Lithium

A video still on the send of Lithium 8B+, Arisaig.

Yesterday, I sent my project in the Arisaig Cave. Nine years after Johan first told me about the cave, that’s me climbed all the good lines. Time to move on! I’ll really miss the place. I’ll miss driving west on the Road to The Isles, leaving behind torrential rain or snow in Fort William, to arrive into bright sunshine as you hit the coast at Lochailort. I’ll miss watching otters and sea eagles going about their business on the beachfront by the cave, as I went about mine. I’ll miss a pre-climb brew in the Arisaig caf, looking out to Eigg. And of course I’ll miss the superbly physical and technical climbs.

In many ways, my days at the cave have helped me to see just how much climbing helps me with life. Given that the climb is almost 50 moves long, in the past few weeks as I’ve reached the stage of redpoint attempts, I’ve needed to rest for the best part of an hour between tries. This experience took me back to doing the same, seven years ago on At Eternity’s Gate, which is similarly long.

On those long rests you walk the coast to stay warm and send lactate through the Cori Cycle. But more importantly, you reflect. There is not much time for that in modern life, even in many types of climbing. Going to the wall to train, for example, is not often a great reflective opportunity.

On both those long climbs with long walks in between, being there and doing them helped me get through some very bleak feelings I was having. It did not diminish them, or take them away. Just helped me to remain resilient. For that I am very grateful. Thankfully, I’m lucky enough to live in a country full of places like this, and have the opportunity to spend time in them, so there should be no trouble having similar experiences elsewhere.

Why did I send it now? A huge list of things. I would say that first and foremost, my two primary changes I made to my training had the desired and dominant effect. Firstly, I basically cut 4 hours out of my work day and replaced it with winding down time and going to be early for around a month. Secondly and even more importantly, I dropped my CHO intake south of 50g per day again (on most but not all days), together with restricting the daily feeding window to 6-8 hours. This made my ass lighter and improved my recovery from training. NB I am skipping over a whole world of detail here! I also continued to make improvements in the sequence, right up to the successful try. On the last hard move, I consciously focused on arching and stiffening my back as I threw for the hold. In combination with a hefty power scream, this kept my feet on. I also continued to get more used to the upside-down rest position on the halfway kneebar, and could relax more, stay longer and breath deeper than on previous sessions. I also timed my sessions nicely with good conditions, for once. I also solved my ‘glassy skin’ issue by rubbing some thick skin off my hands on sharp rocks, and then washing them in water to get to the ideal balance of cold and dry vs soft and sticky. At last I could really apply my strength fully to those smooth undercuts. 

The psychological side of the attempts I usually find the most straightforward. I definitely feel that I have a good system in place for managing my level of effort and controlling any nerves or self-consciousness. However, On the successful try I was particularly lucky that I had to dry a couple of seepy wet footholds (the climb starts outside the cave, and is the only part of the venue to be exposed to seeps). After drying them I had only a few seconds to get started before the water ran back onto them. So there was no time to develop any sense of anticipation for the attempt ahead. In fact, I had to spend the moments on the first kneebar trying to dry the other kneepad which had caught some drips as I started. So I arrived at the crux with a fresh mind, unhindered by any sense of occasion, and was free just to be in the moment and give it everything. On that last try I was definitely climbing through the moves faster than ever before. So it made sense that I surpassed the previous highpoints.

***Warning: boring part below. Feel free to stop here***

I’ll call the climb Lithium, and grade it 8B+. I have gone round in circles with the grade for a day or two. 8B+ in the UK is pretty tough. I am not certain this is a grade harder than some of them, nor have I done enough of them to know. So since I am not sure, I’ll just go with 8B+. I also completed the project quicker than I expected, a sure sign that it is easier than my initial expectation. 

Going by Magic Wood, where I have done a lot of my boulder repeats in recent years, Lithium is definitely a grade harder than New Base Line 8B+, Shallow Water to Riverbed 8B+, Mystic Styles 8B+ and definitely harder than Practice of the Wild 8C. It feels similar in difficulty to In Search of Time Lost 8C which I tried for two sessions at the end of my last trip, and got good links on. But perhaps it is easier than The Understanding 8C which I tried for 30 mins but couldn’t do. By this logic perhaps it’s nearest easy 8C. But again, the UK perhaps has stiffer grading. Whether that is right or wrong is another argument. The bottom line is that it is very hard to reduce grading to an entirely rational calculation. I just don’t do enough bouldering to have a good handle on grades.

It’s also a very specific type of climb, in some ways it plays to my strengths (steep, with rests and technical). But I think I am really weak on the undercuts and pinches. So someone else might find them much easier than me. So, lets go with 8B+. 

Anyway, bring on the spring and more great climbs this year.

PS: In case anyone wonders about video of the send, it’ll be in a feature I’m doing with Chris Prescott this year which will hopefully include some great trad projects I’ll be pointing myself at in the coming few months.

Arisaig Cave topo

Natalie Berry on The Original 7B, the classic of the cave. Pic: Chris Prescott/Dark Sky Media

I've been meaning to prepare a topo of the Arisaig Cave for ages. I've also made a PDF version of it here if you want to print it and take it with you. Enjoy!

The cave offers a weatherproof medium-hard bouldering venue that is in good condition for at least 6 months of the year. In the dark Lochaber months from October until February, it can often be the only outdoor rock climbing on offer, at least on the wettest days.

There are not a huge humber of climbs, but the ones that are there are good quality, generally long and involved and so provide good entertainment. I opened the first problems in 2009 and still have not quite climbed all the obvious lines. Most of the problems were opened by me and have not had many repeats so the grades may still need adjustment.

The rock is quartzite, relatively kind on the skin, but the climbing is generally powerful and gives a good workout. All of the steep climbs are also sequency and reward a persistent approach, seeking out the crucial toe-hooks, kneebars etc. 

Although all the climbs in the cave are totally protected from the rain and there are almost no seeps either, the conditions can be affected by the weather sometimes. If the conditions have been cold and then warm up, the cave can be damp for a day or two with condensation. This is generally not too often, but watch the weather and just avoid going right after a warm front has passed through. Otherwise, you can climb there no matter how bad the weather. Several of the climbs have been done at night, during the worst of the December and January storms. Although the cave comes into it’s own as a place to climb in the winter, it does also remain relatively cool in summer and midges are rarely a problem. 

The approach takes around 20 minutes and crosses some boggy ground. Turn off the Road to the Isles into Arisaig Village and then turn left onto the B8008, signposted Rhu. After 1.6 miles, park next to a farmers gate at the back of an open bay, taking care not to block the gate. The drive takes around an hour from Fort William. Cross the gate and follow a feint path across fields, aiming for a holly tree on the skyline. Just beyond this, cross a stile beside the lochan and continue on a better defined path over the brow of the hill. You’ll now see the attractive pebble beach of Camas Leathann on the other side of the peninsula. The path leads down to the right edge of this (looking out to sea). The cave is 100m right (west) of the end of the pebble beach. scramble round some rocks at the right end of the beach and you’ll come across the obvious triangular entrance of the cave. You don’t see it until you are right on it.

The ‘landung’ is flat and consists of dry sheep poo. Once you get over this, it’s no problem and totally dry. But for those who like a clean boulder mat, take a tarp with you. The problems are described roughly left to right, starting with the leaning arete of the steep side.

1. West Wall Arete 6B. Sit Start and layback up the edge of the steep arete, pulling over on jugs. Step left and down climb the buggy slab to descend.

2. All The Small Things 8A. SS at the arete, at an undercut spike. Follow the obvious line of holds leading rightwards into the cave, finishing up Bone Broke, at the jug/hole in the apex. Sustained and superb climbing.

3. At Eternity’s Gate 8A+/8B. Follow All The Small Things along the line of holds but then reverse the first few moves of The Original and keep traversing right to a welcome but strenuous kneebar rest at a triangular hole. Continue right, avoiding the blocks coming out of the ground. Using tiny holds, gain a heel hook on the ramp of Barista School (crux). Once established on this, shake out at the jugs (bat-hang possible) and finish along Fruit Machine, hopefully without blowing it right at the end! Originally given 8B but that was before the kneebar was found (after the original resting jug broke off). So it may or may not only be 8A+ now? 

4. Good Drying. 8A+. Eternity’s Gate into Cowspiracy. 

5. Project 8C. Eternity’s Gate into 4th Wave. A very demanding piece of climbing.

6. Triangulation Stand 7A. Right of the arete is a thin crack. Start using a finger lock in this and protruding crimp. Powerful drop-knee moves lead to jugs over the lip.

7. Triangulation 8A. SS away down in the very base of the low cave below the crack, at an undercut and gaston. hard moves lead to the base of the crack, but the crux is gaining the finger lock of the stand start. Fortunately there are a couple of different methods to choose from.

8. The Original 7B. Locate a two-handed, sharp edged undercut at the back of the cave, feet on the steep wall underneath. undercut outwards to the good edge on the ramp feature and continue directly, past a huge sidepull, finishing on edges in the crack in the apex. An extended finish continuing out of the cave on the apex crack has not been done yet (probably 7B+ or 7C). A classic problem.

9. Bone Broke 7C. Extends the fun even more. Follow The Original most of the way, then go rightwards to gain the next undercut wave feature. Undercut this rightwards to a finish on a big jug/hole at the cave apex.

10. Cowspiracy 7C. SS below the kneebar hole. Climb direct with a tricky move to gain a weird finger lock slot. Use this to reach into the finishing moves of Bone Broke.

11. 4th Wave 8B. SS below the kneebar hole. Follow the undercut wave feature with technical and powerful weirdness, finishing on twin edges right up at the apex. Superb technical climbing.

Myself on 4th Wave 8B. Pic Chris Prescott/Dark Sky Media

12. Fruit Machine 7B+. Start along the jugs as for Barista School but drop down and shuffle along the good undercuts to where they run out. Reach right for a good wobbly slot and then make a technical sequence to reach across the apex to finish on the big rounded nose on the other side.

13. Barista School 6A+. Start at the base of the huge jug-rail. Layback up this until it’s possible to rock over to spiky undercuts directly above. Slot the good kneebar in, and finish matching the twin slopers above, near the apex.

14. Barista School RH start 6B+. Start right of the jug rail, on the good undercuts. Reach a nice incut crimp above and lock this out to get the edge of the ramp, then the jugs, and a finish up Barista School.

15. Half Apex 7A. SS at the back of the cave at a poor triangular pinch. Make a tricky move up then go hard left, reversing the first part of Fruit Machine. Finish up Barista School.

16. Apex 7C. Start as for Half Apex. Use that good kneebar to rest, and instead of jumping down, continue on the apex and make tricky moves to gain the jug/hole at the end of Bone Broke. From here, use undercuts to drop down onto the Right Wall Traverse and finish along this. Epic!

17. Right Wall Traverse 7C. Start at the big rounded nose at the back of the cave and traverse the less steep side all the way to the slab outside the cave. The first few metres are the crux, powerful and technical on low crimpy sidepulls.

18. The Late Show 6C. Start easily up undercut jugs mid-way along the cave. Reach an L-shaped hold, match it and make a tricky press move to get the jug/hole at the end of Bone Broke. The last two moves are deceptively tricky.

19. After the Race 6A+. Further right is a groove with a shield of rock above. Start on flat holds on the left side of the groove and climb up and round the left side of the shield. Finish on the sloper rail.

20. Lend an Ear 6A. Climb the Groove and swing round the right side of the shield using a spiky sidepull. 6A+ if you continue rightwards and exit the cave.

21. Otter Watch 5. From a low start climb the featured wall just left of the arete of the cave and swing round onto the slab. Various eliminates possible as a warm-up for the harder things.

Dave MacLeod on "All The Small Things" font 8a, Arisaig from peter murray on Vimeo.

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

Good Drying, 8A+, Arisaig Cave from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo.

Arisaig - to the last hard move

Get the left hand squeezed a few mm to the left, and the move works! Photo: Chris Prescott/Dark Sky Media

Two days on my project in the cave this week, in the company of Chris Prescott, Natalie Berry and Kevin Woods. On the first day it was still a bit warm and I was feeling pathetic on the climb. I was full of thoughts and chat about sacking it for the season. Maybe it has to be mid-winter for this project?

An hour later, a couple of blasts of wind came soon before my second redpoint of the day, and next thing I got three moves further. Maybe I should not be so hasty to call it. After a rest day we were back, with a cold front having passed over. Yet the day started off very badly and still I struggled.

There are a couple of themes I have noticed in the cave. I always seem to do better on this project late in the session, when my skin is getting thin. I’m not certain why. It may be something to do with the smooth rock. It gets a bit ‘glassy’ if skin is too thick. Also, I’m noticing I consistently have good attempts just before dusk, when of course the temperature is dropping. It could be both factors working together.

I went back to my sequence and wrestled with one adjustment move for over an hour. Finally I sussed what I was doing wrong - getting a weird undercut-wrap hold a finger width too far right. I still wasn’t feeling like there was really much point in a redpoint. But I rested and prepped anyway. And began. The first part to the kneebar was not bad (but not as error-free as I’ve done it). I felt quite rested on the knee bar. As much as you can be while hanging upside down trying to breath as lightly as you can without sliding out and landing on yer heid. 

But despite a fluffed move on the opening moves of 4th Wave I found myself beyond my highpoint and feeling like I still had some power. So I used it! I did not intend to do so, but spontaneously had a power-scream match with the crux that Adam Ondra would be proud of. I momentarily had that weird floaty feeling where it just seemed to be happening by itself. I threw for the final hard move, held it, cut loose, held on but then started to drop. If I’d held on long enough to get my feet back on, I’d very likely have done it. But I didn’t. I cannot decide if in that split second I truly held on to the last, or if I might have decided a few milliseconds too early that I was off. It doesn’t matter much now anyway, except that I know what I need to do if I get back to that move again.

Better keep trying now!

Slapped

highpoint March 3rd from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo.

The video above is my best effort so far on the project, from a couple of sessions ago when conditions were quite good.

Yesterday, I went to the project in Arisaig and was slapped. Here are my list of excuses (feel free to skip directly to the following paragraph):

Still tired from a new mixed route 48 hours before. Humid conditions. Skin too thick. Not enough sleep. New boots I hadn’t tried before or broken in. Too weak. Too heavy. Too many days away from the training board.

Still, I learned a lot, so the time was not wasted. I have been here before on many projects. None as hard as this, but the stages are often similar. Often, at least at my age, the lessons are not really new things you didn’t know, but crucial reminders of things that are easy to forget.

The first thing reminder was how important the small details are. My ankle must have been a tiny bit stiff from winter climbing a couple of days before. Who knows how little, but it can’t have been as much as a 5 degree loss of dorsiflexion. Not even enough to notice during walking or any moves apart from one. Normally it is a squeeze for me to fit my knee into the kneebar rest before 4th Wave. Today I just couldn’t get the knee in at all. What is normally a straightforward move just didn’t happen. So, redpoints were out. Given the above list of excuses, I realised pretty quickly that it would be a session of reflection on the details of the moves, and reflection on the bigger picture of my progress in general.

On days such as this of utter failure, at least by the measure of how many moves are linked, you see clearly the overwhelming probability that you will never be able to climb this project. It is too hard for you. Something has to be. It would be a bit ridiculous to have chronically underestimated my climbing abilities for over 20 years! At some point, you won’t be able to do something.

This holds no sense of disappointment or stress for me - it’s just inevitable. But the value it does hold is that it sharpens the mind to search for the next level of intervention. What is the next move in the game?

Some moves have trade-offs. Do I leave the project for a week or two and do more training, or keep going on it? Not 100% sure. I am almost certainly getting weaker without training on the board. Yet despite knowing it quite well now, I could still flow through the opening section more efficiently. And that comes from lots of time on it.

I have some equipment issues to sort out. Tomorrow I try out a different kneepad, the original homemade one I made for Echo Wall. It might help a little with sliding the knee in. I know that I need to work more on my core strength for the two minutes of stress hanging upside down off those kneebars. At the moment, it’s a straight trade off between sliding out of the kneebar, and breathing. I need to be able to do both.

Some other things:

- I need a more solid warm up routine for my sessions there. I think I might try ‘add-on’ from the start of the project.

- I’m more and more aware of the nuance of conditions in there. I need to take more advantage of good weather days. The cave has okay conditions most of the time, which is fine for working moves. At this stage, I need good conditions now. 

- I need more rest, better rest. Less work.

- I have some work days coming up. I need to combine them with some intense circuit training.

Most of the above is all small but important details. What of big things. Well, most of these I have sorted. But I still have a big hand to play regarding the king of all variables for me; strength: weight ratio. I will play it soon.

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!

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!

Arisaig Cave revisited

Getting a full body workout on the project, Arisaig Cave

In 2011 I last visited the Arisaig Cave and kind of felt I’d run out of things to do there. There was one big line left for me to do, a fantastic line following undercuts up a big diagonal flange in the middle of the cave. However, after a play I just couldn’t figure out how to make the feature work as a hold and gave up. It was just too hard for me.

It was only when I showed the palce to Flo last month I had another look and had an idea for a sequence that could work. I’m glad I gave it another chance. On that day I couldn’t try it as I’d just injured my knee , but yesterday, I had a good session on it and did all the individual moves. There are no ‘low percentage’ move on it for me, but about 9 or 10 in a row that are all powerful on burly undercuts and pinches. So I have a feeling that trying to link them together will be a good workout.

The nice thing is, the normal start should go at something between 8A and 8B, but climbing into it from the cave entrance (about 30 moves of 8A+) will make a very fine climbing challenge indeed to keep me busy, and fit.

Short Side Traverse, low version F8a

Today, I feel like I’ve been dragged along a cobbled street on my back. But looking forward to getting back on it. While I was there I also did a great variation to the short side traverse. The original version (about F7c+ since it’s 15m long) goes quite high along a slopey break near the start. There was an obvious low version on fantastically shaped edges, rounded by the sea washing in winter storms of aeons ago. It sussed it out pretty quickly for my warm-up at about F8a. I’ll make up a proper topo for the place shortly.

Couple of videos: Pinnacle Trailer and the cave

Here is the trailer for The Pinnacle DVD, ice climbing on Ben Nevis following in the footsteps of Smith and Marshall. Brilliant for the winter psyche!The DVD is in the shop here.

This is an extended clip of Michael making a determined second ascent of my own problem Bone Broke (Font 7c) in the Arisaig Cave last week. The wee fire was great, shame the wind was blowing it into the cave for the full winter cave dwelling experience!

Big link in the cave complete

At Eternity’s Gate, V13

Climbing tough projects that take you a wee while is always a game of balancing stakes. The more work and effort you put in, the more progress you make. The more you drop other things and focus on just that, the faster and more consistent the progress. But at the same time, it gets ever harder not to be become attached to success on it as you sense it getting close. And as you stretch your hand further, the potential for backfire gets ever larger.

In my favour, a fortnight of cold weather, an lb of body mass trimmed and an uninterrupted series of work sessions. But a broken hold, the urgency of impending warm weather and the monotonous hard physical work re-awakening just about every injury niggle I’ve ever had was making the end of the game imminent.

What to do? Ignore it and keep making hard won baby steps. Just as I was feeling like I’d have no chance of maintaining finger and toe strength through that section of little crimps just before the bat-hang, I found myself puffing and panting through them and hanging from the jug before the final V8+ section. 

I initially felt this was V14 for sure, but a couple of last minute sequence tweaks was enough to keep the flow of moves going and the anaerobic countdown just inside my capacity. Who knows though, F8c+ might be a more appropriate rating than V13 seeing as it’s 60 moves long!

I’ll get a topo up for the cave soon as I can. Meanwhile, In a fatigued state I dragged my sore arms around another hillside near Arisaig with Donald and found this:

The little lean-to roof was so innocuous we almost walked past, but inside lucked a 50 degree overhanging wall covered in little positive edges like something straight out of a Swiss granite valley. 4 mini-classics between V7 and V9 later,  could only sit and watch the snow showers drifting over Skye and the small isles for the rest of the afternoon.

Tomorrow, the trad season starts for me, although there’s a chance the lingering winter might make it a false start. We’ll see...

Another snow shower pummels Eigg

In the middle

Right now I’m where climbing is best - in the middle of two or three hard projects all getting serious attention from me. It’s great and I’m feeling 90% rock fit after the winter at last. 

First up I’ve been in the big cave over at Arisaig. I’ve done the big link of the entire cave in two halves now and it’s still feeling like at least an 8c+ route, if a horizontal one! It’s one of those lines that I’m certain would feel like 9a if it was on a big cliff. But it’s very easy to work as it’s a roof boulder problem. We’ll have to see how it feels when I can get to the crux from the start. Yesterday, I returned to a brilliant project I bolted in 2007. I couldn’t get near the crux moves at that time and sacked it off, feeling it was 9a+ at least and too nasty and sharp on the fingers to justify. But it niggled. So I went back with fresh eyes. After a couple of hours on the shunt a new sequence emerged - fantastic technical but aggressive moves. It went at about V10, but you have to do an 8c/+ route to get there. 

Also I am watching the weather and hovering over the prospect of returning to a big project from last year. With more snow forecast in the mountains, it might be a bit chilly just yet, but I’m feeling in shape for it and have the impatience to get through a hard lead right now.

A lot going on…

I lost my camera, otherwise I’d have some more pics of these to show you. But I should be more organised now the weight of the big site redesign is (just about ) done.

Triangulation sessions in the cave

Good session in the cave today in spring sunshine. I was feeling totally wasted from working far too late for a couple of days (&nights). But seemed to pull this out of the bag despite wobbly arms and sketchy concentration. Maybe it was just too good to slip by…

Actually it was the killer toe hook that sealed the deal. I think I have seen the missing link to extent the big traverse right back into the second half of the cave. 

Perfect spring day today. PS the problem is called Triangulation and it's in the Font 8a ballpark (if not then easier, I lose track).