UKC

please someone enlighten me as to the Hansom cab stance...should it look like one? be big enough to take one? does it have taxi written on the side? Anyway, great mountain route, just leave the guide book behind

In reply to doz:

I remember it as a niche at the left end of an overhung ledge.

In reply to doz:

I specifically remember not finding it too!

In reply to doz:

I also would be interested to hear about this. we had no idea where we were.

In reply to doz:

Did the route a couple of weeks ago. I assumed it was the ledge at the end of the turf shuffle traverse left from the cave. No idea what it's got to do with a Hansom Cab............ come to think of it, I've no idea what a Hansom Cab is!

None of the three route descriptions we had made much sense - though I'd now have no problem giving a good description myself. I just thought for the first six pitches how much better it must be in winter, and thereafter how desperate it would be..........

In reply to Robert Durran:



Please do, and send it to me for the next guide.

In reply to Andy Nisbet:


Ok, try this:

Start at the toe of the buttress and follow a largely vegetated stepped groove system, quite vague at first for three or four pitches, trending rightwards to a cul de sac with a good belay in a shallow cave. Traverse hard left on a narrow turf foot ledge to a ledge. Climb up into a big right facing corner and climb it, exiting right to a finely positioned ledge with a small boulder on the very crest. Climb the short groove or the crack in its right wall left of the crest to a narrow ledge. Pull up onto the slab on the left and climb up with difficulty to a possible belay on pegs. Continue more easily up cracks on the left to a tiny ledge on the crest and make a hard move up a thin crack to a big ledge. Climb the short corner above to easy ground.

Does that make sense to anybody?!

In reply to Robert Durran


no...not really!

In reply to Robert Durran:

Thanks. It had occurred to me that this was a route where a pitch by pitch description was unhelpful (by that I mean you get too involved in the detail and stop thinking where the best line is). I still intend to do the route this summer or next, and will take your description with me (as well as the old ones). I'll see if it or similar works.

In reply to doz:

I couldn't say for sure whether we found it or not. No stance seemed out of the ordinary or worthy of a special name. We certainly did a line up the nose and we weren't the only feet to have gone the way we had but whether overall we did 'the' line I'm not sure.

Cracking day out I remember with apparently onl ourselves and eagles around.

In reply to Andy Nisbet:

Hi Andy, I think Robert's description is pretty good actually - in the best tradition of Scottish mountaineering....gives a general impression of the line without being too detailed and thus retains the adventure element which is I feel an important part of routes like this.

Hope you're well,

ANdy

In reply to doz:


Oh well, our way seemed quite logical, but there are probably other good ways of doing it!

In reply to GrahamD:


I thought the ledge on the crest with a boulder where the clean climbing starts was particularly fine and pretty distinctive.

In reply to Andy Nisbet:
GL describes a direct pitch up the arete at 5b I think to the stance with a boulder (avoiding the big right facing corner). Tom last who posted early in this thread says in the UKC logbooks that it's about E2. It looked it!

In reply to doz:

I actually thought GL's description was spot on and easy to follow, although the it would definitely be a cleaner line if you followed the aerate (E2 5b does not surprise me)

In reply to GrahamD:

Hi Graham
I seem to remember that we came across some in situ tat and/or a peg somewhere near the top, so we must have been quite close to following the right line earlier on

In reply to cem:

I'm not sure we came across any belays that were particularly memorable though ? (that is from the features of the belay ledge itself, not the outlook). I do remember that peg but I think it was a pitch or two above where the Hanson Cab stance was supposed to be.

In reply to Andy Nisbet:

I think pitch by pitch would work well if any of the descriptions were any good! We took four pitches to get to the cave, not two. From here interestingly I was able to combine pitches 3,4,5 into one by continuing straight up the nice slab to the Hansom Cab stance rather than up the grassy groove before traversing - about 4a. Looked a better summer way (though the groove would make sense for winter). A short pitch followed (guidebook pitch 6). Then one pitch up the most obvious line with one tricky (5a) move high up by a peg. Didn't find a lower 5a bit. A short (15m?) pitch up a corner led to easy ground.

I thought VS seemed fair since there only seemed to be one tricky bit and with the peg there it's well protected and one could aid it if necessary. I've got the pitches noted as (-,-,-,-,4a,4a,5a,-).

In reply to doz:

Isn't this one of those routes that needs a vague description? Start at the bottom, find the most direct way to the top.

In reply to mike barnard:


I think I went the way described in Gary's book and thought it was E1 (5b above gear). But I've got a partner for when it's dry again and we'll see what we can find (like the peg you're talking about, presumably on an easier line).

In reply to doz:

I've done it in summer and winter and only have clear memories of 2 pitches. The setting and positions are another matter.

In reply to doz:

Thank you for solving a problem. I've never known where the Fiddler was though I've done it. Please excuse my ignorance, I thought it was something quite different.

In reply to mike barnard:


Both the SMC and GL descriptions say that the Hansom Cab stance is hard left from the cave ("bay" in SMC?).
Neither description made much sense to me after their respective sixth pitches or so, but we found two definite bits of 5a on the well worn line (up the slab to the pegs) and the short cracked wall near the top.


I think it would scare the wits out of many HVS climbers! I found some of the grassy stuff more demanding than the 5a bits.

In reply to Robert Durran:


sorry..was being slightly tongue in cheek..we started on a pretty featureless slab and went right from the shallow cave up a wee corner. A pitch up from the boulder ledge we belayed at the two old pegs on a narrow ledge. Went right from there which was definitely not clever but did a fine pendulum back to the easy cracks . SMC guide doesn't really let on how much ground there is to the summit after the final corner which could be disconcerting in crap visibility in winter but then again if you are capable of climbing the last three pitches in winter that kind of thing probably wouldn't bother you!
Still no idea where that Hansom thing is....

In reply to doz:


I did notice crampon scratches leaving the cave rightwards. Should explain why you missed the HansomCab stance which by all accounts is left.


Yes, that's what we did.


I can imagine not!

In reply to Robert Durran:


Yes, the name means nothing to me but the feature is easily identified as the great stance after the traverse left along the ledge from the top of the grassy groove. The 'cave' is lower, at the top of SMC guide pitch 2.

In reply to Robert Durran:




Why is it so hard to include distances in descriptions? It would only add a few characters and be far more informative.

In reply to mike barnard:


The traverse is left from the cave, which we reached in four pitches - two would be pushing it.

In reply to Andy Hardy:


I could have given estimates. !00m+ to cave, 20m traverse, 35m to boulder stance. 25 to pegs. 30m to past crux wall/crack, 20m to top.

In reply to mike barnard


We thought HVS was fair given the extreme paucity of gear on the lower pitches...climbed Summer Isles Arete Direct (VS 4c) following day which felt like the proverbial walk in the park in comparison...(once we had located the correct buttress!)

In reply to Robert Durran:


That would be much better. If only alpine guides would do the same.

In reply to doz:

I've just uploaded a photo to my gallery of what Captain Solo and I thought was the Hansom Cab stance. He's certainly assuming an appropriate stance anyway.

In reply to Robert Durran:


I also reached the cave in four pitches (though the guide says two). But from here you've still got to step right and go up to below the slab (guidebook pitch 3) then up the grassy groove to the bay (guidebook pitch 4) before making the traverse (guidebook pitch 5) to reach the Hansom Cab stance. Just a thought but I wonder if you traversed left a lot sooner than the usual way?

In reply to doz:

You can often add one to Mike Barnard's grades, so HVS is probably fair. Actually I climbed Summer Isles Arete Direct a few days ago and thought it HVS, only because the initial corner (which is given 4b) was solid 5a for two or three moves. Friends of mine who climbed it a week ago thought the same.

In reply to Andy Nisbet:


That's interesting Andy..guess shows the highly subjective nature of grading!
I didn't find the initial corner that hard and I am averagely rubbish! How did you grade the final layback crack?

In reply to doz:
Me too. Did it a few years ago. I don't remember thinking p1 wasn't 4b. I did find the corner crack hard. Really nice route

In reply to doz:


The final layback crack was definitely easier. Maybe just 5a for a move. I wonder if we climbed a different initial corner. I climbed the one bang on the crest at the very bottom. It was hand jamming but with nothing much for the feet except in the corner itself. The normal route is just round the corner to the right (I did it today) and takes you to the top of the initial corner I climbed.

In reply to Andy Nisbet:

I didn't climb a hand jamming pitch at the start. I was aware of the v diff and don't remember thinking there was confusion about the start esp with the description referring to the obvious corner. But maybe we climbed the v diff at the start. Someone else has a photo of what they thought was p1 of the direct in the log book. This has turned into a hijack of the fhidleir thread now!

In reply to abbeywall:


The picture of pitch 1 is telephotoed so the corner has been cropped from the picture. What she's on is common to both ordinary and direct (the second half of the first pitch). But the ropes do seem to come up from the corner.

In reply to Andy Nisbet:

think that was the corner we started on..just to the left of the lowest rocks ?

In reply to doz:


OK, ours was directly above the lowest rocks so that might explain it. But the guidebook says obvious, and ours was the most obvious.

In reply to Andy Nisbet:


I thought 4b was fair for the first pitch of SID, felt like a grit HS. The final crack was nails though - easily 5a. Then again, I'm rubbish at jamming.

In reply to Peter Metcalfe:


Must be a different crack. We weren't climbing that badly. And it was harder than the top crack, although I agree it was 5a.

In reply to mike barnard:


That is possible, though it is hard to imagine getting further in two pitches than we got in four!

In reply to Robert Durran:

Not further - to the same place.

Re putting 4 pitches into 2, I put it down to who-ever wrote the description perhaps forgetting the number of initial pitches, or soloing for a bit or moving together and having to guess the length/pitches. Or starting at a different place / higher ledge as it's not well defined (but still heading for the groove).

In reply to mike barnard:


I'm wondering whether what we took to be the "cave" wasn't; there were crampon scratches continuing out of the right side of the "cave".

In reply to Robert Durran:

It sounds like that is the trouble with the description. The key features are a cave which isn't really a cave, and a Hansom Cab stance which is even more uncertain. So immediately you just have to make it up as you go along. The start is easy to find and so is the finish, but folks go different ways in the middle (or maybe they just think they do).

In reply to doz:
Me and my pal did the line last year. Hansom cab stance is pretty obvious when you're there. Its basically a ledge on the nose arete around 2/3 of the way up. More details here http://wainwrightclimbing.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/the-fiddlers-nose.html

In reply to Robert Durran:

I think we made the same mistake.. We ended up around to the left climbing up to the 'Hansome Cab' on its right hand side..

In reply to Robert Durran:

Going by the guide it would be the 'cave'; it's just that you should go left from the 'bay' higher up, not the 'cave'! But that's interesting. Not sure going right from the bay would be an attractive option in winter - pretty steep ground as far as I remember.

In reply to Samuel Wainwright:

It looks from the photo as if you took the same traverse as we did and I now think that we should have gone higher first (as Mike suggests).

In reply to Robert Durran:

I did the Fhidhleir's Nose yesterday with Raymond Simpson. We took the SMC description and Robert's description as above. The SMC one was useless but we were able to follow Robert's fairly exactly. I'm not sure if it was the 'correct' way but it seemed logical and people had definitely gone that way before. I've tweaked Roberts description and added pitch lengths :-

1 to 3. 100m 4b Start at the toe of the buttress and follow a largely vegetated stepped groove system, quite vague at first, trending rightwards to a cul-de-sac with a good belay under a large roof.
4. 15m 4a Traverse hard left on a narrow turf ledge around a rib to a larger ledge.
5. 35m 5a Above is a long wide corner. Gain this with difficulty from the right, and climb it and its right wall to a spacious ledge and boulder belay on the very crest.
6. 25m 4c Climb a short groove (or better - the crack in its right wall) left of the crest, to a narrow grass ledge. Move right, pull up onto a slab and climb the left edge of this to belay at some pegs.
7. 40m 5a Continue more easily up cracks on the left to a tiny stance (possible belay) on the crest. Steeper climbing in a fantastic position now leads to a thin crack which provides the crux.
8. 15m 4b A short corner leads to easy ground.

I've purposely left out 'cave' and 'hansom cab stance' as these seem to be the confusing references.
It was a memorable adventurous climb, not without incident, as it had rained heavily the previous day and the crag was fairly wet.

In reply to Grahame N:

Thanks Grahame. It makes all the difference when someone goes there with the idea of writing a better description. I suspect that when I did it, we climbed direct up the rib mentioned in pitch 4 rather than traversing left. Others had done it too, but it was harder.

In reply to Grahame N:

Glad that my description made sense to follow (unlike the SMC and GL ones) even if its not the "correct" way. Your revised version is excellent. I can only imagine how harrowing some bits must have been with wet grass!

In reply to Andy Nisbet:


So is that GL's direct arete pitch?

In reply to Robert Durran:

I don't think so. That was higher up? We didn't climb an arête, just a wall on the right side of a rib.

In reply to Grahame N:
I just love your cryptic understatement of "a memorable adventurous climb, not without incident". I suggest that should be added immediately to the recent thread on "Guidebook descriptions that freak you out".

In reply to Grahame N:

Very good description Grahame which I think will avoid any potential confusion but still leaves things open enough to exploratory interpretation for such a fine mountain route! I am rubbish at grading stuff but your pitch grades certainly tally with our experience..

In reply to doz:

It is a good description for a harder variation. For the correct way I think you could more or less substitute his pitches 4 & 5 for the SMC guidebook pitches 3, 4 & 5 and the description would work.

In reply to mike barnard:

Yes, you're probably right. Basically from the belay under the large roof we went left and up, whereas the easier/correct way appears to go up and left, to the same place.