Climbing Agag's Groove | Buachaille Etive Mor

[Xavi Coll]

We climbed the classic Agag's Groove at Buachaille Etive Mor in a beautiful spring day in a party of 3 with myself , Marek and John

[gaffr]

More than just a walk One of several good climbs on the Rannoch Wall. All gave good and interesting days out.

[Xavi Coll]

More than just a walk One of several good climbs on the Rannoch Wall. All gave good and interesting days out.

Yes totally! haha, loads of good climbs and the surroundings are stunning, so I'll head up there any other time that the weather allows to

[Coop]

Don't know if anyone watches this but I like tuning into Alba to watch the episides

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000zyvn

Agag's groove was on the other week

[dav2930]

Nice one. Quite an improbable line for a VDiff, isn't it? One of my favourites anywhere.

[past my sell by date]

Nice one. Quite an improbable line for a VDiff, isn't it? One of my favourites anywhere.

It's a Scottish V. Diff Dave - not like Ashtree slabs
The Chasm was V. Diff at one time - apart from the converging walls - which before the chockstone (conveniently) fell in must have been one of the scariest most exposed pitches anywhere It was graded Severe

[dav2930]

Nice one. Quite an improbable line for a VDiff, isn't it? One of my favourites anywhere.

It's a Scottish V. Diff Dave - not like Ashtree slabs
The Chasm was V. Diff at one time - apart from the converging walls - which before the chockstone (conveniently) fell in must have been one of the scariest most exposed pitches anywhere It was graded Severe

True, Tony, but then the last time I did Ash Tree Slabs I thought it was harder than Agag's Groove!
The Chasm sounds like one of those real anomalies - makes you wonder how it could ever have been graded VDiff or even Severe. Conversely we have Bowfell Buttress which is really a VDiff (Mild Severe max.) that now gets Hard Severe from both FRCC and Rockfax. Ridiculous!

[past my sell by date]

Yes - originally a classic Diff, but - particularly in the Lakes - easy climbs become very polished (novices in boots) . I always reckoned MVS was the way to go WYSiWYG

[gaffr]

Yes, Bowfell a classic diff in boots was what it was 57 years ago when we went to the buttress...there was another route that we did there...Nice place Bowfell.
Of course as has been said earlier these routes polish up over the decades.

[dav2930]

Well yes, there's the polish to consider. The worst I know of for that is Troutdale Pinnacle - like glass in places. BB is getting polished (and badly scarred by ice climbing gear), but still retains reasonable friction. It's certainly more than Diff, and maybe always was, but absolutely does not warrant HS!

[past my sell by date]

Yes the top pitch of Troutdale pinnacle (shared by several routes) is just like glass but very well protected, and if you are soloing and fall off the top move you land - pretty well unharmed - in the top of a tree a couple of hundred feet below:shock: Well that's what happened to one such person, though I wouldn't want to try and repeat his exploit

[gaffr]

It just seems that Forum Topics can Migrate easily to other areas Not completely a bad thing to happen? but we have strayed a longish way from the pleasures to be found on the Rannoch Wall....apologies to the original Poster.
We have now arrived in Borrowdale the home of many accessible crags. Black Crag Buttress came into the picture yesterday...not only just gives folks a chance to blow their horn but, for me, also it revives pleasant memories of those, far better cragsmen than I ever became, that I shared those grand days out on the crags with.
The mentioned Troutdale Pinnacle is very fine with a memorable finish that is also shared, after the left traverse, with the more direct route. My thoughts then migrated to a crag nearby that was reached from behind a rather up-market? hotel.
Fools Paradise was recommended to us. What I recall of that route was a second pitch with a diagonal slight descent and then later a pitch that looked as if some sort of brownish solidified glass like material from the bowels of the Earth had landed up here. The entire valley seemed to be garnished with many classic climbs many of them even more accessible than the two mentioned on here.

[past my sell by date]

Yes Fools Paradise was a great route, but someone was killed when the chockstone on the (final?) pitch fell out in 2005. I'm not sure what it's like now

[prog99]

Yes Fools Paradise was a great route, but someone was killed when the chockstone on the (final?) pitch fell out in 2005. I'm not sure what it's like now

The frcc omitted it from the last selected guidebook, tells you everything you need to know.
I did it 5 years ago and wrote "Still a lot of tottering choss in-between pitches 5 & 6 that's really only held up by a tree root."

[gaffr]

Hello, I knew nothing of what happened on the Fools Paradise.... a very tragic event....my visits there were a long time back during the early seventies....I guess that we all become, in some way, responsible for the wear and tear on these climbs
My last visit to this area of the lakes was in Spring 1974 to Falcon, Eagle, Heron and to Quayfoot crags a short time before moving to live in the Highlands.