Stacking up: Old Man of Hoy
A full day out of type 2(.5) fun. Busy ferries meant we were restricted to a single day hit on foot from the mainland. It was going to be tight.
The approach took about 2.5 hours, and the first sight of the 137m tall stack is pretty intimidating. I led P1, a pile of sandy, jenga rubble, before Al pulled a marathon stint to get through the dirty off-width "coffin" on pitch 2's crux. A little French-free saw me through the move out of the chimney and up p3 before Al finished the route, including the spectacular, stack-splitting final corner pitch. This time, all fluffy white cruxes were easily dealt with by kind, gentle words.
Descent in 3 abseils was slick and we hit the ground at 5pm. The last ferry was 6:30pm, so we covered the long path to Rackwick in 30 minutes and were lucky to hitch to the last ferry home. Thanks to Erinna for some smart thinking on setting up the logistics for us!
The most type 2 day I've had in years.
