Dave MacLeod Climbing

Payback

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:04:00 +0000

Last night, seemingly out of the blue, I felt stronger in training than I ever have. The reason, in hindsight is obvious. I’d just been doing one/two sessions 5 days a week for about three weeks, and my body was shredded. An enforced couple of days off due to appointments around Scotland last weekend barely even seemed enough to feel normal again. It sounds like nothing, but three weeks is a long time to feel no improvement, or negative progress, when you are giving it full pelt every single night until your upper body can’t face another move in the wee small hours.

We are totally hardwired not to think of the long term in this respect. It takes a bit of faith that it’s working. If I’d got too frustrated (which I nearly did) and taken some rest to ‘cash in’ too early, I would have sabotaged the kickstart for the body.

Last night, two boulder problems went down that I’d been trying for four months. They felt easy. Like nothing. Last week I spent a whole hour (a long time on a board V-hard with 60 second rests between tries) just trying to do each move.

I nearly saw of the hardest project I’ve set so far, got to the last move of seven and swung my legs about wildly in confusion, eyes practically drilling a hole in the board searching for the crucial foot hold. Except I’d taken it off the board and forgotten. Idiot. The next ten attempts to move No. 5 were fair punishment.

Progression is here

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:46:00 +0000

Just a note to say the Progression DVD stock arrived with us this morning and is in the webshop now. Sharma’s first ascent of Jumbo Love 9b in the states, Adam Ondra making 9a+s look like nothing, the young americans destroying the hard grit classics, Patxi Usobiaga showing you what training really means. Tommy Caldwell trying to take big wall climbing to a new level of difficulty (again) and all the rest of the jaw dropping bouldering we expect from a Big Up film. You can get it here

I’ll be finishing writing early today for my appointment with the DVD player before training this evening. The board better be ready. I’m expecting this film to get me very psyched!

Learning to write big things

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:31:00 +0000

Right now I am writing a book. So far it’s been a fascinating learning curve for a novice book writer. I have written one book, which I give away for free (here), but I cheated and wrote that on the bus from Fort William to Arrochar and didn’t put any pressure on myself to see it as a book until it was finished. I’ve also written about a third of an ebook about weight optimisation (sounds better than control) for climbers on my phone. I might try and finish it on my phone just for the novelty!

But this time round I’m putting a bit of pressure on myself, not just to finish it, but finish it quickly. I’m about a week away if I was locked away in a room without distractions. But unfortunately my computer serves me up distractions constantly. At least the Scottish autumn doesn’t serve too many good weather distractions. And one hour on my board equals four on the crag.

In school I felt sick at the thought of 2000 word essays. Project climbing taught me how to ride the wave of those random days when inspiration and energy coincide and make a jump of progress. It also taught me that even the bad days when everything felt ten times harder than it should resulted in valuable progress, but you only realise it in hindsight. So I’m lucky that my background has given me a lot of advantages for getting it done.

Both my blogs got me past that awful feeling of sitting down to write and staring at a blank page for two hours. The medium tends to teach you how to just say what you need to say. My emerging book is turning out like that, which I like. It’s also arranged a bit like my blog - point by point and easier to digest than a massive chapter. Easier to write too, so it should be with you soon.

Thanks to everyone who’s asked about it - I’ll talk about it plenty as soon as I’m done writing. For now I can tell you it’s called ‘9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes’. It’s a book about improving at climbing, but it does what all the others don’t. The books out there at the moment lay out all the possible ways and exercises to improve in front of you. They are the map. But nearly everyone gets lost and strays off the path. So my book is the compass - it shows you how to navigate through the sea of possible improvement activities and how to decide which ones you need to focus on, and which are the big priorities to keep in front of the smaller ones.

Talking of training for climbing books - The best thats out there right now is still The Self Coached Climber. I reviewed it ages ago on my other blog. But I realised it was crazy I wasn’t selling it myself, especially because you’d get my free book How to climb hard trad with it which is obviously compliments it quite nicely. So I am now, here.

Nevis soloing in winter with Cunningham

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:52:00 +0000

Nice video of John Cunningham soloing on the Ben in the mid 1970's. Thanks to Paul Cunningham for sharing that. I'd seen this before at the Ice Men gathering I hosted a few years ago at the Fort William Mountain festival with Yvon Chouinard (who shot the film), Jimmy Marshall and Hamish McInnes. It was nice to see it again and watching it made me think how little has changed today in highland climbing. Maybe not on the Ben which is a tad busier on weekends, but highland climbing is still a relaxed, exploratory, wild and sometimes lonely affair, 40 odd years later. Here's to that. I'm more likely to end the day with tea than a dram though, and then get training!

Back to back sessions

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:26:00 +0000

Excalibur

Kev gets too strong for the board and starts pulling T-nuts right through the board

Long day of writing and training today, feeling weak but enjoying Donald's excellent problem setting on the dry tooling board at Al's place, after bouldering on my own board. It's been a few years since I spent a decent amount of time climbing with tools in my hands and after the last session or two I'm really locked into the idea of turning some sustained tool training into a very hard route on Ben Nevis this season. Still probably too hard to succeed, but the last couple of days are certainly on the right path.

I learned a completely new move from Kev for swinging feet across a roof without losing body tension. Fantastic, but after trying the problem about 20 times repeatedly flipping upside down gave me such a stomach ache I ended up having to stop three times on the way home to moan and groan to myself in pain. Sign of a good training session I suppose.

Christina moves dynamically for the next hook

Down to business

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:42:00 +0000

Tool training on my board last night. Seconds later I wiped out flat on my back and spent the rest of the session rolling around trying to get some wind back in my lungs. Need more mattage!

I’m gradually getting used to my home board with nightly sessions after work. It’s the best thing since sliced bread. My cadre of project problems is getting big and vaired enough now to get the strength gains coming although I must admit I find endurance circuits harder than training on real routes (but still the way to go - just need decent music and a nice circuit).

I’m trying to mix in my training for the winter season and making a little progress with fitness and technique with tools, although I feel that I’ve only just got started here. Doing both is feeling hard on the body, which is demanding an extra hour of sleep per night. So that’s one less hour working on my book, but such is life.

The weather man is saying November is going to be warm so it looks like I’ve got time to generate some decent gains in time for the arrival of white frosty stuff plastering Scottish mountains. Brilliant to have my winter project as a clear focus for the season, and a good scene of Lochaber strong-men to share training with. Some are suffering for their art a little too much at times - check out big Al’s skull damage here.

Wasted arms, big smile. Time for a cup of tea.

Back to the wall

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:45:00 +0000

I used up the last of my mini-peak on my Sky Pilot project and all the rest was making me lose fitness, with no sign of success imminent just yet. So it was a great relief to get back to training every day. When I say great relief, I just mean I hate hate hate losing fitness, and love gaining it, simple as that. I still haven't even scratched the surface of using my board to it’s full extent, and quite perversely looking forward to the dark winter months of full scale daily training on it.

Starting to train with axes again for winter gave my elbow a bit of a fright, which was worrying. But this was followed by a bit of a kickstart and it seems stronger than ever.

Tomorrow: 4 hours training, 12 hours book writing, many cups of tea, few meals, large bags under eyes.

Thusrday: I’m speaking in Dundee, see you there.

Monkey See Monkey Do DVD out now in the shop

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:41:00 +0000

This year’s DVD release from Hot Aches is just out and available from my shop right here. The Singlehanded section just went down a storm at the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival on Sunday, scooping a couple of prizes.

The DVD has four films on it:

‘Singlehanded’ with Kev Shields soloing E6 and M10+ drytooling with the prosthetic ice axe that replaces his missing left hand. If you’ve ever done E6 or even worse M10+ you’ll be like me and watch with uncomfortable trepidation as Kev demonstrates it (just) with one hand less than most of us.

There’s also welsh slate weirdness with master Johnny Dawes, Matt Segal and Hazel Findlay, Big Wall 8b+ in Madagascar with James McHaffie and E8 in Squamish (yes - Squamish!) with Sonnie Trotter. The full lowdown on the lineup is here. The Madagascar big walling looks quite sublime - would love to go there someday. Kev’s film is my favourite though I guess because it deals head on with the dangerous addiction of soloing harder and harder rock climbs - a life enriching, but potentially life destroying pastime. Always a great paradox for bold climbers to grapple with. I’m always interested to hear the thoughts of those who are prepared to share them on this subject.

Other news from our shop is that we’ve put Cubby’s logbook (always a Christmas favourite) on sale from it’s RRP of £15 down to £5.

Enjoy.

Autumn ups and downs

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:26:00 +0000

Glen Nevis today in full golden glory

I’ve had better weeks. Started off Sunday all set to go on a quick raid to Hoy only to come down with a miserable cold and have to cancel at the last moment. What a bummer. That kind of took the wind out of my sails I must admit. I spent the week working on my book and feeling sorry for myself. Today I felt good for climbing again and snatched a lovely afternoon at Sky Pilot. Still feeling reasonable on the project even after 4 fitness draining days off, but need to turn around a backward performance trajectory double quick.

Good progress on the book though which has got me pretty keen to really get my sleeves up with this project.

Maybe see you at the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival on Sunday night at my lecture?

The Old Man of Storr

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:06:00 +0000

Standing on the summit of the Old Man of Storr, Skye. Photo by Cubby Images. Click it for a bigger image

A few weeks ago myself and Blair climbed the Old Man of Storr on Skye. I was waiting to get a picture of it from Cubby who came along for some shots to post it up. I found not a single trustworthy runner on the entire thing and more or less every hold was quite freely detachable. So I wouldn't recommend it for the faint hearted. We climbed it by Mick Fowler’s route on the north side, which seems to be the easiest method.

I stood on the top for about ten minutes so that Cubby could take a picture with each of his numerous cameras and lenses. It was pretty damn hard to stand up in a gusty gale and seriously added to the feeling of exposure perched on top of this Skye rocket.

One of those things you just have to climb, for some at least…

Blair enjoying the rotten, collapsing weetabix basalt. At least there were not many runners to take out.

New postage rates and products in our shop

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:59:00 +0000

We’ve just changed our worldwide postage rates in the shop - Orders over £30 now have free shipping to anywhere in the world. Under £30 is £1.50.

Payments are still via PayPal which accepts most major cards and payment methods.

And we’ve just added:

Ben Nevis - the new edition of it’s history, I’ve just reviewed it here.

The Players DVD - Americas finest big name climbers of the moment in a host of different locations and beautifully filmed routes and problems.

Espresso Lessons - The new book from Arno Ilgner (who wrote The Rock Warriors Way) with quick, accessible and practical tips for climbers to improve their mental skills and confidence in climbing.

Coming shortly will be the new Hot Aches film Monkey See Monkey Do, the new Progression DVD from Big UP, and the Mountain Equipment hats that you’ve all been asking me to get hold of for the past year!

Ben Nevis - History brought to life

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:32:00 +0000

About 14 years ago, I got a book out of the library that chronicled the history of climbing on Ben Nevis. It was an epic story of the challenges, hardships, adventures and joyous moments of seemingly every famous climber on the planet. I found it absolutely riveting. Never yet having been to Ben Nevis, it illuminated why this mountain was so important in world mountaineering, despite lacking the scale of the greater ranges. It was abundantly clear from Ken Crocket’s labour of love on the book that this was a special place.

But that was just from reading it. I also pored over the photography. Fascinated by the old black and white stills of the earliest climbers, the great snows of pre-warming winters (and summers) and the countless facets, gullies and elegant buttresses of rock on the north face.

The adventure for me had already begun. Just from those photos I began for the very first time to compare photos of the cliffs to the recorded routes and question why this line or that didn’t seem to have been climbed. The specific areas that caught my eye for this reason were the upper grooves and lower barrier of The Comb, and the great dark mass of Echo Wall. They simmered in my mind until I climbed them many years later.

So sitting in my bedroom at home reading Ken’s original edition, did, in part, awake an interest in new routing and in Ben Nevis that shaped the next part of my life. And so yesterday, the new edition dropped through my letterbox.

23 years after the first edition, Ken, with Simon Richardson have laboured to update, expand and enrich the chronicle and bring it up to date, starting with the earliest map makers of highland Scotland in 1585 and ending with my ascent of Echo Wall last July. The new edition benefits hugely from the exponentially expanding archive of photography and colour printing with many more photographs both from the distant past from valuable Scottish archives like Am Baile. But also professional climbing photographers like Cubby and Ian Parnell and the many who’ve made their own high quality images findable through the connectedness of digital media.

So there are photographs on nearly every page - the many parts of the mountain are brought to life. As are the climbers, with fascinating portrait shots of the many famous names I’d only read about and never been able to put a face to - Con Higgins, Murray Hamilton, Kenny Spence, Pete Whillance, Arthur Paul, Alan Rouse, Mick Geddes, Ian Fulton to name just a few. There are also many early colour photos I’d never come across of the likes of Robin Smith, Marshall and Haston that have been secured for the new edition.

Other new additions were a series of forewords which were inspiring from Jimmy Marshall (written in 2008) and a great summary from Ian Parnell as to why the Ben is among the best mountains for climbing in the world. I could easily sit at home and spend hours and hours poring through this book, so many interesting stories and photos. Even the earlier parts of the history that were covered in Ken’s original edition have been extensively revised and updated and I really felt like I’d read a new chapter on the little talked about but unbelievable Brian Kellett and his enigmatic life and death soloing new routes on the north face.

For anyone with any interest in The Ben, either as a general interest in the stories of climbers, or from first hand connection with the mountain, as far as I’m concerned it’s the most essential book to own since extreme rock. It’s also a lovely book as an entity in itself, presented to the highest standard as you might expect from the SMC writing about our most important Scottish mountain.

As soon as I could I ordered a load of copies for my own webshop to help distribute this work to a new generation of climbers who I’m certain will be inspired by it. You can get it here. I even decided to make a bit of a promotion with a special priced bundle with my own appreciative work on Ben Nevis; Echo Wall.

The race to get kids interested

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:26:00 +0000

First steps in climbing and a new life, Craigmore 1993. Note improvised self belay top rope technique. Photo by my mum (who drove me there - in one sense!)

Was just building the fire this morning and listening to Kelly Holmes (olympic gold winning runner) promoting a new system of encouraging competition through sport among kids at school. Seems quite a polarising issue, some feeling that competition is good for kids confidence and motivation, others feeling it was destructive to these aspects.

The defense of the latter view was that competition can be good for kids but it’s very dependent on how it’s presented. I agree with this, and I think they should be making this message the centre of their promotion rather than the simpler message that competition is good per se. When this idea reaches through schools, it’s delivery won’t always be optimal, so the messages that will make it work need to be super clear. And applied badly, I could see it seriously backfiring.

The atmosphere of competition at my school, especially in sport, left me demotivated, unhappy and ready to drop out of the system at 16. Discovering climbing transformed this for me over the course of a couple of years - the sport teaching me how to enjoy competition, how to handle failure and learning, and eventually becoming able to apply this in other fields.

The key to why climbing succeeded was that the nature of climbing mountains and rocks dictates a focus on personal improvement and effort rather than some public measure. The mountain doesn’t care whether you get to it’s top or not, so failure is not embarrassing and bragging to the mountain is kind of pointless. Also, it’s in the character of the places climbing takes you to (impressive landscapes I mean) to encourage humility even during the fiercest competition and effort.

The above transformation is clearly exactly what Kelly’s new ‘schools olympics’ promotion is aiming at. My contribution of ideas would be:

1. Take kids climbing. It would be a shame to stick to the bona-fide mainstream sports - it’s a fickle business trying to find that spark of a sport you connect with. The wider the net of sports tried, the more kids will find the one for them. Also, the fact that it’s a little outside the mainstream is a great leveller - everyone will be starting from square one. It’s a great motivator to see the kid that was always best at football, fighting and bullying can’t get off the ground on the climb you just flashed. Being light, skinny and thoughtful rather than big, brash and overconfident tends to do well in climbing.

2. Educate parents as much as kids - that making reward and praise linked too closely to public success is dangerous ground. Valuing effort, preparation, patience and critical thinking and leading by example rather than actively pushing will always work far better in the longer term.

3. Train teachers and politicians to better understand and pass on the true value and meaning of competition in sport. In many cases they are too focused on cold hard results, with the important bit - the learning and human performance - relegated to an afterthought.

The point of climbing in the UK

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:01:00 +0000

Interesting recent comments from Stevie Haston, back on form (and very inspiring) in his climbing, and also in his habit of taking a shot at just about anyone on the radar in the sport. He does it in good spirit though! This time he was defending himself against his own detractors of his recent excellent climbing performances of 9a and a new E7. What triggered this post was Stevie shrugging off our poor weather and citing it as a reason not to come and try a route like Echo Wall.

It’s an age old feeling among some climbers. English climbers I’ve met say they won't come to Scotland “because it’s wet and midgy all year” and international climbers mostly just about consider the grit because it’s roadside and there’s only 10 metres of it to climb before the next shower.

I totally understand this feeling. About one quarter of the year, I have it myself. I live in pretty much the wettest place in the UK, and sometimes I just think ‘what is the point of having to wait and wait for the climbs to be dry? Why not just go somewhere where they always are’. So, a couple of times a year, I do. Most likely to Spain to sport climb in the Catalunyan winter sun. It’s great - a lot of metres of rock get climbed I two weeks, and my sport climbing standard goes up very sharply.

Sure, the climbs in on limestone are hard. You have to be fit. But then, getting fit here is not hard. You just turn up, uncoil your rope, give 100% on the rock (the rate limiting step) and you can’t fail to get better at climbing. The reason that a climb like Echo Wall is so much more of a challenge than the most difficult sport route I’ve done (either Ring of Steall or A’ Muerte) is that not being able to just go and do battle with it when you like is the tough part. The patience for it’s awkwardness is the rate limiting step.

It’s nice that climbing is accommodating enough to satisfy those who would say “life’s too short to wait for good conditions, I’m off sport climbing” and those who would feel that the fact that they did have to wait patiently and choose the right moment to strike was a large part of the enjoyment.

Does it make sense if I say that sport climbing trips are pure pleasure, but not that fulfilling? The idea of my next sport trip gets me psyched, but not excited. The idea of my next trip to Orkney fills me with unease but gets me very excited.

When I wake up in the morning on a sport trip, I pretty much know what’s going to happen. If I’m feeling strong, I’ll onsight some good routes and get a tiny bit further on the redpoints. I’ll enjoy every minute of it. It’s predictably enjoyable. When I wake up for a hard trad day in Scotland I think “what is going to happen today?” If I do the route, I’ll love it. If I fall, I’ll probably love that too after the event. If I just get caught in an atlantic storm and spend the day marvelling the forces of nature, I’ll love that too. It’s unpredictably enjoyable.

Some people need one or the other. Others, a mix of both, including me.

First snows

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:04:00 +0000

I just woke up and pulled back the curtain to see that yesterdays storms have left the first dusting of snow of the new season on the tops of the hills. Always exciting moment and a call to get ready for the mixed climbing season.

I spent most of last winter worrying myself out of trying the route I really wanted to try and messing about on other things I wasn’t so focused on. When I finally did try it, I actually did get off the ground and got to the crux. It’s easy to realise in hindsight that life is too short for worrying you’ll get nowhere.

So this season I’ll get right on it. I’ll still probably fail, but on this route, if I can fail even a couple of moves higher, that will be awesome.

Welcome to Autumn climbing

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 07:31:00 +0000

After my last post I decided to finish work early and go out climbing. I put together a wee video below of the afternoon’s activities, working on the project at Sky Pilot and then dry tool training with Kev in preparation for winter.

After I got home from all that and stacked wood for a while in the garden I had the foolishness to think I could get away with having a fruit salad for dinner. The delusion didn’t last long.

Welcome to autumn

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 08:16:00 +0000

A room with a nice view. I made a wee bird house recently from ply left over from building my training board and finally found a moment when it’s not been chucking it down to make it available to the local bird population.

A much needed break in the west highland rain this morning. The first time in absolutely ages I’ve seen stars in the sky at night. The hills have turned orange, and a nip in the air. A nice lift.

Blood spilt at Sky pilot battle scene

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:11:00 +0000

Another session of perfect conditions at Sky Pilot today and the moves have been done on the big highball. Still thinking it’ll be a V14 with 10 moves of about V10 to the crux and then the big move. This progress seems like a fine excuse to abuse the training board extra hard over the the coming weeks and really go in for a good battle on this project. I definitely don't have my bouldering 'snap' back just yet after the summer of getting fit at hanging about on multipitch staminafests and walking back and forth across moors on Orkney.

I finished the session dripping with blood from the hand after slicing my little finger open good style on a blade of grass. Yes you read that right. Thats what I get for throwing caution to the wind and pulling out a few clumps of greenery from the sit start footholds without a stout pair of gloves on. In recent weeks, climbing has seemed just about the safest part of going climbing.

Some lectures coming up

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:07:00 +0000

I’m talking at various places soon if you’d like to listen to some perspectives on climbing, trying hard, choosing your battles, if succeeding on projects is really important or always worth the sacrifices and other things such as negotiating with local wildlife make progress on E11s.

First up I’m talking on Sunday night of the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival on Oct 18th. Tickets are on sale now and more details about the festival lineup are on the EMFF site.

Soon after I’m in Dundee helping Tiso celebrate 20 years in Dundee. Full details of this on the Tiso site here.

I’ll show you some nice pieces of video of some of my best climbing efforts recently and hopefully make you see aspects of your climbing in slightly different light, as I have in the past 12 months.

Whatever you do, go left of the fulmar. Pic: Michael Tweedley

The timing is everything

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:27:00 +0000

Blair hits the Roaring Forties (E3 5c) on Mucklehouse Wall. The route would also have described the weather conditions at the time despite the sunshine

A nice evening at Rackwick Bothy as we arrived… too late.

Blair struggles to get his gear out of his rucksack without it blowing to Norway at the top of Mucklehouse Wall. The top of the old man of Hoy and most of St John’s Head behind in the cloud.

"Just realising how much of a problem I have staying relaxed a lot of the time. I'm sat here in a beautiful evening in Rackwick with nothing to do except enjoy the moment, but all I can do I worry that tomorrows forecast is bad and how poor our chances are of getting a shot at the longhope route, never mind getting to the top.

People often tell me they think I must be patient after hearing about the extended trials of hard project climbing. But the truth is I'm actually just good at staying impatient for very sustained periods. At times, acute impatience for success or progress is utterly vital to break out of sticking points. It can be the greatest gift. But the timing of it is everything. My major failing has been to stay locked in battle psyche mode when the battle can't be fought today. Missing opportunities to relax, regroup and focus

on nights like tonight is just as bad as getting to the crux move and giving in at the discomfort of the hard effort..."

...I wrote the above words on my phone on while watching that nice sunset after arriving on Hoy with Blair and Cubby. As you can see I’d done a reasonable job of feeling positive despite the forecast telling us everywhere in the UK would be enjoying the September High pressure except us with a windy, drizzly cold front on it’s periphery. Perhaps we could have awoken to decent conditions and a successful day. But as it turned out we woke at 4am to the sound of thundering waves and drizzle.

We managed to squeeze out a couple of routes on Rora Head over two days between the rain. But not without much

chattering of teeth in the cold gale.

As soon as got back onto the Scottish mainland and back underneath the high pressure, we drove past flat calm shores and through warm sunny hills to get back to Lochaber for work. It felt just a bit cruel I must say.

Quick the sun’s out, get a route in! Blair descends Rora head while a grey seal watches from the drink below

So much as I hate to say it, thats probably the lasthope for longhope this year. Sure I could go back armed with more gear to keep us warm and dry on the wall for a forced bigwall style autumn ascent. But my goal from the start has been to climb this route in a single day push. And with the 18th pitch being E10 it’s not going to happen unless we are moving super fast and light.

But sudden freedom to make other moves on rock has been only a temporary downer. Sessions on the two big bouldering projects in Glen Nevis have underlined my wee strength increases from the new training facility. I managed two whole foot moves more than before on the Font 8c project thats featured in the committed II film. I’m even more excited about the bigfoot project which narrowly escaped all it’s individual moves being completed yesterday. I forgot how gratifyingly convenient bouldering is compared to bigwall trad dirty, birdy, turfy, soft, loose E11 sea cliffs in the windiest place on the goddam planet.

A mention goes to Kev for a one handed and helmetless ascent of Firestone E7 the other day. Nutter.

A MacLeod near miss

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:42:00 +0000

The west highlands almost lost two of it’s MacLeod’s to the A86 on Saturday morning after Claire wrapped her nice Audi around a tree. I was sitting in the passenger seat and believe it or not I was happy it was a direct head on hit on the tree, because if not it would have been over a retaining wall with a probably terminal drop on the other side.

A very wet road, a little too much speed for the bend, and a little touch of the brakes on the cusp of the bend were the combination of causes. The back of the car slid, followed by wild veering and steering, and the next thing we saw in the windscreen was a large tree.

We had a split second to either tense or relax in preparation for the big smash.

It felt a little surreal stepping out of a completely re-shaped car, with only a sore neck and the odd scuff between us. The split second after the impact of turning to Claire to see if she was still with me was not something I’ll forget in a hurry. Thankfully she was looking back at me and immediately agreeable to getting out of the car.

Apologies to my climbing masterclass students who had a bit of a wait for me to arrive and a slightly frazzled coach once I finally did.

Kudos to Mr Gardner for being on the money that there are often more pressing things worth worrying about than falling off rock climbs, terrorists and nasty flu viruses.

Rollercoaster time again

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:40:00 +0000

Michael enjoying the St John’s head experience

It’s been another journey of big ups and downs on Orkney over the past few days with Micheal. But every time I have a fantastic trip, regardless of results. Duly, the wind prevented us from even getting to the edge of the cliff when we arrived, but spending the day soaking up the atlantic ferocity provided much amazement at the forces of nature on display on this island.

St john’s looking nearly as big and mean as it actually is.

So with conditions near the top of the wall too extreme, we tried playing on the bottom, and between the rain, we sussed out some of the lower pitches. We had a good day climbing about halfway up the wall, but fairly cumbersomely, equipped with big wet boots to get through pitches of soaking off-vertical grass pitches and wearing our Gore-Tex’s to keep out the rain and fulmar hurl.

This was the ferry on the way there! (must’ve been the training…)

I felt pretty down about the whole thing one morning. On the one day we could go on the crux pitch from the top, the dampness in the sandstone meant I pulled three small but important holds off the crux pitch. It was all seeming a bit too tenuous a goal to climb such a hard pitch here, with conditions against us and soft, rock, angry wildlife and without the previous 17 pitches using up precious energy for the big pitch. At these times, realising it’s not going to ‘go’ this trip, or even next trip, it’s hard not to let frustration reach the surface. Frustration with myself that is. On one hand I understand that I am not here for an easy route. In fact, if it just happened and was an E10 I’d probably be even a little disappointed it wasn’t harder. But on the other, I’m here to climb and to chase after that feeling of a hard climb feeling effortless. But all I seem to be doing is walking back and forth across that heather bog day after day in the rain and gale. I found myself if the messed up position of being on a climbing trip to an amazing place, but dreaming of my three metre high board at home. Thankfully such madness was only temporary.

Michael descending the jurassic park slopes to the base of the cliff. I decided to use a highly dynamic technique for the last 30 feet of this, shredding my Gore-Tex nicely.

Just to have been to the outstandingly beautiful place that lies remote from the reach of most people at the base of St John’s Head made this trip worth it.

The fulmar chicks are just getting to flying school age now, and we witnessed several amusing ‘baptism of fire’ first flights and semi-falling descents of St John’s Head from young flyers. Not all of them learned quickly enough as the above demonstrates.

1200 feet of air beneath the feet. Doesn’t seem real.

The best part about trying something completely different like this climb is realising how completely rubbish you are at the weak areas of your game. I always get climbing logistics quite spectacularly wrong. This trip was not different, with some impressive errors that seem so silly in hindsight, and a few I’ll forgive myself for needing to learn the hard way. But they are learned, and I have knowledge for next time, whenever that will be?

In praise of friction

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:19:00 +0000

My recent travails on the massive lump of sandstone that makes the towering St John's Head brought home an important truth about climbing for me; so many varied things are involved in the enjoyment of rock climbing, and of these, friction is an extremely important one. I spend a lot of time in my work related to climbing trying to explain in detail climbing's attractions. Yet it still seems impressively resistant to being encapsulated by any single idea or perspective. That in itself might be an appealing idea (for another day). The breadth of dimensions in which climbers find satisfaction through their activity keeps surprising me to this day. But perhaps inevitably only a few are commonly talked about.

Very fashionable again right now is the visual dimension of the 'king line'. If the climb looks amazing then it's worthwhile. The length of the climb has always been another popular measure of quality or stature in climbs, even despite bouldering and sport climbing becoming so big in the last couple of decades. But the actual interaction with the rock climbed is only often referred to in the context of the texture and shapes of different rock types and their merits. Through the medium of the activity of rock climbing, the various rocks on show around the planet can really be appreciated as quite amazing and beautiful stuff. But perhaps still in a way thats hard to put into words, a problem I'm sure geologists must surely share. Andy Kirkpatrick often laments in his lectures that even talking about the actual climbing activity is boring. True, it might not be a bountiful source of entertainment for telling climbing stories. But if the raw feeling of climbing rock brings on a magic sparked feeling of pure satisfaction even if only for elusive moments, then it's worth a more involved look. Understanding it fully might be too lofty a goal even for a whole lifetime of climbing rocks.

It was while climbing some god-awful, chossy vertical sand with the consistency of sugared pastry on Longhope that a previously subconscious appreciation of rock friction suddenly became stronger than ever. The feeling of improbable weightlessness caused when just the correct atmospheric conditions combine on pristine rock for an ethereal moment is something desperately hard to relate, but instantly recognisable to those who’ve tried climbs near enough their own limit to experience it. Two moments stand out - one was the weirdness of the ‘sticky-damp’ at Stoney Middleton on a misty, dank and humid day. Without any warning (i.e. Climbing like a potato just hours before) I flashed an apparently wet V10 without any effort, but half an hour later the weather changed and I couldn’t touch it despite it actually drying up! Another was on Rhapsody after a raging September squall had soaked and cooled the rock and rapid-dried it in a 60mph wind. I still fell off, but quite possibly I think I lost my concentration because I was trying to understand how all the holds suddenly felt so much better! Both experiences lasted only moments and neither were particularly memorable in other ways, but they obviously remained strong in the memory for a reason.

So the other day on Longhope I was cursing the complete absence of any frictional properties of this section of diabolical rock. So how then does it follow that I still enjoyed the climbing here? My second realisation in this moment was that only because the friction was so frighteningly absent, that the subtle balance required to move between the holds was so much sweeter to experience.

The message of this post? Whatever rock you always climb, think of the exact opposite, and go and climb some of that for a bit. The very aspects you might hate about it might well reveal something even stronger to enjoy.

Another atlantic depression sets in

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:37:00 +0000

Gutted. My gear is laid out neatly ready on my loft floor for a trip to my project. Today at work at the Ice Factor I went on one of my old hard problems from last winter’s training that I’d only done a couple of times after many tries and walked up it first try. Fit, strong and psyched. But once again the atlantic weather has the last word.

We are still hoping to make the journey and sit out the storms and grab any chances we get to hit St John’s. It’s easy to smugly pronounce that fortune favours the bold (or defiant) on the occasions that it does. But sometimes, or course, you’ll sit on Orkney for a week in the rain and come home thinking differently.

So we’ll see which it is.

Project progress reaches sub-cellular level

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:25:00 +0000

Get in: Lactate dehydrogenase

It’s Scotland, it’s late summer, and so it’s raining. Well, it’s raining on all my days off anyway. So the only progress towards my project is currently going on deep in inside my forearms which are hopefully amassing a formidable armoury of anaerobic enzymes as I write.

This week I have either just trained, training thenoo, or should have started training again already (the latter is the current situation, rectified as soon as I stop writing this post). My new board is not looking so new. And I’m satisfied with that.

Less pleasing is that all this training has woken up my complaining elbow, which had been feeling tough and strong and well on the way to being declared 100% healthy. It wouldn’t be real life if it disappeared so easily. So I have to pull back a little on the hangboarding and just stick to those nasty circuits of lactic pain.

I love them really.