The first ascent of the Old Man of Hoy

Passengers on MV Hamnavoe are treated to a heart-stirring sight on every crossing to Orkney, as the ship passes the magnificent flame-red cliffs on the west coast of Hoy. A lone pillar – the Old Man of Hoy, a 137m (449 ft) tall sea stack – stands proudly facing the sea wind, 60m away from the rest of these towering cliffs, as great breakers dash against its feet.

“The Old Man of Hoy was as difficult a pitch as any encountered in the Alps. But it was a pleasure to do it in sunshine and on warm rock and not worry about frostbite.”

This summer marks the 60th anniversary of the first climb of the Old Man of Hoy by three intrepid climbers – Chris Bonington, Dr Tom Patey and Rusty Baillie. This daring three-day assault took place from Saturday 16th to Monday 18th July 1966 and required 28 hours of climbing!

All three were accomplished climbers. Bonington (aged 31) and Baillie (25) had just conquered the north face of the Eiger, and Patey (34) had opened more new routes in Scotland than any other man alive. The adventure began when Patey phoned Bonington suggesting they climb it. This imposing sea stack was one of the few peaks in Britain that had not yet been scaled.

Patey said: “Since I first started climbing in 1948, I’ve met many climbers interested in the mysterious Old Man. Some considered it impossible to climb, on photographic evidence alone; others like myself concluded that the rock must be rotten. But the word ‘impossible’ has no permanent place in a climber’s vocabulary.”

So, the three climbers, along with Baillie’s wife Pat, his 5-month-old baby daughter, and the family dog, boarded the ferry to Orkney. On arrival in Stromness, they asked a fisherman, Angus Brown, to motor them over to the island of Hoy, where they set up their base in a Rackwick cottage owned by Dr Derek Johnstone of Stromness.

The green valley of Rackwick is lovely, with a sweeping beach of sea-smoothed boulders and golden sand. But to reach the Old Man of Hoy, visitors must leave the valley by trekking up a steep hillside called Moor Fea and then hiking west along a rocky track. After 90 minutes they will arrive at a viewing platform on the cliff opposite the Old Man. On the approach, the top of the sea stack appears to peak over the headland!

Climbers must then descend the cliff to the base of the sea stack, which is made of basalt rock (the upper parts consist of softer sandstone with layers of flagstone). In old drawings the Old Man of Hoy was shown to have two legs, but one leg has collapsed, leaving a large pile of tumbled blocks to climb over.

On the first day of the climb, the climbers decided to take the east, landward-facing route. The ascent would require free climbing with extremely technical, difficult moves, using modern climbing aids – so ropes, pitons, bongs (wider pitons for bigger cracks), karabiners, slings and nuts were gathered below the pinnacle.

For the first 80 feet, the climbers made slow progress. They had to contend with a steep pitch, and brittle rock that had to be discarded, leaving few holds left. Worst of all, on some ledges, there was a feathery surprise. Fulmers nest on the Old Man of Hoy, and though they look a little like seagulls, these birds are members of the petrel family and are more closely related to albatrosses.

Fulmers have an unpleasant habit of vomiting on the faces and eyes of trespassers, and this oily, fishy substance leaves a pungent odour on skin and clothing which is impossible to remove. The splattered climbers attempted to use a long wire to make the seabirds vomit out of range – all whilst hanging by one hand to crumbling sandstone!

Further up, the pitch became more perilous as much of it was overhanging. This meant that rope had to be fixed from top to bottom, otherwise it would dangle uselessly 20 feet out. There was a scary moment for Baillie when, on an inverted chimney, his sweating hands started to slip just as one foothold crumbled beneath him. Shortly after that, the climbers decided to retire for the day.

Following a restful night in Rackwick they returned, and thanks to the pitons and ropes from the previous day they quickly got back to the inverted chimney. Baillie wedged his way backwards (pushing with his back and feet) out of the chimney. They then continued upwards slowly but surely.

The second day’s climb proved to be as tricky as the first – one pitch held Baillie up for six hours. Bonington said, “The Old Man of Hoy was as difficult a pitch as any encountered in the Alps. But it was a pleasure to do it in sunshine and on warm rock and not worry about frostbite.” Bonington had suffered from frostbite during the two days when he conquered all 5,900 feet of the north face of the Eiger. However, by the end of the second day of climbing the Old Man of Hoy, they had only advanced 200 vertical feet from the base!

On the third and final day, the climbing was much easier and faster. Further up the Old Man of Hoy, the face was now nearly vertical, and the climbers managed to gain 200 feet in three separate pitches, in just over an hour. Bonington tackled the last 80-foot section, finding generous holds in more compact sandstone, and they reached the summit at 4.30pm. The climbers celebrated by making a cairn at the top and lighting a bonfire, which almost got out of hand in the sun-dried heather!

The three days had been sunny, with only the whisper of a westerly wind, and the sea crashing down below. Over the course of the climb, Bonington had shot 18 rolls of film. There had been a handful of spectators on the cliffside over the past three days, but on reaching the summit there was no one there to witness the climber’s moment of glory!

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Even before this conquest, the three climbers were all remarkable men. Thomas Walton Patey was an accomplished Scottish climber, writer, and doctor from Ullapool. He first became interested in climbing in the Boy Scouts and honed his talents in the Cairngorms whilst studying at the University of Aberdeen. Like Bonington and Baillie, Patey returned to the Old Man a year later, in 1967, for the famous televised climb. However, he would fall to his death shortly afterwards, in 1970, as he abseiled from another sea stack, the Maiden, on the Sutherland coast.

Robert “Rusty” Baillie was born in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and was another talented climber who started in the Scouts before graduating to adventures on Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa. His other triumphs included the first ascent of the Søndre Trolltind Wall, Norway and also the Dragon Route on the Painted Wall, Black Canyon, Colorado. He made his living in outdoor education and was a warm-hearted climbing instructor, well-known for enjoying a good debate! Baillie passed away in Idaho in 2025 after a battle with skin cancer.

The bearded adventurer and journalist Chris Bonington, from The Lake District, learned his craft climbing Snowdon and Harrison’s Rocks, near Tunbridge Wells. Over the years Bonington made 19 expeditions to the Himalayas, including 4 to Mount Everest! However alongside amazing triumphs in his life, Bonington experienced great heartache too. After 52 years of marriage, his wife Wendy died from motor neurone disease (MND) in 2014.

So, that same year, aged 80, Bonington returned to Orkney to climb the Old Man of Hoy once more, with Leo Houlding, raising money for MND research. And it’s hard to imagine what he must have been thinking during the 1966 ascent of the sea stack. Just a month earlier, whilst Bonington was away climbing in the Andes, his two-year-old son Conrad had drowned in a stream at Balmore, Dunbartonshire.

The first climb of the Old Man of Hoy was an incredible achievement. Though it is now a commonplace climb undertaken by many parties every summer, that first time, the Old Man proved to be a worthy challenge for three of the best mountaineers in the world.

When interviewed for the local papers, Bonington said “The Old Man of Hoy presents a great challenge, one of the few left in Britain today. There is nothing like this rock anywhere else in the country. I feel the same satisfaction as on reaching the summit of a Himalayan peak.”

By Magnus Dixon
Orkney and Shetland enthusiast, family man, loves walks, likes animals, terrible at sports, dire taste in music, adores audiobooks and films, eats a little too much for his own good.

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