Dave MacLeod blog

Black Diamond video of Fight the Feeling

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:14:00 +0000

The video of my 8c+/9a from last autumn ‘Fight the Feeling at Steall is now up on the Black Diamond digital catalogue here. It’s on page 9. While you are there you should check out some of the other videos and articles from fellow BD climbers. There are pretty damn good. My favourite has to be The Wheel of Life footage of James Kassay. Would LOVE to go there sometime soon.

Arisaig Cave revisited

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:08:00 +0000

Getting a full body workout on the project, Arisaig Cave

In 2011 I last visited the Arisaig Cave and kind of felt I’d run out of things to do there. There was one big line left for me to do, a fantastic line following undercuts up a big diagonal flange in the middle of the cave. However, after a play I just couldn’t figure out how to make the feature work as a hold and gave up. It was just too hard for me.

It was only when I showed the palce to Flo last month I had another look and had an idea for a sequence that could work. I’m glad I gave it another chance. On that day I couldn’t try it as I’d just injured my knee , but yesterday, I had a good session on it and did all the individual moves. There are no ‘low percentage’ move on it for me, but about 9 or 10 in a row that are all powerful on burly undercuts and pinches. So I have a feeling that trying to link them together will be a good workout.

The nice thing is, the normal start should go at something between 8A and 8B, but climbing into it from the cave entrance (about 30 moves of 8A+) will make a very fine climbing challenge indeed to keep me busy, and fit.

Short Side Traverse, low version F8a

Today, I feel like I’ve been dragged along a cobbled street on my back. But looking forward to getting back on it. While I was there I also did a great variation to the short side traverse. The original version (about F7c+ since it’s 15m long) goes quite high along a slopey break near the start. There was an obvious low version on fantastically shaped edges, rounded by the sea washing in winter storms of aeons ago. It sussed it out pretty quickly for my warm-up at about F8a. I’ll make up a proper topo for the place shortly.

Scottish Sport Climbs guide is here

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:05:00 +0000

Finally, we have the first stock of the new Scottish Sport Climbs guidebook by the SMC. It’s in the shop here. It has certainly been a long time coming. I first submitted a draft of the sections I wrote in November 2004! A lot of bolts have appeared across the lowlands, highlands and islands since then, so the book is a lot fatter than it would’ve been if it had been released at that time. So the wait has an upside.

Flicking through the guide as I took it out of the box, I was struck by the great selection of sport crags all over the country now. There are 1300 routes in the guide, on 100 crags. Who out of the slightly older generation of Scottish climbers would’ve thought we would have 1300 sport climbs in Scotland. That’s great! As you’d expect from an SMC guidebook it’s a nicely produced book with careful descriptions, good maps and plenty of nice pictures to inspire. So many of Scotland’s new routing activists have been very energetic over the past decade and the options now available for routes to enjoy has basically exploded. Now, there are sport crags for us to visit no matter what corner of Scotland you find yourself in or fancy travelling to. Also, the diversity of locations mean that I can’t see many days of the year where there won’t be some dry rock on which to clip bolts somewhere in the land.

Kudos to all who made the effort to open new sport routes, as well as all the authors and producers of the guide. It is so badly needed. Talking to the new generation of young sport climbers coming into climbing through Scotland’s climbing walls, it frequently nagged at me that so many are unaware of the lovely crags that are out there. Some of them in stunning, wild and far flung locations like Gruinard in the north west. Some of them just up the road from our major towns and cities.

The guidebook pictures brought back some nice memories for me of places like Dunglas just outside Glasgow, where I did my first 6b (Negotiations With Isaac)and 6c+ (The Beef Monster). I remember being very excited when Andy Gallagher asked me to give him a belay on the first ascent of Persistence of Vision (7a+) after watching him bolt it. A year after my first 6c+, my first 7c+ (Dum Dum Boys) was a liberating experience and straight away I wanted to get to the ‘happening crags’ of the day.

I found myself at Steall for the first time shortly afterwards, abseiling down Cubby’s project (Ring of Steall 8c+) and being totally inspired by how poor the holds were. The whole ambience of hard physical climbing in beautiful highland surroundings was where it was at for me. So in the following years, we made after school/uni/work hits from Glasgow to Glen Ogle, Dunkeld and Loch Lomondside sport crags, with weekend trips to Tunnel Wall, Steall, Weem and the Angus Quarries.

Once I got involved in exploring new routes, under the influence of Dave Redpath and Michael Tweedley, I immensely enjoyed tearing about bendy roads in Argyll developing crags like Tighnabruaich and eventually the Anvil.

One thing that I like about Scottish sport climbing particularly is that the easier graded routes in the 6s and 7s are often so much better to climb than those on the continent. In Spain or suchlike, the majority of the time, the hard routes on big overhanging sweeps of limestone are the most inspiring lines, while the easier lines can sometimes be either a bit scrappy or, dare I say it, a little boring. As with our trad, the variety of rock types we have in Scotland often make for much nicer routes in the lower and mid grades too. However, if you are into hard stuff, the two hardest routes in the book (Hunger, 9a and Fight The Feeling, 9a) give as good climbing as you’ll get anywhere. Both were climbed in good conditions in the summer and you wont find any queues or some barky dog wondering about eating your lunch at the base of the crag. The only negative on offer from Scottish sport climbing is, of course, the midge. Just remember that the wind direction is as important as the rain when you look at the forecast. Choose a crag exposed to a breeze on the day, and you’re sorted.

Enjoy the guide, enjoy the climbing. It’s here.

New stuff in the shop

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Mon, 13 May 2013 14:00:00 +0000

We’ve just added three new books to the shop, all very different.

First up is The Boulder by Francis Sanzaro, published by the Stone Country Press. What does it mean for us to be involved in bouldering? How does it’s movement and sporting challenges relate to other activities like Parkour, dance, gymnastics, martial arts, or even art disciplines like painting. Are you doing it to engage in a sport? Simply play on rocks? Compete with others? Enjoy movement. Possibly all of these and many more reasons besides.

The boulder explores the philosophy of bouldering, what it can mean for boulderers and how we can use and examination of this to improve both our bouldering and what we take from it. For many readers, discovering bouldering will no doubt have changed your life. But surely starting out in a new found activity isn’t the end of the story? There are many life changes to be found as you learn more and more about what bouldering is doing for you. I would expect most readers to be helped along this path. It’s in the shop here.

Next is Fiva by Gordon Stainforth, which is only recently out but fast accumulating a big reputation for a brilliant read. Gordon was previously more famous for his excellent photography books. Eyes to the Hills was one of the first mountain books I borrowed from my library as a 15 year old novice climber. We don’t tend to get many mountaineering stories in the shop, but Gordon’s big win with this book at the Banff Mountain festival in November prompted us to check it out and we were impressed. I won’t say too much about it other than it describes a death-on-a-stick epic on Troll Wall in Norway. If you know anything about how serious the Troll Wall is, the Fiva route sounds particularly toe-curling just to read about. Much recommended by us if you like reading about proper adventures. It’s in the shop here.

Finally, and with some satisfaction I can finally report that we have the first stock of the new Scottish Sport Climbs guidebook by the SMC. I wrote a reasonable chunk of the text myself, and since I first had a draft of ‘my’ crags completed in November 2004, I can appreciate as much as anyone how long it’s been in coming. A more substantial introduction to the book is coming in another post in a minute, but for now the book is in the shop here.

Dave film

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Thu, 09 May 2013 22:28:00 +0000

DAVE (with Dave MacLeod) from MOUNTAIN EQUIPMENT on Vimeo.

Since I’ve been out of the blogging loop for a bit, this is a bit late and you might already have seen it. Anyway, below is a film that Polished Project made about me. It’s not so much about a specific climb or anything, although there is some footage of me climbing some classic hard problems at Magic Wood. It’s really about ideas of mine and quite important things I’ve learned over almost 20 years of climbing.

I suppose the central idea underlying everything Im saying in the film is that I learned the things I did through not being naturally suited to climbing as youngster, but very naturally suited to spotting the patterns behind others apparent talents and trying to copy them.

Thanks to Mountain Equipment who supported the film. I’ve been working with ME for ten years - about half the time I’ve been a climber. So they have been quite a big part of my life as a climber.

Nevis Landscape

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Wed, 08 May 2013 22:18:00 +0000

Nevis Landscape Partnership film with Dave MacLeod from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo.

Who looks after and somewhere as special as Ben Nevis and Glen Nevis? It’s not something that we’re always constantly aware of. Whatever special mountain areas you visit, you might only see the mountains and not all the work that keeps them as they are.

But you’d soon notice if all the tons of litter dropped on Ben Nevis every year was allowed to accumulate, or if the paths were allowed to disintegrate into sprawling scarred muddy bogs. Or if poor planning allowed some rather ill advised developments to permanently change the shape and look of the area. And then there's all the things you might not immediately notice, but are just as important, such as the changes in which plant and animal species thrive as the environment changes. Although the untrained eye might not see that sort of thing, it's obvious to everyone that the place is full of life and that is what makes it great. If that was threatened it would be pretty important.

For many years, the Nevis Partnership took on the role of looking after the Nevis area. For various reasons, the organisation has evolved into the Nevis Landscape Partnership who will be doing lots of good projects in the coming years to help us all enjoy the place and keep it as good as it is.

We made a short film for them through the lens of my involvement with the place. It’s just meant to let you know that the NLP are there and that there are many fields of interest which you might want to get involved in, if you like. Their Facebok page is here.

Work has been done

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:33:00 +0000

Work has been done. Everything looks better, apart from my work gloves.

About 4 years ago I had a similar break in blogging for two or three months. The common reason was primarily moving house. I am moving house shortly, and with it comes the need to do shed loads of work. After work, climbing and family time, there is little time left over. However, the physical work tasks that need done are only half the story.

Usually, it coincides with a larger transition in life, moving on to a new chapter. So in all aspects of life, there are old things and ideas to let go of and new things to grapple with. Such has been the last three months for me.

I’ve done this a few times now. So although it’s a scary process, I tend to grab it with both hands since it’s important. Since completing a lot of huge climbing goals over the past few years, I enjoyed a good bit of just going with the flow, choosing what to climb based purely on what the weather is doing or what friends suggest.

I visited some new climbing areas. After spending last spring in Switzerland I chose to stay at home this year which was a good choice since it didn’t rain for two months! I put good few days into preparing for a cool climbing enchainment idea I’ve had. I was in good shape for it and really psyched, but sadly the weather just didn’t play the game. Either the winter routes were white but the rock routes wet or vice versa. Such is the gamble. It was worthwhile to do the prep since I now know that I can do it. I might try another enchainment with only rock routes which will be a bit less weather dependent in the short term.

I went to some new boulders, climbed new problems and went on some sick hard projects I knew about. 2 of them I have sacked off because they are nasty with horrible moves on sharp holds. One of them is getting me more psyched. It’s a bit weird as it’s a horizontal roof which is low to the ground. But it’s really hard and all the moves go. I’ll keep trying that until the midge arrives. There’s another few really good boulder projects I know about but have yet to visit. It's been a lot of pure climbing, just going out on my own, in nice places

I tried to go trad climbing, but it was freezing. Every time I take a rope to go climbing lately it seems to start snowing. Winter is taking a long time to give in in Scotland. Yesterday (May 2^nd) it was still snowing on Rannoch Moor and I see yet more fresh snow on the hills this morning. The other day I sat for the whole evening making a new list of mountain crag projects to try when the May sunshine finally arrives. I can’t wait until I get the chance to start afresh on some mountains and islands I’ve never been to. But for now, the trad season is still a list on my notepad.

Sport climbing has also commenced, with a lot of hanging on the rope warming numb hands. I went back to Malc's 9a at the Anvil and seem to have finally figured out some beta that works for me after Malc turned the crux hold I used to dust, breaking it off when we were trying it 6 years ago now.

I also did some running. Not a lot really, but some. And I was enjoying it a lot. My troublesome ankle hurt, as expected. So I might have to take a break from that again. This made me somewhat depressed for a while. Speaking of injuries, A little setback came when I was doing a deep drop knee on my board at home. I’d just had a brilliant session and felt strong for the first time in months and ‘crack’ went my MCL and hamstrings tendon in my knee. Partial tears. It could have been a lot worse. For ten minutes I thought I was in ACL and meniscus hell. 10 days off running and 14 off climbing were all that was necessary, although I still can’t quite burl down on a heelhook just yet. The lesson? Dropknees are still my favourite move, but they are dangerous. Be careful.

I spent the time off building steps, walls, paths, sheds, floors etc at my house to get it ready to sell. Mixing cement gives you big shoulders and helps you sleep at night. Well, unless you are still mixing another mix at 3am.

During all these adventures, I went through a bit of a low. I realised that some things in my routine have to change. It’s not to say that what I was doing was bad - I’ve just completed that stage. I badly need some new badass projects to work on. My friend Nick Dixon used to say he needed a big project every 5 years. I don’t last so long! I have some good trips planned for later this year, but I’m rubbish at training for distant trips. So now that I have sorted out some goal routes, I can prepare for them much better.

Bouldering with Flo

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:26:00 +0000

The Mission 7B, Torridon

Flo from the Mountain Equipment team was over for a few days. The weather was perfect and we had our pick of disciplines (providing we didn’t mind getting cold). Flo was keen to boulder, so we headed to Torridon, the Arisaig Cave and Glen Nevis. It was quite strange for me to visit some of these favourite old haunts of mine with someone else. Normally you won't see another soul at most highland bouldering venues.

Flo enjoying Inward Bound 7B, the classic of the Arisaig Cave.

Flo begins the crux swing on Under the Hat 7C, Heather Hat Boulder, Glen Nevis

Flo clinging to the ship boulder (The Mission 7B), Torridon.

Eyeing up the next edge on A Bridge too far 8A, Torridon.

I hadn't visited the Arisaig Cave for 2 years because I'd basically run out of projects. The one great line still to do there just seemed too hard last time I was there. But having a look at it (As in standing on the ground, just looking, as I still had only one functional leg) I decided that I really ought to return for another scrap with it. Likewise in Torridon I discovered a couple of great lines to go back for soon.

Left Edge Route on the Ben

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 11:32:00 +0000

Helen, Harry and I headed back up Observatory Gully to find something nice to climb, with no particular plan. We kept going higher and higher in the hope of finding something mixed in good condition, until we found ourselves standing underneath Gardyloo Buttress. Funnily enough, there was a roof up that way I wanted to look at, but it had no ice on until the lip. So we opted for something more slabby and had a chilled ascent of Left Edge Route (VI,5). The ice was a bit unreliable, and protection pretty bad, so it was a good idea to keep the weight on the feet. Thankfully, once over the steepness there was solid ice and a cruise to the top. On the way down there was talk of rock climbing..

Gorge boulder video

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 11:06:00 +0000

As promised, here is a wee video to show you the problems I did on the Gorge Boulder in Glen Nevis the other day. These were just filmed by myself with the camera on tripod, but hopefully they serve to show you what’s on offer up the glen that’s off the beaten track from the established boulders.

To get to the boulder, park at the Steall car park at the road end. Walk up the Steall path for a few hundred metres to where it starts to steepen a bit. If you look directly across the river, you’ll see the boulder in the trees at the same level on the other side. The river is best crossed quite high up, not far below where it bends round into the gorge where it widens with plenty of boulders to hop. If the river is really high after rain, you might have to walk from Paddy's Bridge (the wooden bridge a km short of the car park). Approach takes 10-15 mins. Get there before the midges do.

There’s more to be done on the boulder. Feel free to bring a rope and wire brush and put in a few hours. Oh, and take the grades as very rough guides - I've been out of the loop of repeating boulder for a long time so I have no clue if they are even close. BTW after being closed for ages, Cafe Beag in the glen is open every day this year from 8-6. Pretty good place for fuelling up or waiting for rain to stop etc.

Perfect bouldering day

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 02:17:00 +0000

Mega new boulder in Glen Nevis which I’ve given a good clean and opened 6 new problems in the easy to mid grades so far. ten minutes walk from the road, yet in complete solitude. I filmed some of them too and will make a wee video and topo shortly. Now the easy ones are done, time to work on the harder ones. This really was a perfect climbing day, great temperatures, great sights and sounds of nature all around, and great climbing. Bouldering above uneven landings was still feeling more like soloing for me right now though. But I am getting slightly more confident.

More great weather and new routes

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 02:10:00 +0000

Nice new route on Ben Nevis, climbed with Helen last week. Once again I was feeling a bit jaded after cleaning new boulder problems the day before, so it was nice to give the legs a workout instead. My ankle seemed to handle the strenuous bridging ok. However, there were some positions it just didn’t like, so I ended up using the old knees a fair bit!

Winter, dry, both or none?

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 02:08:00 +0000

Obviously, the dry tooling route I did on the CIC cascades under the Ben Nevis north face last week was going to provoke a bit of debate. In my mind it’s perfectly suited to climbing in this style and it’s no threat to the traditional Scottish winter routes because it’s so clearly different from them. It did make me wince when I saw UKclimbing.com include a Scottish winter grade in their headline reporting the route. I didn’t give it a Scottish grade for a good reason! I should have seen that coming I guess, although it was hard to foresee that a casual comment by me comparing it to a similar piece of climbing terrain with a winter grade would mean folk would then take this one as a winter route. A bit like saying an E8 trad route has 7c+ climbing - it’s still different from a bolted 7c+! This seemed to fuel a bit of debate about how it related to the traditional winter climbing game. To me, it’s totally clear the route is a tooling route, not a Scottish winter route. Clear and simple.

Some folk argued that maybe it should be left alone in case it dilutes the Scottish winter conditions ethic. I personally don’t agree with this. My feeling is that a one size fits all ethic for anything climbed is unnecessarily simplistic. It’s a shame not to climb that crack just because it doesn’t get rimed up. It’s an excellent climb.

More so than any other climbing discipline, Scottish winter climbing seems to be awful scared of losing what we have. Of course it’s special and worth defending. Perhaps because I like going for the steepest routes I’ve spent more than my fair share of days walking in and turning on my heel because the project is not white enough. It’s natural to resist any changes (even if they are only additions) to the status quo, but not always good. Balanced against the fear of losing what we have must be a fear of losing what we could have. To me, the diversity of British climbing has always been it’s greatest asset. A strict and narrow focus on what can be climbed with tools is a strength in upholding a strong ethic, but a weakness in undermining the diversity of climbs that can be done. I just don’t see that the threat to the Scottish conditions ethic is real. Rather than diminished over the years I have been a climber, I feel it has strengthened. The ethic is so strong, it has room to accept some ‘outliers’. However, that is of course just an opinion of one and may be outweighed by those of others, which is no problem. If other folk thought the tooling route was a good idea, very few have come out and said so.

Winter condition or not? What do you think?

A further interesting twist came when the other new route I wrote about (The Snotter) was questioned for not being in winter condition. I must say that took me seriously by surprise. I’ve done plenty of mixed routes that were on the borderline, but it didn’t enter my head that this one wasn’t in good condition. Simon Richardson wrote a particularly below the belt post on his blog which is here. For some reason he didn’t mention my name in it, and is was a little weird that he wrote such strong words and then reported another new route of mine in the very next post. Anyway, the reason it took me so by surprise was the focus on the section of overhanging wall to get between the ice grooves below and the hanging icicle above. I deliberately went on the route because the recent sunny conditions has been good for helping the grooves below the icicles to become iced. In the 55 metre crux pitch, around 47 metres was climbed on water ice, with 6 metres crossing a grossly overhanging wall underneath the roof to get to the icicle. The 30 metres of grooves below the roof were climbed on ice, initially stepped iced slabby ledges, then a thin ice smeared rib and groove, apart from a few hooks on the right of the ice. Once on the icicle, there was a long section (15 metres at least) before the angle even started to lie back.The downside of this mix of conditions was that the overhanging wall itself was pretty dry. My thinking was that this is par for the course for this type of route. The sun helps more ice form, but at the expense of the rime. My interpretation (which may be ‘wrong’ if such a judgement can truly be made) of Scottish winter conditions is that basically the route must be wintery in appearance. If it was nearly all dry mixed with a little ice, it would be outside that definition and I would have come back another time. But the reality was the pitch was nearly all ice with a short section of dry rock.

A central view in my own new route climbing has always been that I don’t want it to be at the expense of anyone else, even if I don’t agree with their position or motives. Clearly, some folk feel that way. So I have taken away my blog post about the routes and recommend that folk forget about them, if that is what they want to do. They still exist of course, in my memory as great days out and two of the most fun climbs I’ve done in a while. Nothing more ultimately matters. Anyone else is welcome to climb them as first ascents if they feel those ascents are more worthy.

Recent adventures on rock

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 01:22:00 +0000

During the past three weeks, life has been progressively more manic, as is normal in Lochaber at this time of year. Usually in February, the weather gets amazing for almost all types of climbing, and this season has been especially good. Trying to get anything else done apart from new routes is quite a challenge and usually involves late nights and early starts. Maybe the rain will return by March and I’ll take a rest day?!

When I got home from Spain, I was pretty keen to get into the hills. I started off with a day on the Ben with Kev and could hardly walk the next morning. However, my ankle seemed to continue to adapt and I went back up a couple more times. Since both of us were only really able to walk short distances with big packs, we opted for the CIC hut cascades. Kev cruised the icefall.

Next up I went to a ridiculous boulder roof in the glen. It’s quite low to the ground and fully horizontal. An acquired taste maybe - a bit like a darker version of the darkness cave in Magic Wood. There’s 25 feet of horizontal climbing on brutal crimps in there, with three logical starts. The shortest link will be Font 8aish and the full trip looks like solid Font 8b+. I couldn’t imagine doing it at the moment, but I did do about half the moves on my first session.

I’ve also been trying a bit of running with mixed results. I did some trail and hill runs up to 12 miles and was getting on fine. Then one evening I did some short fast sections since it was already getting dark after the climbing. I misjudged the angle of a boulder on the trail and hit the ‘no go zone’ in my ankle hard and let out a yelp. It’s been worse ever since, which is rather depressing. I can’t really do much except hope I’ve not done more damage. Not good.

Ardverikie deer forest. Here be boulders...

The next day I was getting pain even walking which put a downer on an otherwise great day out in Ardverikie Forest returning to a boulder I’d found on a run two years ago. I went to look at a roof that I’d estimated about Font 8b. But to actually try, it felt way harder. I pretty much gave up, although to be fair I wasn't in the most positive frame of mind, and the easterly was biting cold. It was a series of savage first joint undercuts in a roof with microscopic granite crystals level with your head for feet. A bit like doing harder versions of the Hubble undercuts crux about 5 times in a row. Maybe I’ll make a model on my board and try it once more in the spring.

The solid river Nevis today, near Steall.

Dan cleaning new problems, new boulder in Glen Nevis today.

Today saw some great new problems get done after a monster cleaning. I'll take some pictures of them next time. I did the problems almost in the dark since we were brushing for a lot of the afternoon. The boulder has probably 15 problems to do from Font 5 to 8A+ on the usual lovely honeycomb Glen Nevis schist. I hope my arms aren't too tired for tomorrows session back on the Ben. Off to sleep!

Stepping it up a bit now

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 18:31:00 +0000

Climbing 'Malsonando', Gandia.

During the week in Spain I have been doing some 7b and 7cs onsight just to get into the flow of climbing again, but I was also keen to see just how far away from recovering my form on harder routes. So I tried an 8c called Malsonando at Gandia.

I had no idea how I’d get on. Before coming out, since starting climbing again I’ve had 6 weeks or so of some indoor climbing and started from a very low base of fitness and very gentle climbing on easy ground at first. I did manage to climb the 8a endurance circuits in TCA Glasgow and in the past I’ve found that if I can do 8a indoors I can usually do 8c or even 8c+ outdoors. Folk sometimes find that weird and don’t understand it. Partly it’s because my hands sweat quite a lot and so climbing outside in cold conditions allows me to climb a lot harder. However, the main reason is I’m not that strong and so struggle more indoors where I can rely on technique more outdoors.

Anyway, the rule held true and yesterday I was able to climb Malsonando in pretty bad conditions which I was very happy with. My endurance is still barely off the baseline level and I got quite pumped well before the crux, but it’s definitely a good place to be 2.5 months after the surgeon was drilling into my Talus.

Today was good too, an 8b first redpoint, another 8a and a 7c+ onsight.

On the way home from the crag, I began to think that I could start to set some firmer climbing ambitions for the coming year now.

First run

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 09:39:00 +0000

I just arrived in Spain for a little sport climbing to learn to move on rock again. The first day was pretty brutal. I really understood how much confidence I need to get back. I wasn’t scared of falling off, just of moving dynamically as I still get some bad pain if I move in a particular way. I did the moves on a hard route (badly) and then onsighted a 7c (badly). However, getting from bad to, well, somewhere better is what I am here for. So I shall get on with it.

The fatigue in may arms felt really strange, I can’t really explain it but, lets just say I really need the next few days to try and get into some sort of flow.

The highlight of the day though was going for a run. I ran just over 5 miles. Although the damaged part of my ankle joint did give me some twinges unless I start to heel raise before my foot goes too far into dorsiflexion, it felt pretty good and a good bit better than the last time I attempted a run about two weeks ago. However, the real test was not the first, but the second run.

A couple of days later I went 8 miles. Sods law, the first 5 felt ok and then it started to hurt a fair bit. Not so good. I experimented a bit with trying to alter my stride it seemed to be no use. It just hurt and I felt pretty depressed when I finished. Again though, I readied myself for the ankle to be even more annoyed after having a nights sleep to think about it. But it actually felt fine. Dare I say it, even better.

I had an idea that a heel lift orthotic in my shoes might make a difference. The repaired part of the joint is at the very front of my ankle and is only about 3mm. In normal walking gait it's outside of the articular surface and therefore no problem now. It's only the last few degrees of Dorsiflexion during running that seems to cause the problem. So I made a hasty orthotic to try and went out for another 8 miles.

Much better. I still had to concentrate on my stride form like hell the whole way. The slightest drop in concentration or letting my stride get lazy and I could feel a few nociceptors firing. However, at the end of the run I felt like I could have kept going and the ankle was only mildly more tender and that settled within 30 minutes. Very early days, it could be totally different running on uneven surfaces, but it's a huge leap from where I was a few weeks ago.

Competition

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:47:00 +0000

Although I’ve spent my whole adult life involved in sport, I still have big reservations about large parts of it. I’ve read a lot of work on the history and philosophy of sport, and to be perfectly honest, a good chunk of it makes for depressing reading. I wish more of it could be more like the way it’s supposed to be.

The fact that climbing on mountains and cliffs is hard to pin down, hard to reduce to numbers and results and competition was quite an important aspect of what drew me into it. It’s hard to say ‘I had a better adventure than you’. Even as a climbing coach, I’ve sometimes been uneasy seeing young climbers come up against some of these negatives. Sometimes I wonder if I should say ‘skip the comp this time’. Go and explore somewhere new with some friends and come back for the next comp. As well as providing the essential ability to see outside the bubble of the scene, the perspective might well make a better competitor in the long run.

Kev pointed to this picture on Facebook, of a Basque athlete helping a Kenyan who’d stopped running a few metres short of the finish line in a cross country event, thinking he’d already passed it. The Basque runner could have run right past and won the race. But he stopped to direct the Kenyan over the line, staying behind and keeping the place he would have got if the Kenyan hadn’t made a simple human error. The surprising thing for me was that the attention this story got was as a ‘rare’ piece of sportsmanship. Why shouldn’t it be the norm?

After getting my ankle surgery in November, I decided to enter a running race for the first time, and see how it went. I thought it would be good as a goal to help get me back on my feet and moving fast in the mountains again. I entered the West Highland Way Race for next June. Although I have done quite a lot of hill running at different times over the past year or two, like anyone getting involved in a new scene I was a bit nervous about how welcoming it would be to someone who is known as ‘a climber’. Yesterday a friend told me about this thread started about my entry, which was a bit of a downer. When I experienced this sort of thing as a teenager doing sport at school, I hated it, avoided it and eventually found it’s antidote in going climbing. This time round I don’t need to react like that. But if I am able to recover from my injury enough to do it, it will be weird to stand on the start line knowing I’m standing with others who feel I don’t deserve to be there. My slowly healing ankle joint is the only thing that would stop me earning a place. As I said on the thread, if anyone feels I really don’t deserve the chance as much as them, drop me a line and I’ll offer to withdraw and donate my place.

First winter climb…

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 10:42:00 +0000

This is great, it really does feel like I’m doing things for the first time all over again, and not just because I’ve lost so much ability to my surgery layoff. During the week, I decided to see if my ankle would be ready to handle a day of winter climbing. It’s quite a big step up from what I’ve done on it up to now (mostly very overhanging circuits indoors). I was rightly worried. I managed it, but only just.

I went out with Kev to Aonach Mor. Kev had been wanting to do Stirling Bridge (VI,7) for years and so we headed for that on a nice morning which was a fine reminder what I’d been missing due to the injury. Kev jumped on it and got to the difficult part but eventually came down so I went up it. The climbing felt quite straightforward. The main problem was cold hands which gave me the most nauseating hot aches I’ve had in a long time. Or perhaps I am softened by my indoor time. All too soon the fun was over and it was time to hobble off down the hill. Just as we were reaching the Gondola I could feel my ankle hurting more and more and was thinking ‘thank goodness the walking is nearly over’. 5 minutes before we got to it, the Gondola was closed early due to the strengthening wind.

The walk back down the line of the Gondola was horrible. A real teeth gritter. I felt bad for putting my ankle through such trauma and braced myself for the next day being even worse. However, to my surprise, by lunchtime the next day it felt quite good and was able to complete another 8a circuit in TCA with no problems.

So there are more ups than downs right now. Net progress.

Climbers against cancer

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 10:40:00 +0000

Climbers Against Cancer is a new organisation started by John Ellison. It’s a good story, and seems to have a lot of momentum in climbing. Check it out here. And when they are ready, do buy a T-shirt.

Thanks Shauna for the heads up.

First time wielding tools again

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 20:56:00 +0000

Manu on the local training route in the Ecrin, France

Last week I was in France, to speak at the Ecrin Ice Festival. On one of the days, I had the opportunity to go and climb with some good climbers. Although I was still uncertain about going winter climbing, it would have been crazy to turn it down. So I turned up and heard from my climbing partners that the plan was to do a very overhanging 6 pitch M9 dry tooling route. This was kind of perfect. The bit I was most worried about was walking in for 30 minutes on snow. But that went fine and my arms proceeded to have a fine wake up call to climbing with tools again. The next morning we did a short ice route with a very rapid retreat due to everything melting around us and making scary cracking noises. I was amazed that my foot was not sore the next day as I expected, and nice to add another first on my list of climbing comeback milestones (or perhaps metrestones).

Obviously I felt quite rusty on the tools. It was quite heartening to see that I could still pull hard, but I’d forgotten so much of the subtlety of the movement in tooling, if I ever knew about it in the first place. I climbed the first pitch in ‘pull up contest’ style with not much weight on my feet. But watching Luca in action reminded me of a lot and by the final pitch I had improved a little.

Luca relaxing on another M9 pitch!

Since then I have stepped up the volume of training a little more, with a 5 days on, one off schedule. This was perhaps a little premature as I can feel my ankle a bit after that. However, it hurts in the context of everything else hurting from the work, so it’s not too bad. I’m still feeling fitter with every session and back up to doing 8a routes indoors. That is pretty much as hard as I’ve climbed indoors ever anyway. Quite soon I may well get the chance to try some hard sport routes outdoors too.

Since it’s rest day time now, I’m back to full on writing of my book..

Outdoor climbing begins!

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 23:33:00 +0000

I spent the final couple of hours of 2012 fixing my boiler and packing to go outdoor rock climbing for the first time since my accident. I was so excited about this I failed to sleep all night and had a bleary eyed drive across the highlands on empty roads first thing on new year’s day. I spent a bit of time working on an 8c sport project I’d wanted to try since before the accident and made some nice progress for my first session on it. I linked all the bits that were dry on my first go and got all the moves done despite some wet holds.

On another session it was too wet to even bother getting on it so I did a couple of 7c+s that were really quite wet. I wasn’t scared of falling off at all, but with wet hands I was more anxious about my hands or feet slipping suddenly and loading the ankle. I absolutely loved doing the whole routine of being able to try hard on a rock climb, being outside feeling the cold air and dealing with ropes and and real rock again. It definitely put a spring in my step.

On the other hand, I’ve still got the weird feeling of making rapid progress versus feeling very weak in certain muscles and positions at the same time. As I (hopefully) progress with this return to climbing harder on my second apprenticeship, I’ll try and share with you the lessons I’m re-learning, or indeed learning for the first time. Here is the first:

Apprenticeship 2.0, lesson 1.0

Trying hard underlies all improvement. And underlying trying hard is loving what you do. On my first day out, I was really struck by how much I missed outdoor climbing, and just how much I loved doing it even though it was about 2 degrees with a freezing wind and seeping wet routes. All I could think about was how lucky I was to be back at it.

On the second day, I was totally whacked. I fell on my ass coming down the stairs from bed in the morning. Driving to the crag I just wanted to stop and sleep. The feeling hung around all day when I was belaying or resting between climbs. It would have been so easy to sack it off, not least because the routes were soaking. Having been deprived of climbing for so long, I was able to easily push this straight out of my mind and the feeling in my body disappeared the minute I had my rockshoes on and started to battle up the routes. I was really aware that volume (of moves climbed) is going to be critical as a foundation of my apprenticeship. Thus, a wet day was a fine opportunity to climb lots of volume at an easier intensity instead of battling on the same moves on the 8c. By the end of the day I could definitely feel my movement was getting better, and I’d had a much needed workout.

Sometimes loving what you do just comes completely naturally. Sometimes you definitely need to think carefully about it to override temporary fatigue that tries to convince you you’d rather just head home for a cup of tea.

New film downloads in the shop

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 23:06:00 +0000

I have just added HD downloads of the Hot Aches Productions films to the shop. So now you have a cheaper and more instantaneous way to watch the classic climbing films: The Long Hope, The Pinnacle, Committed 1, Committed 2, Wideboyz, Odyssey and Monkey See Monkey Do. You’ll find them all here.

The DVD options are still there too of course...

Ploughing on with the recovery road

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 13:39:00 +0000

I’m continuing to plough on with the work of building back up to climbing fitness. Before Christmas, I had some weird sessions. On the boulder wall I could do certain moves that would have been hard for me before my accident, especially if they were close to the ground and didn’t need much work from the foot. As soon as I got above head height, my standard inevitably crashed since I’m not yet safe to jump down from the boulder wall. Over Christmas I spend a few sessions climbing halfway up most things and just downclimbing again as if I was on a trad route! That was quite demoralising. It’s just totally against the grain not to be able to try hard.

However, on the circuits and routes I have been back up to doing a few 7c+s and I can feel my movement and confidence improving with every session. I’m also beginning to increase the load. I’m currently back up to 2 on/1 off, 2 on/2 off. It would be so easy to keep adding more, but I’m so anxious not to overdo it. Running is still painful and out of the question at present, which is disappointing. So it’s a long road and I’m only part way down it. Despite more ups and downs it definitely feels like I’m going somewhere.

I’ve been trying to think of every way I can to improve how far I can go with my gradual return to climbing. Some of that is dealing with small but important details like completing physiotherapy exercises. It’s also the wider approach. I think the best way I can view what I’m doing is serving a new apprenticeship in climbing. It’s a change to re-learn the whole game of climbing from the ground up. I’ve got a strong feeling that this mindset will work pretty well.

Christmas orders from our shop

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 13:27:00 +0000

We are dispatching every day via Royal Mail first class. Last posting day for Christmas delivery is Thursday 20th. So get your order in. If you don’t make it in time for Thursday, will be dispatching orders right through the Christmas period.

I have just added two new climbing DVDs from Hot Aches Productions to the shop.

Wideboyz tells the story of Pete Whittaker and Tom Randall’s crack climbing adventure from training in their ridiculous but effective home climbing wall to making the first ascent of the world’s hardest offwidth under the noses of the Americans. Good story! It's also available for download.

Odyssey follows a hardcore team of James Pearson, Caroline Ciavaldini, Hazel Findlay and Hansjorg Auer on a trad road trip around England and Wales onsighting and redpointing many hard and famous trad routes. Also available for download.

Fort William Mountain Film Festival masterclasses

noreply@blogger.com (Dave MacLeod) — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 12:53:00 +0000

Since I’ve been working on a book, I’ve not been able to do personal coaching. I still get asked a lot, so I run a few days a year of group masterclasses, which are always very popular. I’m doing a day of classes during the Fort William Mountain Festival in February, at the Ice Factor.

The classes are on Saturday Feb 23rd, 10-12noon, and 3pm-5pm. (the lunchtime session lasted one night on my events page before filling up). Places are £40 plus your normal wall entry. Give Claire a phone on 07813 060376 to get a place.

Later that evening I’m introducing the climbing night at the festival with film and a Scottish winter climbing theme for Andy Cave’s lecture.

See you there!