The Old Man of Hoy, Hoy

The Old Man of Hoy is a 449-foot sea stack on the island of Hoy, part of the Orkney archipelago off the north coast of Scotland. Formed from Old Red Sandstone, it is one of the tallest stacks in Britain. The Old Man is popular with climbers, and was first climbed in 1966. Created by the erosion of a cliff through hydraulic action some time after 1750, the stack is no more than a few hundred years old, and may soon collapse into the sea.
The Old Man stands close to Rackwick Bay on the west coast of the island of Hoy, in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, and can be seen from the Scrabster to Stromness ferry. From certain angles it is said to resemble a human figure.
Winds are faster than 8m/s for nearly a third of the time, and gales occur on average for 29 days a year. Combined with the depth of the sea, which quickly falls to, high-energy waves on the western side of Hoy lead to rapid erosion of the coast.
The Old Man of Hoy is a red sandstone stack and perched on a plinth of basalt rock. It is separated from the mainland by a 60-metre (200 ft) chasm strewn with debris, and has nearly vertical sides with a top just a few metres wide. The rock is composed of layers of soft, sandy and pebbly sandstone and harder flagstones of Old Red Sandstone, giving the sides a notched and slab-like profile.