Awards for Echo Wall!

The premiere of Echo Wall passed in a blur for Claire and I on Sunday, with our first ever film picking up two awards, for Best Climbing Film and Best Film at the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival. It was very overwhelming to sit with 500 of you and watch the film we've worked night and day on flat out since the end of July.

Our feet still haven't touched the ground as I left Glasgow early the next morning for lectures in England and Claire has been busy sending out all our pre-orders of the DVD from Fort William. Thanks to everyone who ordered their copy in advance - I hope you enjoy the film!

If you would like to order a copy, you can get one here. Maybe I'll catch some of you in Preston on Friday night, Cotswolds at 7.

Many new articles on my site!

I have been a busy man. I’ve had a list of articles I wanted to write for this site for absolutely ages, but the great black hole of Echo Wall (the climb, then the film) blocked out everything else for so long. But I’ve been furiously preparing the articles all this week and uploaded them. They cover quite a range of subjects.

How to be a sponsored climber

How to get good at climbing, in one email

Prevention and management of split tips

Prevention and treatment of elbow injuries for climbers

Updated supporting article on cold treatment for finger injuries answering all your questions on it after my videocast.

Scottish climbing 101 – how to beat the rain and midges on a Scottish climbing trip

A list of the perma-dry crags in Scotland so you can keep climbing on those rare days when the sun doesn’t shine here.

Some suggestions for crag itineraries for those of you how haven’t visited Scotland before and want to know the best spot to take in.

A text, image and video topo of the newly developed (and rather good) Skeleton boulders in Glen Nevis, with seven youtubes to whet the appetite.

And that’s just my site…

I’ve also just built the website for our production company Rare Breed Productions, that we started for making films and other creative things. It has the full credits for Echo Wall including all the places to get hold of some of the tracks from the soundtrack, which I’ve already been getting asked about a lot.

Finally, I’ve just added the new Onsight DVD just out today to the shop. Many of you were emailing to ask if I’d be selling it because you were keen to get it along with my e-book How to Climb Hard Trad which I’m still giving away with all DVD and book orders.

Phew! Between Echo Wall, this lot and a pile of other stuff, I’ve been spending some quite silly hours in front of the screen since July. But tomorrow is my last day in front of a computer screen for 6 weeks! Yeehaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe I’ll catch some of you at EMFF or my lectures in Harrogate, Manchester and Preston next week. And I should have some copies of the Echo Wall DVD too. Exciting stuff, but it’s fair to say I’ll be a tad jumpy until the delivery man comes with the DVDs.

Enjoy the articles…

Relax, while you can

Resting in between circuits at Fort William bouldering wall tonight

Training is going reasonably well right now although I’ve had to skip a day again because of work. Now I’m feeling better and stronger in my sessions when I’m climbing every day than if I take more rest days. Five years ago doing these kinds of sessions every day would have floored me.

Another small advance in PB on the campus board tonight. The body is responding in the right direction, and a climbing trip is looming in the future. It’s great to be excited about completely new projects again.

Echo Wall DVD - the full route list

A lot of folk have been asking us which other routes are on the Echo Wall DVD. Here is the full list:

Bouldering

Bear Trap Prow V12

Frontal System V12

Saturn Crack V9

Big Long Now V13

All these problems are in Glen Nevis

Winter mixed

Don’t Die of Ignorance XI,11 Ben Nevis

Trad

Echo Wall

Sublime E8 6c, Glen Coe

Jahu E6 6a (solo), Glen Nevis

Sweet Little Mystery E4 6a (Kev Shields soloing), Glen Nevis

Sport climbing

Darwin Dixit 8c (solo)

Los Ultimo Hippies 8c

Alzheimer Bros 8b+

Malapel 8b

Sativa Patatica 8a flash

All of those are in Margalef, Spain

We’ve also been getting asked about wholesale of the Echo Wall DVD for those of you that run your own shops. For wholesale copies, just get in touch and we’ll give you the lowdown.

Echo Wall premiere is nearly sold out

The Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival have just reported that Alien Rock have about 20 tickets left, with a few more at Tiso for the sunday night session which includes the premiere of Echo Wall. Better get on that phone. If you miss out, we are sending out the pre-ordered DVDs right after the premiere. You can get your order in here.

Should be a good night, see y'all there.

New V12 at Sky Pilot

After a day’s rest I felt really strong, but pretty spaced out from the usual late night working and not really chilling out. I headed up the glen at 3pm after work and knew I might have a chance on a straight up project at Sky Pilot I’ve tried a few times in the past. All I needed to do was wake up!

I sat about in the car for a bit and listened to the radio, and then walked in, stumbling about on the wet rocks and feeling decidedly un-athletic. My warm-up was no different, although I could certainly feel the strength in the background from the past few weeks intense training.

After a 90 minute (!) warm-up I finally felt myself and moved onto the project. After a couple of chilled out starting moves you have a hard match in a very slopey break with a toe-hook. If you can get your left hand seated just right on a nasty little pinch in the break, you are ready for an amazing deadpoint to a perfect finger sloper on the lip of Sky Pilot’s 45 degree overhanging wall.

I’d done the move last session and was revelling in the anticipation of catching this highly satisfying move on the link. 15 tries later I must have spent a total of ten seconds hanging the sloper but every time dropping off on the swing back. A rainstorm signalled hometime and with everything packed up and leaving the crag I spotted some evening glow at the end of the shower. Better just hang around.

Sure enough, a stunning evening glow on the glen's orange and yellow autumn hues, was enough to dry the sloper and allow another five tries. I counted them down, muscles getting tired and skin wearing off. Last try – breath in, relax, it doesn’t matter any more, you’re not going to do it today.

Then I hit every hold perfectly and hung the sloper with a smile on my face before my feet even swung back. Another brilliant line in the glen, V12 this time I reckon. I’ll try and get some pics or video of it to show it off next time I’m up there with some company

It had to go...

Sometimes you need to make sacrifices, to meet your goals in life. This means some hard choices. But you know deep down when it’s the right thing to do.

Hard training

In between the work preparing to release the Echo Wall film, I have been training, hard. With the Lochaber monsoon in full swing, this has been entirely indoors at Fort William bouldering wall, and occasional trips to The Ice Factor's, brilliant bouldering wall.

My body has been responding well to daily campus boarding, and I did briefly break a couple of strength PBs on crimps. I have some superb circuits on the go at both walls also and I’ve bee really happy with my gains in endurance too. I seem to be able to manage more training volume than in past years. Happy days! The feeling of impending fitness stored up ready for unleashing on the rock is one of the most exciting in climbing. More work days are on the immediate horizon, but after that, a climbing trip. It’ll be my first climbing trip since a week in Spain back in April. I can’t wait.

One of the best things about training at Lochaber’s climbing walls is a pretty focused environment for training. No distractions, just the training, thankyou. Ice factor sessions are usually done with a group of like minded train-a-holics. Sessions at Fort William right now are often done late and therefore alone, with just my iPod for encouragement. I like it this way. It’s not entirely the focused solitude that encourages me to train late. I just feel better late in the evening and recovered from the previous day’s training. With slightly more time available since we finished editing the film, we have also been eating well too, which is a real delight. Today’s recipe of kings is Claire’s Lentil and Ham soup, (the formula is over on Claire’s blog here).

Another project at Sky Pilot is in danger if tonight’s rain isn’t too heavy.

Echo Wall review - Stone Country

Stone Country Press have reviewed the Echo Wall DVD here

We have just heard from our manufacturers that the DVDs should still be with us in time for the Premiere at EMFF on Sunday 19th. I hear from EMFF that the majority of the tickets for the premiere night have sold, so if you want to be there, get a ticket asap. If you can't make it to that we'll be posting out all our pre-orders as soon as the DVDs arrive.

Echo Wall falling rocks clip

Here is another wee clip of soloing about on some right choss to get back to the top of Echo Wall and dislodging a couple of hefty rocks. Ouch!