UKC

Hello West Coasties - I'm coming up in a few days to meet my friend on his boat in Oban. The plan is to sail most likely over to Mull and try and do some climbing, possibly some of the smaller islands also like Ulva and perhaps Ardamurchan. I've got the relevant Latter guidebook with Erraid in it, whatever is on the Rockfax app in that area from the SMC guides, some topos from Colin Moody's website for Ulva IIRC, so we are pretty organised but I wonder if there are others who have sailed and climbed in that region and can recommend crags with anchorages. I understand my friend's boat has a dingy with an outboard, so the big boat only needs an anchorage not an actual harbour. Obviously this is wind dependent, but any experiences will be super useful.

Secondly we will probably check out the newish sport climbing just south of Oban before setting sail. I onsight up to 6a+ pretty consistently on Peak limestone, so will target the routes up to that grade with the most stars, but any must do lines?

Finally, I will need to leave my car somewhere in Oban for 4 or 5 days. Do any locals know of somewhere where I can park it without annoying anyone? Obviously free is great, but I'm happy to pay the local council something if there is a designated long stay car park they would like people to use.

Many thanks.

Hi Toby 

Sounds like a great way to visit these crags! Can't help with the sailing beta, but here's a link to a couple of the climbing areas you mentioned:

Ardnamurchan: https://rockaroundtheworld.co.uk/2022/05/29/ardnamurchan-the-gift-of-the-ga...

Gallanach (the sport climbing near Oban): https://rockaroundtheworld.co.uk/2022/06/07/gallanach-crags-oban/

Have a great trip! Cheers, Dom 

The sport climbing in Oban is barely worth the trip, especially at that grade. If I had access to remote scottish islands I would not think about wasting any time there. There is, however, free parking right by it. (Dom has a pic of his truck in the spot above). Or download Park4night and it lists a few options in the town, which extremely touristy by the way. There is often a sailing boat anchored at Erraid, by the beach, but sounds like you may know that. It is a world class beach, with incredible climbing. Just be careful of course, as any rescue will not be fast. Ohh, and it's riddled with ticks.

There doesn't appear to be any info on Soa on the SMC page? Should there be? 

I'd agree with the suggestion to skip Gallanach. It's nice enough, but not a major destination in its own right if you've travelled all that way with the aim to head for destinations further afield. 

Go into the database. Select Inner Hebrides and Arran then you should see the routes.

Yeah, that's where I was trying. I can see the stuff listed on Iona but nothing on Soa. Hmmm. 

There are 14 routes listed, Diff-E1 (but mostly at the easier end of the range), all first ascents from a single visit almost exactly 10 years ago.  The one in the photo is a 30m Severe apparently, looks great value - I think the pic is from the first (perhaps the only) ascent.

Hm.  Something to do with the disclaimer perhaps, you could try going here first: https://routes.smc.org.uk
tick the box, click 'enter the site',  then try the link again: https://routes.smc.org.uk/crag/1201

I did go in from the front page and tick the box but still nothing last night, bizarrely it is working this morning. Cheers. Hard to know the quality of the routes, access etc. from just the description although the descriptions sound good.

The Garvellachs always look to have good potential if you can get ashore, worth a closer look as you’ll be passing. 

Last time I went to Pabbay (2018 I think) we parked very near the ferry terminal in a long stay car park. More recent Pabbay threads might have updates. Back in the day we used to park on the road down to the Kerrera ferry but it’s all permit bays now. I suspect any free parking will require a long walk and likely unpopular with the locals.

Not a sailor, but access looks pretty straightforward to me.  Certainly would be by kayak, I don't know about your friend's dinghy but with a calm sea and light winds it might even be possible to take that over from Erraid without moving the bigger boat from its anchor there.

Other than that, yep, who knows?  (Well, bhood might know - the person who posted that photo I'm guessing is the same B.Hood listed as one of the first ascentionists on the SMC site - you could always try dropping him an email through his UKC profile.)

Wherever you end up going, it sounds like it has the potential to be a fantastic trip if you get the right conditions.  Best of luck!  Please do post a few pics if it works out, I'd love to see them.

Long stay parking service here: https://www.macqueenbros.com/vehicle-storage-long-term-parking-for-island-f... 

Agree. I (and others) top roped many routes here in the 90's and 2000's and they were nothing to write home about. 

The topos you mentioned on my website are also on the SMC site, I think, along with others for Ulva that Pete did (but others still need to be done). A couple of years ago we parked up in the loch between Ulva and Gometra, sheltered except from SW. The climbs we did then are on the SMC site, blog below.

Bhood went to Soa by kayak, he said the crossing was fairly serious but I know someone who went there in a small inflatable boat to ring birds.

If I was on a boat down there I would park up near Erraid and try to climb on Eileen Dubh, Eileen nan Muc and Soa. Erraid is easy to get to without a boat another time.

http://www.colinmoody.com/Site/Blog/Entries/2023/9/23_Weather_Forecasts.htm...

Left my car on Glenshellach Road when I went to Mingulay this year tucked in tight without any trouble. Have previously left it up on Pulpit Drive as well and no issues, but this does mean a walk up hill at the end of your trip unless you can get a lift.

I'm home from circumnavigating Mull - thanks all for tips and advice. I got up on Friday afternoon a bit before Dave managed to get the boat down the Sound of Mull and into Oban with a lack of winds. I recced potential parking spots and would eventually use the one Nathan suggested above - thanks Nathan. It looked like a few other people were using it for the same sort of thing. Then I drove down to have a look at  Gallanach, meeting a Canadian team who were on a sport climbing tour of the Highlands! Who knew? But they said they had been having a great time. I also removed my first tick having been at the base of Roadside sector only for all of about 10 minutes - the beginning of a theme! The boat had arrived by the time I got back into town, and we spent the first night in port in Oban as Dave's brother and niece were joining us in the morning. We made a quick breakfast visit to Gallanach in the morning and got a couple of ticks of both type before meeting the others in town and sailing west.

The sail down the Ross of Mull was great and loads of dolphins, both common and bottlenose accompanying us at times. We also saw our first porpoises and seals. We got to  Erraid Crags early evening with the winds rising and the weather turning greyer. The southerlies meant we couldn't anchor in the main bay so used an anchorage just to the west. Safe anchorages also became a bit of a theme and we've decided that climbing from a boat isn't quite as straightforward and non-sailors like myself might have presumed. With fast and big tides, even leaving the yacht's outboard equipped dingy when going onto land. You don't want to come back after literally a couple of hours and find it mainly hanging on a rock where you tied it up the tide having dropped over a metre. We didn't have enough time at Erraid to do it justice before the rain came in but we did a couple of routes on Pink Wall. It is a beautiful place and the rock is impeccable, but most of the crags are quite small (think the car park end of Burbage North for fellow people living in the south of the UK!) and I've climbed a lot of great granite so it wasn't maybe quite as special as I was expecting. The place is also crawling with ticks so do a thorough check after. I would like to go back and do more though. 

The next morning was a bit grim so we touristed on Iona for a bit before setting sail for Ulva. We moored at the pontoons at Ulva ferry and in the evening hike over to  Basalt Columns, Ulva. This was fantastic - a lovely view, a type of style climbing I've not done before and (shhh! Don't tell anyone-) holiday grades.   The next day we walked down to  Aird Dearg - for more basalt column climbing - again a fantastic view and fun, novel climbing. They are not as pure regular shapes as across on Ulva, but still great. It's a bit tricky at first know where the routes start and how to get there but we worked it out soon enough. A sea eagle flew over as well to complete the Mull experience. We might have even done a new route after a guidebook reading failure. The sun shone although the wind was a bit mad - pull-snot-out-of-your-nose-and-slap-you-in-the-face-with-it strong.  We went back out in the evening and did Pinnacle Crack (HS 4b) on the crag just along from the ferry - that was good as well, although the sun had gone and the wind was even crazier by that point, so one route was enough then.

The next day we sailed in really big swells and strong winds up to the top of Mull, passing by the amazing looking Staffa and other Treshnish Isles. I've not sailed in the Atlantic before, and Hurricane Erin had been doing her things, so the swells were impressive, and we guess the spray of them hitting the cliffs in NW Mull a few miles away must have been going 30 metres or higher in the air - quite a sight. We anchored in the mouth of Loch Sunart that night, and all got covered in ticks during a short exploration of the little island we were anchored next too. Yesterday we had another exciting sail down the sound of Mull with the wind screaming up the Sound. I had hoped we might have been able to visit to sport crag  Stac Liath, Mull that almost guards the entrance of the sound, but it was peeing down by this point and we were having to tack back and forth across the sound to get anywhere, so another time!