Climbing Donegal’s Sea Stacks
Climbing Donegal’s Sea Stacks – Donegal’s stunning coastline of beaches and rugged cliffs is now also gaining a reputation among international rock climbers for its impressive sea stacks. According to Annagry based rock climber Iain Miller Donegal has huge potential for this fledgling adventure sport. Iain has been exploring the coastline from the southwest all the way up to Inishowen in the far north including the islands.
The impressive Donegal sea stacks are a geological landform consisting of a steep and often vertical column or columns of rock in the sea near a coast, normally isolated by erosion Stacks are formed by a natural process of coastal geomorphology where time, wind and water are the only factors involved.
The stacks are formed when part of a headland is eroded by hydraulic action where the force of the water weakens cracks in the headland causing them to later collapse, forming free standing stacks and even a small island.
Some of the best known stacks in Donegal include Tory Island, Tormore and An Port near Glencolmcille although there are many of them dotted around the coast. Tormore Island at 150 meters is the highest sea stack in Ireland.
Climbing Donegal’s Sea Stacks – Berghaus Adventure Challenge
Iain Miller has climbed nearly all of Donegal’s sea stacks – indeed he has been the first person to the top of many of them. As a result he has been shortlisted by outdoor apparel giant Berghaus for an “Adventure Award”
The “Berghaus Adventure Challenge” is a high profile competition for all adventurers – Iain is the only Donegal and Irish entrant to be shortlisted. To learn more about Iain’s adventure award nomination and to vote for him visit Berghaus Adventure Challenge
The county of Donegal contains more climbable rock than the rest of Ireland boasting two major Irish mountain ranges, over thousand kilometres of coastline, one hundred sea stacks and many diverse climbing locations from the mudstone roofs at Muckross in the South West of the county to the Granite slabs of Malin Head, Ireland’s most northerly point. Donegal currently plays host a lifetimes worth of world class rock climbing in some of the most beautiful and unspoilt places in Ireland. The scope for further exploration and the opportunity to discover unclimbed rock is unlimited, as there is an unexplored adventure waiting through every mountain pass and around every remote headland.