We all know that rock climbing is a contrived pursuit. You can always walk around the crag to the top right? Well you can’t always, for example The Inaccessible Pinnacle, Napes Needle, and The Cioch.
So what is the hardest summit in the UK by its easiest route? Here is a list off the top of my head for starters:
Old Man of Hoy E1
Old Man of Storr at least E2
Orval Pinnacle E3
Staffin Chimney Stack E5
There will be others but are any harder than E5?
Cat Bells during the school holidays E7 at least!
E7 or F7? (But my "F" doesn't stand for "French")
Snowdon on a bank holiday is genuinely impossible isn't it?
I'd be more confident about climbing Chimney Stack than the Old Man of Storr...
There are a couple of other free standing pinnacles at Staffin which are unclimbed, and I would think some parts of the Quiraing are unclimbed (and unthinkable) too.
That's an interesting one. The Needle (XS 5c) and Main Drong (XS 5b) / Slender Drong (XS 5b) must be at least E2. Can't think of anything harder than 5c off the top of my head (even if we're talking Fowler grades).
There's a wee tower you pass on the descent from the Carn Dearg Buttress routes (maybe on Ledge Route?) which I always wonder if anyone has been to the top of.
> There's a wee tower you pass on the descent from the Carn Dearg Buttress routes (maybe on Ledge Route?) which I always wonder if anyone has been to the top of.
Funny you should mention that, I saw a photo of a friend on top of it the other day (a less well known Fowler).
Some of those mad little pinnacles at Brimham must be near impossible to climb?
> Funny you should mention that, I saw a photo of a friend on top of it the other day (a less well known Fowler).
Looked pretty hard to me (assuming you couldn't jump onto it)!
We used to climb and jump off the top of Ladram Lady near Sidmouth and managed to climb another sea stack in and around Ladram Bay whilst at college but I'm sure there are still a couple of stacks that have never had ascents. Nine inch nails, crampons and axes de rigueur!
Stack Lee probably ranks pretty high albeit logistically. It takes some dedication to achieve. Restrictions due to bird life making landing only possible out with summer. I talked to one guy once who said it felt like a calm day but on reaching it the swell at the side was several metres.
It's probably some rotten piece of rock covered in slime off the Scottish coast no one would dream of wanting to do.
It may be he used non free climbing tactics, I don't know.
> It's probably some rotten piece of rock covered in slime off the Scottish coast no one would dream of wanting to do.
Yeah there are probably a lot of these. But then I'm not sure, if it's impressive enough looking to be harder than E5 by its easiest route, someone's going to have a go.
Then you're into the question of whether an E5 finger crack is 'harder' than HXS deathchoss...I know which I'd rather do.
Are there any mountain summits other than the InnPinn that require climbing or scrambling to reach?
Pillar rock?
A few others on Skye I'd suggest would require varying degrees/grades of scrambling to get to the top.
Orval Pinnacle and Chimney Stack were both climbed by Tyrolean, so Storr is probably top of your list.
Easier than E5, but: Tegness Pinnacle https://www.ukclimbing.com/photos/dbpage.php?id=76206
Virtually all of the Cuilinn tops require some scrambling . The Cobbler summit reguires some scrambling as does the top of Stac Pollaidh. The three hardest summits are;
Mumros, Sgurr Dearg,(Inn Pin)
Corbetts, The Cobbler
Grahams. Stac Pollaidh
None of the Old Man of Storr routes is graded less than E4 in the current guidebook, and I don't think any of them was climbed fully free at E2? The Original Route used a peg for aid and now gets E5 in the guide.
Good quotes from Dave Macleod about the Staffin Face (E4): 'more or less every hold was freely detachable', and Leo Houlding on the Portree Face: 'I thought I was going to die...At 5c it logically equates to E4 but felt more like E7'.
The Summit pub in Haydock is properly hard. Bouncers frisk you on the way in to check you're adequately tooled up for your own protection.
> None of the Old Man of Storr routes is graded less than E4 in the current guidebook, and I don't think any of them was climbed fully free at E2? The Original Route used a peg for aid and now gets E5 in the guide.
Yes, I know. I didn't give it E2!
No I don't know where the E2 in the OP comes from, but I thought you'd have the Knowledge!
Not heard of that one. Mind you, I've not been back for many years and have no plans to return.
(I hail from between the Huntsman and the Waggon and Horses. Last time I was there, the first had become a Tesco express and the second was closed with no sign of becoming open again or anything else.)
T.
I’ve never been in, just driven past☹️
Probably very sensible. Whatever the ambience the prospect of a decent pint in Haydock seems remote to me, probably because when I was there the place was a Greenalls beer desert. Now Greenalls and the pubs I used to drink in are all gone, and I've long since left too. Can't say I miss it.
T.
Thanks everyone for the replies.
'I don't know where the E2 in the OP comes from' > I don't have the guidebook so I'm going on the grades given on the UKC logbooks which gives the Portree Face E2, not surprised if it's harder. I failed on the original route in the 80s which I think was given E2 at the time but was a seemingly holdless and protectionless overhanging groove so also not surprised that route now gets E5.
'Orval Pinnacle and Chimney Stack were both climbed by Tyrolean, so Storr is probably top of your list' > I think you would struggle to set up a tyrolean on the Orval Pinnacle, at least I didn't when I made the second ascent in the 80s. It's E3 5b but I suspect it's probably easier than Storr. I agree that the ironmongery on top and potential tyrolean for the chimney stack seem to reduce the commitment somewhat never mind the good rock and protection so The Old Man of Storr may well be, arguably, the hardest summit to reach in the UK. You are definitely not tyroleaing to the top of that one.
If so then that means that the Isle of Skye contains the hardest to reach Munro summit (the Inn Pinn) and the hardest to reach rock climbing summit in the UK (Storr). I also seem to remember that Skye had Britain's 'last unclimbed summit' in the UK which was climbed by the late Chris Dale on the Quiraing.
There may well be harder sea stacks I guess such as some of those mentioned in the thread. Anyway interesting stuff and thanks again for the comments.
> Are there any mountain summits other than the InnPinn that require climbing or scrambling to reach?
I remember one the Cairngorms has a stack on its summit that might give some people brief pause for thought. Possibly Ben Avon.
You're right about Beinn A'an. Also a wee scramble to the top of summit tor of Beinn Mheadhoin in Cairngorms.
> If so then that means that the Isle of Skye contains the hardest to reach Munro summit (the Inn Pinn) and the hardest to reach rock climbing summit in the UK (Storr).
The Munros are a well known list of hills (as are The Corbetts, and less so The Grahams), but there is another list of hills called The Dodds which are 'hills' between 500 and 600m high. The Old Man of Storr is a Dodd, making it an extremely difficult list to complete, no ones done it yet https://www.rhsoc.uk/dodds/
Some of the stacks out in St Kilda look nails and probably covered in birds half the year. Not sure if all of them will have been climbed.
> I think you would struggle to set up a tyrolean on the Orval Pinnacle, at least I didn't when I made the second ascent in the 80s. It's E3 5b but I suspect it's probably easier than Storr.
'Dave Bathgate and Hamish MacInnes reached the summit by abseil, lasso and Tyrolean traverse in 1977.'
Probably none harder mentioned specifically so far. The unclimbed columns I mentioned at Staffin could probably be reached easily enough from the clifftop.
I'm curious about the claim of the 'last summit' on the Quiraing...perhaps raises the question of where to draw the line as to what's regarded as a summit? I remember reading in the Skye scrambles guidebook that Sgurr an Coire Lobhta, a slight prominence near Bealach a' Bhasteir, was claimed as the 'last summit in the Cuillin'. The thing has a prominence of about a metre and can be walked onto very easily from the main ridge side, so that claim seems a little dubious in more ways than one...
Chimney Stack now has two stainless bolts on the summit, I'm no expert on Tyroleans but I assume to reach it without climbing first you would have to lasso whatever's there (or the whole thing)? Sounds scarier than climbing it.
> Some of those mad little pinnacles at Brimham must be near impossible to climb?
I find a lot of Brimham near impossible to climb Good call, though.
> I'm curious about the claim of the 'last summit' on the Quiraing...perhaps raises the question of where to draw the line as to what's regarded as a summit? >
There's a photo of it in Cubby's 'Climber's Logbook' if anyone else still has that? The claim is for last 'green' summit - an actual peak rather than rock stack. Going by the photo it's a pretty significant summit, though unless it's much harder than it looks, goodness knows how you could be at all sure no-one had done it before. I'm similarly sceptical about the certainty of likely FAs of some of the main Cuillin peaks.
I'm no expert (at all!) but I've always wondered about the claim of Dun Dubh to be a final FA of a British summit. Just seems too convenient. And given how handy the St Kildans were at climbing, it's hard to imagine there weren't folk in the past scrambling up all sorts of stuff.
I always took the Cuillin FAs to be a bit of an alpine anachronism.
Alexander Schulz walked to the summit of the Old Man of Hoy, although it was definitely more difficult than climbing it this way!
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/10/german...
If you factor in the approach, Rockall
That's not necessarily 'hard', if you hired a skipper you could spend the approach eating and sleeping.
Now morphed into 'Hardest kayaks in the UK'
> The Munros are a well known list of hills (as are The Corbetts, and less so The Grahams), but there is another list of hills called The Dodds which are 'hills' between 500 and 600m high. The Old Man of Storr is a Dodd, making it an extremely difficult list to complete, no ones done it yet https://www.rhsoc.uk/dodds/
In terms of listed hills (almost everything is listed these days), the hardest Hump (100m reascent) that isn't also a Marilyn (150m reascent - Stac Lee etc) looks to be the Old Man of Mow in Cheshire. It's supposed to be off limits and might well fall down at some stage, but I know people who have been up it.
https://www.hill-bagging.co.uk/mountaindetails.php?qu=S&rf=18980
https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/mow_cop-1608/
With more mainstream lists, the hardest Wainwright summit is the Howitzer on Helm Crag although it's arguably not an actual Wainwright given that AW himself didn't get up it, hence it's not "required" to complete the list. I know people with large numbers of Wainwright rounds (eg one has 20, another 15) and they've been up it but their view is that rounds can be completed without it. It's just a scramble but felt quite precarious the day I did it (on a rope) after 15 hours of rain.
.... And then spend the next two months lying to just off Rockall, eating stale ship's biscuits and the odd rotten gannet, drinking rainwater collected on seagull-soiled tarpaulins, while you wait for the elusive weather window for landing, wondering whether the boredom, the botulism or the scurvy will kill you first.
And after all that it's only about Diff. Surprised more people haven't ticked it really.
> And after all that it's only about Diff. Surprised more people haven't ticked it really.
I know a keen - and capable - list bagger who was once on a boat that sailed close by Rockall in reasonable conditions. He was keen to be put ashore and get up it but the skipper wasn't for it and they sailed on by. My friend was of the opinion that any landing would be approved of by the Government for territorial purposes given that it's so rarely visited, and he was probably right, but he wasn't in charge of the boat on the day in question.
Re the Old Man of Storr, there have been a few ascents - by Whillans in 1955 and MacLeod in 2009 (and also it seems by Fowler at some stage):
http://davemacleod.blogspot.com/2009/10/old-man-of-storr.html
But none of them would have been bagging Dodds!
Helm Crag is a tiny gem - surprising more people don't go to the summit.
(many family visits with children)
> ... perhaps raises the question of where to draw the line as to what's regarded as a summit? I remember reading in the Skye scrambles guidebook that Sgurr an Coire Lobhta, a slight prominence near Bealach a' Bhasteir, was claimed as the 'last summit in the Cuillin'. The thing has a prominence of about a metre and can be walked onto very easily from the main ridge side, so that claim seems a little dubious in more ways than one...
Sgurr Coire an Lochain above Loch Coruisk is recognised as being the last 'major' summit to be climbed in Britain, on 12th September 1896. Although of course what defines 'major' is open to debate.
Oh, take some oranges and stop yer whingeing.
If you hear the sound of approaching rotors that'll be me in my helicopter.
Aye, in that case the summit is lower than a point probably less than 50m away where the ridge that connects it to Sgurr Thearlaich gains height...
> (and also it seems by Fowler at some stage)
First free ascent, apparently, in 1988.
> First free ascent, apparently, in 1988.
Ta.
There's a suggestion in the comments here:
http://www.hill-bagging.co.uk/mountaindetails.php?rf=1295
that the Orval Pinnacle might be a Tump - which would put it in one of the bagging lists if so.
> No I don't know where the E2 in the OP comes from, but I thought you'd have the Knowledge!
The 82 guide has Original Route at HVS with no mention of aid and Portree face at Extremely Severe.
The 96 guide has them at E4 and E2
Reading this thread I am now much more relaxed about failing on Original Route in 83...
> Oh, take some oranges and stop yer whingeing.
> If you hear the sound of approaching rotors that'll be me in my helicopter.
A helicopter is it? You need to be careful with that kind of thing. When I let Dave Mac know that his heroics on Rhapsody had actually only earned him a second ascent (following my historic maiden flight to Dumbarton Castle in March 2006) he got a bit shirty with me. Something about " 'king aid Wicamoi, ya shameless cu - " although I missed exactly how his phrasing resolved itself as my jetpack roared into life and I bid a simultaneous Adieu to the wearisome conversation and the treacly bonds of gravity both.
And Staffin Face is E3 on UKC, which probably reflects the original grade of that. To be fair I don't know how much the grading of Original Route at E5 is based on, if it's just a guess based on failures? It sounds like none of the three routes has anything harder than 5c (maybe 6a on Original where the peg was used for aid?), but given the shitness of the rock and lack of protection, it's hard to see any amount of 5c adding up to less than E4.
> .... And then spend the next two months lying to just off Rockall, eating stale ship's biscuits and the odd rotten gannet, drinking rainwater collected on seagull-soiled tarpaulins, while you wait for the elusive weather window for landing, wondering whether the boredom, the botulism or the scurvy will kill you first.
> And after all that it's only about Diff. Surprised more people haven't ticked it really.
Yes, obviously just needs bolting to make it attractive to the masses
> None of the Old Man of Storr routes is graded less than E4 in the current guidebook, and I don't think any of them was climbed fully free at E2? The Original Route used a peg for aid and now gets E5 in the guide.
Just one ascent in the logbooks!
> Snowdon on a bank holiday is genuinely impossible isn't it?
Did Snowdon once with an older family friend who isn't the fittest and it took forever - he was so polite, he kept stopping to let faster people past
One of those shadowy characters tried to persuade me try it with him last year. I got my way and we went to Neist, though ironically I pulled off a lot of holds that day.
This would be even more interesting were it about what the hardest summit in Saxony was, given that you're only allowed to climb on "summits a cow can't wander onto" and that there are at least a thousand of them. Is another coffee table book fomenting in your mind Dr E?
Kind of the point. It gets hardly any ascents for a very inspiring looking piece of rock, even accounting for those operating out of the limelight. I think it's an excellent contenter for the most inaccessible summit.
> Sgurr Coire an Lochain above Loch Coruisk is recognised as being the last 'major' summit to be climbed in Britain, on 12th September 1896. Although of course what defines 'major' is open to debate.
Yes, very open to debate, because it's so subsidiary really, A lot of very good, hard, awkward scrambling, but the summit itself is very undistinguished.
Hard to say which is the hardest real mountain summit. I has to be either the In Pinn or Clach Glas. The former is just a lot of massive jugs, albeit very polished and exceptionally exposed. The latter is also very exposed, but has much more interesting climbing, technically, so at the end of the day I think it's the finer experience. The unspoiled nature of the summit speaks for itself. There's nothing tame about it. In a class of its own really. (Or should that be Clas?)
The Old Man of Mow is a 50ft free standing pinnacle! Easiest route severe (scene of my first ever lead fall and a week off work). Mow Cop is the hill it’s on.
> The Old Man of Mow is a 50ft free standing pinnacle! Easiest route severe (scene of my first ever lead fall and a week off work). Mow Cop is the hill it’s on.
Yes, but crucially in Hump/Tump-bagging terms the top of the Old Man is a couple of metres higher than the top of the regular bit of Mow Cop - similar to the In Pinn / Sgurr Dearg situation insofar as one can compare Cheshire with the Cuillin. (Sorry to hear of the fall - hope it wasn't too sore/scary.)
There's a thing called the Red Tower at North Third near Stirling. It's years since I've been there, and I can't recall how separate or significant the tower is - it's no Old Man of Storr that's for sure - but I think the easiest way up it is Red Shift (E6 6b). Perhaps someone else has a clearer memory of it.
Fall was in the ‘70s so I’m just about recovered🙂. Thanks for your good wishes anyway.
> Fall was in the ‘70s so I’m just about recovered🙂. Thanks for your good wishes anyway.
That's good! Did you ever go back to the OMOM? I've never clapped eyes on it despite having been brought up not a million miles away - SE edge of the Peak, the old Derbys/Notts mining strip. In terms of similar strange isolated lumps of rock, as a boy I was struck by this (much closer to home) when I saw it one day:
https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/the_alport_stone-1307/
Yes, I’ve climbed theOld Man several times. Never seen the Alport stone - must go and have a look!
When we did the FA of Staffin Face in June 88, we were actually there to do Original Route and failed to find it through incompetent guidebook reading
Glad Mick lead it as I wouldn't have gone near it. Only rock I've climbed on that I could crush in my hand. I particularly remember a belay on a very collapsing thread
Sounds scary enough to second, I don't imagine he found a sinker wire soon after the collapsing thread belay!
(I like the choice of word 'collapsing' to describe a thread, it paints a picture)
Was definitely a case of if Mick falls off, hope his gear is good as the belay probably won't hold
Was the end of a great week: did Big John, 2 routes on the Old Man, failed on a summer ascent of Great Overhanging, Kilt Rock and Storr
> failed on a summer ascent of Great Overhanging,
That doesn't strike me as being much fun! A vegetated horror show?
big picket rock xs 6a : youtube.com/watch?v=HECpZ40PdgM& so surely in the ballpark of e5
the parson just down the coast gets e4 in the new south devon guide too
What about Nelson's Column in London - tough E6
https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/grading_nelson's_column-639771
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