E11 trailer now up

Planetfear have just put up the trailer for the E11 film. You can see it here. You can order copies of the DVD now from my site (which will be sent out after the film gets its first showing at EMFF on Oct 21st). There's also some more info about the film on Hotaches new website. I hope you like the trailer, its a bit strange hearing my own screams of pain again!

Sport climbing - The Anvil season begins

Karate Kid

Dave Redpath - Gagging for a Hob Nob or just enjoying using his bolt drill?

Iain on the excellent Shadowlands 7b+

Well I can't say I felt amazingly strong on the Anvil left-hand roof after 4 months away. In fact I managed exactly the same links as last time. However, the scotch mist was thick in the air and it wasn't just me who was complaining about the grease. I love this place - new projects, that I bolted myself, mega hard, steep climbing on 'real' holds so you get really worked, relatively unaffected by the west coast rain assaults and excellent moves. It's so nice to have new rock thats so convenient to get to and hard enough that I know it would take a looong time to get through all the projects.

davemacleod.com updates - more images

Holdfast E9 7a

I've added another gallery page to davemacleod.com with shots of Holdfast E9 7a, Fugue E9 6c, Achemine E9 7a and The Cathedral X, 11. You can see it here. Many thanks to Cubby Images for these! The picture above is of Holdfast in Glen Nevis which is one of my favourite routes - exactly what an E9 should look like really - an immaculate blank wall with no obvious holds or gear. I was inspired! It's also the most serious route I've ever done, with a bone breaking boulder right below the line and no protection until the E1 climbing at the end. I was glad to hear that the route was seeing attention from others recently. It saw an ascent last week from Dave Birkett, using siderunners in the routes on either side.

Explaining climbing to non-climbers

I was looking for something in my email folders and came across an email I wrote ages ago for a PR executive who contacted about a contract she was assigned to that involved relating to climbers. She knew nothing about climbing and asked me to quickly jot some ideas about climbing challenges to give her a clearer idea what I ( and I suppose others) get out of it. Explaining climbing succinctly to non-climbers is not always easy, for me anyway. This was what I came up with off the top of my head:

Climbing challenges -

Danger
Climbing is perceived to be a highly dangerous sport and its professional athletes are often considered to be addicted to danger. This is a nice idea, but the truth is really that most climbers just enjoy controlling danger. Climbing itself is not dangerous (excepting certain objective dangers such as rockfall & avalanche), only falling off is dangerous. The best climbers are the ones who have developed the highest awareness of their own limits and the potential dangers around them and so can climb safely at the extreme limit of their abilities, hopefully never allowing themselves to step outside those limits. Of course, the limits can be extended by training to climb better, improve fitness and better understand the environments to be tackled. To climb at the highest level today, climbers need to work hard like other athletes on their technical and physical skills, but also develop this awareness of how to be safe in highly pressured situations. The main ingredients for this are a great respect and humility towards mountain (or any dangerous) environments, for life, and a willingness to accept that a long apprenticeship in climbing cannot be shortcut.

Commitment
Commitment is an idea that is really important for all professional climbers. Climbing is a broad church of different activities, so it means different things to different climbers. For mountaineers, it might mean starting up a huge 1000 metre north face with 8 days food and no chance of safe retreat, the only option being to reach the top somehow before food and energy runs out. For rock climbers, it might mean launching up a blank section of rock, getting further and further away from the last piece of gear (and hence facing progressively longer fall potential). Hesitation or mis-reading the move sequence will mean dipping into the reserve of physical stamina to get through, or even falling off. Commitment will mean getting safely to the top. For sport climbers, where danger is not an issue, commitment will be to the single-minded athletic dedication to making impossible climbs possible, by hard, uninterrupted training.

Adventure
Mountains, rock faces, islands, sea cliffs, caves etc are all naturally adventurous places because there is much hidden unless you literally climb into them to see whats there. Exploring these places and going where other people haven't been or cannot easily reach is an obvious draw.

Movement
Climbing is a basic natural body activity we are good at, like walking, swimming and running. Whereas the other activities involve uniform repetitive movement, climbing involves an infinite range of subtle movements, demanded by the shapes of the rock. This provides its addictive interest and quality. The rock provides its own movement demands, which are often exacting, but leaving enough room for creative movement too, like dancing.

All of these together!
For most climbers, the activity is more like a way of life than a sport. I think this is because it has so many strands of enjoyment, so it feels like five or six separate sports in one.

How climbing relates to life in general...
I think climbing partnerships often teaches climbers a lot about relationships with other people, especially relating to trust and how people are very different in different situations. The pressured situations of climbing quickly give insights into the characters of climbing partners. I think this is why is tends to foster strong partnerships and friendships between climbers, and often teaches climbers humility. Climbing situations are also a place where status means little, so it often a leveller of class and brings very different people together.

Feature fatigue

My favourite climbing gear experience - rockshoes only, and the rock of course.

I found a name folk have been using for what I've experienced in a lot of modern design and practice in various fields. 'Feature fatigue ' - This link has the definition. I am always wishing for climbing gear that has fewer features that weigh it down, but it does seem that markets are driven, at least partly, by having more features on products, not less. It doesn't just apply to jackets and rucksacks either, I've found myself trying desperately to stay afloat in an ocean of information on improving at climbing. When I coach climbing, I often find that climbers have an appetite for the detail. That is good of course, but not if it is at the expense of getting the basics right. For instance, comparing the fine detail of exercises that improve body tension to keep your feet on, is not a high leverage activity if you haven't learned to use your feet while they are on the wall.

Two days climbing in the lost world

Tighnabruaich viewpoint - not much to see on day 1 except rain and mist

I've just been for two days climbing in the prehistoric forest under the viewpoint. Its a wild place, full on jungle warfare to get between buttresses. If a Pterodactyl flew past you probably wouldn't look twice. So many spots in Scotland are like this - as soon as you leave the road behind you are in a wild place (dinosaurs are not common though).

Places to see while belaying

Spider's web heavy with water

The optimum angle for climbing

Tweedley - the ultimate crag hunter of the west, in his element in Tighnabruaich jungle

Well, one doesn't want to get ones climbing trooz wet in the ferns, does one.

The view as it should be. Cowal on the left, Bute on the right.

It was good to see Michael looking strong on his uber project.

The first ascent of Apollo 8a+

I bolted the horizontal groove and got it done on the second day - 8a+. Featuring some foot off, some bat hanging, some 'feet by hands' undercutting and some spinning around kneebars - exquisite. After so little climbing recently I raced up it like, I don't know... a keen thing... I'm really psyched for the horizontal schist again. The Anvil is in danger next.

My other feat for the day was driving to the crag for the first time ever. After a few driving lessons I thought I should try out a longer drive - 4 hours. Woohoo it was fun!

Misadventure photos

Just beyond the crux of Misadventure E8 6c. Stop staring at that arete Dave and get bear hugging!
Misadventure is an excellent arete climb - 7c+ish climbing and bold but not death.
Relaxing on the finishing section. Note the random erratic boulder that decided to hide from the Glen Nevis glacier in a wide crack to my left.
Glen Nevis guys: John, myself, Jimmy (who did the FA of Pinnacle ridge in 1948) and Joe.

Thanks to Rona Mackintosh for these photos of my re-ascent of Misadventure in the glen for the Heather Hat film. The route really is pretty good I think. Hopefully some pictures will encourage others to go and repeat it. The hard section is exquisite - crimps, into bear hugging smooth slopers, into fist jams!

I'll keep you posted how the guys are getting on with the film...

seeing things clearly?

Some good weather is here again but things are not really right for me to go climbing for various reasons. I am constantly in conflict with myself about when to climb and when not to. I don't feel like I climb very much at all, even though people I meet see me as climbing a lot. I also see myself as pretty lazy a lot of the time, although even I would admit that isn't really true. I only worry to myself that I'm lazy when I decide it's not the right time to climb. I'm more aware than ever that my motivation has to feel right to climb. Sometimes (like now!) I feel so motivated to climb I feel like I could rip holds off my projects. I mean, I feel it pretty damn strongly! But at the same time I feel it's not the right time to go back to Ben Nevis yet. There are other things on my mind.

Sometimes I feel my climbing motivation is like a resevoir. I can store up huge amounts of motivation until the time is right to release it. Maybe I'll release it training every day, maybe I'll release it all in one go like on the crux of Rhapsody - 2 years of savings in a few seconds or effort. Its a good feeling. Right now, if I could write my climbing motivation like a bank balance, the number of zeros would require additional pages. But I don't need to go climbing right now. I'll make a withdrawal when it's time.

davemacleod.com updates - E11 film pre-orders

I've added a shop page to davemacleod.com. It's got links to my favourite climbing books through Amazon and lists of other books such as training for climbing. You can also buy some climbing DVDs directly from my site. Chains is available now. I can also take pre-orders for the E11 DVD by Hot Aches Productions about the first ascent of Rhapsody. The film is showing for the first time at the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival on October 21st, and DVDs will be sent out immediately after that. All the details are here.

It was quite an experience being filmed right through the whole process of working on Rhapsody for nearly a year and a half. I was just really psyched by Diff, Dave and everyone else who helped out. They were always so positive and up for shivering all day long, week after week at the top of the crag, only for me to announce that I didn't feel good that day! When I broke off the crux undercut in October I thought the project was impossible for a while, so I felt really bad that I'd hled their focus for such a long time, but would probably have to give up. Thankfully it didn't pan out like that. Also when I bagged the route in April, it was over for me, but the real work was only just beginning for the guys. I'm looking forward to seeing the results of their impressively dedicated efforts.

davemacleod.com - updates

I've updated my main site with more details about the different levels of coaching I offer and what's included in them on my coaching page. I've also added venue details for my lecture at Leeds University on October 24th on the lectures page. More stuff coming soon. Get in touch if you think any of the pages need more information added or requests for stuff you'd like to see on the site.