Ben Nevis II, Dave nil

Arriving on the Ben - wet, cold and windy.
The Comb appears from behind the clouds
A last minute blast of sun offers some hope for the next day?
Tourists inspecting indicator wall
A nice broken spectre lines up with the Comb's triangular shadow
A sublime morning
Reflections of north face on the Coire na Ciste lochan

I bit the bullet and headed back to The Ben for a second blast on the arete. Day 1 was wet and boring, i'd finished my book by 4pm. With the hut empty, the only options were weather inspection, gear inspection or introspection. Day 2 was better but the cliffs were soaking and I figured the Nevis summer season was probably over. Day 3 was stunning and I was able to get my shoes on and climb some moves at last. I don't think I'm good enough to climb the project right now. I'm sure I could do it if I could get more time on it, but that is pretty difficult as the good dry conds are hard to come by at 1100m on the north face. To do it in a few days would need 9a rock fitness and a healthy dose of deathwish. Maybe I need to train more for a bit. I'd like to go back to my aim of repeating some other hard E's. I have a feeling this route could be really hard, but I need some more comparison. Who knows when I'll be able to back to it? Next week would be nice, but next year would mean I'd have the chance to prepare. We'll see how things pan out.

Dumbarton rock looking spooky

Why is it the moon appears much smaller than it was at the time?

New articles

I've put up several new articles on the articles page of my main site including links to some already out there. I'll be adding many more over the coming weeks now the site is up and running properly. You'll find them here. Note I've put up some reviews I've written about finger injuries and also climbing research in general. These are just essays written by me and haven't been published in print, but anyone studying sport science with an interest in climbing research or wanting to find out more about climbing injury rehab might find the reference lists save you a fair bit of searching time!

Also check out the new print climbing magazine in the UK which is starting up in September. Should be interesting! Gravity Magazine

Body clock issues

The last few weeks have been fairly crazy. I tend to dive into whatever I'm doing and don't let go until I've done what I wanted to. The objective over the past few weeks was to do some much needed work and sort things out for the future. I went slightly over the top and three weeks of 18/19 hour days have left me feeling a little burnt out. I decided to stop and go climbing, I've only been out (not counting training) for 4 or 5 days in the last month. I tried to get up and go at 5.30 this morning but my body wouldn't let me - it still thinks 5.30 is time to go to bed!

At least I've been able to keep a skeleton training regime going and my endurance feels halfway there again. So The Ben is in my mind again and if the warm weather returns I will go up again soon. To be honest I'm probably a bit scared to go back up there and work on the arete project. The prospect of leading it looms close behind a few more days of work. It's probably academic anyway unless a lot of luck with conditions materialises.

End of the affair (well almost!)

Resting on Pressure (V13). Now the pressure is gone it's time for a change of scenery (Photo: Hotaches Images)

Dumbarton Rock - it still inspires and humbles me, but I am nearly done with my battles here (at last).

I was round at Dumby just training on my enduro circuit tonight and got casually involved in doing a couple of other problems I hadn't done in years with other folks. It was funny revisiting another 'old classic' I did when I was 17. It really brought it home a bit of choking cabin fever I've been feeling lately. In need of pastures new big time. Well not surprising I suppose after 12 years of Dumbarton Rock climbing. I could (and do at the moment) still use the place for training no problem, but I really have to make an effort to switch off my brain before a session to stop me getting bored. I've come to realise that my core motivation for climbing is new routes and places. However, once I focus on a climb I won't give up until it's done, sooner or later. There's never been a time when that's not happened. I don't care if (like for Rhapsody and Pressure) it means spending an infinite amount of time on it. So it's not so much the new places and routes themselves that are important to me, but just that there are new challenges to complete.

That excitement in the back of my head of a project has to be there. Even last year at Dumbarton I was inspired, because that Pressure cave was still there winking at me every time I walked past to the boulders, and Rhapsody staring down. I wanted to win! Now they are behind me, I need that feeling from somewhere else. Thankfully pastures new are starting to appear on the horizon, more of that later.

There are still two lines on the Dumbarton boulders I want to climb. They are 'optional' i.e. if I move away before doing them I won't fret, but I'm sure they will give me a good scrap in the coming cold months.

I'm sure it won't be long before someone else walks round and is fired up by Rhapsody as I was when I saw Requiem at 15 (if it hasn't happened already?). It's a good feeling to flick that utterly committed switch in your head that you ARE going to do something, no matter what. Anyway, for that guy/girl, after they have got Rhapsody out of the way they can make their own mark with the wall to the right (bolted). I've done all but one of the moves. It's an F9 something. If it was a smidgen easier I'd get psyched, so I'm sure it will happen. Then there's the wall to the left. I would be honoured to shake the hand of the person who climbs that. Again, fully possible but...

Scottish Icefall!

Scottish ice climbers check this out. I found it on Flickr Scotland's inspiring blog. Wow.

When winters were winters

It does depress me when I see pictures like this. It would be nice to think global warming will go away and that one of these seasons the old school Scottish winters would come back. Not that Scottish winters have been catastrophically bad of late, but Am Baile talks about three steam engines linked together to clear snow blocks. I'm off to plant a tree (and no I won't drive there!).

Some other cool photos on Am Baile are of the Ben Nevis summit observatory (I'm sure the big rusty tube lying under observatory buttress as I walked past last week is the chimney flue in the picture!), rock climbing on St Kilda and a potential new dry tooling venue in Glen Croe, Arrochar.

Why is Lewis so popular?

Those who haven't yet experienced the Gneiss of the Outer Hebrides sea cliffs, might be forgiven for wondering why Scottish climbers drive past all of the highland cliffs and jump on a ferry to the furthest corner of the UK? Well, yeah the rock is beautiful stuff, but thats not all. Blogs like Silversprite illuminate some of the other attractions on show. I've never seen beaches elsewhere on earth that even come close. Hey and I'm going there in 2 weeks!!!

The landscape of Lewis and Harris would leave a mark on anyone I think. I can't describe it really. All I can say is - everything just seems richer, colours, the rock texture; everything.

Introducing the Online Climbing Coach

It's been two years since I finished my masters in sports science and I was really beginning to miss keeping up with the field and writing about it. Of course I've still been able to practice it as my own self-coach (my originial reason for studying) and through my climbing coaching services, but I really wanted to get back into studying the science in a big way. So I decided to start a new site called the Online Climbing Coach. It brings together the very highest standard information on the web on improving at climbing together in one place as well as a a site for me to publish regular news, analysis, articles and interviews. It's purpose is ulimately to make everyone who reads the site get a little (but hopefully a lot!) better at climbing.

Please let me know what you think and give me your requests for more information or help with anything you like relavant to the site!

Not bad for plan B

Anti midge tactics at Steall hut crag, Glen Nevis. Officially recognised as the midgiest crag in the known universe.

Redpath and myself were hoping for some new route action on the Ben, but dark clouds meant plan B (Steall Hut Crag and the unrepeated Arcadia E7 6b) was swung into action. The anti midge hoods were out before we even left the car park. Steall is the ultimate crag for hardcore climbers. Lets face it you have to be pretty inspired to suffer the midge blitz. Thankfully, the routes are good. I'd already done the 2nd ascent of the right hand of the criss-cross E7 cracks (Leopold 8a+) and never seemed to be at the crag when the left hand one (Arcadia 8a) was dry. Arcadia was Gary Latter's creation from '93 and I've not heard of anyone repeating it.

Steall was Scotland's 'futuristic' sport crag in the early nineties. It still is!

I headed up it first and spent ages re-cleaning the holds and taking out the manky dangerous in-situ wires. Second time around I set of with my trademark "this isn't a redpoint but..." and enjoyed a good fight. After the two cruxes it inevitably became a redpoint, but with some badly fumbled clips and poor warmup the elbows and eyeballs were out and 'I feel like chicken tonight' was ringing in my ears on the finishing moves. Redpath never shouts "go on Dave!" unless I'm really messing it up and I'm sure I heard it at least twice. So Arcadia was bullied into submission. But who cares, it was fun.

Notes: Steall anti midge tactics - Most feel the only option is to climb with jumper midge defence on, but this only leads to severe overheating at 30 feet and falling off in a midge/heat screaming abdab rage. Ric's tactic was to wear a wooly red balaclava all the way up Leopold (first ever balaclava ascent of an 8a+?) but then Ric wears driving gloves! My tactic is definitely best. Climb with T-shirt on to first shake out, rip off T-shirt and slap one's body with it furiously to fight the little blighters off your pale flesh, before jettisoning and forging on midge free at correct working temp.

Bring on winter.