Long Hope - Kendal people’s choice

Andy Turner, myself, Paul Diffley, Ed Drummond and Oilver Hill at the Long Hope premiere, KMF. Photo: Henryiddon.com

It was a nice atmosphere at the premiere of the film about the Longhope Route in Kendal on Friday night. Ed Drummond was on good form to say a few words after the film and it was cool to have 5 of the 6 people who have climbed that route in our various different styles in one place. Thanks to folks who voted for it and gave it the people’s choice award of the Kendal festival. DVD’s are still being made but will be with us soon. Thanks to everyone who has pre-ordered so far.

It’s a strange experience presenting a film of a climb like this. For the audience, it’s the first time they’ve been able to see the story really get a feel for this climb. For me, it’s really the end of the process. I was sitting watching it with everyone else, feeling happy with my memories of that cliff. But they are just that - memories. The only meaning it has for me is contained within the film; that watching it will motivate others to have good adventures of their own.

Since climbing the route in June, I’ve been doing some basic training, and doing a lot of work (as in bill paying work) to set myself up for next years adventures. I have the restlessness to find new things again! Some projects, like those around my home area of Glen Nevis will come down to training and dedication. There are also some fantastic onsight climbs I’d like to try this winter. After last winter’s time out with an impending new baby I’m looking forward to learning to use the ice axe again. I’ll need to start from a low base, which is always great fun to just enjoy repeating others routes for a little bit.

First though, I have one more week of work, coaching abroad, exploring some untouched limestone. I’ll post up some pictures...

BAFTA for The Great Climb

The Great Climb programme just won a Scottish BAFTA for live event coverage last night. I’m well chuffed that the effort that went into the programme from a lot of people was obviously appreciated and it’s nice to see it have recognition. It was a fine effort from Triple Echo Productions to attempt another live climbing broadcast, and pull it off after the frustrations of previous attempts.

Folk were asking on my lecture tour last week if there is still anywhere you can get hold of a copy of the programme. The DVD is right here.

I’ve also been asked loads if there are any more televised climbing programmes in the pipeline. I mentioned the other week about the Stac of Handa re-enactment that is showing on Nov 22nd (7pm BBC2 Scotland, iPlayer). There is a wee trailer up on the BBC site for this here.

Long Hope DVD available for pre-order

The Long Hope DVD is now up in the shop for pre-order. 

The master disc is off to the DVD manufacturers and DVD stock usually takes a couple of weeks or so to be manufactured. If you did manage to get tickets to the premiere in Kendal before it sold out, we are hoping to have a handful of advance copies there but if you don’t make it to that, pre-ordering it now will mean you’ll get it the fastest way possible. We’ll dispatch orders for it as soon as we get hold of the stock.

A lot of folk ask for their DVD signed, which is no problem of course! Just ask in the ‘special instructions’ field of the checkout form.

The running time of the film is 60 minutes and there are lots of extra films on the DVD: My ascent of Indian Face, Mucklehouse Wall on Hoy and naturally, The Old Man of Hoy.

It’s in the shop here.

Tip Juice in the shop

I’ve just added the new Tip Juice balm to the webshop. Most keen climbers these days doing a lot of sport climbing or bouldering are using a skin balm to help speed the recovery of fingertip skin for the next session. In the damp climate of western Scotland I don’t find I need to use it every session to keep my finger creases from cracking. But on a trip to somewhere with a dry climate such as sport climbing in Spain I’ll use it every day. It goes without saying that if you have a split tip or a cut from a sharp hold on your fingers you’ll need to use a balm like this daily to help it heal in the quickest possible time and prevent it going to a deep crack that will bother you for ages.

Tip Juice is a new balm developed by an Aberdeen team of boulderers. They took a long time to perfect it and I think they’ve done a nice job. You can find it in the shop here together with the ingredients list.

Longhope DVD is not far away

We’ve just finished arranging the DVD artwork for the Long Hope film which may be finished by the time you read this and off to the DVD manufacturers. Paul Diffley has been doing sterling work editing it and must have earned a beer or three at Kendal after the premiere. Speaking of the premiere at Kendal - it’s already sold out! So if you want to be there, your only chance now is to enter the Mountain Equipment competition to win tickets for it. All you have to do is leave a comment here.

For those of you who don’t get tickets, the DVD will be out when it comes back from the manufacturers and we’ll put it up for pre-order in the shop soon so watch this space.

The film is looking really great, although I would say that. I reckon it almost makes you want to go and climb a fulmar infested loose big wall sea cliff in the middle of nowhere. Extras on the DVD include the film of my ascent of The Indian Face (E9), Mucklehouse Wall (E5 5c, 5c, 6a) on Hoy and of course our ascent of the Old Man of Hoy.

Other things coming up - The Stac of Handa re-enactment I shot the other week with the BBC has a provisional slot on BBC2 Scotland/iPlayer as an Adventure Show special on Nov 22nd at 19.00.

Perfect day in Torridon

After coming home from my lecture tour I’ve had a familiar feeling of being a little burnt out. This happens to me every year really, I cram as much work as I can into the west highland monsoon season - lectures, writing, coaching, events, film work etc. By the end of it, I’m always rather impatient for the calmness of just going to an empty highland glen and climbing some nice rock on my own.

I’m not naturally cut out for being on stage every night, and much as enjoy sharing the stories and meeting great people, I need some balance after many weeks of it.

So after a week of sorting out so many loose ends at home, the autumn monsoon finally broke to sunny gold coloured mountains, and I got to enjoy two great bouldering sessions. I can’t tell you how much of a lift it is to spend time on real rock in a nice place after so much time indoors.

First off I found some killer new beta on a tough project in Glen Nevis. One that will take a while, even with a clever trick of the foot on the crux. Today, the north west seemed to be the place to be and I scooted up for an afternoon on the simply superb boulders in Glen Torridon. I noticed that visiting Sheffield bouldering specialist Dan Varian, one of the strongest men in our isles at present, had added a few hard problems here in the spring that sounded great. 

I went up to check out a lovely arete called Stokes Croft, given about 8A. I enjoyed it a lot. Perfect holds, perfect conditions. The only thing not in perfect condition was me, still feeling decidedly sluggish from one of those nagging colds that seems to keep coming back. But as soon as I arrived at the problem, the sniffles and sighs melted away and I had the moves worked out in twenty minutes and then climbed it first redpoint. It’s probably more like 7C+ but it was still a lovely change to just go and repeat something that was all cleaned up and ready. I’ve spent a lot of time cleaning dirty rock this year!

Wee clip of this above. These last two sessions have fully redoubled keenness for the bouldering season, and for training training TRAINING!!!

New route in Peak Cavern

Pitch 1 (wet 7c+)  of Ring of Fire during the first ascent in Peak Cavern. All pics Triple Echo Productions.


The other shoot I just finished with Triple Echo for the BBC was even weirder than the Handa adventure! The director Richard Else managed to get special permission to climb in the show cave Peak Cavern near Castleton right in the middle of the Peak District. The idea was for myself and Alan Cassidy to see if we could find a route out of it!

Peak Cavern, otherwise known as 'The Devil's Arse' is one of the biggest and most impressive limestone crags in the Peak. In a region where every other inch of rock has a route on it, it’s pretty amazing that there are no free routes on this crag at all. It comes down to access. The crag has been banned for climbing forever as it’s a tourist attraction on private land - paying public walking around below climbs etc. Of course it’s a massive shame since I’m certain a way round it could be found with the help of the BMC. The cave is only open to the public until 5pm and then it’s locked. Climber’s lock-in? Sadly I don’t think a change is likely any time soon. We appealed as best we could.

Anyway, we enjoyed our special permission while we had it, in the name of making BBC television. But first we spent two days a bit further north climbing an even sillier cave. The team wanted to see if we could climb our way out of a proper Yorkshire Pot Hole - Jingling Pot. A 60m tubular soaking wet pitch black slimy hole in the ground. Alan and myself didn’t have the faintest idea how to tackle it. I started off climbing in winter boots and gloves which was a mistake and I quickly switched to rockboots even through the water was running down it, over the green slime. I thought back to a day last year climbing Pleasure Done (E3) in Pembroke with Tim Emmett in the rain. That was surprisingly amenable and the limestone had a weird friction even though it was soaking. Jingling might be just like that, but with a headtorch on?! It turned out to be a wee bit harder than that, but we had a great time and emerged squinting in the daylight after one of our stranger days out climbing.

After that we headed to the main event at Peak Cavern. Where Jingling Pot felt about E3 in the wet, Peak Cavern looked about 9c! The cave went in for over 100 metres. It also looked like any route there would take a lot of cleaning since the cave roof had hundreds of years worth of soot from the troglodytes who used to live there. With 4 days to do a route, we opted for a nice looking line going up a 45 degree wall then crossing the full length of the side wall and some roofs to gain a crack system in the headwall. It looked like it would go in about 4 pitches!

Back on dry rock on the superb pitch 3 (7b+)


After a hardcore couple of days with the hilti and wire brush, It looked amazing: 7c+, 7a, 7b+, 7b. Only one problem, the first pitch would be 7c+ if it was dry. But it was completely soaking and all the holds were full of slimy wet mud - proper caving style! At least Keith’s floodlights made it feel slightly more like a crag than a hole in the ground. I had a couple of tries, sliding about all over the place. It was actually better not to use chalk for most of the first pitch, it only made your hands feel slimier. 

Alan cruising pitch 2 (7a)


Next morning I set off again. I could see that slipping off could happen on any move, so why worry about any of them? I just kept creeping across the traverse, unexpectedly scrapping my way through to the stance, and we could enjoy the remaining spectacular pitches through the roofs and headwall. What shall we call it? Has to be 'Ring of Fire'! My first new routes in Yorkshire and the Peak -what a weird week!

Alan enjoying the fantastic headwall on pitch 4 (7b). The programme will be coming to a TV screen near you sometime next year. I'll let you know when it's scheduled.

Johnny Dawes book in the shop

Johnny Dawes long awaited autobiography ‘Full of myself’ has finally arrived and I’ve just put it up on our shop here. The stock just arrived this morning and after a quick flick through it looks like a superb book with a lot more really interesting pictures than I was expecting. I’ll write a full review soon.

Handa - More dangling above drops for the BBC

The Great Stack of Handa. Photo: Triple Echo Productions


*Update* The programme now has a provisional slot of Nov 22nd at 19.00. Adventure Show special, BBC2 Scotland, iPlayer.


Last month I was working on two great film shoots with the Triple Echo team for the BBC at either ends of the UK. First off it was up north to the Stack of Handa to play the part of Donald McDonald, a Lewis farmer from the 1870s. 

The reason we ended up here was down to two accounts in the SMC journal by WH Murray and Tom Patey. Handa is a small island off the far north west coast of Scotland near Scourie. It’s a fairly remote and barren place, abandoned since the potato famine in 1848. Probably it’s best natural feature is the great stack of Handa, a 300 foot chunky sea stack of red sandstone sat between two headlands with cavernous vertical cliffs between.

Myself, Donald King and Dave Cuthbertson going climbing on Handa. Photo: Triple Echo Productions


Three rather intrepid men from Lewis rode across the Minch in 1870 and made the first crossing onto the stack by rather inventive means. They lugged 600 feet of fishing rope across the island and walked it out across the headlands , pulling it tight until the rope (just) rested over the summit of the stack. McDonald then rather boldly hand-over-handed across the sagging rope without any backup to get onto the stack. The climb up the far side of the rope stack sounded like a fight for his life, the rope basically running almost vertically at that point. With encouragement from his partners, he made it and brought the others over the re-belayed rope in a breeches buoy. 

Crossing the fishing rope to the stack. Photo: Triple Echo Productions


It’s hard to see any other reason for them taking the considerable trouble and risk to make this expedition for anything other than the sheer challenge of it. There are plenty of birdy cliffs for harvesting that are a lot more accessible nearby. Therefore, according to Murray writing in the journal, it may be the first recorded instance of an ascent like this in the country. 

Making progress along the rope got a lot harder as you approached the stack. The rope was basically running vertically. Photo: Triple Echo Productions

Tom Patey tried to repeat the same method in 1967 with modern ropes and jumars, but there was so much sag on the rope that Patey found it a desperate challenge and wrote of his incredulity that the Lewismen pulled it off, and without protection. A piece of stomach churning boldness! He invited Murray to research the story further, which he did. Murray tracked down McDonald’s son in Dunoon and got the more detailed story. It sounds like the Lewismen of the era were pretty handy and competitive climbers!

Cubby following in the breeches buoy. I.e. an oversized nappy! Photo: Triple Echo Productions

Anyway, the full story will be in the film which is on BBC2 Scotland (iPlayer etc) towards the end of November. I’ll let you know the time when it’s published.

My comrades in the re-creation were Cubby and Donald King and we had a blast dangling about on fishing ropes above the big drop into the sea. Or should that be we got blasted by the full wrath of the Atlantic squalls every ten minutes for the best part of a week. I started off the week thinking that my costume of a tweed suit, bunnet and old leather boots was quite good outdoor attire. But by the end I must say I couldn’t wait to see the back of soggy tweed and soaking boots and get back into modern kit and ropes that weight less than 40kg.

The week was for me an old lesson re-learned. The generations gone by had less to work with, but had no less boldness, courage, or ingenuity.

On lecture tour next week

Racked up for rigging the Longhope Route - more of Lukasz’ pictures of this route in my lectures next week.

All of next week I’m travelling around doing talks each evening in a different part of the UK. Maybe I’ll see some of you?! Mostly I’ll be talking about the importance of taking on massive projects like the Long Hope route on Orkney. Big projects like that and a few other hard climbs I’ll show you involve a lot of doubt - you just don’t know if you’ve got enough to finally do them (unless they are too easy!). Dealing with that doubt is a big psychological challenge. My experience has been that there’s more than one successful mindset to adopt. I‘ll explain more at the talks.

First up, I’m going round Scotland, speaking at various Tiso stores on a Mountain Equipment tour. Details and tickets are here, but the dates are:

Monday 24th Inverness Tiso Outdoor experience 7.30pm

Tuesday 25th Aberdeen Tiso 7.30pm

Wednesday 26th Perth Tiso Outdoor experience 7.30pm

Thursday 27th Glasgow Tiso GOE 7.30pm

Friday 28th Edinburgh Tiso Outdoor experience 7.30pm

On Saturday I’m speaking twice at the SAFOS seminar on decision making in avalanche terrain at EICA Ratho. First up I’m speaking about my approaches and ideas to managing risk in my trad climbing. I’ll discuss some of the times I’ve nearly killed myself climbing, and what I did wrong, and some of the times I climbed really dangerous routes safely, like The Indian Face. Details of this here - There are some great speakers lined up on risk and decision making.

On Sunday I’m at Dart Rock near Exeter doing coaching clinics (Sunday and Monday) and  on Sunday evening I’m speaking there. 

See you out there!