Strong Team Climbs Bold New Scottish Line

Greg Boswell and Guy Robertson have climbed a bold new Scottish winter route on Church Door Buttress at Bidean nam Bian.

Their new climb is called Lost Arrow Winter Variation and is one of the hardest winter mixed routes either have climbed.

Every time I think about the quality of the climbing on our route on Monday, I can’t help but grin uncontrollably! It really was an unbelievable day. That’s why we train, get up early and freeze our asses off, for those special days! This is a pic of me on the crux pitch with the steepness looming above. Check out the link in my bio ⬆️ for more pics and info. Also check out @hamishfrost for his outstanding pics from the day. . . . . . . . #wearerab #suuntoclimb #mountains #hard #linkinbio #climbing #winterclimbing #mixedclimbing . . . . . . . @suunto @deuter @lekiuk @rab.equipment @scarpa_uk @grivel

A post shared by Greg Boswell McInnes (@greg_boswell) on Dec 13, 2017 at 11:49am PST

“We had tried the route a week or so ago but got shut down by slow progress (due to very hard climbing and route finding) and lack of daylight,” said Boswell on Facebook.

“This time we started climbing before the sun came up and got straight on with the task at hand, which was steep, technical and rather scary.

“We based our line around the rock route of Lost Arrow, but ended up climbing a lot of different ground to the summer line, which gave a brilliant winter alternative variation.”

Their five-pitch route gets the extreme winter grade of X/10, one of the most difficult in the area.

“We agreed, once we had topped out, that it was one of the most sustained routes we had done in Scotland, for amount of hard pitches and climbing that was involved in the route was crazy,” said Boswell.

“It didn’t let up from the base to the top, it really was a special day. It will be very hard to beat that experience this winter, but we’ll definitely give it a good go.”

As night closed in, it wasn’t just the impending steepness looming above that was weighing heavy on our minds. The demons from within were also whispering thoughts of failure and retreat in our ears. But after having a stern word with ourselves, we decided to push on in search of victory! In this pic Guy approaches the final roof by head torch light, and once again showed me why he is renowned as one of the UK’s best mixed climbers. Tech 10 moves at the end of a monster day by torch light is not an easy task! . . . . . . . #inspiration #climbing #mixedclimbing #scotwinter #scotland #mountains #hard #torchlight #wearerab #suuntoclimb . . . . . . . . . @grivel @scarpa_uk @rab.equipment @lekiuk @deuter @suunto

A post shared by Greg Boswell McInnes (@greg_boswell) on Dec 12, 2017 at 1:26pm PST