Yesnaby Castle

Location, Area, Boundaries, Landform and Setting

Yesnaby Castle is found just south of the Brough of Bigging in Yesnaby on the west coast of Orkney mainland. (GR 218154) The stack was made famous by Joe Brown and his climbing partners, who made the first ascent in 1967, subsequently this stack and the Old Man of Hoy are the only two stacks in Orkney who regularly receive assaults by visiting climbers.

Entrances and Approaches

The easiest approach is from the roadend car park at Yesnaby about a kilometre to the north of the stack. To reach the base of the stack an abseil down the surrounding cliffs is required. Reliable anchors on the cliff tops are few, the fence posts and the small stone cairns in the field have been used by previous parties. If you walk past the stack heading south for about 100 meters, where the cliff turns through 90 degrees, (where the photo above left was taken) you will find a sheltered wee platform just below the top of the cliff. There are lots of good anchor points here and a very short abseil to a huge sea level platform. once on the sea level platform walk to as close to the stack as possible and swim. Have a look at Yesnaby Castle area for further details of the routes on this stack and the surrounding cliffs.