Recess Route (85m, Severe) - The Cobbler

With some decent weather forecast for the late May bank holiday weekend (well, the first half of it anyway), Maria and I left York at 4:30am on Saturday to seek out a classic rock route on the Cobbler, just West of Loch Lomond.

 

This was our first time on the Cobbler, and when we saw this impressive view, we did wonder what had taken us so long...

Maria led the first pitch, which took a slanting line across the initial slab, before turning back to the right up a steep crack.

Pitch two was a steep chimney - the trick was to stay outside the chimney itself, bridging on the sides, but this did mean protection was a bit sparse...

 

It finished with a chockstone in a narrow cleft.

Pitch three started with an easy traversing ledge to the right, but the moved steeply up The Fold (crux) to a belay in a cave.

Pitch four had some very nice moves to outflank an overhang above the cave, before a short chimney section to finish.

We then sat on a grassy ledge at the top, basking in the sunshine and contemplating whether to bother with another route while munching our sandwiches.  After the early start, we were pretty tired, so left it at that for the day's climbing. We did spy a couple of other good routes to save for another day though...

Whither Wether (VS):

Punster's Crack (S):

We then wandered over to the central summit, where Maria did some kind of victory gesture:

Sunday was a bit cloudy, but still dry, so we went for a wander up Beinn Narnain, with a nice bit of scrambling just below the summit.