Foot training

Climbing Romancing The Stone E5 6a today at Wave Buttress, Glen Nevis. Photo: Steve Holmes

May is often a month of sore feet for me. After a winter of climbing short and very steep things, when I start trad climbing my weak and unfit feet get kind of sore. I remember having this problem particularly badly a few years ago on my first visit to Cloggy one june after a month of climbing upside down in the Anvil.

Kev Shields making good progress on his project.

So today I joined Kev, Steve, Joe, Dot and Ewan at Wave Buttress for some slabby wall climbing and toe endurance training. Kev has been working away on a project up there which will be a nice E7 6c. He toproped it with apparent ease today and was looking strong on it. I had some laps on it too and enjoyed myself in the May sunshine. It has a very thin thumb press move with just enough gear to entice you on, followed by a sustained E6 6a to the top.

 

Joe and his shadow leading Edgehog E3 6a. 

Afterwards I went round and did Romancing The Stone E5 6a with Joe. It was a little dirty in places and I took my wire brush with me to clean the odd hold as I went. As predicted, my feet felt worked. I enjoyed the route finding, although another decent runner on the lower part would’ve been nice. The other guys were giving On The Beach (E5) some traffic.

Natalie on a thin groove problem on Harris on our pre-ferry boulder session the other day.

It was a little hot for crimping this hard. That's my excuse anyway.

Hebrides with Natalie

Natalie Berry enjoying The Prozac Link, E4, Screaming Geo, Lewis.

Natalie Berry has been a very successful youth competition and sport climber for several years. Now in her early twenties, with podium places and 8b red points under her belt, she is motivated to move into adventure climbing and has just started trad climbing. We had a few days booked in to head north and get some routes in, taking the Hot Aches Productions crew with us. Although I’ve known Natalie for many years from our days living in Glasgow, we’ve never climbed outdoors together until last year. These days we are colleagues on the Scarpa and Mountain Equipment teams too!

The poor forecast told us to get the ferry to the Western Isles for the best possible chance of dry rock. With a wealth of mountain and sea cliffs of all different shapes and sizes, and plenty of new routes still to explore, Lewis and Harris are always still high on my list of places to hit when the warm weather arrives, despite the fact I’ve climbed there a lot over the years. To be honest, I like to go there for the general vibe of the place even more than the climbing. Stress tends to disappear here. After 5 days here I feel like I have more energy than I have for many months.

Sunshine at the Aird Uig sea cliffs, Lewis. Photo: Hot Aches Productions

On our first day, the mountain crags were looking a bit windy, wet and cold so we ended up at the Uig sea cliffs, where Nat dispatched her first E1 with ease. She was still looking a little uncertain how to approach trad pitches; arranging the protection, breaking the pitch down into chunks, and dealing with ‘trad’ type features of wet jamming cracks loose rock and the odd bird.

I got a nice E6 done, initially thinking it was new but later finding out it had been done by Jacob Cook recently. Good to see some other folk visiting the islands and putting routes up.

Repeating a nice E6 at the Flannan area. Photo: Hot Aches Productions.

The next day we went to Aird Feinis with Cubby’s excellent Top Tackle Tips (E6) in mind. But big waves battering the base of it prevented us. So we had a top rope play on two new routes, one hard E7 and the other hard E8. Nat also had a play on the E7, and obviously had no trouble doing the moves. 

On day 3 we visited the Boardwalk where Nat onsighted an E2, again without any bother at all. I climbed one E4, then backed off another soggy one. At the end of the day, Nat went for an E4 with a bouldery crux right off the ground. After some deliberation about where to start, she pulled off the ground, only for the very first hold to break off a nanosecond later. Nat plonked down on her bum on the wave platform, and we laughed that she survived her first trad groundfall. I tied in and tried another hold that stayed on the wall.

An obvious good objective for the trip was the super classic Prozac Link (4 pitch E4) in Screaming Geo. It’s widely regarded as among the finest E4s in Britain, and it’s a mega trip across the great arch; guaranteed to provide an adventure. We started up it in glorious hot sun, but cracks still damp from the sea spray, so I led. The next two pitches had a couple of wet holds or unobvious gear so I led those too, and both of us were enjoying the increasing exposure.

Hanging on the belay before the final and crux pitch, I thought it would be interesting to see what Nat decided about this pitch. Would she lead? On such a classic route, on a great day, it seemed like a good moment to take a step up. Would she feel ready? When she arrived at the belay, it was obvious she was determined to go for it. Once she set off, her movements across the wall made it even more obvious. She was going up this pitch no matter what. It was great to watch.

Natalie setting off on pitch 4 of The Prozac Link, E4, Screaming Geo.

View from the Hot Aches Productions camera of Natalie leading the Prozac Link, E4. 

The next day we returned to Ard Feinis with the E7 wall in our sights. It was damp and already raining. But I was totally psyched to do it if at all possible. Natalie linked it on the top rope with ease but still opted to pass me the lead until she had more experience placing the few crucial small cams that only just protect it.

The rain got heavier and heavier, so there wasn’t time to lose. I kept my chalkbag dry by tucking under my top until I was under the crux roof before flinging it off, drying my hands and feet and launching up the wall. Apart from a few seconds off faff drying my hands after fiddling with rainsoaked cams, I enjoyed every second of the wall, especially grabbing the monster bucket wet jug at the top and throwing on my pre-stashed Gore-Tex jacket. A first E7 since coming back from surgery and a good milestone in regaining my confidence. Nat seconded into a faceful of drips from the top of the wall, and we scurried back to the car to thaw out, happy.

I don’t know whether it’s because I’ve had a nice rest this week with lots of sleep after all those 16 hour building days at home, because I’ve been back to climbing, or because I’ve been climbing in inspiring surroundings all week, but I feel a burst of energy right now. I’ll have to use it for something good.

Looking across to the Flannan isles from Screaming Geo, Lewis. Photo: Hot Aches Productions

Holds going on my wall, and new routing on Harris

Some holds going on the climbing wall at last!

After a month straight of 16 hour days on average, my climbing wall is finished. Well, apart from getting all the holds on. I must admit that after completing the build and various other jobs that needed doing at my place, I was a bit too broken to even climb on it. I just wanted to sleep! But now there are some holds going on it I’m getting more and more excited as it turns from a building project into what I had originally envisioned - a brilliant place to train.

However, rather than jump straight on it, I opted to take advantage of the dry weather and head to the Outer Hebrides for a couple of days new routing and prospecting with Calum Muskett. We did a handful of new lines from E3 to E5 and I worked on this immaculate 40m wall of perfect Gneiss that has been on my projects to look at list for a few years. It was just as good as I hoped, if maybe a little hard.

There were a couple of different ways you could go. The best, and hardest looks upwards of 8b+ climbing with adequate gear. But the crux is super hard. On the first day I was climbing all day in a Citadel jacket and still had numb hands in the wind. In those conditions I could get some purchase on the crux crimps, but couldn’t see how to use them. The next day it was much warmer and I needed a bit of help from the rope to stay on, but did get a sequence that may work. So now I have something great to direct my training, and an excuse to get the ferry back to Harris pretty soon.

A very very hard project to go back to.

4 new titles in the shop.

We’ve just added four great new books and DVDs to the shop. The first three books are all major contributions to the literature on improving at climbing and I’d recommend getting hold of all three. Well done to the authors of all of them who have made a great contribution here and no doubt these books will be the first step to many hard ascents and goals realised in the future.

Gimme Kraft: The Cafe Kraft gym (Kraft = strength btw) in Nurnberg, Germany has gained a great reputation for coaching a string of fantastic climbing talents over the past few years, most notably, Alex Megos who became the first climber to onsight 9a. Their coaches have put together a new book and DVD detailing the principles and exercises they have used to help their talented young climbers become super strong and fit beasts.

So the book is very focused on physical strength and endurance training, both on and off the climbing wall. It provides a great and easy to follow manual for sharpening up weak areas in your strength. This is particularly useful since it can be hard to choose or adapt core strength routines from other sports for climbing.

Both the book and DVD show clearly how to do the basic strength and endurance exercises and the DVD contains many interesting interviews with climbing legends about training and climbing performance. 

Training for the new Alpinism: Steve House and Scott Johnston’s new book on training for alpinism is a much awaited and weighty addition to the available literature on training for climbing. It is the first book to focus solely on alpinism and brings the field right up to date. It is very much training focused (as opposed to skills focused), which is both it’s greatest strength and weakness.

It contains clear and extensive sections on the basic principles of sports physiology, but with the discussion relating directly to climbing in an alpine setting. So you no longer have to learn and then adapt the principles used in other endurance sports to effectively plan your training regime. It also has great and focused sections on strength, mental skills, nutrition, altitude, schedule planning and choosing your training goals. It also contains some fantastic contributions from other world class alpinists, sharing what they have learned about the most effective ways yo improve your alpine climbing.

Its focus on physical rather than technical skills training means there should probably be more than just this book in your training library. However, it joins a collection of titles that are essential reading for climbers who are serious about improving.

The Trad Climber’s Bible: The skills for trad climbing are about as broad as in any sport. This is especially true if you wish to climb in many different settings - hard, technical single pitch climbs, big walls and and alpine faces. The Trad Climber’s Bible comes at the challenge of passing on these skills from a different angle from most instructional manuals.

I jumped at the chance to order it in for the davemacleod.com shop simply because it was authored by the American trad legends John Long and Peter Croft. I was fascinated by how they had approached the challenge of writing about trad skills. They have written the book in a narrative style, with many stories and anecdotes from their combined 70 year experience of pushing their limits on trad all over the world.

Some of the sections, such as those on ‘fiddling’ and ‘embracing the weird’ made me smile as they highlighted the sheer range of unusual skills that are nonetheless essential to be a successful trad climber. It’s a big, thorough, entertaining and inspiring book which will provide much food for thought and arm you with many more skills to throw at your next big lead. Excellent photography throughout and great value for what has clearly been a huge project for the authors.

Wideboyz II: The Wideboyz, Tom Randall and Pete Whittaker, have decided to turn their hand to finger cracks, with the goal of repeating the hardest and most famous of all finger cracks - Cobra Crack (8c) in Squamish. In their own Wideboyz style, they convert their offwidth training den into a finger sqaushing setup and proceed to train, hard. Still, Cobra Crack put up a good fight! Entertaining as ever, and a reminder that focusing and trying damn hard goes a long, long way.

Climbing wall, week 3.

I was hoping to keep posting some daily, or at least frequent climbing wall progress updates. But the chain 16+ hour days working on it kept me rather busy. It has come on a lot over the past week.

All the ply is now on and tidied up with a mission of long hours and going for it with Scott Muir from Dream Climbing Walls. Now the structure is built, it’s up to me to get it all finished. Last night was a bit ridiculous, still washing sanding dust off it at 4am. But today the first coat of paint has been going on and it’s looking great.

I took a couple of days off after Scott left and went to Glasgow. I managed to get my hands on some of Malcolm Smith’s new resin holds which are launching in a couple of weeks under the brand Stonesmith. They are pretty cool and I’ll post up some pics as soon as the paint dries on the wall and I can get them on.

I’ve also been making some of my own holds from hardwood. I’ve never had the tools for working with wood before, but have accumulated some better tools over the past year and I’m really keen to get better at making nice holds. Well made wooden holds are something a bit special. 

Not too long now before I can get rockshoes on and start training on this beast!

Climbing wall, Day 3

By day 2 of building my climbing wall, we’d moved the horizontal trusses up, giving four metres of height. Then it was time to start cutting and drilling the timber frame.

By the end of day three, we’d build most of the frame and I could start to see what the wall space will be like for the first time. It looks soooo good!

Scott from Dream Climbing Walls would be back on Monday, so I had the weekend off. I was feeling a bit fatigued after the building mission. But I was too excited and carried on over the weekend, doing more building and making holds out of hardwood. With any luck, within a week or a bit more, I'll be training on it and getting fit for the rock season.

A nice break came in the form of taking Freida camping since the Lochaber monsoon has finally broken at last. We had a great wee adventure. I woke to the sound of heavy breathing outside the tent in the wee small hours. I peeked outside to see around 15 highland cows surrounding the tent. I’m very much looking forward to taking Frieda on more adventures like this in the hills over the summer.

Climbing wall build, Day 1

Day 1 of building my wall! Moving trusses, sawing, grinding, drilling and generally trying to keep up with Scott Muir from Dream Climbing Walls.

So excited.

Choosing carefully on the Ben

On the steep corner of Rutless, VII,8 Ben Nevis. My camera misted up a bit in the west coast air!

After a huge dump of fresh snow, a lot of folk, including myself, were desperate to get back up the Ben and get some winter routes in. I walked in on a rather wet morning with Helen and Harry to see what we could safely get to. Not much. In the CIC hut, we went round in circles trying to figure out what would be frozen, but not going to avalanche us. In the end, we walked out of the door with no plan, and just went upwards, expecting nothing.

Ice damage

Harry had mentioned a steep wall on the Douglas Boulder. Going beyond this looked dangerous, and it looked a bit more frozen than expected, so we tied in and started going up. After Helen’s tunneling pitch (in snow) and my tunneling pitch (the Gutless chimney), we arrived below the wall. Harry passed me back the lead and I set off, at first trying to go rightwards, before getting pumped trying to get any protection in an ice choked overhanging crack. Eventually, I settled for going left which was a god bit easier, although I was already quite tired from the direct venture.

 Helen moving a lot of snow to make upward progress.

Our late start and chilled out pace meant it was actually getting dark as we were abseiling off the top of the Douglas boulder. With bottomless windslab in the gully below, we continued abseiling down the slopes all the way back to our sacks for safety. We later found out that the route I took had been climbed a few years before by Nick Bullock and Matt Helicker (Rutless VII,8). It’s a good choice for a stormy or dangerous day on the Ben.

Harry and Helen enjoying the belay ledge.

A lot of folk walking out in the morning owing to the tricky conditions for accessing the classic routes.

Andy Nisbet film

Here is a little film that myself and Claire made about Andy Nisbet. Every year the Fort William Mountain Festival make an award for excellence in Mountain Culture. Andy was this year’s recipient and this film talks about his contribution which is huge. I went out filming with Andy and climbing partners, attempting a new route on Beinn Fhada and captured some pretty scary footage of them going for it and falling off! Enjoy!

It's great to see Andy recognised for being an inspiration to so many climbers and a huge direct help to them through his exhaustive and diligent guidebook work over the decades. Thanks Andy.

Two videos from Patagonia

Above is a video of a super problem I did in Patagonia called Wasabi (V12). I made the video while I was out there but the connection was too bad to upload it. I’d seen video of it before I went out and was determined to climb it while I was there. In the end it only took a few sessions.

The next video was put together by Calum Muskett of an attempt on a hard new mixed route on the east face of the Mermoz. Unfortunately we didn't have the right gear to protect a pitch high up and just didn't get another weather window to try again, this time.