Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Traprain Law

Over the past week, Emily and I have made two evening visits to Traprain Law (East Lothian) for our first 'real' attempts at some Trad climbing. Having broken ourselves in gently with some sport climbing in Gairloch, I hadn't really used most of my new gear, so I was keen to put it to more use on the rocks this summer. I had purchased a copy of the Lowland Outcrops guidebook and at first glance, Traprain Law looked like it had quite a few easy routes. Some folk at work had suggested Rosyth Quarry but I wasn't sure it was the best idea, as it may well have been full of young 'layabouts'.
Setting up the belay at the top of The Vertical Ladder VD*, Traprain Law
Setting up the belay at the top of The Vertical Ladder VD*, Traprain Law
As it happens, Monday was a great evening to be out at Traprain - as we had the whole place to ourselves and the weather was just lovely. I thought we had better start on something easy so a quick scan of the crag and the guidebook had me eying up The Vertical Ladder VD*. I had been doing a lot of reading of various climbing manuals and chatting to a few mates that climbed about Trading so I felt that I had a pretty good idea about what I had/needed to do with all the gear etc; the only problem being that I'd never really done it before and had very little experience at this sort of thing. But anyway, undeterred, off I went with my half rack of nuts and hexes clinking away on my harness. The climbing was actually very easy; it was trying to place the gear 'well' that was the problem. I found it interesting, as I was automatically drawn to try and use the bigger hexes in the bigger cracks; simply because I trusted them more than the smaller wires. Once I had figured out how the hexes worked and how they needed to be placed to 'cam', all was well and I was putting in loads of gear all over the shop in order to get a bit of practice in. I felt totally at ease and completely comfortable until I was almost at the very top of the climb. Straight above me and in front of me was a very large block that, quite frankly, seemed impassable! After a good few minutes of feeling around with my hands, I eventually found the good holds and was able to pull myself over the block. But I still thought it was a bit exposed and a great deal harder than the rest of the climb had been - scary stuff!
Abseiling down The Vertical Ladder VD*, Traprain Law
Abseiling down The Vertical Ladder VD*, Traprain Law
After a few moments to catch my breath, I managed to get two solid hex placements in as my two good anchors. A few screwgates and a couple of clove hitches later and I was ready to bring Emily up safely. We had practiced all this at home over the weekend so we were pretty comfortable with the set up and the calls. Not to my surprise: Emily flew up the climb and did a great job of pulling out the gear. As I thought, she wasn't too happy with going over the large block at the end so I suggested that she move to the left and finish up there instead; which she did in her usual style.
Abseiling at Traprain Law
Abseiling at Traprain Law
Totally elated with our efforts, we wanted more! So we abseiled back down the crag and we quickly dispatched Shuffle VD (me leading once again). A brilliant first evening of Trading together and we were both beaming all the way back to Edinburgh.
With the good weather still holding, we went back on Wednesday we managed to tick: Spider Route 1 S, Spider Route 2 S, Brute S, Double Stretch S* and The M.S. Route HS**. We were a lot quicker completing the climbs as a team the second night and we both agreed that they didn't feel much harder than the first climb we did on Monday night but it was probably mostly down to our confidence growing. Very happy with how the week has gone and super excited to get out on more rock!
Abseiling at Traprain Law
Abseiling at Traprain Law