Summer of FM
I've done FM in the Mourne Mountains most years that I've been in Northern Ireland, sometimes more than once, because it's a good long outing and satisfying enough to take out beginners and non-climbers on and give them a good experience of multi-pitch trad climbing. The things that might be worth knowing about it are:
In June 2013 I took my buddy TL up it. He's often happy to accompany me on any sort of activity, and he was completely unfazed by the quick lesson I gave him in belaying and so on. The nice thing about knowing someone for years is that it's possible to have a really openly trusting relationship, so for example I know (without hesitation) that TL would ask me questions about how things work/what to do in various situations if he felt he needed more information, and I also know that he's super smart and can take in lots of information very quickly and use it effectively. So we hiked in from the Annalong / Carricklittle carpark and kept a look out on the side of Lamagan for the distinctive white slab halfway up the mountain. There's a zig-zagging track that nearly goes right up to it, but I don't think we found it and instead just struggled directly through the contours and heather. I remember it was hot work, we had a sunny day for it.
The first pitch is an easy scramble from the gritty muddy bay at the bottom of the slab up a left-trending grassy groove/ramp and then up a bit of slab onto a grassy ledge – it's not really a pitch at all, and it's just as easy to solo it and rope up one the grassy ledge. FM is listed as 162 metres and 6 pitches but I've never understood how that adds up at all. I usually do it in 3 pitches with a single (60 m) sport rope, and no pitch has ever used over half a rope-length, by which arithmetic I make it about 90 m of VDiff climbing. The first proper pitch pads up an easy angled slab, studded with pockets, cracks and other features, and trends rightwards until it reaches a big flake which usually has a couple of decent loops of cord and some old abseil tat. There's great exposure here, as the movement sideways means you're standing above a steeper section of the hillside, and the land falls away and opens out into the wide valley floor, which heads down South East to the Irish Sea.
While on this stance with a pair of new trad-climbers later, in March 2014, the sunny weather suddenly turned into a brief snowstorm, and we were powdered in white within minutes, before the sun came out again and the rock steamed. I think on the 2013 occasion with TL it was at this point that he first felt the seriousness of the situation, as I left him tied to a flake of rock with our safety in his hands and headed off up the next slab pitch. I made sure I kept talking to him about what was going on – that it was lovely climbing, easy moves, lovely high-friction rock. There are a couple of small overlaps to step up on this pitch, which goes fairly straight up on a slightly steeper angle towards a bulging wall, so it can be useful to remind yourself that you trust your feet.
The bulging wall has an obvious line of weakness going through it, but because it involves stepping up off the slab and getting a high left-foot on a smooth slope, it can make people a bit nervous. There's a really great handhold for the left hand high-up and a little bit hidden, but if you know it's there it makes the move solid and easy. Once over it, there's a bit more crack-following/slab scrambling and a wide open space to make a stance. Then the next pitch traverses right easily across a lumpy gentle slab – there's protection the whole way – to a tall vertical cracked and blocky wall. It's often a bit wet and green below it as the wall and corner it makes seeps quite a lot, but it's easy enough to avoid and to work your way up and diagonally left into the corner, and to romp your way up. The most enjoyable finish is to work your way up this wall gradually trending out right away from the corner so that you end up on doing a bit of a mantle on to the end of the top-most part of the wall, which has a nice sloping rib shape that's worth straddling for the full experience:
Since it's a bit more of a technical scramble than a 'climb' it's primarily a workout for the thighs more than the arms. You might need good back muscles if you've decided to bring a big rack because it'll spend most of the time on your harness, and most people's natural posture on slab is to lean forwards a bit too much – I think that people instinctively lean forward to try to adjust for the fact that the surface they're standing on isn't vertical – which can mean that the lower back ends up doing a lot of work when you swing your hips and harness. There are a couple of threads, spikes and flakes to be slung, and decent big nut / cam placements, and there's very little need for an extensive rack, despite the rumoured length of the route.
If your legs are feeling good after this, and you want to do more hands-on climbing, the best recommendation is to walk off Lamagan to the right (East), working your way down steep grassy slopes (look out to make sure you don't step out on to blank slabs of granite!) until you join the path to Lower Cove. You could be climbing on the first corner at Lower Cover about half an hour after you finish FM if you know the way, but it's probably more like 45 minutes if you need to be a bit more cautious getting off Lamagan.
- it's a bit tricky to find (particularly in mist / cloudy conditions, because you need a good view of the mountain, Sleive Lamagan, to be able to aim for the right bit of it),
- it's a longish walk-in, and hour/hour and quarter? (but so's most stuff in the Mournes),
- it's a rather tedious slog down grassy slopes to descend afterwards, whichever way you go.
In June 2013 I took my buddy TL up it. He's often happy to accompany me on any sort of activity, and he was completely unfazed by the quick lesson I gave him in belaying and so on. The nice thing about knowing someone for years is that it's possible to have a really openly trusting relationship, so for example I know (without hesitation) that TL would ask me questions about how things work/what to do in various situations if he felt he needed more information, and I also know that he's super smart and can take in lots of information very quickly and use it effectively. So we hiked in from the Annalong / Carricklittle carpark and kept a look out on the side of Lamagan for the distinctive white slab halfway up the mountain. There's a zig-zagging track that nearly goes right up to it, but I don't think we found it and instead just struggled directly through the contours and heather. I remember it was hot work, we had a sunny day for it.
The first pitch is an easy scramble from the gritty muddy bay at the bottom of the slab up a left-trending grassy groove/ramp and then up a bit of slab onto a grassy ledge – it's not really a pitch at all, and it's just as easy to solo it and rope up one the grassy ledge. FM is listed as 162 metres and 6 pitches but I've never understood how that adds up at all. I usually do it in 3 pitches with a single (60 m) sport rope, and no pitch has ever used over half a rope-length, by which arithmetic I make it about 90 m of VDiff climbing. The first proper pitch pads up an easy angled slab, studded with pockets, cracks and other features, and trends rightwards until it reaches a big flake which usually has a couple of decent loops of cord and some old abseil tat. There's great exposure here, as the movement sideways means you're standing above a steeper section of the hillside, and the land falls away and opens out into the wide valley floor, which heads down South East to the Irish Sea.
While on this stance with a pair of new trad-climbers later, in March 2014, the sunny weather suddenly turned into a brief snowstorm, and we were powdered in white within minutes, before the sun came out again and the rock steamed. I think on the 2013 occasion with TL it was at this point that he first felt the seriousness of the situation, as I left him tied to a flake of rock with our safety in his hands and headed off up the next slab pitch. I made sure I kept talking to him about what was going on – that it was lovely climbing, easy moves, lovely high-friction rock. There are a couple of small overlaps to step up on this pitch, which goes fairly straight up on a slightly steeper angle towards a bulging wall, so it can be useful to remind yourself that you trust your feet.
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| FM pitch 2, it's all giant steps. |
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| TL tops out. |
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| And so do these guys. |
If your legs are feeling good after this, and you want to do more hands-on climbing, the best recommendation is to walk off Lamagan to the right (East), working your way down steep grassy slopes (look out to make sure you don't step out on to blank slabs of granite!) until you join the path to Lower Cove. You could be climbing on the first corner at Lower Cover about half an hour after you finish FM if you know the way, but it's probably more like 45 minutes if you need to be a bit more cautious getting off Lamagan.
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