Anubis FWA

The Comb showing the line of Anubis, on the day of the ascent

Quite unexpectedly, I managed to complete my long term ambition to make the first winter ascent of my own summer E8, Anubis on Ben Nevis. The number of hours to finish the lead might just be countable on one hand, and completely exhausted me for the following three days. In other words, I completely went for it.

Starting up the initial overhang Photo: Christina Bell

It seems to contradict reason, but it seems clear to from my experience that there are many different states of mind which seem to work well for bringing out the best (or should it be worst?) in climbers for hard leads. ‘confident and solid’ is most consistent, but suffers often from nerves and fear of failure. ‘Invincible’ can produce moments of sickening boldness/recklessness, but always makes for a short career in climbing. ‘Angry’ is only really good for pull-ups. Climbing is too delicate for it’s unchannelled release of energy. ‘F**k it, what have I got to lose?’ was where I was at on the crux of Anubis. Life is too short for caution when you are on the right route, at the right time. So I dispensed with caution.

A small gear ripping fall on the initial wall leading to the main roof helped a lot to relax the body. I had been needing that for about two or three seasons. I started again. This time climbing like I wanted to get higher. 

Crossing the crux roof Photo: Christina Bell

Several hours later, with nothing left in my arms, my feet slipped off again on the final headwall, well out from the last gear. I had the eyeball bulge of a leader with three seconds to find a solution or fall. A footless speed-downclimb of about 8 moves and kung foo kick back onto the footledge under the roof saved one more chance to get to the belay. Christina burst out laughing at the sight of it. I laughed as well, after a minute or two. 

Next time up was my last strength, so I got there. I pulled through my 70 metre ropes, tied them together and kept going up the comb in a 140 metre pitch, before untying and continuing up the ice grooves, and eventually standing in the quiet of the summit by myself for a few minutes.

Grade in winter? No idea. I’ll have a think about it. I haven’t ever tried or done anything harder in winter. I guess there are worse chores than grading your hardest route. The route started as an idea to see if it was possible today to maintain the Victorian mountaineering tradition of opening a new climb in summer conditions, and progressing to an ascent in winter. Great that it’s still every bit as possible as it was a century ago.

The highpoint of my 2nd attempt, the other week Photo: Andy Turner

Anubis in summer E8 mode Photo: Cubby Images

Postscript: Just before I posted this up I read a timely post on Ian Parnell’s blog with a full list of all the routes of grade IX and above. I can’t say it really helped that much for making a wild and disclaimer-ridden stab at a grade for Anubis. But what did stand out was the consistency of routes which are often reasonably protected HVSs working out at IX in winter. There are of course some E2s and up to about E4s that have been done as winter mixed routes, generally where the cruxes involve cracks. Anubis, although dramatically harder at E8 does have a useful short crack at the crux, but then a section of E5 6a face climbing on small crimps. Bla bla… the long and short of it is I do think it’s a significant step up from any of the routes I’ve done. The crux is not much harder than Don’t Die, but then the rest is like stringing three of the IXs on Ian’s list together. So maybe it’s XII if my other two routes are really XI. Or if The Hurting and Don’t Die are really grade X then Anubis might make it into XI. I’ll keep thinking about it...

Ben Udlaidh with Turner

Andy moves underneath the steepness above while Lucasz dangles with his camera.

Feeling completely whacked after Anubis day, I stumbled into Ben Udlaidh behind Andy Turner to follow him up roofs and hanging icicles on the lower tier of Ben Udlaidh. The line he’s spotted was a lot better than I remembered the lower tier with lots of steep ice and interesting overhanging corners and roofs. I awoke from my duvet jacket cave to hear Andy battering a hole in the final icicle to pull through. The ropes ran out and I followed in a state of semi slumber, letting out small moans every time I had to lift my arms above my head. Thankfully there was time for about five cups of tea in the Bridge of Orchy before I met Claire for our trip to Glasgow.

Andy starting up the new line (unamed as yet) VII,7

Sums up winter climbing in Scotland over the past month “hold my sunnies, I’m off up this unclimbed icicle”.

Cave on the coast

Now I have electricity again after the storms (water still frozen tho!) here are some posts about recent climbing, in a reverse order…

The other day we turned around from Glen Coe and winter climbing as the storms began and headed for the cave on the coast Johan pointed me at. Two new problems got done, a Font 7b and a burly 7c or 7c+ (I can’t remember bouldering grades after so much winter climbing). There’s a quick video clip of these below.

You’ll probably see a bit more of this cave on my blog coming up, as the moves were done on a Font 8a+ mega link up and and we spent a while figuring out how an entire link of the cave (30 metres deep) could be done - looks like F8c+ to F9a territory.

Accepting help

Seems unimaginable in certain situations, and far too easy in others. Why such imbalance? I don’t have an answer. Arrogance or shortsightedness broken only by laziness? Or is it strong independent spirit poorly balanced out by realism and the urgency of problems. The latter a good soother, the former getting closer, but still probably far from the truth.

Anyhow, back to more familiar territory - climbing. Ongoing preparation for projects has been good, and bad. Physical preparation has gone, overall, slightly backwards. Mental preparation, in a roundabout way, is probably a lot better. Funny how the two don’t always have to go hand in hand. It's the normal rollercoaster ride. Between big ups and downs, you can still strike the route on the middle of an 'up'.

‘9 out of 10 climbers’, seven weeks on…

My book has been out for nearly a couple of months now. Thanks to everyone who emailed me to tell me about your experiences with it. I’m glad it seems to have had such a big effect on a lot of people. You’ve certainly inspired me to keep going with my next one, for which I’ve been worming through a large pile of research material for.

There are some reviews of 9 out of 10 climbers starting to pop up here and there, and you might start seeing it appear in the odd climbing shop too now. But I liked the fact that so many of you were psyched to get hold of it direct from my shop. Thank you everyone. Here are a couple of the reviews:

Mountains and Water’s review

Stone Country’s review

UKC users thoughts here and here

What seems to have resonated with folk is the straightforwardness of putting the various components of climbing performance in their proper perspective. That’s exactly what I set out to do, so I feel happy overall with the message of the book. My goal was to tell the stories of how the hugely important factors end up at the mercy of the relatively unimportant details. Quite apart from the potential effects on your climbing, I find the mechanics of how this occurs an interesting story to tell in it’s own right. 

Marshall Smith challenge success!

Today, Diff and I are stationed in my house drinking vast quantities of tea, piling through an entire box of shortbread and generally recovering from the Smith Marshall week. We managed to do it, film it, photograph it and enjoy every minute of it.

Yesterday we left the CIC hut at 8ish and made a morning ascent of Orion Face Direct in glorious conditions to finish off, and top of the seven Ben Nevis routes. That left the sting in the tail - the Grey Corries traverse. It’s a big walk but not a big deal on it’s own. It was Smith and Marshall’s rest day from the climbs. However, after topping out on Orion Face and starting it for the afternoon itinerary, it started to feel a bit more uphill by the time we were floundering in deep snow up to Aonach Beag.

Several peaks later, glycogen ran out and autopilot and mars bars kept us plodding along the snow arete in the dark to Stob Coire Claurigh and the final jog down it’s long open plateau towards the lights of Spean Bridge. Our water supply had run out way back at Aonach Beag so I was hallucinating about a huge glass of orange and lemonade in the Commando Bar in Spean. It took two pints of the stuff before I could face a sip of celebratory beer.

Anyhow, I need to go back to preparing video and pictures of the week for our show at the Fort William Mountain Festival on Sunday night. Hopefully see you there for a good night of ice climbing inspiration.

Pristine ice grooves on Orion Face Direct

Moving out on a thin Smith’s Route

Donald - a man who can take a cameraman where few have gone before

Climbing into a deep blue sky - Point 5 Gully on Wednesday

Andy learning to cut steps

Glad to be standing on the last summit of the Grey Corries after traversing them after Orion Face

Observatory Buttress & Smiths

Minus 3 Gully - Photo Paul Diffley/Hotaches

This is a two minute blog…

I’m due to leave three minutes ago to head back up the allt a mhullin for a rendezvous at the hut 7.30am to head into Point 5 Gully. Neither Andy or myself have done it before and it looks in good condition. Which will make a nice change from yesterday’s thin ice on Smiths Route and Observatory Buttress, complete with pretend ice screws in much and wherever there was solid ice it broke off in huge dinner plates, giving the film team of Guy in the gully below a bombing.

Day 3 - minus three gully

Donald was off like a shot soloing up slingsbys chimney early doors to rig ropes down minus three this morning. The crux out of the cave had just enough ice to make it interesting. Above, three pitches of Perfect neve led to north east buttress. I definitely wouldn't have liked to be step cutting out of the cave. Speaking of which, some folk were asking why we weren't step cutting ourselves this week. Neither of us have ever tried it before and a week of grade Vs probably wouldn't be the place to start. By all accounts it's quite a skill and to be honest we don't have any idea how to do it! Tonight we did manage to get hold of a couple of wooden tools so we might have a go bouldering about later in the week if we have time. In the morning we are off early to climb a thin looking observatory buttress. This evening in the gathering gloom myself and donald dug out some belays from the snow and rigged it for Paul to film us.

Guy was filming us today from under Orion face. A rucksack came flying past from somewhere up high, probably zero gully, followed by various other bits of kit. Fortunately no climbers came by in the same direction. And the owner came past later to collect the fallen kit.

Our unbelievable luck with conditions continues, although smiths route is looking very thin so I might not be saying that later on in the week. 

Pigotts route

 I opened my eyes in the hut thinking it was early. It wasn't. A robin smith start saw us belayed under the crux icy chimney at noon, diff jugging up the rope we dropped for him. I led the crux on about 50% ice and the rest mixed hooks. I couldn't understand Marshall and smiths ten metre left traverse after this pitch until I filled andy up it, revealing an excellent 120 foot chute of perfect Nevis neve. We were spared the exposure of the final ridge crest by swirling mist. Descending number 3 gully we dithered about eyeing up the many glaring unclimbed lines on the mountain. 

In the morning andy and donald are off up to the top of minus three gully to rig it for paul. We'll hopefully climb it at good pace and rig observatory buttress before tea for the following day. 

Conditions were not quite as lucky as yesterday with mist and snow blowing about a bit. So fingers crossed tomorrow will go smoothly without too much standing still and shivering. 

Currently observing a good lesson in organised mountain hut regime from the large French team in residence. We scots are rather uncivilised by comparison!

Some pics and video heading down the mountain right now thanks to the runners...

Day 1 - the great chimney

50 years to the day since Marshall and Smith did the first ascent of the great chimney, we made a great fun ascent today in superb conditions. No wind, some good ice and neve, and temperature just hovering on zero, we couldn't have asked for more.

Apart maybe from some extra bodies to help with the morning carry, which was a litle hard on backs and shoulders. We hauled a ton of rope, kit, and cameras to the hut to kick things off, so leaving to stroll up observatory gully we had a spring in our step after leaving some of it behind. Well, donald did anyway, racing up tower ridge to fix a rope for paul to climb up.

I was lucky and got the main pitch which had superb rock spikes to grab hold of any time the ice got a bit hollow. Andy's pitch, where marshall used a point of aid on a short overhanging barrier was indeed steep. Thankfully his crampon points weren't placed inches above my head for too long and we were up into the mild afternoon air on tower ridge.

Paul did well to move quickly into position up his rope and his footage of the climb showed off the fine rock architecture of the cavernous slit through the ridge. Tomorrow we might be deviating from the itinerary of Marshall and smith and heading for pigotts route next. We'llsee what the morning brings.

Sent from my iPhone

50 years to the day since Marshall and Smith did the first ascent of
the great chimney, we made a great fun ascent today in superb
conditions. No wind, some good ice and neve, and temperature just
hovering on zero, we couldn't have asked for more.

Apart maybe from some extra bodies to help with the morning carry,
which was a litle hard on backs and shoulders. We hauled a ton of
rope, kit, and cameras to the hut to kick things off, so leaving to
stroll up observatory gully we had a spring in our step after leaving
some of it behind. Well, donald did anyway, racing up tower ridge to
fix a rope for paul to climb up.

I was lucky and got the main pitch which had superb rock spikes to
grab hold of any time the ice got a bit hollow. Andy's pitch, where
marshall used a point of aid on a short overhanging barrier was indeed
steep. Thankfully his crampon points weren't placed inches above my
head for too long and we were up into the mild afternoon air on tower
ridge.

Paul did well to move quickly into position up his rope and his
footage of the climb showed off the fine rock architecture of the
cavernous slit through the ridge. Tomorrow we might be deviating from
the itinerary of Marshall and smith and heading for pigotts route
next. We'llsee what the morning brings.

Sent from my iPhone

Marshall-Smith week starts tomorrow

This is a quick post as I’m getting up in 5 hours to carry an uber load up the Ben to start the Smith Marshall week re-enactment. We just came from a team meeting and the list of improbable things to be done in the next seven days is quite staggering. Donald and Paul will be starting the days by going to the plateau and rigging/abseiling the faces to get in position. No support team, just them carrying the all the ropes and camera equipment. 

Tomorrow we are headed for The Great Chimney. The forecast is getting better all the time for the week, but heavy rain tonight and an unfortunate wind direction will be loading the faces with several of the routes and they could be a bit too dangerous to approach for a while? We’ll have to see how things go. Hey, noone said it would be easy.

If you want to follow how we get on I’ll be tweeting from wherever I can get a signal on the mountain. My twitter feed is here. I’ll also try and get some blogs out and let you know when the first youtube clips come scooting down from the editing suite in the CIC hut. 

But of course the best place to catch up with the week of climbs will be next Sunday night at the festival with Jimmy Marshall, myself and Andy and the footage we get. See you there, an please excuse us if we seem a little fatigued.

Big Days

Two big days in winter just gone. First up I made about 4 metres of progress on my project. Doesn’t sound much, but with it being 4 metres of roof, it’s a pretty crucial 4 metres!

I went back and forth about twenty times trying to find a way to move off a long undercut stretch. I sussed the method on my ‘last go’ and committed myself. Shortly afterwards I found myself hanging at the lip, both hands on one tool, feet dangling staring out a wire I was too pumped to clip. About a minute of desperately trying to clip it with either hand from a locked off postion followed, then some dejected dangling and preparing for the big fall and swing, contemplating leaving my tool in the crack until my attempt. But a sketchy heelhook and last ditch strength had it clipped and one move more before a total arm failure.

Lowering off ecstatic. One minute of action on the roof and then failure with a new highpoint worth many a day on easier routes. Next time I want another 4 metres of progress. After that there is just another 15 metres of summer E5 to the belay.

Next day I was out on Meagaidh with Michael. We climbed a pretty cool 7 pitch line up the centre of Bellvue Buttress which went at around VI,7 or maybe a bit harder? I got a superb big wandering pitch up the slab below the huge roofs and Michael got a tough set of steep grooves with just enough turf and flakes to make it go. It dark and heavy snow we missed the descent at the left of the buttress and descended into the adjacent coire, which left us with a bit of an issue with retrieving our sacks, now well buried at the foot of the route. A long walk in the dark ensued, so I was feeling the fatigue a little for my coaching clinics at Ratho the following day. 

Motivation is well and truly set for the next attempt on the project. Next shot, I have to be more disciplined and carry less rack. I just don’t think I can climb such a hard piece of M-double figures ground up with a massive kilt of ironmongery.

Michael leads off on brittle ice, pitch 1

Michael gets stuck into the difficulties on pitch 3

Bellvue Buttress, Creag Meagaidh. Our route breaks out left from under the huge roof and up the steep grooved walls above, just left of the buttress crest.

Night out

We were given some tickets to a gig in Glasgow last night - the Prodigy. It was a fun night. Good to have a quick break (after a session on the board of course). Recovery from three entire pints of beer consumed curtailed todays activities to shop work, but tomorrow it’s time for winter action to resume in earnest. 

Perhaps see you at my coaching clinics and lecture on Thursday at EICA Ratho...

Working on the move

Coaching movement, in a hidden away corner of Dublin, Ireland Photo: Patricia Fox

Last week I re-set the climbing wall in Callander before heading off to Dublin. Confession: Three creme eggs, two bags of chips and a small porridge mountain were required to finish the job in the assigned two days.

Full of my third head cold of the last six months I headed over to Dublin early for coaching sessions with the Trinity College climbers. We had good fun working on endless problems for two days straight and thanks to the big crowd that came to my talk. It always strikes me when visiting Ireland for work or climbing the effects of being relatively isolated from the wider climbing spectrum. We have this a little in Scotland, but in Ireland it’s effect is multiplied. There is no sport climbing and although the small climbing walls around are pretty good, they don’t have the massive buzzing social scene I saw the week before in The Climbing Academy in Bristol. It has some downsides, because a big central meeting place of people with a shared interest inevitably makes good things happen. But I notice that the irish climbers are, generally speaking, some of the most hardcore lovers of outdoor, remote adventure climbing around, certainly in the UK. Everyone is a to a certain extent a product of their times. I was encouraged repeatedly to make it over again soon, but for climbing adventures next time on the many possibilities in the west of the island. I have a date with Orkney first, but I’m there!

I have a feeling that a major climbing centre in Dublin or Belfast is only a spark of inspiration away and would make a big change in the climbing community here.

As the hours in the bouldering wall passed I forgot about my head cold, for a while at least.