List of sea stacks in Scotland

This was described as connecting "an armchair audience with the elite of a sport subculture intent on conquering one of Britain's most spectacular geological treasures”.

[3] Following Patey's untimely death in 1970 development of the sport in Scotland largely ceased until the late 1980s and the arrival of Mick Fowler on the scene.

In the main listing below three different types of stack are identified: There are numerous small pinnacles around the Scottish coast, many of them in remote locations.

The word 'stack' is derived from the Old Norse: stakk-r and is often rendered in the Norn of Shetland as stakk[10] and in modern Gaelic as stac or the plural stacan.

[17] The first stack climbers in Scotland were the residents of the now uninhabited islands of Hirta and Mingulay who were dependent on the bounty provided by seabirds.

[20] Yorkshireman Ian Clough ascended one of Macleod's Maidens on Skye in 1959 but the picture changed completely with the exploits of Tom Patey, (aka "Doctor Stack") whose day job was as a GP in Ullapool.

He climbed the Old Man of Stoer in 1988 and numerous others over the next few years, "his most outrageous adventure" being on The Needle, another stack off the west coast of Hoy.

[4] His regular partners on these exploits were Andy Nisbett, Craig Jones and Jon Lincoln who made up the "famous four" completing, for example, the first ascent of The Runk in Shetland in May 1992.

It's a testament to their bravery and mental fortitude; to climb onto that sea stack 70m above the raging Atlantic without even shoes is wild to imagine".

For example, The Greing north of Urda Stack is 53m high and is steeply sloping on one side and perpendicular cliffs on the other so not included.