Footwork

Good footwork is everything on hard climbs. In took 4 days to work out this shake out.

Project, Dumbarton boulders. Photo by Michael Tweedley

BMC international winter meet

The Comb on Ben Nevis in FINE condition yesterday

I just got home from a week at the BMC international meet at Glenmore Lodge. It's a Biannual event where climbers from the UK act as hosts and invite others from all over the world (23 countries this time) to come and sample the trials and tribulations of Scottish winter climbing. It was my first time at the meet and It was quite awesome! 80 psyched climbers meeting up, going out climbing every day with lectures by some of them every night is very inspiring to be around.

Who has first dibs on the belay? two toolers about to collide at Birnam Quarry

The Scottish weather gods lived up to their reputation and gave us a bit of everything. The first two days involved swimming in mush in the Northern Corries. Then, storms on the hill sent us to Birnam Quarry for dry (wet?!) tooling where everyone got pumped and struggled with Fast and Furious. The next day the warm weather and more gales dictated a bouldering trip to Cummingston where many problems were dispatched in the sunshine and rain. I was climbing with 2 Japanese 'hotshots' Manome and Yokoyama. They bouldered until everyone else was stood around with arms folded and tapping feet waiting to leave. It was cool that they were so psyched. Every time they came off they just giggled and gestured to eachother or me "now you try!". We tried and tried and possibly did some new things? There were many nodding heads on the minibus back to Glenmore.

Mano happy to be celebrating his birthday with a perfect day new routing on The Ben

At 5.30 the next morning Stu powered through driving sleet all the way across the Laggan road and we arrived at the Ben to find it iced up like a big birthday cake for Mano. We headed into Coire na Ciste and as almost every party was starting up routes of grade VII or harder, I pointed to several unclimbed routes and left it up to Yoko and Mano to decide which looked the most fabulous. They are ice masters so opted for a potential new thin neve route I knew about from a picture in Ken's Ben Nevis book. Above The Good Groove I had seen another couple of parallel thin ramps that get well plastered up there. The Good Groove is VII so I reckoned this one could be a bit harder? The guys wanted a VII but it was obvious from Mano's performance on the first pitch of the Good Groove that this would be a bit easy for them really!

The CIC turbine - nae shortage of breeze up there like!

Mano and Yoko get the battle armour on outside the CIC while the smell of Bacon Rolls eminates from the hut.

Mano batters up the first pitch, eating up the thin Neve like it wasn't there (so to speak)

So when I led through I took a peek at the Good Groove off the the right and the ramps in the headwall above. Hmmm, bugger it lets go up there and see what happens. After a long pitch of snaking between ramps I took a belay at the base of the top ramp which ran out into two ominous looking overhanging corners to my right. They looked blank. Woops, maybe I'm going to make the guys abb off on their last day before going all the way home to Japan??

Yoko watches as Mano gingerly scratches across the ramp. Someone get this man a new helmet.

Mano starting up the crux pitch, about to head into the second overhanging corner, only to come back across that horrible slab to the belay!

Mano worked his way carefully across the ramp which was very thinly plated and a little bit scratcy for all our liking, especially as good runners didn't come quickly above my dubious belay. But Mano was pretty hardcore, and dismissing the first blank corner he got established below the second one. An hour passed and me and Yoko agreed it was getting a little chilly as Mano scratched and grunted in the base of the corner before announcing it was too hard and devoid of hooks and reversing, ushering me to have a try. I was baltic and for abbing off, but they did come from Japan for this so I moaned about cold hands and gibbered into the corner myself to confirm Mano's verdict.

But then I found a scratchy flake hook on the right wall, dropped into a deep egyptian (always the secret) and next thing I had a runner and a thin hook above. I came down for a caramel log and a word with myself and had a proper look. After six more repetitions (only one caramel log though unfortunately) I got a few moves further and used up a lot of forearm juice failing to get anymore gear in. I retreated down again and hid in the base of the corner to think about it. I didn't want to lean out and see the guys, they must have been getting really cold and waiting for some sort of outcome.

The next time I really went for it as I knew the time had come to either commit or admit the abseil was inevitable. I got really pumped and scared the higher I got and felt a little ill when a really bad hook broke and I almost took the fall. A bit of shouting to re-focus and accept I was commited and I flailed into the groove above, so pumped I had to shake out before I could even open the krabs on my harness to place a much needed runner. Soon I was hanging from a sound belay and thinking it had been a long time since I felt ill at the prospect of a likely bad peeler. The guys had a nasty time with the corner and tested my belay a few times each on the way up. But still were beaming and proclaiming a "great great route".

On the plateau Mano asked "this grade VII?" He hadn't realised that I'd quit the good groove and headed onto new ground!

"second ascent?"

"No this was a new route and definitely not VII! more like VIII,8"

"AHHH! Great birthday present - new route on Ben Nevis - great!"

Many thanks to everyone at and behind the meet especially Becky and Nick - it was ace!

First part of my project complete

Working on the crux section of Sanction yesterday while trying the big linkup. Photo thanks to Stone Country

Yesterday was a good day at Dumbarton Rock. I turned up to find Malcolm Smith had just repeated my problem from last winter Pressure, confirming the Font 8b grade and looking like he enjoyed it. I came to continue working on a line coming out of the left side of the Sabotage roof. I've been trying it for two years or more. It's classic Dumby technical and although I spent a stupid amount of time trying countless different methods, I knew just from looking at the rock, that there was a sequence there, I just needed to find it. Finally I worked it out and yesterday I linked it to give a new Font 8b - 'Sanction'. It climbs from a sit start following the line of holds across the left side of the roof through a sloping ramp feature, pulling onto the left side of the BNI slab.

This is a really logical line, but my real goal is to climb the roof traverse (taken by Perfect Crime) and link this into Sanction. This way you'd be climbing the whole roof in it's entirety. After I'd done the sitter I got further than I expected on the link up. So now I feel that I should drop some other plans and concentrate on this until its done. It would be a worthy hardest problem at the rock. The psyche is on.

It was a major relief that the PIP joint of my little finger seems to be reasonably stable again and is giving me few problems once warmed up. Heres hoping it can take the punishment coming up over the next couple of weeks.

Rising sea?

Maybe it's just me, but I've been on this boulder a LOT in the past 13 years and I've never seen the tide so high around it. Rising sea level?

Michael Lee throws for an edge at Dumbarton today.

Onion Goggles mark II

Those of you who have been reading this blog since I started it in May 2006 might remember I put up a post showing Claire's smart answer to tearful eyes while chopping onions. You can see the pic here. Well, as you can see Claire has incorporated a new technology to further enhance her safe and comfortable onion chopping experience while making the lentil soup.

Things coming up...

I cant get to my main site for a few days as my computer is ill with a nasty virus so can't get on dreamweaver. I've got lots of lectures arranged in the spring and early to put up on my lectures page. Here are some details of these, but have a look on davemacleod.com shortly to get the full details. I've been told that the UK ice and mixed champs will be shown on the Adventure show on BBC2, March 25th at 7pm. Other news is that Scarpa have got their new range of rock shoes starting to hit the shops now. New product launches aren't not normally big climbing news but rockshoes are pretty important to rock climbers so something new is always interesting. More info about this here.

Life has been way too hectic to manage any new articles on my coaching blog for a few months. But I wrote an article about training for climbing on the UKC website. It started off being about using climbing walls effectively and then headed off on a couple of tangents which hopefully you'll find interesting?? The piece is here.

On March 25th I'm speaking at the SHAFF event in Sheffield talking about Rhapsody and other climbs, and showingthe film E11. You can see full details of the festival on its website which has a wizard which helps you plan which film programmes you should book onto to see your chosen films.

I'm going to be running some coaching sessions and doing a lecture at Leicester climbing wall on March 25th with the coaching sessions running 10am-noon. I'll have more details on this shortly but you can find out a bit more here

On May 10th I am giving a lecture about Scottish climbing and about Rhapsody for West Dumbartonshire Council's literary festival. The venue is still to be decided, but here is the page with details of the event.

On May 31st I'm giving a lecture at an excellent sounding conference on sport, exercise, health and physical activity in Glasgow. The Energie conference is aimed at professional working in in sport or health related disciplines. The line up of speakers sounds very interesting and should be a window into whats happening in the scientific field right now with presentations on motivation in sport, injury prevention and weight control in sport from world leaders in research in these fields. I'll certainly put up a report on this blog summarising the most interesting news and comment for those of you who can't be there. The conference website is here

3 days cragging

Enjoying an excellent sea cliff climb, Comfortably Numb E8 6c, Aberdeen sea cliffs. Photos by Hotaches Productions. If you click on them you can view the images bigger.

Focusing in on the final move of Comfortably Numb.

Leading Comfortably Numb with Dave Brown taking photos on the rope. Photo by David Ogden.

I arranged with the Hotaches crew and Kev Shields (you need to get a blog mate so I can link you!) to head to the Peak for a few days but for once the forecast was best in the north and specifically the east. So a quick change of plan and we went to the county for a day and then the Aberdeen sea cliffs, to clean up a couple of quick repeats I fancied. In Northumberland we spent the first half of the day wandering in a moor looking for a crag while carrying a stupid amount of kit (yes that is a crane in the photos below!). So we sacked it and went to Rothley which even we could find.

It was damp and drizzly and I brushed lots of chalk into the holds on Masterblaster Superdirect (E7 6c) to try and dry the holds. They kept coming through green so I declined to go for the onsight. Then I kicked myself after flashing it on the toprope! Serves me right I suppose. So I got that led anyway and salvaged something from a dank day with a lot of travelling and little climbing.

Onsighting Gies a Squid E7 6c, Scimitar Ridge, Aberdeen sea cliffs. Malcolm Kent belaying from my armpit

Next day we travelled to the north east sea cliffs to try Tim Rankin's route from last year, Comfortably Numb E8 6c. I was pleasantly surprised to arrive and find Gordon Lennox already on it. Its good to know that you have to queue even at E8 in Scotland - there is life in the trad climbing scene yet. So while big Gordon had the route, I abbed over the other side of the ridge with Malcolm Kent and onsighted Gies a Squid, a lovely E7 6c line up a slabby arete of pristine granite above the swell. It the first time I'd tried to onsight a route harder than E6 since 2001, so I was relieved that it was very much in the tradition of Aberdeen sea cliff routes - soft for the grade!

Day of the digital triffids, Rothley crag

The next morning Gordon nailed the E8 first try, so I got my chance. After a couple of half hour stints on the shunt I led it. It was a superb piece of climbing, nice and safe with exquisite moves in a lovely situation above the sea. The hardest climbing is at the bottom too, so in the top half you can just relax and enjoy the moves. I was a bit worried that my pinky would dislocate again in the fingerlocks but it didn't happen thank god.

My ascent was the first placing the gear on lead. Last year I got a fair bit of flak for making comment about the style of the first ascent, where the gear was pre-placed. I felt that this style had well and truly gone out and that these days in trad climbing it is assumed you place all your gear on lead, all the time, with all but a tiny minority of climbers doing this.

The criticsm I got was that the motivation of the first ascentionist was lost on me and that it was up to them how they chose to climb. Of course anyone has the freedom to climb a piece of rock however they please and this is a great thing. But to give a route a name and grade is to enter into the sport, not just the activity, and as such your actions affect others, not just yourself. Would you claim a grade for a route you had only toproped? No, because the accepted standard is to lead. I trad climbing, the accepted standard is to lead placing gear. So its important to make the effort and do so in order to be fair to everyone else who goes to a lot of effort (training for years and risking their neck) to follow the accepted standard. However, this is really a side issue. The main thing is that I have enormous respect for Tim for going out and climbing the hardest route in his local area, and for climbing at his limit.

Anyway, I felt it would be a good thing to show this by making the effort to travel up there and climb the route. And I can confrim its excellent. I guess I also put my money where my mouth is by placing the gear on lead.

Masterblaster Superdirect E7 6c

Where the hell are we? - somewhere on a Northumbrian moor.

I was most impressed with Kev's necky lead of End Game E3 5c at the end of the day. It was getting more and more greasy as thesea spray stuck to the granite after the sun had gone. Kev went through that familiar process of trying to read his own mind for a confident decision that he could lead it safely. Kev only has one hand, so placing gear is extremely difficult in most situations. So most routes are really solos for him. He made the decision, looked a bit serious for 10 minutes, and then dispatched it. Relief all round, and we packed up and pondered a nice few days climbing in new places. Hotaches blogged about the trip here.

Bad Fall

An impressive piece of winter driftwood at Dumbarton Rock last week.

A snowy Ben Lomond peeks out from behind the ever changing architecture of Dumbarton.

I have had a couple of superb sessions at Dumbarton lately and made significant progress on 2 boulder problems. Both are quite wild lines - about 25 metres long each, and more than 12 metres of roof climbing each! One in particular is very hard and is a step harder than the existing problems. In my efforts to get the 'pre-redpoint' link on this one, I had a nasty fall, coming off with a wild swing and face planted the floor. After I'd reassured myself that I had avoided breaking my nose I started to develop werid pains in my pinky which I twisted on landing. Later that night it dislocated at home and was really quite painful until I popped it back in. Unfortunately it seems to be making a habit of dislocating and hurting a lot when cold although so far it seems fine once I'm warmed up. We'll have to see how things go but I might pay a visit to the ultrasound scanner if it causes problems.

Tomorrow I'll be back at Dumby for tentative pinky testing, hopefully followed by more brutal efforts on the roof. I need another bouldering mat...

Golden Piton Award

Every year the American magazine 'Climbing' make an award for what they feel is the best performance of the year in each climbing discipline. This year's 'Golden Piton' awards were just announced and they awarded me with the title for best traditional rock ascent in 2006 for Rhapsody.

It's great that Climbing appreciated the effort I put in on my new route. It's always nice when someone acknowledges your hard work. You can see the list of other winners this year here.

There's been a fair bit of debate in the past few years about setting up more award schemes of this type as a way to encourage good performance and effort in climbing, and also allow the acheivements of climbers to be compared more easiliy outside the climbing world. Lots of people within climbing have understandable issues with this. The two main ones are that climbing is not about competition for many climbers and they fear that a climate of competition and such awards might end up promoting the darker side of sport - cheating and disrespect for others and the mountain environment. However, the benefits are potentially very good too, and may affect all climbers. When budget holders in government dish out the many millions of pounds to UK sport they are looking for prizes. The money goes to where the prizes are already coming from, as they have the biggest likelyhood of producing a return. Cynical I know, but there it is. Climbing and mountaineering in the UK is perpetually cash strapped because we have no concrete 'medals' of some kind to point at, despite still being the best in the world at trad climbing. HOW IRONIC IS THAT!!! Especially when you see filthy rich footballers trashing their form with binge drinking and getting banned for fighting, or sprinters getting banned for cheating after we have all supported them with our taxes for years. Since the olympics 2012 appeared on the horizon, climbing dropped completely off the radar for this type of support in the UK.

In other sports, sometimes the performances of a few great athletes have lifted it's spirit and profile (and funding) enough to generate support (from government and media sponsorship) that trickles right through to all levels and corners. Winning a Golden Piton award in nice, but doesn't change my life one bit (the experience of climbing Rhapsody certainly did though!). However, if young British climbers in the future get more Golden Pitons, or whatever other awards are out there, that could eventually translate to things like climbing taught in the school PE curicculum, Funds to develop, protect and maintain crags, more and better climbing walls, more expedition grants, coaching schools to help young climbers get better, bigger and better climbing events, and the chance for any climber who is determined enough to become the best in the world, limited only by effort, not oppurtunity.

That would be cool.

More on Grades

Skip this one if you find it boring. Quite a few folk asked me how Rhapsody compared to the route I just did in Spain L'odi Social. "Was Rhapsody a similar grade for physical difficulty?" In my last blog post I wrote that visiting Spain (not just L'odi) confirmed Rhapsody as feeling like an 8c+. I should have anticipated this and been more clear - The visit confirmed Rhapsody at 8c+ because it was much harder than L'Odi. Indeed L'Odi, like many Spanish routes wouldn't get 8c+ in the UK, certainly not in Scotland. Bodyswerve is another 8c I did recently and that is a good bit harder. Rich Simpson thinks most of the routes at Siurana (and I mean most) should come down a grade in order to be fairer to the few routes that are fairly graded, both there and in the UK. there's no way I'm getting involved in deciding what Spanish 8c or 8c+ means - leave it to the Spanish to decide. It's enough of a headache to decide what's E8, E9, E10...

However Richard is right that people do pay attention to these things so its worth making some comment to make clear that some routes are way harder than others with the same grade.

I only visited Spain for the first time last year, but for many years I have listened to Brits saying how Spanish grades are a bit of a gift and to head there to get a good tick! That is not really a new idea. So yes, If I did L'Odi as a new route in Scotland, it would be a grade lower (8c), and the same goes for many routes there. It's about F8a+ to get to the crux, which is maybe a V8 or 8+ boulder problem and then maybe another V7 after that. Rhapsody is about F8a+ or 8b to get to the crux and I felt it was V11 at the top. Hence it took me a veeerrrryyyy long time to do it.

Anyway, I've even bored myself now, so end of message. Summary - Spanish grades are kind, but you knew that already.