UKC

There has been quite a substantial rockfall high on the Central Gully Wall on the Dubh Loch. The left hand wall of the corner line that used to provide the exit route from the Cougar slab has slipped off the slab. Cougar is no longer climbable as it was. There is likely to be much debris around the scar. Routes right of Cougar are not affected. Hybrid Vigour may have been affected in its upper reaches but I'm not sure. Voyage of the Beagle, which traverses underneath the scar, looks fine - the rockfall seems to have made very little contact with the cliff on the way down to the gully floor. I think it hit the old start to Perilous Journey but it was redundant anyway after Giant collapsed!

In reply to gforce:
Damn it... was planning on doing this thing. Now I'll have to do it and clean it =)

In reply to gforce:

Any pictures? The Dubh Loch is a set of exfoliated slabs so this could happen quite often.

ALC

In reply to gforce:

Oh no, this has been on my list for ages and I thought I might be able to do it in two weeks and now it is no more...oh well, at least I wasn't there when it happenend..

In reply to gforce:

Damn, that was high on the hitlist. I take it that's the overhanging corner of Pitch 3? Could you stick up a photo if you took any?

In reply to Michael Gordon:

Will do this evening.

In reply to A Lakeland Climber:

This was quite a substantial rockfall - comparable to Giant or the chimney of Parallel B on Lochnagar collapsing. It does not happen too often! Although that's two other examples in the last 30(?) years.

In reply to French Erick:

Yes, please!!!!

In reply to gforce:

I remember sitting on the belay at the top of that pitch and thinking that what we were sitting on didn't seem very well connected to the rest of the mountain.

What a pity.

Once it cleans up what will that pitch look like?

In reply to gforce:

Hmm, that lot would have given you a bit of a headache!! Just been trying to find a photo of that section of the crag for a before and after - need to look a bit harder.

ALC

In reply to a lakeland climber: Check out Extreme Rock for a great before picture (if you are lucky enough to own one). Hamilton on the first ascent of that pitch! Fair chunk of granite gone and some big blocks still sitting above the scar if you check the other Cougar picture on the page.
But more importantly G,was anything on the crag dry ?

In reply to septic:

Got ER Looks like everything to the left of the overhanging 5c crack almost to the rib, maybe 8 metres in width. The slip plane looks like it's just below that of the main Cougar Slab. A bit tricky to guess at the volume of rock that's gone, maybe 100m3 +/- 20m3

ALC

In reply to a lakeland climber:

Hmmm, not sure. That's not how I remember the corner looking. The shot of Hamilton cleaning Cannibal in Greg Strange's The Cairngorms shows how that part of the cliff looked. It's a great read and has lots of brilliant pics in it and it's cheaper than Extreme Rock!

As to the dryness of the crag, well that bit of central gully wall was nae bad. But I can't imagine that you would have been able to find a whole route to do that wasn't wet somewhere. And that can prove a bit of a barrier on friction dependant climbing! I couldn't see any streaks on Eagle's Rock. So you may have been ok there. On the whole I was quite surprised how dry it was.

In reply to septic:

I don't have Extreme Rock but I think the same photo is on p268 of Greg Strange's book.

In reply to gforce: So Couger now finishes up the 6b leg breaker pitch on Cannibal! The 5b pitch on Perilous is no more (Ascent of Man was a better finish anyway!)so, a route with no start and no finish now! Hybrid Vigour's airy 6a pitch lies in the scree; not that suprising seeing you could see daylight through the crack from depths of the gully!

In reply to gforce:

I actually feel quite sad about this. Usually it is rubbishy routes which fall down; not contenders for the best route of their grade in the country.

In reply to Rick Campbell:

Does nothing go up the corner between the two?

In reply to gforce: In reply to Robert Durran: You're quite right, Hybrid Vigour was total quality..one ascent in 18 years shows it had vintage classic status!!
The corner to the right of Cougar is unclimbed; Things are always harder than they look at the Dubh Loch!
It looks from the photo above that there is a shelf at the bottom of the rock scar which might be traversable into Ascent of Man, which is about E2 5c to the top from there IIRC, you might then be able to access the top pitch of Cougar from there, but it would be rather circuitous and pointless I fear.

In reply to gforce:

Balls. I knew i should have gone the other week! So is that it pretty much ruined now? Which was the crux pitch anyway?

In reply to Adam Lincoln:


+1

In reply to gforce: Yes, but imagine how it would have spoilt your day if it had happened whilst you were cranking up the crack!
Cougar: Classic line, great positions, but a little vegetated compared to the harder lines that were pre-cleaned on abseil. The now ex-pitch was the cleanest and easiest of the 5c pitches.