Aberdeen

Finishing 'Kayla' on the Portlethen boulders (Photos by Stuart Stronach)

After yesterday's coaching in the north east, I had ten minutes at the end of the day to do a little bouldering before jumping on the train back home. We were at Portlethen and so I jumped on the hardest problem there; Kayla, a problem I'd heard much about in the climbing media and was keen to try. I wasn't exactly sure of the exact line on the headwall and if an underut on the left of a line of crimpers was 'in', so figured I better not use it. After a few minutes Stuart annouced it was time to leave and run for the train so I had to do the problem there and then or not at all! There's nothing like a deadline to galvanise your effort.

It turns out the undercut is allowed so I guess I did a slighty more direct variation just using the crimps at about Font 7c. The venue is quite small but it was good to see an active scene with lots of climbers dotting about with mats, and a crazy dog doing a sisyphyus impression by trying to push a barrel up the shore repeatedly.