Me and Greg Boswell were at Birnam yesterday. We’ve both got our eyes on a route called Fast and Furious. It’s a Scott Muir dry tooling route that takes a route up a 45 degree roof and would be about M10 if it had ice on it. That equates to about Scottish XII, though obviously comparisons are somewhat tricky to make, as Fast and Furious is a sport-mixed route. There is no traditional gear on the route – it is climbed entirely on bolts.

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I’m writing this from an idyllic base camp underneath some of the most spectacular unclimbed mountains I’ve ever seen. The campsite is flat and grassy, next to a soothing stream and above us is a scene of Andean wonder…

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