UKC

Climbs 40
Rocktype Basalt
Altitude 150m a.s.l
Faces N

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Summer evening on Pillar Crag © drconline

Crag features

This is a small slabby crag of striking columnar Basalt about 10-12m high. It's not visible from the road and you could even walk right past it on the mountain bike track along the top and not realise it was there.

It is often overlooked in favour of it's more popular neighbour Craigmore, but in some ways this crag is more interesting (and definitely quieter!)

 The crag is a series of sloping off-vertical basalt columns with varying sized cracks between them. The routes are short and not to hard but have a nice 3-D feel to them with lots of potential for stemming and jamming.

Some of the climbs can be top-roped using the substantial trees above the crag as anchors. Others require trad gear - mainly small cams and nuts to fit into the narrow vertical cracks in between the hexagonal basalt columns. There are a couple of good but short 'splitter' type jamming routes (e.g. Cracker Crack)

It dries quickly and stays dry under large beach trees. Midges can be a problem in the summer.

Approach notes

The Crag lies in the trees on the south side of the B821 about 1km east of Craigmore.

Park at NS 53762 79585 (West Highland Way) taking care not to block the gate.

Walk south on the path through the gate for approx 50m then take the 1st mountain bike track to your left uphill and contour along the rise to the highest point and the  outcrop down to the left beside the large beech trees.

There is a steep access path down to the base of the crag just past the second large Beech tree, but care should be taken as it's very steep. 

 

Route grades now updated to proper Trad grades to match the upcoming guidebook revision. Big thanks to Kevin Woods for all his work on this.
drconline - 08/Apr/21
Another visit to this crag as our first household post-lockdown exercise - wow! what a difference. All the routes to the left of the crag have been extensively cleaned and are very climbable again. Massive thanks to whoever did that. It's a fun wee crag with some nice 3D puzzles needing more thought than just yarding up it. It was a lovely evening and we stayed till late with an ever increasing midgy presence being the only downside. We climbed 5-6 routes topping off the big trees at the top so as to minimise any risk. We were briefly interrupted by a family doing a scout 'geocache' treasure hunt. (If anyone asks the 'treasure' is under the big flat hexagonal 'table' at the base of the crag) At the moment it's one of the handful of crags inside our self-imposed 5mile 'exercise' boundary so I can see us going back again. Good times.
drconline - 02/Jun/20
We visited this crag today. It's not that easy to find and you rather stumble across it (hopefully not literally as it's quite a drop!). No question it needs some work to clean up but looks quite interesting. Anyone up for teaming up to clean it off? We can offer some bodies but not much kit or experience.
drconline - 15/Oct/19
climbed all these routes heaps of times in the 80"s.they were all clean then and quite good fun.
cutaboyz - 05/Dec/18
Unfortunatly carpeted in moss. However this would clean easily with some effort... only The Horror (just) climbable today.
Smelly Fox - 29/Aug/17
Think this might get my worst-crag-ever vote.
alan moore - 27/Jan/15
Good if you've interested in geology, but not much climbing - it's very overgrown. Shame.
kwoods - 20/Mar/12
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Climbs at this crag

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These climbs you have climbed clean.
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Moderators Updates to this page are checked by UKC volunteers Scott townsend and drconline

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