Great granite but one wee problem...

... this idiot forgot his rock shoes. My excuse is sudden crises whilst prepping the kids for school this morning causing distraction. But having sweated up to the base of the Etive Slabs on the perfect day I felt a right idiot as I revealed my error to Karl. He had a solution... of sorts. He had a new pair of fairly clumpy shoes and an ancient pair of paper thin shoes with him... in size 8 and a half... and I'm an 11...
A bit of squeezing revealed I could stand the skinny old shoes for short periods so time being of the essence we opted for Spartan Slab. This was my first ever VS lead but today the squeeze on the toes meant that i was 'less than focussed' on my movement on the rock unlike al those years ago! I started up first and we swung leads a few fluffy white clouds coming and going and a pleasant breeze keeping the edge off of the heat.
Always good to tick a classic. But I was mighty glad to get those shoes off at each stance!
Nice to see others (Buzz, Pam and Vicky) enjoying Spartan, Hammer, the Pause and more too.
Sunshine on Spartan Slab from Alan Halewood on Vimeo.

 Etive Slabs ahead

 Setting off on P1

Karl following

Sair feet!

 This is why!

 The overlap

 The beginning of the hand traverse

Karl ending the traverse

Setting off to lead pitch 4

Delightfully delicate... now where is the gear!?

 Top of Pitch 4

 Pitch 5

 Sunny selfie

Nearly there