It is with great sadness that we report of the passing of a dear friend.

This friend was discovered halfway up South Ridge Direct by myself and the Postie. Over cammed and unloved I tried to coax him out while on the lead, sure that he was a beauty. I couldn't manage this but Stuart managed to extract him while on the other end of the rope and sure enough he was a cracker - A lovely BD Camalot 4, not a scratch on him, surely the finest piece of crag swag ever found. After the route we examined our haul and split it into 2 piles. We had loads of kit, whoever did the route before us had a sloppy second. However we had a quandary - I had found him and Stuart had extracted him - who would get to keep him ?? We tossed a coin and I won and chose the shiney cam over an assorted pile of nuts, hexs and other stuff. Feeling slightly guilty about this we agreed a part ownership deal where each could use it if needed.

I had him for about 3 years and didn't use him once, he was a big boy and far too heavy to cart up most routes. I took a bit of a break from climbing and felt the time was right to pass him on to Stuart who might find a use for him. Stuart had him for a good long while (I cant remember how long ?) so long that I took up climbing again and had my sights on some classic routes, one of which was the Old Man of Hoy. Anyway the guidebook says you need a big friend for this and the time was right to call in the favour from Stuart and finally the cam might see some action. Stuart commented "I've never used the thing anyway" as he handed it over.

He was duly driven up to Orkney (Cheers Dave) and carted up the route to just under the crux roof where I got him off my rack, pulled the superb smooth action trigger, only to find he was too big for the crack !!

Anyway that brings us up to yesterday when Jim decided to climb thunderbolt - a cracking HVS fist crack at Portobello. I lent Jim the cam, sure that it would come in useful. I had totally forgot that Jim had mentioned the last time we had been climbing that he was shit at placing cams, muttering something about new fangled technology and back in my day etc etc. Jim swiftly dispatched the route and when I came to second the route I found the body, doubled up, jammed solid in the crack. Probably about an hour was spent on abseil, trying to recover him but it was beyond hope. The very same sized crack that had given it to us had managed to take it away.

RIP Purple Camalot 4

Author; Stuart Burns.
Chief suspect for negligence; Jim Hall