Crag features

Murray Heugh is the large bay immediately south of Bettridge Park and provides magnificent long sport climbing on a great variety of terrain from steep wall climbing to burly endurance routes through overhanging terrain. The walls of the bay are impressive rearing up 50 metres from the sea in vertical and overhanging sweeps. Most of the walls are unthinkable for climbing, being too unstable and fearsome to contemplate. However, in the South-West corner of the bay the walls are more continuous and the rock sounder, this is Murray Heugh Sport Crag. It's development has been hugely labour intensive for it's two main equippers who have put in hours of work in a very intimidating setting. What it looks like now and did at first are poles apart.

The climbing is spread over five walls of differing character. The routes are long especially by Scottish standards and generally follow strong lines. For the most part the rock is good but softer less predictable areas do exist despite a huge effort put into cleaning. While these efforts and traffic has cleaned things up significantly routes still evolve, sometimes very quickly! There is also a soft band which most routes need to cross low down. This cliff is not for the faint hearted or inexperienced. The sharp angular rock makes rope management challenging, particularly on the edges of the many roofs, and quickdraw length is critical. As with any new cliff loose holds will be encountered, use your judgement and avoid belaying directly below your leader. You may wish to wear a helmet and some belayers have been glad of them. Don't walk under anyone who is climbing. There are many obvious link ups but all have been climbed before and do not require names or descriptions to be enjoyed. Only the extension linkups which add new climbing are described. Stars have not been given and grades are settling so please add opinions.

Conditions: The sheltered location and aspect make for very unpredictable conditions and the walls receive very little sun even in summer. Condensation and damp can be issues on seemingly promising days. It can take a long time to dry out in spring and it usually takes until May for most of the routes. The routes to the right receive most sun but do dry slowly and the black rock can feel frictionless in the sun. All the routes start above average high tides, but big tides or swells will limit access to both the Alcove and Space Face. The best conditions seem to coincide with fresh breezy days and, as always with the NE seacliffs, avoid warm still days or days where there is a lot of sea spray in the air. A good rule of thumb is the visual clarity of the floating windturbines offshore - the better that is the better the conditions -usually.