Nevis Faces - Helen Rennard

Nevis Faces is a 6 part series of short films Claire and I have made for the Nevis Landscape Partnership that explores the faces of those who work and live around the Nevis area. Helen Rennard is an accomplished winter climber living in Fort William. When not helping the local community through her job as a social worker, Helen spends all her time either training for her climbing or out in the mountains climbing hard mixed routes. Helen has been involved in many first ascents of hard mixed routes on Ben Nevis and around the Scottish highlands.

I actually can't believe I managed to get this one made given the crazy winter we've had.

The 24/8

Enjoying the summit of Ben Nevis on a climbing day I will remember for a long time. Photo: Kevin Woods

I moved to Lochaber ten years ago and one thing you cannot escape as a local is that in spring, conditions are amazing for every type of climbing. If you are an all-round climber in the area, spring equates to doing very little work, having no rest days at all, being exhausted for three months straight but having a huge number of fantastic memorable days out climbing. You find yourself trying to recover from winter climbing fast enough to take advantage of great conditions for your rock projects, almost wishing for a rainy day to make an excuse to rest. This is why it is the best all-rounder climbing area I know of, anywhere.

Soon after I moved up, I had the spark of an idea to link up routes of all the climbing disciplines in one day. There are so many different types of climbing crammed into the Nevis area. I wondered if it would be possible and if so, at what level of difficulty? I don’t normally do link-ups or that sort of thing (not because I don’t like them, I just tend to focus on my climbing projects), so if I was going to do one, it would need to be a special one, that would be hard to complete and require a high general standard of climbing ability.

Kevin Shields at Steall just before we left him at 9am, the refrozen Steall Falls behind

I settled on doing ‘all the eights’ as a good target:

- An 8A boulder

- An 8a sport route

- An E8 trad route

- A VIII,8 winter route

- And 8 Munros

In 24 hours.

I started calling it ‘the twenty four eight’ in my head and mentioned it to various people. I put a recce day or two into preparing for it in various winters over the past 8 years or so. I even lined up to have a proper go at it once, about 4 or 5 years ago. It was the usual problem. If the mixed routes on the Ben were white, the rock routes in the glen were either also snowed up, or soaking wet. Or if the rock routes were dry then so was the mixed on the Ben. So although I said above that spring in Lochaber allows you to do everything, thats rarely true on the same day, at least if you are talking about EVERY discipline, and going for hard routes. If it was grade Vs it would be no bother. The problem with picking hard routes is it narrows the choice considerably.

The idea drifted in and out of my mind each winter, but it was always such a long shot to catch it in condition at short notice, yet be fit enough to actually do it, it hardly seemed worth bothering with. But at the same time, I’d been going on about it to friends for years and years.

This year, with the ‘Beast from the East’ easterlies we had in early March, I was stuck in Glasgow in the snow and hearing that at home in Lochaber there was no snow in the glens but it was really sunny. The 24/8 suddenly popped into my head again. That period of weather didn’t yield a suitable day. But when a second bout of easterlies came into the forecast models, I started to take a closer interest, and leapt out to Glen Nevis to look at the rock routes I might try.

I spent a couple of utterly grim days trying to re-familiarise myself with Misadventure (E8 6c) and Leopold (8a) while getting pummelled by 60mph easterlies with snow stinging my eyes, on a low level crag! It seemed ridiculous. Previously, I’d thought the boulder of choice would be my own ‘Bear Trap Prow’ 8A+, but that is also often wet in winter. When I walked up to recce it, it was completely soaked. So my mind jumped to the Cameron Stone Arete, climbed only recently by Dan Varian at 8A+ and I’d repeated it a couple of years ago. It is very sharp and can cut your fingers, but does dry quickly. Thankfully I could repeat it in a session and felt like there was a good chance I could do it early in the morning if conditions were good.

Monday 19th emerged as a weather window from nearly 6 days out. As the high pressure approached Scotland, the cold eastern would drop and leave a still cold, but fine day with light winds. It seemed possible that it wouldn’t be too cold to lead Misadventure, but the mixed on the Ben would stay white.

Topping out on Frosty's Vigil VIII,8 around 5pm. Photo: Kevin Woods

Choosing a winter route for the challenge was rather more tricky. Winter routes on the Ben at grade VIII do have a habit of taking a good chunk out of a 24 hour period, not leaving much time for 39km of walking and all the other rock routes. It needed to be something I could do quite quickly, and ideally as reliably in condition as possible. I had two days out last week with Helen Rennard, trying to figure it out. Both were complete failures. On the first day we headed for the routes above Echo Wall but had to turn back with avalanche danger. On the second, I climbed most of The Secret, but the crack was so completely choked with hard ice and reversed from a good bit up the crux pitch without any runners worth speaking about. Frosty’s Vigil was another idea, being high up and often in condition. But it was still an unknown whether the top pitch needed specific conditions of useable ice, or ice free cracks?

On Sunday I was in Glasgow, watching Freida do Judo. The forecast looked pretty good, if cold, and I’d arranged to climb with Kevin Shields for the rock routes, Iain Small for the winter route, and Kevin Woods to film the whole thing and join me for the Grey Corries traverse.  A strong team!I was grateful to Claire for getting us home early and I thankfully got to bed at 8pm which set me up to feel rested and ready to climb hard at 6.30am. In case I did get a day to try it, I’d deliberately had nearly two weeks on climbing every day to really wear myself down, winter climbing, training and rock days back to back, followed by one rest day.

I got up at 4.30am and made my usual pile of eggs, but struggled to eat them. I think I was actually a little nervous. There were quite a lot of logistical things to remember, but thankfully I’d spent the Saturday afternoon packing gear into separate packs so I could just lift them out of the car without thinking.

Arriving at the Cameron Stone just as it got light at 6.30am, I realised the conditions were going to be even better than forecasted - probably the best day of the whole winter. It was zero degrees and no wind. Spot on. I had been worried that the forecasted minus two and northerly wind would just make it too cold for E8 trad.

Pulling down on Cameron Stone Arete 8A+ at 6.50am. Photo: Kevin Woods

I took maybe ten minutes warming up, doing the moves of the Cameron Stone Arete (8A+) all first try. Then I pulled on just to do the start moves but continued all the way to the last move. I pretty much knew I could do it next go. A glance at my phone - 6.50am, chalk up and go. I climbed easily to the last move again but fumbled the foothold slightly, so the jump to the good hold was a bit wild. I grabbed it and felt like I was falling but just didn’t let go for a long second. Next thing I was standing on top of the boulder. Game on.

Don't let go of that jug! Photo: Kevin Woods

Half an hour later I was starting up Misadventure (E8). The climb takes a blunt arete with a bouldery sequence of slaps. There is gear, but it’s off to the side in a corner, so a fall from the crux would smash you off the left wall of the corner. Its obviously hard to predict what would happen. But I doubt you’d get away uninjured. I suspect you couldn’t turn to take the impact feet first either. A sideways smash could be really horrible. So it’s not really a route to start up without knowing it will go. But after the boulder I knew I felt really good. However, as I set up for the crux slap out right, my foot slid a little on the foothold. I was completely committed, so the only solution was to up the power output and commit even more. I realised sometime afterwards, replaying back the sequence in my mind, that in that moment of psyching up for the move, I’d completely forgotten to move my right hand to an intermediate crimp first. Oh well, it worked out anyway, and I raced up the easier top section, carefully avoiding some holds that were covered in ice.

Dispatching Leopold 8a about 9am. Photo: Kevin Woods

At Steall car park it was still only 8.30am, half an hour ahead of schedule. Kev Shields, Kev Woods and I bounced up the gorge path into lovely morning sunshine in Steall Meadows and I felt plenty warm enough for jumping straight onto Leopold (8a). The crux all felt easy (it ought to, I’ve done it countless times while trying my 9a there in the past). But as I approached the upper part, I realised that there was a lump of ice on a key foothold for the final rest, and a sidepull on the upper crux was completely encased in an icicle! Thankfully, I’d already sussed out an alternative sequence on my recce day, so could just move through without a problem. By 9.15am, I was back at the entrance to Steall meadow, thanking Kev Shields for coming out and off we went, contouring across Meall Cumhann and up the shoulder of Ben Nevis to the Car Mor Dearg Arete by 11am.

Iain Small literally making a VII,8 pitch look like a walk. He has a habit of this.

I had arranged to meet Iain Small between 12 and 12.30 in Observatory Gully. Thankfully, Iain carried up a full rack and a single rope as well. I opted for going over the summit and down Tower Gully, being careful at the cornice, since twenty years ago this is where it collapsed on me and I ended up going the full length of Observatory Gully in the resultant avalanche, including some impressive airtime on the way down Tower Scoop. No such problems today in the bullet hard neve. I met Iain just cutting a ledge at the foot of Frosty’s Vigil VIII,8. The route was first done by Greg McInnes, Guy Robertson and Adam Russell in 2017. I led pitch 1 and had a great belay stance under a roof, to protect myself from all the rime Iain had to clear from the corner on pitch 2. While I suffered the hot aches after seconding the pitch, Iain helpfully leaned out from the belay to arrange a nut runner to protect the steep looking traverse out right across the wall.

Iain sniffing out some useful ice in the steepness.

This pitch was really the linchpin for getting the link done. Would it be in climbable condition? I knew that it sometimes gets iced, but looked fairly mixed in the pictures of Greg leading it. Somewhere in between (iced up cracks, so no rock protection, but not enough ice to climb) could be a stopper. After a couple of steep moves across the wall, I had the reassuring ‘thunk’ of my ice tool finding a nice runnel of climbable ice. Moving up under a roof, everything fell into place with two really good Spectre runners to protect a steep step out from a roof to gain an icicle dribbling down the left wall impressively. Climbing this was very exposed and amazingly satisfying. With every ice tool placement I could feel the success of the day getting closer. I think it was just before 6pm by the time we were all stood on the summit of Ben Nevis, hurriedly rearranging kit and having a brief chat before saying cheerio to Iain and jogging off down to the CMD arete, now a team of just Kevin Woods and myself.

What can you say? Photo: Kevin Woods

Running round to CMD was stunning in the sunset, one of the best I’ve ever seen on Ben Nevis. Kevin was just laughing all the way round. No words were needed. I felt exactly the same, it was so good it was funny! The sun was just about to drop below the horizon as we legged it down to the low col between CMD and Aonach Mor. The 400m climb back up was always going to be a calf burner. So there is nothing for it but to embrace the pain and keep moving. As an aside, I guess everyone has their own mental technique for beasting themselves through a big hill climb. I’m sure it will sound ridiculous to some but I always tend to find the rhythm of my feet kicking steps in snow aligning to proper trad pipe marches in my head. An acquired taste even for Scots but its what I grew up listening to so it is in the blood, as they say. They are so ruthlessly simple, bright and cheery, they just keep you going, putting one foot in front of another and somehow actually enjoying it. It’s no accident that they were often designed for the express purpose of making men march to their death. So now that we lucky modern folk have to dream up mad challenges to push ourselves to the point we actually realise we are alive, unsurprisingly they still work. My favourite is probably Mrs John MacColl, expertly played in this clip by Stuart Liddell.

Lovely sky from Aonach Mor some time after 7pm. Ben Nevis on the left, Carn Mor Dearg centre.

We were rewarded as we reached the Aonach Mor plateau with a stunning deep red horizon and amazing colour in the sky. But I noted that it already seemed extremely cold and I was starting to shiver after a couple of minutes food stop.

Aonach Beag was straightforward as you would expect and we ploughed on down the ridge, Kevin’s good knowledge of the range helping us to locate the right spot to drop through the cornice and down to the col at the start of the Grey Corries. On the way down, we discussed our mutual state of dehydration. Gear carrying had been an issue for both of us (climbing gear for me, camera gear for Kevin) and the downside of the sunny day was more fluid requirements. We skirted around the col before Sgurr Choinnich Beag in futile search for some moving water. There was none of course, so munching on icicles and rime biscuits it was.

The Grey Corries ridge line is always a pleasure to move along. Of course we were getting tired, but just plodding on is not so bad. It is only really an injury or fuel crisis that would stop you on this terrain. Several years ago I was doing a fasted Grey Corries run and had just such a fuel crisis; acute hypoglycaemia symptoms that forced me to stop, lie down and then have a long stumble out to Leanachan Forest and Spean Bridge. No such problems now with a much improved metabolism from two years of eating a lot of fat and doing a lot of fasting. I knew I would eventually slow down a bit with fatigue, but not stop, regardless of taking on calories.

In fact, as we reached Stob Coire an Laoigh I noted a slight euphoria spreading gently across my brain, and feeling slightly stronger again in the legs. The wind picked up a fair bit and still felt colder than I expected, which I thought must just be the effect of eating ice biscuits and having damp gloves I’d sweated into for 8 hours. It was definitely chilly though. I had stuffed rime crystals into my Platypus and then put it into my base layer to melt. But even after two Munros I got barely 5ml of liquid water.

Another from Aonach Mor, since it was so nice! Photo: Kevin Woods

I remembered slogging up Stob Coire Claurigh at the east end of the Grey Corries with Andy Turner while filming ‘The Pinnacle’ eight years ago and feeling kind of knackered (we’d done Orion Face in the morning). This time it felt okay and so we wasted no time in ploughing on to the base of Stob Ban, the final Munro. I did feel tired enough on this to need to stop for five minutes and eat a tasty combo of dark chocolate and ice biscuits to help it go down. The funny thing was, once I got up and started again, the summit was only another 40 odd metres above! As expected for this type of day out, I was a bit too fatigued and cold to jump around and celebrate the success. I just noted the time (1:20am, 18.5 hours after starting) and we celebrated by taking a bearing for Larig Leacach and discussing the imminent prospect of getting down to a stream.

The first water we found was right by the bothy in the larig. Kev pointed out that it was still an 8km walk out to my house in Roy Bridge and asked if we could have a quick snooze in the bothy. Kev snoozed. I was impressed he could. I couldn’t even sit still without shivering like mad and instead had myself a mini aerobics session in the bothy to arrest the shivering (didn’t work). I’d warmed up after a few Kms and all that was left was a nice wade through the river Spean. It was partially icing over. I later found out it had been minus 8.6 at Tulloch during the night, which explains why it  felt so cold in the wind. The dawn just started to break as we walked up my street and back to my house. Claire kindly got up and made us piles of eggs and tea and I started to realise that a little climbing dream of eight years had actually been quite a big climbing dream I had never thought I’d get in condition, or myself in condition to manage it.

It was so glad of the opportunity to do it and to have a good climbing team of Kevin Shields, Iain Small and Kevin Woods, all excellent climbers and exactly who you’d want on a day like this. Having filmed Ramsay's Round last summer I was particularly impressed that Kevin was able to follow me for the whole thing and film at the same time. Not an easy thing to manage, either physically or logistically. I’m looking forward to seeing his footage!

Its been a fantastic winter where I’ve done most of my projects for the season, all of which were hard for me. Time to move onto my spring rock projects I think. But this one will definitely live long in the memory.

Moth Direct

Iain Small approaching the roof on pitch 1 of the Moth Direct. After the first couple of pitches I didn't get the camera out much. It wasn't really photography weather!

Last week I was sat in my car Dumbarton just after climbing Gutbuster. I had arranged to climb the following day on Crag Meagaidh with Iain Small and Helen Rennard, with a rough plan of doing a direct start and finish to ‘The Moth’ VII,8, a 380 metre route first climbed by Es and Guy on the Pinnacle Face. We looked at the wind forecast and postponed. I’m glad! 

Iain heads up into the morning gloom at dawn.

We reconvened at the Meagaidh car park at 5am yesterday and marched into Coire Ardair under leaden skies but fairly benign weather. In Raeburn’s Gully, Iain pointed out the first couple of pitches (beyond that it was in the cloud). The first pitch looked really logical, taking a nice dribble of ice emanating from a roof, then stepping left and pulling over the roof to gain the ledge Es and Guy had traversed in on to reach the main corner system on pitch 2. Iain made chilled out work of the pitch, as he does. I then lead the crux of The Moth which had a fun ‘Quarryman’ style crux palming off a corner.

Iain rapidly dispatched the following 2 pitches (run together) and then I led an 80 metre pitch (with 10m of moving together of course) that was standard Meagaidh tech 5 icy face climbing with basically no gear and eventually found a belay below the barrier wall that tops the buttress. Iain launched up the steep wall directly above the belay and made it to a the next ledge just as darkness fell. From here Es and Guy escaped rightwards along the ledge in the dark and deteriorating (thawing) weather.

Iain on the hardest part of the first pitch. Great climbing with a good bit of gear.

We followed in the dark. The wall above still looked steep at first and well rimed up at this height, it wasn’t clear where to attack it. I led off up a bulging wall, with one well placed cluster of runners to encourage me to keep going up, followed by a long groove which was great except there was basically no protection and the updraught was hammering my eyes and face with spindrift every time I looked at my feet. This still didn’t make the top. But thankfully the final pitch was easier and led us to a wee cairn at the top of the Pinnacle.

One of the side effects of always trying projects which are super hard for me is I don’t get out and about ticking loads of easier routes on nearby crags. It's kind of odd that Meagaidh is less than 20 minutes drive from my house, but I’d only ever done two routes on it before yesterday. Hopefully I can start to address that issue! It was the same with Binnein Shuas which is even closer. I hadn’t done anything there at all until recently and now have done several E7s and two E8s. Yesterday I was also thinking about my rather harder project on Binnein Shuas which escaped last year thanks to my shoulder accident in July. Ideally there is time for some more winter routes before that project thaws out and I can get started on it again.

Helen eyeing up the line from Raeburn's Gully.

Cloudjumper VIII,9 on the Ben

A couple of teetery moves on the second pitch of Cloudjumper VIII,9 on Ben Nevis

Towards the end of February, Scotland kicks off with good conditions for just about everything at the same time. It’s important to be organised to capitalise on it. I have not been this year. My efforts in the Arisaig Cave have been paying off with excellent progress on my project there. I have now got to the start of the crux section and got good overlapping halves, after several hard training sessions and hard sessions on the project. So the climbing part has been going great.

The trouble is that sessions on it do leave me feeling pretty wasted, with a lot of recovery to do. I realise that these sessions necessitate extra sleep to recover from them properly. I go home, eat dinner, it’s 9 or 10pm and I still have a lot of work to do. I try to work until 11pm, but I never get enough done and it runs to midnight or sometimes after. This is okay if you can catch up the next morning (I am a night owl and this pattern suits me well), but it’s not always possible. Later last week I had a bit of a sleep deprivation meltdown the night before going onto the Ben to try a new route. Every muscle in my body ached from the previous five days of bouldering at my limit. I was worried I would not be ready for the effort of trying a hard new route.

But a frantic run around trying to get everything in order was enough to see me walking up the Ben on Sunday morning with Helen, feeling okay. I did welcome a stop for tea in the hut though. We had been thinking of some objectives in Coire na Ciste, but the Ben was looking very spring-like, with the steeper cliffs looking black. So we were forced to explore the upper reaches of Observatory Gully, near my own route Echo Wall.

Our new routes on this part of Tower Ridge. The Great Chimney can be seen on the right side of the shot. Echo Wall is out of sight to the left.

Myself and Helen have done a string of new routes here, partly because it’s a great area and partly because it’s often white when just about everything else isn’t. Right of Echo Wall, Helen and I added an VIII,9 and an IX,9 already, but I was also interested in the complex walls to the left. There was clearly something good to be done, but hard to see exactly where with a myriad of overhangs and grooves and no obvious cracks to lead you.

Helen on the easier groove above the crux overhang,

After one false start, I headed up left along a technical ramp. I passed a curious in-situ peg with a krab on it, and further up came across another, and a wire, both with krabs on them. A previous highpoint from someone else? I spotted another in-situ piece in the next groove to the left, but I wanted to tackle the cracked overhang directly above my head. As usual with winter, my first couple of forays made me think it was not going to go. I could see why the climber before me had opted to go left again. But soon I figured out some hooks to get to the lip of the overhang. Heart in mouth, I reached over, hoping for something good. My pick found a solid hook, but as I weighted it, a block moved. I hung down on the tool below and wondered what to do. 

Which way now? 

It was either bail, or pull the block off and instantly whack it to the side before in hit me square in the face. This worked perfectly (it had to!) and I struggled over and up to a great ledge with options to go left or right. Right looked more possible, and I was tired, so after Helen joined me, I set off on what turned out to be a few teetery moves before gaining the final pitch of our previous route Red Dragon. I topped out on Tower Ridge just in time to catch the sunset and reflect on another great new line on a part of the Ben I am getting to know quite well. We later found out that the route had two previous attempts from the same team, skirting the crux overhang on the left but retreating from higher up. 

On my belay sessions, I resolved to return here in summer as well as winter and climb more of the great things here that wait to be done.

Nice moment to top out.

Knuckleduster on the Ben

Dave Almond approaching the bulge on pitch 2 of Knuckleduster Direct (the original version goes right, the direct goes left to continue up the general corner feature.)

Yesterday was a fun day climbing Knuckleduster Direct VIII,8 on the Ben with Helen Rennard and Dave Almond. It was also my first day leading trad since breaking my leg in the autumn. I was very slow placing the gear, and placed a lot. But otherwise fine. It was certainly a good idea to have a gentle break back in to trad leading again. The route was first climbed by Greg Boswell and Guy Robertson in 2012. All four pitches were really good fun, with mostly positive hooks, especially where you really need it. In fact, I got my tools stuck in the crack twice on pitch one!

The highlight of the day was the lovely moonlight as we abseiled back down. The Ben is a little worrying right now, with a lot of loose blocks which are not keyed-in as they normally would be since it’s been both very dry and snowless this winter so far. It still feels like November up there.

Helen seconding pitch 1

Curtain solo video

The Curtain - Solo from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo.

Here is a wee video shot on my GoPro of my solo of The Curtain on Ben Nevis the other week. I was up in the north face to do something else but because of conditions eded up going for a wee solo. I’d never done the Curtain and wanted to solo it for ages but never got round to it.

Get them in

Getting ready to get extremely pumped and scared all over again on the second pitch of Night Fury IX, 9, Ben Nevis.

The late winter/early spring period is an absolutely amazing time in Scotland. Everything is in great condition. I usually have to do a lot of work in the earlier part of the winter to pay the bills, but I use the time to do a lot of training as well. Ideally, when late Feb arrives and the weather turns perfect in Lochaber, I’m fit and keen.

Liam Fyfe enjoying Fàilte gu clach Cameron Font 7c in Glen Nevis.

It always goes past in a blur. You are either climbing, or at home in a stupor of exhaustion trying to eat, sleep and get ready for tomorrow’s adventure. The day after I was on Beinn Eighe, I showed Liam and Rhiannon the Arisaig Cave.

At first I thought I was too tired to climb at all, but once I got started I decided to have a training session and repeat some of the cave’s classic problems and show Liam the beta in the process. I was fine up to about Font 7c+ but didn’t quite have the strength to repeat 4th wave. Returning there got me inspired to plan a campaign on the remaining project, the link of Eternity’s Gate into 4th Wave. This would work out at 25 moves of Font 8a+ into a hard 8B. The link would very likely be a Font 8C. It’s in condition to work and try 6 or 7 months of the year and nearly always dry. Next winter, you’ll mostly find me in there.

The following morning we were at the Cameron Stone in Glen Nevis. I didn’t think anyone had ever climbed the obvious crimps coming in from the left to finish up ‘The News in Pidgin Gaelic’. If it has indeed not been done, then I call this problem ‘Failte gu clach Cameron’ Font 7c. I headed down to Glasgow afterwards to speak at TCA at a fundraising event for refugees. Good to see this kind of event being organised among climbers - we clearly need to show our governments the way when it comes to doing what we can to take care of the vulnerable.

About to get scared on pitch 2 of Night Fury, IX,9 Ben Nevis. The hanging hexes give an idea of the steepness! Photo: Helen Rennard

The next morning I walked into the Ben with Helen Rennard to try a new route on the walls right of Echo Wall, where we had already added a hard new route here last season. After getting through the initial hard section, I found myself at the foot of a smooth corner choked with ice. I knew it was going to be hard to protect and moved up gingerly, working hard to try and find a crucial runner. I got three psychological-only runners and continued, telling myself I would not go another move higher without finding a solid piece of protection. 6 metres higher, I was still in the same position, having ignored my own ultimatum for about 15 moves in a row. I was gripped, with legs shaking and looking at a 60 foot ground fall if a tool ripped, so I was very careful and kept a cool head. 

After about 25 minutes of excavating verglas, shaking and gibbering, I got a hex in and could relax again. From a hanging belay above I could see that the next pitch had a desperate looking overhang, again looking hard to protect as well as climb. Typical Ben Nevis. I told Helen I’d go up and arrange what gear I could and then make a decision if I should commit to the overhang.

The gear was mostly rubbish, but one sort of okay cam convinced me not to rig an abseil straight away. I hung in for ages, totally pumped trying to place a small ice hook. After countless attempts I finally got it to at least not fall out, but it was clearly rubbish. I was unsure what to do. A fall from over the lip would end up on the slab below the belay and it looked hard, if only for a short way.

Eventually I switched my brain off and committed, arms on the last of their reserves. I am still here to write this, so I didn’t make any mistakes. 

To follow the dragon naming theme from our route Red Dragon just to the left, we called the route Night Fury, IX, 9. My arms were so tired, it was an effort to hold the pen and write the description in the CIC hut new routes book.

Descending back into Observatory Gully with very tired arms.

Sundance on Beinn Eighe

Mixed climbing doesn’t always need to be a sufferfest - enjoying solid hooks and gear on the crux of Sundance VIII,8 on Beinn Eighe

I’m more torn than ever about how to focus my climbing time at the moment. With various factors coming together I feel like I’ve made some real progress in my bouldering and very keen to capitalise on it and keep training as hard as I have been over the past couple of weeks.

But winter action is here too. I was away last week and missed the excellent looking weekend in Scotland. Since I got home the other night, I was desperate to get back out and swing my ice tools on something. I arranged to climb with Steve Perry and he mentioned he had wanted to climb ‘Sundance’ VIII,8 on Beinn Eighe for a long time.

On a good forecast I rolled out of bed at 2.45 still stiff from my boulder training and jumped in the car with a monster cup of tea. We met Murdo, Uisdean and Ian Parnell in the car park and walked in with them having a good chat before they headed off for their project of the day. After an 8am breakfast on the summit ridge, we headed round to the cliff which was in fine rimed condition and sporting some good looking bits of ice on Sundance.

The crux 2nd pitch was excellent, solid hooks and bomber gear all the way. After the first few moves, the hooks were massive ‘hero hooks’ (as Ian put it) that were so secure, so I could enjoy the surroundings as I climbed as well as on the belay. The next pitch was just more of the same, pulling over small roofs onto icicles with sinker placements and good gear. 

So do I choose boulder training, and climb something pretty hard in another month or so, or do my usual all-rounder attempt to be a Jack of all trades but master of none…?

Lovely still morning walking round to Far East Wall

Good conditions - a rare moment when I find myself being in the right place at the right time in winter.

Some gnarlies eyeing up todays action.

Testing out my new Prohpet jacket - If you like the Fitzroy, you may get still more excited about this one. Well I do, anyway.

Walking out with a nice view over to Liathach

Scottish Winter Kit list and Ellis Brigham ice event

Scottish Winter Kit list from Ellis Brigham on Vimeo.

Here is a video I made going through the kit I take for Scottish winter climbing - sack, clothing, climbing equipment, food etc. It’s something people quite rightly obsess over since it makes a huge difference to your day on the face.

Thanks to Ellis Brigham, Mountain Equipment and Gore-Tex for arranging the video. Speaking of Brighams. I’m speaking and running ice climbing technique masterclasses at their stores in London Covent Garden on Feb 3rd and Manchester on Feb 10th.

If you’d like to win a free ice climbing masterclass at the indoor ice walls in both locations, head here to enter (and best be quick). The classes are during the afternoon. In the evening lectures, I’ll be speaking about various adventures on Scottish hard bits of climbing and other adventures on big faces around the world. Look forward to seeing y’all there. You can get your tickets for the evening lectures from here, and it may be a plan to get them in advance.

Southern Freeze

Enjoying the fine position on the second pitch of Southern Freeze IX,9 Photo Helen Rennard

The Arrochar Alps are not just my favourite winter playground because I’m from Glasgow. I still love going there in winter even though I live under the Ben these days. Just before I moved to the highlands in 2007 I visited the south peak of the Cobbler to attempt Ken Johnstone’s summer E2 ‘Southern Freeze’. It was an obvious winter line, being festooned with luminous lumps of moss and turf. That day I discovered that the route was pretty hard and sustained. It took me around two hours of being continually pumped to climb the first 25 metres to the crux bulge. When I got there, I just didn’t have any more juice in the tank. I scraped about uselessly at the bulge, then lowered off.

The Cobbler south peak in fine condition. Southern Freeze takes the left skyline through the bulges.

It was always on my mind and I made a couple of abortive tries to go back, mostly finding it out of condition or poor weather. On Friday we knew the Cobbler would be in excellent condition and Helen Rennard and I made a difficult journey down from Lochaber in heavy snow. The walk was similarly slow and I started up the wall at noon. The same delicate, pumpy and at times scary two hours later, I arrived back at my highpoint. But this time, either with recent training paying off, or the benefit of experience, I had power left in my arms. After a short rest I climbed quickly and confidently across the bulge, finding the hooks more quickly than I expected. I didn’t take more than a split second to take in the exhilarating position on the lip. I was far too busy grunting and eyeing up the tufts above. Once Helen had warmed up and joined me at the belay, I swung around an easy bulge and cruised up the much easier corner above, taking in the spectacular afternoon light looking down the Clyde and across to Ben Lomond. 

On the crux of Southern Freeze, IX,9 Photo: Helen Rennard

After a very busy (18 hour) work day the next day, I picked Helen up at 5am, two hours after I’d got to bed and was feeling decidedly unmotivated as we drove back south to go for Mammoth (IX,9) on The Brack. I was even less psyched meeting Stuart the Postie in the car park, who confidently predicted the turf would not be frozen on such a low mountain. I still thought the steep open walls would be frozen even if the grade Vs with deep corners would be insulated by the snow. 

I had been so busy with work the day before, I hadn’t got time to look at Mammoth’s description. I just knew it took steep cracks right of the big arete on the crag. What the hell, it probably wouldn’t be white/frozen anyway. Well it turned out to be both white and frozen! I climbed a 10 metre corner to the first steep crack and launched up this. It looked desperate and under the liberal plastering it took me ages hanging right on the steepest bit trying to find the hooks to pull over. Eventually I spotted a wee flake and the move was easy! If only I hadn’t had the 30 minute workout to find it.

Mammoth looking in great condition.

At the next belay I could see this was a logical place to climb the crack on the left as Guy had mentioned in his blog. But that was the third pitch? I suddenly realised I must have missed out the initial 10m pitch which is rather indirect off to the left of the main line of cracks. Idiot. Oh well, there wasn’t much I could do about it now! So I just got stuck into the next tech 9 pitch. Guy had mentioned perfect protection but the crack today was choked with ice and not accepting gear readily. On the overhanging part, I got a killer no-hands kneebar which helped a lot to buy me enough time to fiddle wires into the icy crack. Later Helen said she just touched them and they fell out. I managed to complete the pitch without getting too pumped and still felt like I had plenty of energy. I think my recent training changes have another thumbs up. The last pitch was thankfully a bit more chilled tech 7 which I enjoyed despite getting cold hands. We abseiled back down the wall and with my head torch beam I sussed out where we went wrong on the first pitch. I suggested to Helen that I just tie in and do the pitch for completeness, but she was shivering and not making keen noises, so we kept going down. Next time I’ll make a point of reading the guidebook. 

Startring up the crux pitch of Mammoth IX, 9 on the Brack. Photo: Helen Rennard

Heading out left to the turfier crack o the net tech 9 pitch.

I got a handy kneebar right at the hardest bit. Handy because I fumbled my wires and nearly dropped all of them.

Both routes were a brilliant reminder of how good Southern Highlands mixed climbing is. Mammoth is a fantastic pumpy line and quite low stress since it’s well protected. Although we annoyingly missed out on the first bit, the climbing on Southern Freeze was a good bit harder overall so I think I’ll suggest IX,9 for that as well. I’m also beginning to wonder if two of my new routes on the Ben back in March (High Pressure Crack and Red Dragon) could potentially be IX as they had harder climbing. A fun start to the mixed season, even though I’m about to leave for Catalunya.

Helen dispatching another pitch on Mammoth