UKC

What ars the belays/anchors like for setting up the traverse,and are they obvious?

In reply to ERB:

On the Old Man side there is a bunch of pegs and tat so is very obvious, on the land side we just found a crack and put some gear in it, not idea if that's the usual way but it worked for us.

In reply to ERB:
hello –
from personal experience its really worth practicing setting up the tyrolean before getting there. We lost a lot of time setting it up.
On the landward side there is a small tower like bit of rock on the right hand side (looking out) and there are plenty of anchors here for nuts etc.
It may be worth having a spare rope for an abseil partway down on the descent as it gets a bit greasy there.
If there is a nominated swimmer probably best for them to swim out, set the traverse up then get back to the landward side for a proper warm up, staying tied onto the stack will restrict movement and hence getting warm. On the stack itself, as the previous poster said there is a peg and room for nuts etc.
Make sure you get there early so no teams are in front of you.

In reply to Ian Archer: Thanks for the info will start practicing.

In reply to ERB: What's the possibilty of making the crossing on foot rather than swimming?

In reply to ERB:

Check the tide time! I made a mistake for not doing so, and ended up waiting at a hanging belay on the stack side for 3 hours before the choppy sea calmed down. The wave went over our tyrolean, torn apart my bag which was hung on the bottom belay. I ended up walking back to the car in climbing shoes. I took this picture during the abseil. You can see the partly submerged tyrolean at the end of the abseil ropes.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamestheyip/3851095204/in/photostream/

When the tide is low you can just scramble across from the right hand side (facing the stack) without getting wet.

In reply to jamestheyip:


I did in fact checked the tide time, but not the tide levels. Just couldn't believe the sea level could change in a few hours, for nearly 10 metres! (calm sea at low tide vs peaks of big waves at high tide)

We we did it last August, there's probably couple of hours during the low tides that you can get across without getting wet at all.

In reply to jamestheyip: Morecambe bay tidal range is pretty similar, about 10.5m at spring tides. There's some crazy-ass place in Canada (Nr Halifax IIRC) where the tidal range is so big that an entire waterfall disappears under the sea and flows backwards.

In reply to ERB:

When I did it last July we decided to both swim across and not bother with the Tyrolean - which would have been fine (if a touch cold) except when we got across to the base of the Old Man we discovered that we'd left the drybag with most of our protection on the other side - so my partner valiantly made the swim again. It's relatively short - and if the tide is low enough you are supposed to be able to rock hop across at the end of channel - although we thought that option looked a touch sketchy.

Andrew

In reply to ERB:

We got there about 3 hours before low tide, mate swam across (after our dinghy sunk!) with a thin haul line to pull the midle of a 50m static rope across and clipped it into the in situ tat on the stack. After a bit of faffing we used a pair of 8' slings around a flake on the landward side shelf. 5 of us climbed the stack and got back over dry.
Advice would be to have your landward side anchor set up and dry clothes ready as early as possible for the swimmer to get changed.
Practice rigging tyroleans between trees before you go and use a static rope if you possibly can.
I'll try and upload some pics of our set up tomorrow from work.

In reply to Trangia:

Out of curiosity what is the etiquette if you arrive before/after other parties at the traverse? It would seem daft to set up a second one, but presumably the first party will dismantle their rig before the second team have descended back to the traverse.

In reply to oliwarlow:


You could talk to them? Or maybe leave your rope slack to the anchor and ask them to tension it for you when they pull their own. There's a good chance they'll be staying locally if they are agreeable to you using and de-rigging their tyrolean for them. Gives them less to carry..

In reply to Jamie Bankhead:

Yes, talking would be the best option. Just from some of the photos I have seen (perhaps on summer weekends?) there seem to be multiple teams, so I can imaging things can get complicated with who owns what. I hope to get up there this year, fingers crossed...

In reply to Ian Archer: Would echo the practice bit, saves time.
Just for the record we rock hopped across dry at LW so it can be done. Swam back and set up the rope for fun. I do remember the rope was a bit stretchy and first man over got wet so we tightened the system. We didn't have pulleys and jumars just fig8, clips and enthusiasm. Always planned to swim, didn't know anything about tides, saw seals playing in the channel and whales out to sea. (The swin was a dive and a max of 20 strokes and very refreshing!)A fantastic adventure worth saving for a good day. Reif is close by if the weather is rough.
On a previous attempt my partner had an accident on the descent pulling a large block down trapping her knee resulting in a very nasty deep cut (better than some potential outcomes). We extracated ourselves and visited Inverness A&E as it was then. I would consider setting a static handline as well but cant remember any obvious anchor points

In reply to ERB:
Don't do it the way we did it
See photo on profile

In reply to teflonpete: Thanks everybody loads of good information.