My first drone film 'Miles Away'

Miles Away from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo.

I’ve had my drone for several months now and been gathering some footage for various projects in Scotland, but I’ve just finished my first drone film. It’s just a short fly about the Swiss alps, and Catalunyan hills, following Alicia Hudelson as she explains what mountain running means to her. It was great fun to make on my rest days from climbing. Thanks Alicia for being describing your thoughts about running so well and taking us to such nice places.

I just heard its been shortlisted for the Drone Fest film festival in London next month. Nice! I think it's the first time I've entered a film competition since my first film Echo Wall seven years ago!

The 4th Wave - Arisaig project done.

4th Wave, 8B first ascent from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo.

I had a strong feeling I was going to be able to climb my project in the Arisaig Cave imminently. I have been climbing rather better than of late and could feel the moves getting easier and easier. Since returning from my great trip in Europe in October, I’d had a bit of a crap period with a few things not really going well. When feeling a bit fed up with things not going well, I tend to stutter in my energy levels, with periods of intense motivation and energy and other periods where the motivation is there but the energy is not.

Yesterday started out as one of those low days. I sat in the car for twenty minutes just doing nothing before walking in. I wasn’t really thinking about anything. I think perhaps I needed to do that for a few minutes. I strolled in to the Rhu Peninsula and began my warm-up routine in the cave. I was definitely feeling strong, but not sharp and a little sluggish. Experience tells me to keep going with the routine even in this state. At worst, you have another workout, another chance to learn more about the project. At best, the non-plussed state of mind can defend you from nerves when you are very close to a hard project. As I’ve written about before, despite what many sport psychology textbooks tell you, there’s no need to be feeling positive before producing a good performance. People are just way more complicated than that.

On my first try I finally broke through the crux and fell at the last hard move, powered out. After two more rubbish tries, I cruised through the crux, feeling the strongest I’ve ever felt on the line. Arriving back at the final slap to the apex of the cave, I felt my power draining. But I slapped, and I didn’t fall. It’s hard for me to explain this or to accurately describe my state of mind in this move. Although focusing during a 100% effort is totally automatic for me, I wouldn’t say I felt particularly concentrated. It just seemed to happen without me really feeling like I was making it. And so I found myself at the finishing holds, project (on and off) of three years, done.

All a bit surreal really. I celebrated my moving directly on to the big yin - a link of my earlier monster line right through the cave into my now ex-project. 25 moves of Font 8a to an awkward kneebar rest and then into a tough 8B. You can see the video I made of Eternity’s Gate a few years back below. It’s an amazing piece of climbing. And it’s dry almost all of the year. That should give me something to chew on for a few seasons!

The above musing on psychological states may well be rather peripheral to this project getting climbed. The bottom line is I felt really strong on it. Why? Well take a look at the graph below of my weight over the past 6 months. It doesn’t take a genius to spot the pattern. The ‘how’ of this process is complex and a subject for another blog post. But the ‘why’ is an important part of my current improved form.

I was rather heavier than I am now when I was a teenager but lost a fair amount of fat since getting keen to push my climbing about 18 years ago (height 5 feet 8 inches btw). Of the numerous ways that can be used to lower your weight temporarily, large amounts of running, often in a fasted state, was probably most effective for me to maintain a fighting weight for projects. However, since my accident at Steall in 2012, I haven’t been able to run. I also found that the other tactics I used were now frustratingly ineffective. My weight has slowly crept up over the past three years as a result, despite intermittent efforts by me to settle on a strategy to counter this. The low point of this was the peak of the graph above in early October, when I took 5 tries to climb an 8b (The Force at Brin Rock) I was not happy with this performance!

After reaching a stage where I was finally able to let go of pre-established ideas and come to the subject a-new, I started to read piles of books, 100s of research papers and countless online discussions in order to get a better grasp of the subject. Although this only scratches the surface of the understanding required (hence my reluctance to share more than the results at the moment), I do feel like I have finally got somewhere. 

On one hand, I cannot emphasise enough the importance of knowing what you are doing before making an effort to manipulate your diet or weight. For a start, being lighter may not be an advantage at all for a large proportion of climbers. For example, some climbers cannot influence their weight much no matter what they do. I have noticed that these climbers sometimes struggle to understand why it seems to make such a huge difference to some others. The health consequences of getting all this wrong are about as big as they get. I have spent countless long nights reading on this subject. Unfortunately, due to the poor quality of much of the available research, and unbelievably poor quality of a good deal of the popular press articles and books on the subject, it’s a complete big fat minefield. On the other hand, one cannot opt out of eating a diet and maintaining choices in how we live - what if the choices we are making that form our baseline are the bad ones? Doing nothing for fear of making an error could be the worst possible scenario. Yet the barrier of being able to read and process enough raw science to be able to distinguish good personalised advice from bad is not realistic for a lot of people. It’s an impossible situation.

All I can say is that I am lucky to have the opportunity to be able to plough through all of these papers and run my ‘experiment of one’ from a position of being slightly less in the dark than I might be. It’s an ongoing experiment and I have so much to learn - it’s a bit daunting and I am determined to maintain a dispassionate approach. But the first step was to try it for a couple of months and see if there was a positive impact on my climbing. At this point, that is an emphatic yes!

Earning my Santa hat immunity

Pleased to redpoint Aitzol 8c. Definitely my first 8c warm-up!

After a long drive from Magic Wood we arrived in Catalunya feeling a bit tired. I had a bit of realisation that going from pulling on for a couple of seconds on a Font 8C to trying to do stamina routes in Margalef was maybe not going to be easy, especially as I still couldn’t pull on pockets properly after straining a lumbrical in Magic Wood.

My goal for the week was not too ambitious. All I wanted to get was revenge on Aitzol (soft 8c). In late 2013 I was here for a week with Alicia. We’d had the trip booked for ages and in the interim period I needed to get my second ankle surgery and the date for that fell just over two weeks before the trip. Not ideal. I said I would still go and just do what I could - probably just belay and feel sorry for myself.

I arrived in Margalef still barely able to walk 100 yards and still taking antibiotics for a painful wound infection. On the first day I was almost in tears just walking from the car 100 metres to buy the guidebook. I limped up a 200m approach and just belayed Alicia and popped painkillers.

After that the tide turned on that particular recovery. And quickly. The next day I did one 6c. The next a 7a+. The next an 8a redpoint. Then on the final day I got 7c+ onsight, 8a+ redpoint and almost managed to redpoint Aitzol 8c.

I fell just after the crux but couldn’t really make the most of the heel hook rest and couldn’t do any drop knees. It was fantastic to leap back trough the grades day after day and switch from delicate surgical patient to rock climber again. I knew that my next time in Margalef I would be straight back to try and finish Aitzol.

I had a couple of tries in awful conditions and although the moves were no problem, I was getting pumped after ten seconds on the rock. But after a rest day the rock was drier and I returned and started up it straight away, opting to just work the moves a bit for my warm-up. I arrived at the heel hook rest feeling quite good, so decided to continue. Next thing I was through the crux. I was definitely feeling quite warmed up by then.

I climbed all the way to the anchor without really getting that pumped. At the start of the trip I bought a silly Santa hat in Barcelona in prep for Christmas family silliness. We a pact that if I fell off a 6c or failed to get overlapping halves on Aitzol, or if Alicia said ‘take’ on lead, we’d have to wear the Santa hat for the next three routes.

After my 8c ‘warm-up’ I was chuffed when Alicia announced that I’d earned full immunity from the Santa hat for the rest of the trip. With my project done in the first ten minutes of the session, we headed off for a brew and then got on Llamps i Trons (8c+/9a post hold break). I certainly wont be climbing that in our last couple of days here. But I think I have a new project to return to Margalef for.

A lovely day filming Alicia with the drone on her favourite run in Serra de Montsant.

Alicia enjoying the last morning in Magic Wood before the monster drive to Catalunya.

Climbing Coaching workshops at the MacLeod wall, FWMF 2016

Sunday boarding from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo.

When I designed and built my climbing wall last year, I had two purposes in mind:

1. To get ridiculously strong.

2. To coach other climbers there, in a nice environment with everything I’d want to be able to give good coaching.

I was too busy writing Make or Break last year to start offering coaching again, and this year has been rather taken up with recovering from surgery and then going on climbing trips to make up for the lost time.

But finally I’m excited to say I have my first MacLeod wall climbing coaching sessions arranged. I’ll be running them over three days of the Fort William Mountain Festival in February 2016. I’ll run two days of sessions on rock climbing technique and one day focused on dry tooling/winter climbing technique. The content is aimed at any climbing ability level and there will be up to 6 climbers in each session so you can come with friends and partners as folk often do. In the video and pics you can get a taste of the wall.

Afterwards I hope you’ll join me at the excellent Fort William Mountain Festival for speakers and films which are always totally inspiring. All the workshop (and festival) details are on the festival site here. Best book a place soon, they do tend to sell out.

Natalie's Transition

A couple of years ago Natalie Berry asked if I’d be keen to show her some trad climbing places around Scotland as she was making a move from competition climbing into trying out trad and general mountain adventures. Of course I was delighted to climb with her and along the way, the Hot Aches crew of Paul Diffley and Chris Prescott followed her progress and the fun times we had. The trailer above is for the film which is now finished and premiering at the Kendal festival shortly. We’ll see you there if you are coming.

The process nearly fell at the first hurdle thanks to my ineptitude at catching a tiny crimp properly on Hold Fast Hold True (E9) in Glen Nevis. It was the very first day Nat and I climbed together. Nat did her first trad lead and then we climbed another few pitches before I decided to go for Hold True. I was actually climbing it really well and was almost distracted by the fact that I’d just dispatched the crux totally static. Then I just caught a crimp one finger-width to the right of where I should. A tiny error. My left ankle was already in a sub-optimal state after a fall 15 odd years before. Landing on it again from a great height didn’t help it much at all. I was seriously not happy with myself for making an error at one of the worst possible moments, not least because of how the experience of watching someone fall earthward might affect Natalie. It’s not really in the ‘mentor’ job description.

However, she still wanted to climb with me (once I’d had surgery) and so we went on to have quite a few nice trips to some amazing corners of our islands. We did quite a few mega classics, got freezing cold on ice routes, got too warm on melting ice routes, took falls, went for long runouts, opened new routes and stood on top of the Ben on a perfect day after a fine ice climb. It kind of led up to Natalie’s ascent of Dalriada on the Cobbler just a few weeks ago, a fantastic effort in very cold late season conditions. 

The film is great because you don’t normally get to see someone as they progress right through from fumbling wires on a hard severe, to calmly running it out on mountain E7 in the mist, while shivering away from the cold.

It was a pleasure to watch Nat’s progress unfold. It’s always a pleasure to watch great climbers progress - when they have talent and a determination to see through what they started, you know they will get there in the end. Watching the film back also made me want to have more trips like those, if Nat will tie on the the rope with me again. I promise I wont fall off and hit the deck, and will leave the crag before it’s totally dark!

If you are at Kendal, I'm speaking there at 10am on Sat 21st. Transition is premiering at 7.30pm on Friday 20th. All the details are on the Kendal site here.

Another Magic trip

Magic night in the Wood from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo.

The last two weeks have been my third time in Magic Wood in Switzerland. The place is packed with some of the hardest and most iconic boulder problems in the world and for that reason it’s a great testing ground of your level in bouldering.

It’s still a long term ambition of mine to climb a Font 8C, but fit this into my normal all-round climbing life of trad new routing, winter climbing etc. I’ve always admired the Chris Sharma creation ‘Practice of the Wild’ and have this as a lifetime climbing goal.

It’s a little tough as a goal, not just because it is 8C but also because sometimes one particular boulder problem that’s above your current limit might not match your strengths. However, it’s not just about the grade - I’d just love to one day climb that line. For to happen I know I’d need to be doing a lot more bouldering than I do now. Coming from a summer of big wall climbing and a bit of trad, I felt totally weak on it when I arrived two weeks ago. Just nowhere near even doing the moves.

So I tried some other projects. First I went into the Darkness Cave and spent a couple of sessions on Dark Sakai 8B. I almost got it about 5 times and felt quite confident that I might manage it after a rest day. Unfortunately I woke the next morning to realised quite badly tweaked my finger (strained lumbrical) on the nasty pocket at the start. I went back to it but immediately realised I’d have to leave it for this trip - my finger was not happy.

I sat out some wet days and then started from scratch on another dream line I’ve been wanting to do for a few years - One summer in Paradise (8B). I worked out the moves over a couple of quick sessions when it was still really damp. Although I could do the moves, I wasn’t feeling very confident about my power level.

Yet on the third session and around two weeks into my trip, I finally started to feel some strength returning to my fingers and after a warm-up in the encroaching darkness, I climbed it pretty easily first try. I was absolutely delighted to feel like I was moving well on the rock and feeling like I could actually do something.

I was expecting to be trying the line all evening so I headed down to the famous Riverbed 8B which I’d played on a little previously. I was enjoying just working out the moves in a kind of relaxed fashion and started thinking I would probably return to it. But when I started from the start I found myself climbing the whole thing. As I climbed through the crux I realised I better really concentrate and try and do it, but relax at the same time. There were some exciting moments as I hadn’t placed my torch to shine on the upper headwall and ended up groping around in the dark trying to find the finishing jugs.

Brilliant! I was over the moon to climb two dream 8Bs in a night. Like so many climbers I watched Dave Graham doing the first ascent of Riverbed in the Dosage films and was inspired to visit Switzerland for bouldering. 

I had one session left and decided to return to Practice of the Wild. It was still really damp (it’s in a deep cave and seems rarely totally dry) and on warming up I almost just left it because the holds were quite slippery. But curiosity basically drove me to keep trying and after an hour I finally managed to do all the moves. I couldn’t do any more than that, but I was ecstatic. For me that feels like a real breakthrough and a tentative thumbs up for some changes in my training picture recently.

It’s definitely put some extra fire into my motivation to train specifically for bouldering and return to Magic Wood with the confidence that this climb is actually a possibility for me.

For now we are off to Spain for a week or so to go back to the sport climbing. Hopefully at least I will be able to pull on the holds, although no doubt I will be pumped by the third bolt.

Claire in Outlandia

Claire MacLeod - Outlandia Artist in Residence from Nevis Landscape Partnership on Vimeo.

Here is a short video I made of Claire’s week up in the fantastic Outlandia in Glen Nevis. Claire used her artist’s residency week hand stitching text that was written by residents of the Glen a few hundred years ago onto clothing.

If people are interested in a residency, Outlandia is run by the Nevis Landscape Partnership and take applications.

Bouldering Season gets going

Cameron Stone Arete 8A+ from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo.

After an abortive September start in the warm weather, bouldering season felt like it kicked off a bit today with a chill breeze and a notable absence of the midge. Here is my starter for ten - a repeat of the Cameron Stone Arete (8A+) put up by Dan Varian in the spring. I should really have done this years ago, but it gave a nice excuse to return to the boulder.

Waiting for autumn

Finishing the hard section on The Force, 8b at Brin Rock. I'm just in from bolting a potential 8b+ or 8c there which looks excellent. Photo: Chris Prescott

The weather in Scotland over the past six weeks has been too damn good! My plan for the autumn was to start trying a couple of hard bouldering projects early, so that I would hopefully be well placed to maximise my chances of success from the start of the autumn good conditions.

I had about 5 sessions on my project in the Arisaig Cave it super hot conditions in early Sept. Although I made much progress and have a good sequence, I started going backwards on the problem. It was getting hotter! The other problem was a common one with projecting - I was actually losing strength because I wasn’t training, just trying the project with rest days in between. After a couple of weeks the weather was showing no signs of cooling, so it was better to go back to some training and wait for the cold winds.

Repeating The Fury 8a+ at Brin. Most of September has been like this. Hence not a lot of time for blogging! Photo: Chris Prescott

I did 10 days or so of good training on my board, interspersed with some trad days on Creag Dubh. Among other things I repeated Gary Latter’s ‘Aye’ E7 6b, in 25 degree full sun. Gary has been doing a good job of tidying up the crag and adding new routes lately. I also have made a couple of visits to Brin Rock’s new sport routes. I’d heard there was a new 8b there called The Force. I went on it after a week of daily board training, feeling pretty exhausted. I nearly got it on my first redpoint and kicked myself because I felt I had no energy left.

Four goes later I got up it. It’s definitely good to trash yourself like this once in a while. After two days rest jumping about with Freida, I felt a bit fitter. I was back at Brin yesterday and repeated ‘The Fury’ 8a+ and another excellent 8a+ up a great flake crack. Still the sun was roasting hot.

So the unseasonably hot autumn has somewhat messed with my plan, but I am a bit fitter and hopefully ready to try the boulder and sport projects this week.

Masa finds a welcome rest on Ruff Licks E3 at Creag Dubh in 25 degree October heat.

Dan starting up the 6b at Brin. Where are my sunglasses? On the way to Brin, Dan filled me in on the exciting progress of Fort William's imminent climbing centre. Work is underway!

Disco 2000

Disco 2000, 8a+ Blåmman from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo.

The video above takes in some of the great climbing on Disco 2000. The pitches went at 7b, 8a+, 7a, 8a+, 7c, 7c, 7b+, 7a, 7a, 6a, 6c, 6b+, 5+.

It was while freeing Bongo Bar on the north face of Blåmman, 4 years ago that I got the spark of curiosity to try to free Disco 2000. Looking across at the maze of roofs to my right, I saw a bolt belay looking lonely in the middle of nowhere on a blank looking granite wall. Huge roofs above and below. I could picture Marten Blixt hand drilling them by headtorch in some blizzard during their winter aid ascent in 2000.

After 4 days of sitting in the rain in our tent below the wall, Jacob and myself were desperate to make more progress in aiding up to that belay and finding out if the line was even possible to free. We continued aiding through the ‘night’ (the midnight sun period had just passed) and made it up to bolts. There were definitely enough holds on the crux pitch. However, the next roof, which was split by a soaring finger crack, was completely soaking.

Returning to our tents to sit through some more days of rain, we began to realise that wetness was going to be a major problem for us in trying to free this line. Calum Muskett arrived, bringing a couple of dry days with him. Jacob and I were so impatient as the wall started to dry out again that we raced back up to try the Arctandria corner at around 11pm.

On the crux of pitch 2; the Arctandria corner (8a+).

Disco 2000 shares the first two (and crux) pitches of Arctandria before breaking out left through the roofs. Arctandria was first freed in 2005 by Didier Berthod and Giovanni Quirci. The immaculate 50 metre open groove on the second pitch went at 8a+. We were both rather intimidated by it.

It turned out to be a bit easier than we had worried. Perhaps a combination of mutual keenness to climb it, and cool conditions of the middle of the night helped. After working out the moves and gear placements, Jacob went first and dispatched it. His telescopic arms spidered through the whole crux section in two moves. I went straight afterwards. It was after midnight and a little hard to see the odd foothold, so a few smears were improvised in a hurry.

After going down for a rest as it got light, we climbed back up the fixed line later the same afternoon and I finished cleaning the crux pitch while Calum worked on the Arctandria corner. Later on it started to rain again. Calum descended the fixed rope first, and as myself and Jacob descended, I noticed the temperature dropping. I stopped and asked Jacob if I could try the crux pitch now. As it turned out, while I led this, Jacob was getting steadily soaked by the rain on the hanging belay below me. On the roofs above, I didn’t even notice. I was in my own bubble, absorbed by this brilliant varied pitch.

On thin crimps where the aid line pendulums on pitch 4 (8a+)

The load carrying involved in remote big walling has been a little hard on my still recovering ankle, so just now I feel such pleasure to step into rockshoes and move freely without pain, or having to concentrate on every step to avoid it. Still, I was anxious not to take a long fall from the delicate final groove to the belay, the result of which would have been a nasty slam into the wall. We also took turns to free an unbelievable finger crack through the next roof. Even though the fingerlocks were wet, it was still one of the best pitches anywhere. Jacob joked that there ‘might be some crimp on the lip’ to help us pull over where the crack thinned. I agreed outwardly. Inwardly, I thought ‘there’s no crimp up there!’ As it happened, there was the most badass jug exactly where you’d want it. Swinging footless from this proves a spectacular finale to the roof pitches.

Calum approaching another roof on pitch 6 (7c)

The rain prevented us from doing any more, so we went down. But the next morning the sun was shining and the air seemed really dry. The upper pitches had had seeps of around 100m in length after all the wet weather, but today they looked much shorter and more broken. So we blasted back up the ropes to start trying the upper pitches. Jacob and Calum had a good tussle with another E7 pitch of laybacking and slippery undercutting. The next E7 above had a worrying gap between holds where the aid line pendulums. It needed cleaning which I did as quickly as possible and then Jacob asked to jump on the lead. He wanted to try and dyno sideways across the gap. He clearly likes and is good at dynos. But when he flung himself at the hold, slid off it and hurtled down to join me on the belay stance, I suggested he look at the crimps just above. 

He wasn’t having any of it. Instead, shaking with a wee dose of adrenaline, he scuttled back up the flake and took off sideways again. This time he stuck it. I knew there was no way he’d let himself fall off the sustained E6 climbing that followed. So I relaxed and waited for my turn. I found a technical traverse on sidepulls just above and next thing we were all hanging awkwardly from the next belay. 

Nice camp site below the wall

At this point it was nearly midnight, it was clearly raining to the north and south of us and we knew the next 4 day spell of rain was due to hit in a couple of hours. It seemed like continuing would almost certainly mean a cold and wet retreat from near the top of the wall. On the other hand, if those pitches were easier, we could just make it. They still looked wet and we knew that this moment was likely our only realistic chance to complete the free ascent. So we carried on, first with a soaking wet E4 groove. I slithered and power screamed my way up it. It wasn’t pretty, but I got to the next ledge. The following two pitches went a little quicker in the gloom of the night and landed us on a ledge with two pitches to go. The rain clouds looked like they were just a few minutes away. To be honest, the rain wouldn’t have made much difference to the next pitch.

I climbed it by pasting the back of my Gore-Tex jacket on the wettest, moss ridden side of the groove, while leaning both feet out to the driest footholds out left. A ridiculous technique to look at, and to do, but I got higher. Every so often I lobbed dripping lumps of turf over my shoulder to reveal soggy handjams beneath. I slithered across a bulge that would be easy in the dry, getting really pumped. I shouted to Jacob that I couldn’t hold on to the wet holds any longer. He didn’t believe me. If it wasn’t for a wee kneebar on the lip, I would have been right. In the end, the rain started just as I pulled over the last pitch of proper climbing. Within 5 minutes we were completely soaked and water was pouring down the rock, but we scrambled to the summit, happy.

With the all the route now freed, we would have returned to make a single day redpoint which is definitely possible. But after more days of rain, the face was soaking again, so we didn’t get to even try. I was still really happy that we managed to take every moment of dry weather to get all the pitches freed in the 50 hour, rain interrupted sessions we did get. The locals we met in between the solitude of our camp below the wall were extremely friendly and kind to us. Both the climbers and the various people we hitched lifts from. It made it such a nice experience on top of all the great climbing, and this left us very impressed by the community in this part of Norway.

A rather finely placed jug on the lip of pitch 5 (7c)

Blamman 1

Myself and Jacob Cook enjoying another night shift on Blamman’s north face.

Right now I am in arctic Norway with Jacob Cook and Calum Muskett, climbing on Blamman’s north face. I was here 4 years ago on a Gore-Tex Experience Tour trip and made the first free ascent of Bongo Bar (400m, 8a). While I was dangling around on Bongo Bar I remember looking to the right and seeing the aid line of Disco 2000, going through roof after roof of rather blank looking granite. I remember seeing a bolt belay, seemingly in the middle of nowhere on a smooth face between roofs. At that moment,  spark of curiosity was opened in my mind to see if this could make an obviously really hard free route.

And so now we are here, trying it.

The first few days have been a little slow in progress. We have aided through the crux pitches in the first half of the route and done some cleaning and investigating if there are enough holds to make a free ascent possible.

We have done nearly all the moves on the three hardest pitches now, all F8s. But we have also spent a lot of time sitting in the tent, listening to the rain falling. So it’s looking like our time will be too short to free climb so many hard pitches. One of the hard pitches is still dripping wet with seepage too. But we’ll see.

Whether we can or not, so long as we find dry rock, I'm sure we will have a good time and a good workout.

Another little milestone

Waiting for the breeze to come back at the base of Bark at the Moon E8 6c, Glen Clova. Photos by Masa Sakano.

Last week I went for a wee wander about Glen Clova. I hadn’t been there before and checked out a couple of routes I’d heard about. One was Tim Rankin’s E8 6c Bark at the Moon, a great looking line up a big steep prow. I felt it would be a good milestone to build a bit of confidence in my trad climbing. I worked out the moves quickly and was desperate to get back with a partner and give it a try.

So yesterday I returned with Masa to try and do it. Masa started with an impressive tussle with Empire of the Sun and it was great to watch him top out after really going for it. I seconded and didn’t feel I was moving very well. But it was just the strong sunshine I think. We abbed into the start of Bark at the Moon and conditions felt much better.

On the headwall of Bark at the Moon.

After a quick wait for the sun to go behind a cloud, I headed upwards. The route is pretty bouldery so you have to move quickly. Before I knew it I’d moved solidly through the crux and noticed myself letting out a deep breath to relax a bit and enjoy the pumpy upper headwall. 

Although I felt strong and solid on the crux, I’m aware that I am still feeling rather self-conscious in my movement - I am still climbing up the rock thinking about my ankle rather than about nothing. I can see it will take a little while yet to lose this feeling and be able to enter a decent state of concentration on the rock.

Although I wasn’t totally relaxed, I was still very pleased overall to have made another little milestone of progress. I feel I should probably do another few E8s before progressing back to E9 again.

Finishing off with Sunset Song E5 6b

Masa going for it on Empire of the Sun E4 6a

Ab rope stuck in a crack. Got there eventually.

The midges we waiting for us to decide to do one more route. We thought better of it.

Warming up the climbing a bit more

Transition Film Preview - Toast E7 6c 1st Ascent from Hot Aches Productions on Vimeo.

Last week I visited Suidhe Biorach on Skye for the first time, on a cold and windy day with Natalie. There are still plenty of great cliffs around the highlands that I’ve never visited, and I always have the hope of discovering good hard new routes to climb on them.

Climbing the excellent Mother's Pride, E4, Suidhe Biorach. Photos: Chris Prescott/Hot Aches Productions

That day we climbed Mother’s Pride, the big classic E4. Mega steep, mega jugs. At mid height I couldn’t help noticing the massive horizontal roof to it’s right. At the right end of this, Hovis (E6) crosses the roof at a narrower section with good flakes. But I could also see the odd ripple in the expanse of roof in between. 

At the end of the day I abbed down to have a look. At first it looked like there weren’t enough holds, but then I found one section of roof with just enough holds. I had to come straight back for this amazing line!

A couple of days later we were back. I abbed down again, giving the pitch a clean and checking out the gear and holds. It looked like it would go, but one move to spin round and toe hook the lip while holding a slopey press in the roof looked tough and was hard to try off the rope since the roof was totally horizontal.

It was gently raining although none of it was really bothering the route. So after a bit of hanging around we just abbed down and got on with it. You can see how we got on in the video above. The line was one of the best I’ve done in a long time. A great boulder problem in the roof, followed by a chilled out dangle about on the lip on big jugs and then a fun pumpy headwall with bomber gear. It’s obviously going to take me a little while to build up trad stamina after so long doing pure strength work while I was off my feet. This pitch was basically perfect for me right now.

After we had finished it was mid evening and had been raining most of the day and getting steadily wetter. I asked the team what we should do now. There was a suggestion of going for some food. I was keen as mustard to be out climbing and suggested we go down for another E6. After a brief pause I said “Only joking”. Diff said “Oh good” and we headed off. I wasn’t really joking, I wanted to CLIMB!

This week I’ve been staying in Blair Atholl with my family and trying to get out and run as many laps on Silk Purse down at Dunkeld as I can. That is definitely having some effect on the endurance. Hopefully enough to take another wee step up next week.

The fantastic pumpy headwall on Toast, E7, Suidhe Biorach.

Climbing begins

Enjoying the chilled out finish of Austerity Lite (E6 6b) on the first ascent, Financial Sector, Neist Point, Isle of Skye. Photo: Chris Prescott/Hot Aches Productions

First post surgery route. Just a 6b at Brin Rock. It was raining, it was midgy, but it still felt great.

After a spell of climbing on my recovering foot on big footholds (and trainers) on my board, I graduated to putting my rock shoes on again. At first I just stuck to the board but I’ve now been on the rock as well.

Naturally it feels great to be climbing again. I have been noticing the extra strength from all the foot-off training too. There are some challenges still ahead though. My foot is weak and still a little sore on the odd move. Smearing on slabs is still requiring a bit of care, and I’m quite timid on jumps.

My outdoor sessions have only been the last week and so far I’ve been just doing mileage on easier bouldering up to 7B. Yesterday I went to Neist Point on Skye with Natalie. Nat made a fine lead of Piggy Bank (E3 5c), starting off in drizzle, finishing in full on rain. Just as we were packing up to leave, the clouds suddenly cleared and so I gave the arete left of Piggy bank a quick clean and led a new E6 6b, Austerity Lite. I wondered if it would feel kind of weird being on a trad sharp end, pulling on tiny crimps. But it was totally fine.

It is still difficult to hold back and be very gentle in my climbing, especially as I've been training myself to be explosive with the upper body with foot-off climbing for three months. During the next week I'm hoping I'll feel good enough to try something a little harder.

Alicia on the Ruthven Boulder

Nat starting off on a damp Piggy Bank E3 5c, Neist Point.

Going for the finishing jug on Potential 7, 7B, Torridon Boulders.

Campus notes

Dave MacLeod systemise campusing and 1-4-7 campus board from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo.

During my surgery rehab I have done a LOT of climbing without my feet. Unsurprisingly I have got a little stronger. I have been training more or less every day for 2-4 hours. Around half the work has been fingerboard and campusboard workouts. I’ve also done some foot-off bouldering on both small and big holds. 

Another big chunk of the time has been endurance circuits of around 30 moves, performed with one foot. I started off trying to do these foot-off, but the intensity was a bit high, so I’ve settled for one foot on but keeping my trainers on. I find that if I put on the rockshoe it feels too much like normal climbing and it torments me that I can't use the other foot. It will be interesting to see the effects of this training. On one hand, it’s still fairly ‘ugly’ climbing on one foot and therefore not great for improving your efficiency. On the other hand, sustained endurance terrain on powerful juggy terrain is a weakness for me, so it may have been useful. I’ll find out in due course.

The final big chunk of my time has been taken up with all the peripheral stuff that is A) not actually that peripheral, and B) normally gets missed. I’ve really improved many aspects of my core strength and arm strength and completed what rehab exercises I was able to do before getting to the full weightbearing stage.

I’ve been starting to use my foot progressively more on the board over the past few weeks now and getting pretty close to my resumption of outdoor climbing. I want to make a solid start to normal climbing, so I'm leaving it until I'm sure I can do that. As this gets close, yesterday I had a nice little milestone of getting 1-4-7 on my campusboard (small Metolius wood grips rungs, 22cm spaced). 

I have done almost no campusing for years now, Partly because the climbing walls I had access to when I moved away from Glasgow in 2007 didn’t have any, and then from 2008 after my elbows started to complain and I just stuck to climbing only.

When I built my new climbing wall last spring I included a campus board and used the small Metolius rungs which are a fair bit harder than the old S7 small rungs in the Glasgow Climbing Centre board I used to train on. I could do 1-5-8 on that one and 1-4-7 pretty easily. I stayed away from the new campus board last year while I built a level of resistance back up after the previous year without a board to train on while I was in the process of moving house.

Right after my surgery, at the end of March, I started to play on it gently at first, and progressively doing a little more each week. A couple of times I felt I’d overdone it and left it again for at least 5 days. In those early weeks, I couldn’t get near 1-4-7. So to be able to do it now is a clear strength gain. You don’t get too many of those after 20 years climbing!

My experience of really dedicated spells of fingerboard or similar organised strength training is that apart from the initial few weeks of rapid gains, the gains you make are so small they can be hard to notice, especially if you are fit enough to train every day and so not coming to the board in a fully rested state. The time you notice it is generally months down the line, when you have had time to go and integrate those new strength gains into your technique on the rock. 

So bring on the projects, the time is just around the corner!

davemacleod.com shop summer sale

In a first for the davemacleod.com shop, we are doing a summer sale with healthy discounts of 50-75% on lots of our climbing DVDs and clothing. Some examples:

Echo Wall and Longhope DVDs now £5. The BBC Great Climb on Sron Ulladale (first ascent of The Usual Suspects E9 7a with Tim Emmett) now £10. The Triple 5 DVD (5 first ascents between E5 and E8 on 5 Hebridean Islands in 5 days) now £10. Plus 50% discounts on some of our Mountain Equipment clothing.

Dispatching worldwide as always.