there's hope for Enigma, Sullivan and Clough yet!

In reply to petestack:

And (I meant to say) renamed Arching Slab and Marshall's Madness.

In reply to petestack:

>Can't have been before 1969 if my first ascent dates are correct?

Definitely 65-66, didn't have the same car in 69. Maybe we just did a pitch off to the right that was not in the book but looked ok. Maybe WE did the FA off the route Enigma, no idea

It was Phantom Slab I was talking of with no runners.

Storm, there were runners on that, just remember the first move from the tree being hard then seemed ok. There certainly weren't three pegs on the top section from memory.

Looks like a trip to Wales to scan my mates diaries again to find out exactly what we did. Last time I looked I found out we did Tower Ridge including the Douglas boulder, and I have no memory of that section, well I only remember doing it another time with another partner skirtng up the side to it.

In reply to sutty:

Enigma 1959 and Autobahnausfahrt 1969, according to various guides.


It's still not over-protected today.


Sullivan didn't say they left them in, just that he thought Clough had placed three. Although some of Clough's original pegs certainly still exist on other routes. And Storm, Phantom Slab and Flying Dutchman are 50 years old on 3 May (with Resurrection reaching the half century a few weeks earlier), so I'm proposing some anniversary ascents!


Did Tower Ridge by the Douglas Boulder with my young cousin (who I'd introduced to climbing the year before) in 1991. Think we started up McClymont & Bell's North-West Face (Diff), had to circumvent a two-foot-cubed block festooned with tat that started to slide down the LH chimney just above my head, failed to find the traverse into the central chimney and continued straight up on what I remember (probably wrongly) as ropelengths of vertical choss with practically no runners. Checked this later and identified it as Kellett's Left-Hand Chimney (also Diff!), which maybe just shows how mountain routes can mess with your mind when you don't know what you're on (although it was certainly tougher than anything on the ridge above).

Also, speaking of missing memories, I'd completely forgotten I'd ever been on Marsco until reminded by a friend (it's still a bit hazy, but I'm sure he's right) when I expressed a desire to go there!

In reply to petestack:

Some more 50th anniversaries for you next year, The Bat and Titans Wall, though the seconds FFA was later.

Now you have me wondering about Autobahnausfahrt , is there another route up High buttress with a German name, as we certainly went on it in the mid 60s, which would make the guidebook dates wrong. It was the route with the longest one word name we had done, that is how I remember it. Not got a local guide here now to check for other routes sounding similar.

In reply to sutty:

Both a bit out of my league (and the latter a long way out of it!)...


The only thing I can think of is Alfonselli, which is a more Italian-sounding (?) 1971 (free 1974) VS variation by Schwartz. But the 1969 date comes from his own guidebooks (where he doesn't appear to claim anything earlier than 1968), so I'd be surprised if it's wrong. And another ironic twist is that the Kinloss Grooves/Autobahnausfahrt combination given by Howett as 'FA: I. Clough and T. Sullivan, 1959 FA: K. Schwartz and B. Chambers, 1969' is actually *all* Clough/Sullivan 1959 with the top part of the combo described being Enigma!