FWMF Minifest trailer

FWMF Minifest 2017 from Fort William Mountain Festival on Vimeo.

Here is a trailer I put together for the Fort William Mountain Festival Minifest which is running on Saturday 7th of October in the Nevis Centre. Some of my own aerial footage from around Lochaber in the trailer, and the list of great looking film showing.

You can get tickets for the night at mountainfestival.co.uk

New years resolutions

Judging by the number of books we’ve been stuffing into the wee postbox in Inverroy since January 1st, there are a lot of climbers out there with new year’s resolutions to change your habits and up your level. Great! Let me know how you get on. I would say ‘good luck’, but that would be irrelevant. You’ll make your own luck, or you won’t. 

Both 9 out of 10 climbers and Make or Break are in part behavioural science books. They explain how having willpower is not really the centre of behaviour change that leads youth better climbing performance, or getting back to full form after an injury. Rather, changing the environment helps you to make the changes you need without having to constantly force it by willing yourself to do something against your natural tendencies.

My own new year’s resolution is pretty simple - to get more sleep. 8 hours minimum and 10 hours after a heavy training day. I think it has been the missing link in my own training for a long time. I’m ashamed to say I’ve probably squandered the effort of many a training session by not giving my body the chance to benefit from it in recovery, simply by not sleeping enough.

As not-so-subtly hinted in 9/10’s title, this training error might be something you should think about too. I dare say there are tons of climbers out there who spend ages researching and doing different training regimes, only to waste all of that time and effort by under-sleeping and missing out on the gains from that training.

Depending on what mood and mindset you apply to the problem, you could see it as a super simple thing to change. Just go to f**kin bed early! Simple. But of course real life is not so simple. You have to be organised. Being organised requires stepping back from the actual schedule and taking a dispassionate look at what activities there are in your life that are unnecessary. Stepping out of your own bubble is essential to do this. For instance, a lot of folk would have more time for all sorts of things simply by deleting the Facebook app from their phone. 

Is Facebook undermining your performance in sport? is commuting time? Is the fact you haven’t build your training board at home yet? Is your commute, or your phone (or whatever it is in your life) really more important to you than your climbing dreams? It’s your choice.

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