First 8c+!

I’m heading home from Spain now, worn out and sore from an intense few days of sport climbing. It was my third week long visit to Siurana during the past year. On the first trip I was really just cooling off after having just finished Rhapsody. At the time I was curious to find out if Rhapsody was 8c+ for physical difficulty, so I dogged up a beautiful 8c+ called L’odi Social, which was a similar length and angle. I got on pretty well (and confirmed Rhapsody at 8c+ in my own mind), but I couldn’t finish it by the end of the week. After I returned home, the idea that 8c+ on bolts, and on limestone could be possible for me galvanised it as a clear goal in my head, and I decided to come back to Siurana at the next opportunity.

8c+ is by no means cutting edge in world terms these days, within sport climbing at least. But there are still not many all-round climbers who have managed it I suppose. In my earlier years of climbing, this level was still extremely rare, and only the most dedicated of athletes had reached it. So, although it’s just a meaningless number, it represents something that was inspirational to me when I started climbing and training furiously in my late teens. The idea that I could actually complete one myself was most definitely worth working through the final hurdle and booking more time in Toni’s refugi Siurana.

I spent five more days on L’odi in November, but I paid the price of having tried to do too much in 2006. After taking a year of avoiding work and training for Rhapsody I had little choice but to take on stack loads of work to get on a financial even keel again during the summer and autumn. So my fitness was just not good enough and I had to settle for getting just past the crux.

This time I was back with Claire. I knew the moves, the conditions were favourable for the Scots temperament (we don’t get on with the heat very well), and I had nine days climbing. Time enough to get used to the limestone, top up fitness, and hopefully get to the belay. Those sneaked in ice factor sessions sorted me right out, and on day two I made the last hard move, and couple of days later, wobbled through and clipped the belay.

Here are a few video stills by Hot Aches of me climbing L'odi Social 8c+, Siurana, Spain. This one is just composing on an awkward undercut just before the crux section.

Setting up for the crux (well, it was the crux for me anyway).

Trying to keep it together on the wobbly upper wall...

The sting in the tail...

As always when I get the opportunity to climb in famous sport climbing venues, I was both humbled and inspired by the performances of the world class sport climbers also out there. Of course, I am never satisfied, and breaking a new grade always leads to thoughts and plans of breaking the next one! With every grade higher you get, it becomes clearer that you are only limited by your desire to see if you can go further. I think that I have the motivation and possibly the resources to hand to work towards 9a. I am under no illusion that it will take some very significant changes in my habits to make it happen. I am psyched to have a go and see how I get on. I have to be careful though because my goals in winter climbing, trad climbing and bouldering are also high and will need work of a similar magnitude. But certain things should be easier for me in 2007 than in 2006 that should help me manage the physical workload.

But for a brief moment before launching into all of this, I will be contented with nine good days with Claire in a lovely place, recharging batteries and doing 8c+.

Claire starting up a 5+ in Siurana, I did start belaying after she clipped it!

Claire, me and a chilly Siurana sunset.

Start of February!

How did it get to February already? Two days ago I got back from my working mini-tour of the UK, lecturing and coaching (and writing while en-route to the next city). I was very pleased with how my work went on the whole, although I still need to learn to write more efficiently.

Lecturing is still a strange experience for me even though I have done a great many now. My point of view in my lecture subject (the sport of climbing) is quite unusual and unique so what I am trying to do is communicate the reality of my experience to other climbers who have a very different experience and background. Not always easy. The biggest challenge is often describing how seemingly hard grades are actually very accessible if you get round the intimidation of seeing them as massive obstacles and start to see them as a series of small do-able steps. I definitely spotted a couple of audience members rolling their eyes as I tried to explain that the UK’s hardest trad routes aren’t really that bad. I wasn’t doing a very good job. The trouble with this kind of argument is that its easy to sound elitist when you have no backup from others. At least in E11 there is Niall McNair spelling out how crap I was at climbing in earlier years to underline the point that technique and strength are only one half of the jigsaw puzzle. Just deciding you are going to do something is the other half. Or maybe more than half. I guess what I was trying to say was not that E10 etc isn’t hard, it is, but rather that looking at your own levels of strength and technique on the rock as a measure to decide that you can never climb these grades is the wrong measure. Looking for the ability to open yourself up to the possibility of failure and the love of trying hard is really what needs to be done.

Andy K does an excellent job of showing how there is room for much British comedy amateurism even at an elite level in alpinism, so long as the psyche is there to get out there and just get it done, no matter how big the challenge. Of course in reality Andy is as switched on and prepared as they come, don’t let him fool you! But in his lectures I find myself thinking “I like what he does, but I could never do that”. My objective when talking about climbing or coaching it is to demonstrate that anyone can go much further than they realise, all that is necessary is a firm decision to go for it. I have much to learn here.

In recent months I have coached many more climbers and learned a great deal about patterns in what holds climbers or sports people back. I can see that the overriding common theme is that most climbers simply don’t know how to try really hard. Of course I already knew this from my research in the area of maximum strength output. It was laughable to see how easy it was to influence the results of maximum finger strength scores just by varying the volume of your encouragement! This effect has been demonstrated directly in plenty of studies. The problem is that many climbers want to get better without trying hard. Unfortunately, beyond a certain limited level, this is not possible. Trying hard and getting outside your comfort zone is a bit like getting into the swimming pool. You want to toe dip and put it off as long as possible. But once you finally jump in, after a few minutes you wondered what all the fuss was about.

The game is to find a way to love trying hard, instead of avoiding it. Once this is mastered, the rest is just going through the daily motions of bringing the body along with the mind.

Anyway, I went on a tangent, sorry! Now my scheduled work is over I am in Spain waiting for the rain to stop, trying to write, and then maybe I can climb for a few days. The picture is from yesterday at Barcelona Zoo. The Giraffe was quite polished and maybe about V1?

Ice and Mixed Indoor Action

The last few days of my work tour took me back north to the Ice Factor to set the routes for the UK Ice and Mixed champs with Dave Brown, Jo George and Tom Lee. I had to commute there from Birmingham that morning which was quite an adventure of planes, cars and buses. But a 1pm I was screwing holds on…

At 1.30am I was still screwing holds on and testing the Men’s final route. At first I think it was about M10+ (Way too hard for a UK comp). But rather than have to reset the whole thing we just stuck the key in the adjustable leading wall and cranked the angle back 10 degrees to M9. The Comp was superb fun to watch. Tooling is always exciting stuff because the falls are so wild and the rescued near falls are even more wild! It’s going to be on the box (for BBC Scotland viewers anyway) on the Adventure Show at the end of Feb so keep an eye out for it (I’ll post up the time here once I know it). Tony Stone’s biceps looked a fair bit larger than last year and they took him to the belay on the final route, winning the comp. I don’t know about Dave, but I was certainly nerve wracked watching each ice and tooling route, praying that only one climber would reach the top. Amazingly that’s how it worked out. God knows how I managed to judge it, but I felt pretty happy afterwards that most people had a good day either watching or being part of the action.

some pics on the Hot Aches Blog

Mountain Equipment Winter Week

Every year my sponsors Mountain Equipment run a week of winter skills courses for outdoor retail staff which gives ME a chance to show their kit working in the environment its designed for, and for the shop staff to get out and learn the skills you need to travel about on winter mountains and have a good time too! Our base was the Plas Y Brenin’s Scottish home from home in Ballachulish. I joined in too for the crack and to do some presentations at night.

These weeks are always a really interesting insight for me into the world of instructing and guiding climbing, not to mention talking about climbing gear a lot. Although it has many appeals and the Brenin team seem to have a whale of a time, I have never been keen to become a mountain guide myself. I’m lucky right now that there is a rapidly growing interest in coaching pure performance in climbing. Both disciplines have a massive variety of knowledge required to pass on to students, which make them very interesting. When it comes down to it I suppose I like performance coaching better because I get to deal closely with movement on rock and mental tactics as the ‘main course’ of the activity, and I don’t have to walk in to Stob Coire every day!

However, the 4.45 return to the hotel for tea and cakes was most convenient, allowing time for a hasty fingerboard session in my room (once I’d found a decent doorframe) before dinner, and then a rapid fire session in the Ice Factor bouldering wall. One thing about training with very limited time is that it really helps you stick to priorities and get down to business. I had an excellent anaerobic 30 move circuit set in minutes and by home time my forearms looked like balloons. Returning back to a long term boulder project the following week I was amazed that I dispatched a link that has been two years in the making. Hopefully the endurance kick will help me out in Spain first, but afterwards its time to get serious and see if I can finish off the Dumby project. I am starting to feel my fitness returning. The spring is taking shape.

Here are some more shots from the week. The one above is a wintery stream in the Mamores.

Dorsal Arete

Practising Ice axe breaking on a wild day.

Two week tour

Today I start a bit of a tour of the UK working for a few weeks. First up is a week working for my sponsors Mountain Equipment, out on the hill each day with folk learning winter skills in Lochaber's mountains. The gales have been raging here in Scotland for some time and every night I hear new ominous crashes and bangs of more bits falling off my tenement flat. So I reckon it will be quite hardcore. Either that or we might see a bit of 'Ice Factor' winter skills action (i.e. drinking a lot of tea in between some stints in the fridge).

After that I'm giving lectures about my climbing in Carlisle on Jan 23rd, Birmingham (coaching and lecturing about Scottish climbing) on Jan 24th, showing E11 and talking about Rhapsody at the Birmingham mountain film fest on the 25th and then heading north to Glen Coe again to set routes for the ice and mixed comp on the 26th. Apparently I'll be providing some comment on all yer performances on the comp day (27th) for the TV! So I do hope you are all working off the christmas tyre.

Somewhere in all that lot I have to train. I'm not sure how thats gonna work really. hopefully Alltshellach has some good doorframe edges?

More Blind Vision pics

Diff sent me through a few video stills of the start of Blind Vision.

Note to self: work on body tension.

Wet Grit take III (but this time the rain stopped just in time!)

A bit of relief on the top out of Blind Vision, Froggatt

I’m sitting in Dave Brown’s car heading back up the M6 from grit trip number three. I reckoned I might be ready to lead Blind Vision E10 7b at Froggatt on my next day on, having had about three hours messing about on it between the showers on the previous two washed out trips. So myself, Dave B, Diff and Tony summoned all our optimism and trusted the good forecast and convinced ourselves that we might be able to pull off a day trip send from Scotland.

So I joined the early bird commuters on the first train into Glasgow to start my own commute back to Froggatt Edge. On arrival in the peak we found to our dismay but not surprise that forecast was entirely spurious and it was in fact pissing down.. AGAIN! More gallons of tea followed in Hathersage and then sitting in the car at Froggatt watching hail bouncing off the windows. Dave B kept heading out for peek and pronouncing that the “last shower is coming through now”. Several last showers later. It was after 3pm and time to admit defeat. But only the kind of psyche you get when you drive halfway across the UK to get to the crag made us get out and walk in anyway for a look. As we wandered along the rain faded out and shards of sunshine came through. My pace quickened a bit.

The gale had given the headwall a super fast dry-off and only the last part of slingshot was still soaked. But we were armed with towels. A quick traverse along the crag base and the sun had set. I towelled off the top of the boulder problem and although the light was fading, I went for a crack at soloing up Slingshot. Blind Vision starts up a highball problem called Slingshot which is about Font 7c+ or 8a. The first move is the hardest, but also a beautiful move to leap for a finger edge and hold a slow controlled swing to stay on. After Slingshot there is a wee ledge from which to receive your thrown up harness and ropes and get psyched for the upper wall of E8 6c (F7c+ climbing with dubious but hopefully dependable gear).

After a few minutes I hit the jump and feet amazingly weightless as my feet swung back. After a blur of slaps I was standing on the ledge and all of a sudden the character of the day changed from a write off and a mess around at the crag at dusk, to a harrowing decision to lead an E8 in rapidly fading twilight. 4.30 passed as I got the gear in place and reversed back to the ledge for real decision time. I really questioned my judgement, staring into the already black valley below with street lights twinkling and car headlamps casting their beams clearly. It wasn’t so much my judgement to make the correct decision about whether I could climb the upper wall safely that I doubted. I have many bold leads behind me, and much practice at this type of decision. It was more my two minute window to make the decision, before the light faded beyond any reasonable sense of it not being night time!

Leading the headwall on Blind Vision. The pic is a a bit blurry as Dave B was shooting on iso 1600 at 1/3 sec!

I took my two minutes carefully and the answer was there – I knew I would be safe. So I chalked up and dispatched it.

Anyhow. Time to get back to the writing backlog… Good effort to the Hot Aches guys for driving 2000 miles just to film 15 metres of climbing (they blogged about the day here) and also to Tony for the scary belay with no prior knowledge of the route and no time to explain the plan, just ‘right I’m going for it, stick me on belay mate!’

PS… One thing I can’t understand though after visiting the Climbing Works (well done guys BTW!) during one of the washout days is why routes like Blind Vision haven’t had stacks of ascents. The hardest trad routes in the UK in general really aren’t that hard! There are so many strong lads and lassies kicking around who would mince up the likes of Parthian, Blind Vision, Rhapsody etc etc… At the Climbing Works I saw many many climbers much stronger than me. What has happened to the Mick Fowler attitude of “how hard can it be?”

The top of the route after the lead - it was pretty damn dark!

PPS… I’ve heard people reckon that Blind Vision might not be that good a route because of the ledge in the middle. But I would still recommend it to anyone. The moves on Slingshot and the top wall are very aesthetic and its also not so dangerous which is always nice. The first thing I thought about it was how excellent it was that Adrian Berry managed the first ascent as he doesn’t boulder much – awesome!

Grades grades grades.......

I took the paragraphs below/rant out of the post about Blind Vision and posted it separately so it doesn't bore people and to separate the often negative bullshit that goes along with grade arguments from the enjoyment of the climbing I had.

So here we go once again – another E10 repeat and the same tiresome process of deciding ‘what grade is it in my opinion?’ It would be so nice to sidestep the whole shebang. The primary reason being that it always overshadows the important part; the climbing. However, it is important nonetheless and I must give it thought. If you are interested to hear, I’ll think aloud right now… (if not I don’t blame you!!)

What are the facts I have to go on then?

Blind Vision took me three 1 hour sessions of top roping (curtailed by rain) followed by a lead in less than good visibility. It comprises of a highball (but not exceptionally highball) Font 7c+ or 8a, followed by an E8. But the boulder problem is hard enough to prevent a good proportion of E8 or even a few E9 climbers succeeding on it.

My opinion is that an E10 climber should dispatch Font 8a no problem (if not Font 8b). And anyone who can climb the boulder problem should find the top wall pretty easy unless they have very little experience in headpointing.

Other feelings… Blind Vision is definitely easier than If Six was Nine (which I have done the moves on during a 30 min session on the way home from Breathless). Its also easier than the Scottish E9s and I’d say it felt like 2 grades easier than Rhapsody. However, its harder than Breathless and Divided Years (but then they are E8s!).So these days I am getting more confused about the difference between the grades at E8 and above. My plan (weather and work permitting) is to try to repeat more existing hard trad soon. So I should do that first and then I’ll have a clearer idea of what E9, E10 and E11 mean.

But maybe not… This is why it takes more repeats to get a consensus going. One thing to make clear is that I do not intend to sidestep the process of forming a strong opinion about what grade all of these routes are. But I’m aware that with very few others going around a repeating hard routes, the reputations of these climbs (in the short term at least) are subject to the opinions of a very few climbers. Not a good situation. So it is good plan I think to repeat as many routes as possible before casting an opinion that affects how the sport views the hardest routes and how they relate to one another as achievements. I see from reading Dave Graham’s blog that the same process is happening still at the top level in sport climbing. Dave seems to be battling whether the inflation of early key routes like Action Direct up to 9a when they were never actually given that grade in the first place has caused a knock on effect that continues today. Dave at times seems like a one man mission to downgrade a lot of routes. Some people accuse me of the same thing in trad. Those people don’t know me though and make stupid assumptions about my motivation for climbing. I think that Dave G is only after a more level playing field and credit where credit is due for both his peers and predecessors in sport climbing. I feel the same about trad. What Dave doesn’t really deal with in his blog post is that the actual number is irrelevant. Who cares if Action Direct is 7a or 10a? its just a number. Dave is swimming against a tide by recognising that Action Direct might be ‘old school 8c+’ just like Hubble. Are a world full of sponsored climbers going to listen if he wants all these 9as to come down to 8c? nae chance. So maybe the minority of old school routes will have to have the upgrade in recognition that they are still up there above many other routes masquerading as being cutting edge.

The same themes are being played out in trad exactly. It seems to me that the only ideal situation would be for several climbers to repeat all the hardest trad routes there are and then say with genuine authority which ones are E9s and which are E10 or harder. For my part at least I can say I am out there on the crag working my way through the routes one by one. It may be that I will feel that more routes are in need of losing an E point in order to be fair to their counterparts. If people think I have some other agenda in my efforts other than to enjoy climbing and compete, f**k em. What more can you do than base your opinion on hard won ascents rather than armchair specualtion, and be honest.

Wet Gritstone take II

Messing about on Ape Drape (V5) Froggatt as the rain came down (Photos by Hot Aches)

Determined to nail at least one gritstone route after the washout trip over new year, we headed back for round two, with a good forecast this time... apparently.

Apparently not! As soon as I got warmed up and ready for a lead, the heavens opened again and the familiar routine of drying gear and sitting in cafes downing gallons of tea commenced once more. After three days of this we rereated back to Scotland again to work some more and keep our ears to the ground for signs of winter high pressures on the way. Depressing stuff.

A small foothold, on a damp gritstone slab

Unfortunately time for climbing is running out and some work for my sponsors and some more lectures are approaching fast. Here's hoping for a break in the rain before then???

Check out my lectures page if you are in Cumbria, I've just put up details of a lecture I'm doing in Carlisle on Jan 23rd. After that I'm speaking and coaching in Birmingham on Jan 24th and 25th before heading back north again to set some gnarlyness at the Ice Factor ice and tooling comp on the 26th/27th.

Wet Gritstone

Another day, another dump of rain, Burbage, Peak District

My plan was to get a few days of climbing on Gritstone over the new year holiday, since I had to cancel the last planned trip there, I wasn't going to bail out again. So this time, despite an appauling forecast, we just jumped in the hire car (since mine is still pending repair from its recent theft attempt) and went. Nothing ventured and all that...

Most of the trip was spent peering out of my cinched up hood at wet crags, or drying out clothes and ropes at night. However, the rain stopped breifly a few times and allowed 45 minute windows in which to dive onto grit routes and try some moves. There was no time for warming up or resting, just a frantic continuous effort to climb as many moves as possible before the next shower raced in and soaked everything again.

I tried a few lovely routes and the psyche is on for one in particular, so if I can get some more work nailed over the next few days I will try to return.