Return of the King

High on Return of the King, E9 6c, Scafell. Photo: Steve Ashworth/Lake District Images

Over the years I’ve repeated several of Dave Birkett’s excellent hard trad routes in the Lake District - If Six Was Nine (E9), Caution (E8), Impact Day (E8) Dawes Rides a Shovelhead (E8) and John Dunne’s route Breathless (E9). But I’d never got myself up to Scafell where Birkett left a trio of E9s that looked fantastic.

To me, Return of the King looked the most appealing line to try first. Last Tuesday I headed down and drove round to Wasdale for the first time. Lovely place! Having observed lots of ‘Vote Leave’ and UKIP banners in many of the Cumbrian villages on the drive round from Keswick, and having overheard several conversations in cafes and shops en route, I walked in with a head full of contemplation about the UK and its future, which at the time I still hoped would be to choose to stay in Europe. With the realisation that the bubble of ‘remain’ support I came from in Scotland was evidently not widely shared in the north of England, the enormity of the week and the prospects for my daughter’s life began to dawn on me.

So my first session on Return of the King was a little distracted. Nevertheless, I enjoyed myself. I sussed out the line, give it a quick clean and top roped it first try after trying the moves once. I was aware that both the previous ascents used preplaced gear and I could see why! The crucial small wire placements were right in the middle of the crux sections. So placing them on lead would basically be the crux of the route.

I had a bit of a cold so decided to take a rest the next day and go up on the Thursday to lead the route. On my rest day I bumped into Steve Ashworth who decided to pop up with his camera, hence the nice pictures!

Next day I dropped Alicia off north of Ambleside for a long run on her Bob Graham round preparation and drove round to Wasdale, with the agreement that we would rendezvous at Scafell and I would do Return of the King. Alicia arrived just as I was having a quick warm-up shunt on the route and I got on the lead straight afterwards.

I’ve only been bouldering and some winter climbing for some time now. It’s been a while since I’ve been on the sharp end on an E9. So I did feel that my normal routine of getting into a very psyched-up mindset for blasting off up a hard route with only a couple of RPs clipped to your harness. It did definitely help that I still had a bit of strength in my arms from the bouldering season. The moves of the route were feeling fine. 

The crux was placing the first crucial RP. I had found a heel hook that allowed me to hang the crimp long enough to get the gear in and clipped before my right arm started to melt. I have a low volume heel and found my left Muira was slightly more secure than my favourite boots (the Otaki). I only have one size of Otaki at the moment but a tighter pair would have worked just fine.

Placing the crucial wire on Return of the King (E9 6c), Scafell. Photo: Steve Ashworth/Lake District Images

The wire went in just fine although in my bubble of psyche I managed to clip the wrong rope into it which meant I had to reverse back down a move or two and sort ropes out. The rest of the pitch went really smoothly and I had plenty in the tank. Placing the second wire on the traverse left wasn’t as hard as I expected. Nice feeling to have some results from my training once again.

I did write a conclusion to this blog post referring to my inevitable linking of this climbing experience to the EU leave. But since I feel rather depressed right now with things outside of climbing, I deleted it. Right now, I will just get on with being alive.

Mid move on the second tricky section of Return of the King (E9 6c), Scafell. Again, the hardest bit was stopping mid moves to place the fiddly wires! Photo: Steve Ashworth/Lake District Images

Video: Climbing with Emmett in Pembroke by BD

Nice little video from Black Diamond of myself and Tim Emmett climbing in Pembroke last autumn. I just finished writing a little story about the trip which will be up on BD’s site here later.

Dave MacLeod & Tim Emmett climbing sea cliffs in Pembroke, UK from Black Diamond Equipment on Vimeo.

Teetering time

Loch Ailort looking like glass in the October sunshine

Since pulling super hard on the tweaky little sidepull crimp on the crux on Muy Caliente the other week, a ligament in my index finger has been complaining. A week or so of doing pretty much no climbing seems to have given it time to calm down a bit, and some careful training has resumed. At least it's been good for making progress on my next book, 'Rock 'til you drop'.

It’s quite scary how a week off makes a real dent in your form. Mind you, if there’s anywhere you need to be firing on all cylinders, it’s my board. I’ve never climbed anywhere so unforgiving of lack of form, energy or confidence. So long as you take it the right way, it’s good for you to be slapped so convincingly. 

As always, when injuries demand a rest for the fingers, slabs are a good idea. I did make one last attempt to climb a nice slab in the mountains. But the unseasonal high temperatures didn’t last long enough to finish the job. 

Instead I headed to another tip off from Donald King. The latest in the King line series is a lovely compact slab near Glenfinnan, with two hardcore projects. Yesterday, in lovely sunshine and the company of Kev, I had a session on the easier one which will be a bold E9 7a. I brushed, fiddled a lot with tiny microwires and tried some very teetery moves. By 4pm, it was time to either lead or go home.

The prospect of the lead meant a very balancy crux, swapping feet on miniscule smears with one hand on an undercut and the other doing not very much at all. Prognosis in case of a fall; two rather dubious microwires that could hold...or not, and a landing on a razor sharp spiky embedded rock 30 feet below.

I opted for going home. On my return, I’ll bring some more tools for the job. Ten minutes with a spade will sort out the guillotine landing. A handplaced pecker should add another runner to the rack, and fresh toes and fingertips should bite into those little ‘holds’ a tad better.

Can't wait...

Kev enjoying the gloaming on the walk out

Present Tense

Where’s that foothold!!!?? Pulling hard on the crux of Present Tense E9 7a, Seanna Mheallan. Photo: Claire MacLeod. Click on the pics for a bigger view.

Since I last blogged, I have been on several amazing pieces of rock. One of them could yet be another E11, and a very special one at that. Perhaps I wouldn’t be good enough to climb it right now, perhaps I could get good enough? Thinking aloud already… More on that as the summer progresses… But my impatience in the short term has been to return to Seanna Mheallan in Glen Torridon and the two other beautiful sandstone projects there.

Left of the arete of Kolus I climbed a couple of weeks ago, the front face of the buttress is steep and bulgy with two lines to climb, going up past a fridge sized block neatly stuck on with only a good undercut below it and a perfect friction sloper hold on top. One line was to bear-hug up the fridge block and do a weird rotation palming move into the niche on the left - sort of like the move at the top of the groove on Gaia, but a fair bit harder. The day after I was first trying the line, I was wrestling an old 1970’s Kelvinator fridge out of my new house and into the back of my Micra (which is at least 80’s!). It reminded me of the day before on the project!

So first off, I headed back up and got that one led - Kelvinator E8 6c. It was raining steadily  (but lightly) for the entire day, but I was allowed about five minutes of dryness and the now familiar baltic Torridon ‘summer breeze’ to make my chance.

But the direct line above the fridge block continued to seem impossibly technical. Another day spent with Michael dangling on the ropes in the rain allowed me to at least find a way to make the holds work for one particular move, squeezing pathetic sidepulls while clamping the Kelvinator block with your feet. The link felt like solid F8b. Originally I suspected this would come in at E10, but the discovery of two highly unlikely micro wires eased back the chance of a 15 metre groundfall from the crux to something noticeably under 100%.

Yesterday, Claire and I rendezvoused with Jamie and I was feeling very confident and determined I wasn’t leaving without the route under my belt. I’d planned my tactics well for the order and timing of warmup tasks, as you can for this sort of crag. So many more things are under your control than on big mountain crags. I really noticed that. If you are on top of tactics, you can get a lot more out of yourself. 

So, as you might expect, after much to-ing and fro-ing, running around to get to a good temperature, and getting rid of some nerves, I found myself on the sharp end of the rope, staring at the hard moves. My game was to say inside that the wires were solid, and this was a sport route. That was all fine until I stood up out of the block, left hand not perfect, body position wrong and I couldn't feel that crucial good bump in the rock under my right toes. Where is it! Where is it! A long three seconds passed while I fumbled the foot, fingers opening. Nothing for it. Options are gone. Throw for the hold in the next second or you are testing those micro wires. At this point, I struggled to hold on to my hypnotic delusion of safety. Time to grit the teeth and stay alive!

The next move was a mess, But then I came off the other side of the adrenaline spike and the inevitability of it kicked in. Keep fighting and see if you come out the other side. I did, shaking and laughing at suddenly waking up on the easy slab, Claire beside me on a rope still pressing that camera shutter like nobody’s business. 

The sun comes out just as we arrive back at the car, after the whole day in the rain. Thats Scotland!

It’s at least a week before I can travel back to the aforementioned E11 project. This week I am working for my sponsors at the outdoor trade show in Germany. See some of you out there maybe?