Review: Spike's book

Ian Sykes (Spike) gave me a copy of his new book ‘In the shadow of Ben Nevis’ which is just out. Spike is a household name in the Lochaber area due to his founding of Nevisport, the Nevis Range ski resort as well as his involvement in the climbing and mountain rescue scene over many decades. So this, his life story is pretty essential reading for Lochaber locals to understand the cultural history of the development of outdoor sports in the area. But it’s also well worth reading for everyone else, for a few reasons.

First, his stories of epic mountain rescues before the age of helicopter assistance, good communications, organised rescue teams and enforced drink driving laws are riveting. Somehow rescues always seemed to come on Hogmanay when every mountaineer in Scotland seemed to be legless. In Spike’s defence, the call to rescue stricken fellow climbers also came when Spike had just returned from epic climbs of his own, or other rescues. Despite these problems, they achieved daring and spectacular rescues, feats of endurance with or without a hangover. I was impressed and enthralled by the struggles they had to save lives. Particularly impressive was the ethos of taking personal responsibility to give as much as you can to help those in danger, and that rescue was part and parcel of mountaineering adventures rather than a ‘problem’ in our sport.

His stories of starting and developing his primary businesses of Nevisport and Nevis Range were also fantastic as stories in their own right, as well as vehicles to explore Spike’s approach to life and business which is to be much admired in my opinion. Through local knowledge, I’d heard snippets of many of the stories already, but it was great to read the full narratives. Even his stories of his many seasons exploring Antarctica and various remote big walls around the world taught me much about a spirit of adventure in a different age.

Like any autobiography, the best of it is the exploration into the person and their approach to their life’s challenges. I don’t know if was Spike’s approach, his style of describing it, or both, but I enjoyed this a lot and reflected on my own view of how to approach challenges. Spikes challenges (losing fingers, big business disasters or near disasters, and failures to save fallen climbers among them) seemed to be something that Spike found his own way of dealing with, even though they clearly affected him a lot. I liked that he was not a robot personality of ego and bulletproof drive— he spoke of lingering upset about events and thoughts of how they could have panned out differently. Yet his approach led him to many successes. By the end I felt a renewed sense of the possibilities for what can be done with a brave approach and an acceptance that life will bring renewed rewards even after some dark moments.

I decided to buy some copies in for my webshop. You can find In the Shadow of Ben Nevis here.

Review: Racing Weight quick start guide

Matt Fitzgerald’s first text on weight optimisation for endurance athletes is a first in it’s field and understandably a best seller-  it’s a rather essential book to have if you are a runner, cyclist or triathlete. Because there is so little well written and scientifically based information on weight management in sport generally, it’s also pretty essential reading for climbers too.

There was only one snag - climbing is not an aerobic endurance sport. Some of the information in Racing Weight was directly applicable to climbers, but the bulk of it still needs some interpretation to shoehorn the principles onto a completely different activity.

On first glance I thought that Fitzgerald’s sequel  - the Racing Weight Quick Start Guide might be not much more than a commercially led follow up with recipes and plans that follow directly from the ideas in the first book. Actually I think it could be better titled, as it’s not just that at all. ‘Quick Start’ actually refers to his ideas for weight loss at the start of a training cycle for endurance athletes. The whole premise of Racing Weight was that endurance athletes who dieted hard to get to their fighting weight would end up offsetting gains by the consequent loss of training intensity. However, even endurance athletes have time in the foundation phase of the new macrocycle where they can afford to absorb this, and they can adopt a more rapid weight loss program. This means a very different strategy.

Conveniently, this fits in a lot better with the types of schedules climbers tend to do. This book answered many (still not all!) of the lingering questions I had on weight management for resistance/anaerobic athletes like ourselves. Taking advantage of some key research findings in the past couple of years, together with his clear and very well constructed writing, Matt has produced another essential piece of digest for everyone whom this subject concerns. 

Most of the really ‘juicy’ scientific information that it’s in the first book fits into about 30 or 40 pages. But It’s well worth it for that understanding in my opinion. The extensive section on foods and choosing them for different situations is really excellent too, and I’m fairly sure the same information cannot be found anywhere else in such complete form and so well tailored to the intended audience.

I got some copies ordered for the shop straight away! It's right here.

Review: The Players DVD

Been meaning to post this for a while...

The Players is as you might have guessed a classic American sport/bouldering flick - hard climbers, lovely places and lovely climbs. And that’s it. Cool - so what’s it like? Well there aren’t any groundbreaking first ascents on a world scale, but obviously a LOT of impressive climbing from Sharma, Graham, and Woods and Rands. The real highlight is that we get to see a few more characters that we in the UK don’t see much of in climbing DVDs.

Alex Puccio and Emily Harrington are two very contrasting but inspirational female climbers. It was great to see them included as there is still not so much footage of the living end of the female climbing elite. It was interesting to see footage of Joe Kinder on his repeats of the Tommy Caldwell 9a testpieces at the Fortress of Solitude. I was always intrigued by these routes as we haven't heard much about them outside the US, except that they sound hard. They looked hard too! Chris Linder deep water soloing in Vietnam and the machine that is Ethan Pringle walking up 5.14 trad headpoints are both entertaining. 

The shooting is not quite as grand as the Big Up blockbusters it will inevitably be compared to, but I felt I got to know the characters a little better without the larger than life sheen. I enjoyed watching a few times as I stretched out tight muscles before sessions on the board!

If you're keen for a copy, it's in the shop here.

Crackoholic & Core DVD review

Crackoholic

Thanks to this DVD, I will soon be going to Sweden to climb granite. Wow! I live in a place surrounded by brilliant climbing, so although I love seeing film of new climbing venues, it has to really stand out these days to make me sit up and say “I HAVE to go there!”. Crackoholic sold me instantly on it’s stunning looking granite crags, idyllic setting and even more idyllic climbing scene. A lot of climbing DVD’s tend to focus on the single-minded determination of one climber on their project, or the American style bouldering with Hip Hop and very loud spotters. Great, but there is obviously more to climbing than just this. I don’t like much Hip Hop, or very loud spotters (spotters at the places I boulder generally only say ‘baaaa’ once in a while’). So it was great to see a climbing film that drew us back to all the other great things about climbing - mental control, relationships and inspirations flowing between climbers. And somewhere different!

Not limestone, not bolts. A great film about trad climbing. Everything about Crackoholic just made me want to be out cragging. Perhaps it’s something I’ve missed because I’ve spent the last three years dragging myself to remote mountain crags with arduous logistics for long and lonely adventures. This film brought back to me the sheer joy of just going cragging. Stepping out of the car and straight onto the rocks. Maybe it was the idyllic setting, the entertaining characters in the film (the locals of Bohuslan in Sweden, together with footage of Leo Holding on Savage Horse E9 6c, Neil Gresham and other visitors).

Every shot seems to be in a golden sunset with crisp orange granite. Are there really so many sunsets like that? No wonder the climbers in the film look so happy! The tour of the area’s best trad routes and history was surprisingly interesting for a non-local and certainly would show off the routes to climbers not going there for the hardest climbs. Not to mention the cottages right under the cliffs, the barbeques between redpoints, and did I mention the sunsets? 

But I was obviously really interested to see the hard routes. For a start the DVD is a bit of a misnomer, there seems to be more bold face cliimbing and skyhooks in evidence than taped up hands and big cams. Minaret E8 6c looks like one of the finest grit-style aretes anywhere. And the footage of the falls and successes of the two young guys that do it was interesting and dramatic. The ‘main man’ Stefan Wulf looks like he is enjoying Savage Horse E9 for vary different reasons to Leo, who looks in his element of his trademark ‘skin of the teeth’ style, missing edges, falling backwards but staying on. This and various other E8s are all superb stuff and duly noted in my list of ‘must climb that someday soon’.

Need I say more - If you are a trad climber and you didn’t enjoy watching Crackholic, I’d be stumped as to why not. Copies are in the shop here.

Core

Like ‘Progression’ but with more edge. In recent years when it comes to bouldering/sport climbing movies coming out of America (but showcasing the finest destinations for climbing on the globe), there has been ‘Big Up’, and everything else. Big Up do the most famous climbers, the very hardest routes (even if they are still projects) and whatever creates the strongest desire to get out there and ‘send’ in the viewer. In the ‘everything else category, there is great variability. There are have been some awful bouldering films. And I get the feeling folk will be wary of them and stick to ‘Big Up’ or more recently the Sender Films because they have well earned reputation in this genre.

If you like this type of film, but you are one of the ones who might be wary, you would be missing out in not seeing Core. Chuck Fryberger has produced a film with just as high quality shooting, with an edge that Big Up might be getting too ‘mass’ to pull off now. It’s clearly not such a big production as something like Progression and centres around a handful of destinations. But almost all are good. The ‘edge’ goes a bit far for me at times, and it takes a good few minutes into the film to get amongst the action. But the rest of the film was fairly well packed with great climbing.

The stars are mostly world class and certainly look it on the rock as well as being interesting characters. The section with Nalle Hukkataival is fun and impressive to watch his display of ‘next generation’ power. He also has a fine ‘elbows out’ moment of pumping, scared and desperately slapping before lobbing off from 8 metres up. Illuminating. But he had just climbed 8 metres of Font 8c to get there! There are several other well known climbers who it was nice to finally see some footage of. Kilian Fischuber looked every inch the great athlete he is and Michele Caminati was a pleasure to watch of the rock. Born to climb is the word. Fred Nicole was the highlight for me - I’d love to see more of his climbing on film, not to mention the man himself. He always seems to draw the sport of climbing back to its simple, pure and satisfying form. A great person to be able to feel you can relate to if you live ‘off the beaten track’ of the climbing scene.

The contrasts between the simple movement of Fred’s ungraded but obvious nails roof, and the style of the rest of the film with shades, Ferrari’s, foot off dynos and nice beats could have been plain weird. But it works! Definitely on the pile of rest day DVDs for the next sport climbing trip…

Still got some copies left in the shop here.

Reviews: Progression, Welsh Connections, Winter Climbing Plus

I’ve been meaning to post up reviews of quite a few important new items I’ve been enjoying/using over the autumn. So below are some short reviews of the Progression and Welsh Connections DVDs and Winter Climbing Plus. We’ve just added Winter Climbing Plus and Neil Gresham and Libby Peter’s Get out on rock DVD to the shop. We figured it makes sense that we sell all the best resources for improving at climbing out there. Get out on Rock has all the skills and techniques knowledge you need to go from beginner level and gain entry to leading on trad and climbing safely and confidently on trad cliffs.

Progression

Starting off with the biggest climbing film release of the year, I was very impressed with Progression. In fact I think it’s high in my top five climbing ‘content’ films I’ve seen. When I say content, thats all I can think of to describe the Big Up climbing film style. There is no story, and no thread worth mentioning that draws the different climbs and climbers together, except they are all giving it everything. Lots of people call the Big Up films ‘climbing porn’. It seems unfair to call this one pure climbing porn. There are a handful of momentary interesting snippets where we see a little deeper than tanned muscle pulling down. Watching Patxi Usobiaga slip and lose out despite the gruelling training he shows us affirmed in me why competition climbing has never interested me. Yet his dedication and athleticism is brilliant to watch. We even get shown a tiny bit of Chris Sharma showing a human side of frustration and pressure. Although it would have been more convincing if we’d have seen more. The sport climbing action, especially of Adam Ondra and Sharma in Spain is brilliantly filmed and inspiring to watch. This will always be the highpoint of the Big Up series. Seeing more of Adam Ondra and a little less of Sharma would have been even better. Go on Big Up, be bold next time round and show us a little more fresh content in with the mix! The DVD extra of Ondra was superb despite it’s simplicity. A real education in fast agressive climbing. The worst aspect of the film is it’s predictability, the same folk on the same crags. There is more going on in climbing than this. However, it’s a commercial product so I guess it’s hard to break too far from a safe mould. Bishop highballing just doesn’t seem that interesting, but that’s maybe personal. Despite losing out on depth it could have easily explored, and a touch of predictability, it’s still a must see and there are very few climbing films that rival it except previous Big Up works. Highly recommended. It’s in the shop here.

Welsh Connections

Dave Brown and Lywen Griffiths have obviously worked hard to bring us a snapshot of the spectrum of Welsh climbing and it’s cutting edge right now. Like about a third or so of this type of climbing DVD, that brings us a selection of climbs from one country or area over a year or so, it would probably have been much better if they’d made it over two or three years instead of one. However, thankfully Welsh Connections is worth getting for it’s highpoints. It has a couple of really special moments in it. The bouldering sections were most disappointing with not much memorable action, not helped by some irksome music. I most wanted to see Pete Robins on Liquid Ambar (sandbag 8c). This was interesting but the filming angles weren’t fantastic. The trad, as you might expect was far and away the highlight. McHaffie was great to watch, gripping with runners falling out and loose rock at Gogarth. Shame there wasn’t more of him and to see more of the person as well. The best moment of the film goes to the Emmett who absolutely lives up to his own ‘go for it’ ideal. Tim’s adrenaline junkie, ever laughing gun blazing persona is certainly larger than life. But as Muhammad Ali said “It’s not bragging if you can back it up” and he certainly had our DVD watching team out of their seats and oooing and ahhhing at the gripper lead he goes for in Hunstman’s Leap. Worth the watch just for that. Outside of the local climbing population, it might have been more consistently good if this film had been given time to grow into something with more hard hitting chapters. A good effort and a good watch nonetheless.

We just got our second batch of stock of it for the shop here.

Winter Climbing Plus

I was in Ian Parnell’s car on the way to Torridon at the end of last winter when he was telling me about how much work he’s put into his and Neil Gresham’s new book on winter climbing skills, tactics and technique. I’ve just got my copies in for the shop here and I’m very impressed with the book. As is normal for the Rockfax publications it’s a very colourful book with absolutely loads of pictures that make it a very inspiring book to flick through as the winter season gets going. It will really fire you up as well as inform you. Speaking of the information, it’s ‘dead-on’: succinct, down to earth, highly practical but fairly comprehensive at the same time in dealing most aspects of the entire winter climbing challenge. I’d say there must be very very few winter warriors walking the earth who don’t have something to learn from the combined experience of these two authors.

Black Diamond new Fusions review

I doubt if there is any piece of climbing equipment more readily drooled over than whatever  newest model of ice tool is released by Black Diamond. It’s no accident that for decades their ice tools have not only been hands down the most effective on the market but also aesthetic ‘things of beauty’. Everyone in the chain of ice tool design, from the athletes team providing feedback like myself upwards simply love talking about, appreciating and improving ice tools.

The first generation Fusion was the definitive leashless tool for several years. The ice climbing community has been waiting with baited breath for the new model which has been extensively revised and looks quite different to the old orange model.

Arriving home from training in Spain, one of the first pairs of the new ‘greens’ was sitting on the floor of my training room. I’ve only had a chance to try them out dry tooling on a board so far, but hopeful in a matter of days I’ll have them out on the real stuff and will update this review. 

The new model has a series of additions that neatly solve the limitations of the old version:

A detachable spike on the end of the shaft

A rubberised top handle

A more angled upper shaft for more room to hook over bulky ledges and ice bubbles

lighter than the old model and better weighted for swinging in ice

There also some more subtle changes that will make the tool more durable such as a one piece beefy head with small fixed hammer, a metal tipped upper handle nose and a nicer arrangement to extend the lower handle with spacers for bigger hands. For the trad climbers one potential downside might be that the heavily angled upper shaft might make it a little more difficult to place pegs. But overall I’d still prefer it this way due to the greater space to hook over bulging features. It’s great to see the tool a little lighter too. Weaklings like me got a little weary after clearing snow and rime for hours on end overhead with the old tools.

So how do they feel to use? Brilliant. Comfortable for the hands - some other tools like the Petzl Nomics are a bit brutal on long steep bouts of climbing. The handles seem a good size for holding with little energy, the axe feels great to wield and accurate in fast and neat placements. I’ve yet to notice any bending on super high leverage sideways torques which is reassuring. The only negative thing I can think of to say is it would be nice to have a small patch of ‘grippy’ rubber extending over the inside of the hook at the base of the lower handle. That might add a bit of cost to manufacture?? But it would make them perfect. I’ve never seen or used a better ice axe.

In summary, the new Fusion is yet another thing of beauty that sits rightfully at the top of their range, and therefore the rest of the ice tool market. They will be the pride and joy of any ice climber’s kit.

Ben Nevis - History brought to life

About 14 years ago, I got a book out of the library that chronicled the history of climbing on Ben Nevis. It was an epic story of the challenges, hardships, adventures and joyous moments of seemingly every famous climber on the planet. I found it absolutely riveting. Never yet having been to Ben Nevis, it illuminated why this mountain was so important in world mountaineering, despite lacking the scale of the greater ranges. It was abundantly clear from Ken Crocket’s labour of love on the book that this was a special place.

But that was just from reading it. I also pored over the photography. Fascinated by the old black and white stills of the earliest climbers, the great snows of pre-warming winters (and summers) and the countless facets, gullies and elegant buttresses of rock on the north face.

The adventure for me had already begun. Just from those photos I began for the very first time to compare photos of the cliffs to the recorded routes and question why this line or that didn’t seem to have been climbed. The specific areas that caught my eye for this reason were the upper grooves and lower barrier of The Comb, and the great dark mass of Echo Wall. They simmered in my mind until I climbed them many years later.

So sitting in my bedroom at home reading Ken’s original edition, did, in part, awake an interest in new routing and in Ben Nevis that shaped the next part of my life. And so yesterday, the new edition dropped through my letterbox.

23 years after the first edition, Ken, with Simon Richardson have laboured to update, expand and enrich the chronicle and bring it up to date, starting with the earliest map makers of highland Scotland in 1585 and ending with my ascent of Echo Wall last July. The new edition benefits hugely from the exponentially expanding archive of photography and colour printing with many more photographs both from the distant past from valuable Scottish archives like Am Baile. But also professional climbing photographers like Cubby and Ian Parnell and the many who’ve made their own high quality images findable through the connectedness of digital media.

So there are photographs on nearly every page - the many parts of the mountain are brought to life. As are the climbers, with fascinating portrait shots of the many famous names I’d only read about and never been able to put a face to - Con Higgins, Murray Hamilton, Kenny Spence, Pete Whillance, Arthur Paul, Alan Rouse, Mick Geddes, Ian Fulton to name just a few. There are also many early colour photos I’d never come across of the likes of Robin Smith, Marshall and Haston that have been secured for the new edition.

Other new additions were a series of forewords which were inspiring from Jimmy Marshall (written in 2008) and a great summary from Ian Parnell as to why the Ben is among the best mountains for climbing in the world. I could easily sit at home and spend hours and hours poring through this book, so many interesting stories and photos. Even the earlier parts of the history that were covered in Ken’s original edition have been extensively revised and updated and I really felt like I’d read a new chapter on the little talked about but unbelievable Brian Kellett and his enigmatic life and death soloing new routes on the north face.

For anyone with any interest in The Ben, either as a general interest in the stories of climbers, or from first hand connection with the mountain, as far as I’m concerned it’s the most essential book to own since extreme rock. It’s also a lovely book as an entity in itself, presented to the highest standard as you might expect from the SMC writing about our most important Scottish mountain.

As soon as I could I ordered a load of copies for my own webshop to help distribute this work to a new generation of climbers who I’m certain will be inspired by it. You can get it here. I even decided to make a bit of a promotion with a special priced bundle with my own appreciative work on Ben Nevis; Echo Wall.

Creative people: Misha Somerville

After my last post about John and Layla turning their hand to good food and gallery running, it got me thinking about all the creative people I’ve had the privilege to meet through my work in climbing.

There are some common themes among them for sure, but also each of them has their own lessons and perspectives to offer that are so inspiring and educating in their own way. So I thought I’d start a wee blog series bringing some of them to your attention, both to share the discovery of the fruits of their efforts and maybe to learn from them too.

Misha Somerville is one of these inspirations, never far from my attention over the years as his music is high on my ‘most played’ tunes on my ipod. I was first introduced to his band Croft No. 5 at a gig in Glasgow several years ago, and have travelled, trained and pounded my way up mountain paths with their reels whistling through my head ever since.

But since Croft No. 5 split up a couple of years back, I often wondered where that creative energy is channeled when the focus of bands disappears? I actually tried to track Croft No. 5 down last year to arrange permission to use some of their music on our fist film Echo Wall, but without success.

So it was a nice surprise earlier this year to get a message from Misha, appreciating our work (and music choice!) on Echo Wall and talking a bit about what he’s doing now. Turns out he’s been climbing for one thing! But like many creative people I’ve met, he has diversified his activities to excel in many ever expanding areas, no doubt using the skills he’s learned from the initial discipline.

So after establishing various arms of his work in instrument making, design and photography, now he has made his first book which he took the trouble to send me. Like many first books, films, albums or any creative entity, it clearly contains a lot of honest and unfiltered aspects of the person behind it. The book was a creative outlet while Misha recovered from ME over the course of a year or so. The condition had developed after an extended trip across north Africa was cut short by contracting Malaria.

The book, Bamako Boom Boom takes us through Misha’s adventures well off the beaten track in North Africa. There’s no doubt he went to some considerable effort. and at times obvious risk to see the people and places behind the bubble of the normal tourist trails. It was nice also to read Misha’s reflections on what he saw and where this personal journey taught him, told with a succinct style and never self-indulgently.

I read this while I was in Spain on a sport climbing trip, and it provided just the engagement with a wider sense of adventure in what the world offers that balanced out the narrow focus of pure sport climbing. In fact it really reaffirmed in my mind why I go trad climbing to the weird and wonderful corners that Scotland has to offer. I don’t know why but I didn’t really expect a book like this to do that.

The first chapter can be read here. Misha’s blog is here.

Dream Holds review

My friend Scott emailed recently looking for some pictures for a brochure he was putting together for his new range of holds. He already runs a business making climbing walls but this is his first venture into the area of manufacturing climbing holds.

I mentioned I might buy some holds from him for my soon to be finished board and he offered to give me a load to try out! I told him I’d get a review up on here to share my thoughts on his range, since they are a bit different to what you are probably used to pulling on ‘down the wall’.

Scott has done what many people have attempted over the years, right back to the earliest climbing walls - mimic real rock. The reason? Well, there are two separate reasons really. Firstly, real rock formations are clearly more varied and aesthetic both in the shapes they form and the movements that result from them. The other quite obvious reason is that if you are training to climb real rock, training on something as close to it as possible is a rather good idea.

But so many hold manufacturers have moved away from ‘rock-like’ shapes and gone for highly synthetic smooth shapes in recent years. I guess this reflects how indoor climbing has separated a little more from outdoor climbing for an ever greater proportion of climbing wall users - perhaps mimicking real rock hasn’t seemed so important as indoor climbing has become so much more of an activity in it’s own right?

All fair enough of course, but where there is a lot of ying, some yang often makes a pleasant change. Scott’s Dream Holds are definitely full strength yang.

There is another fine reason why hold manufacturers have gone down the smooth and sleek route with rounded blobs in abundance; they are kind on the skin and body. Smooth, rounded and fine grained holds are definitely easier to train on for a long time before sore skin sets in. But this comes at a cost. The movements these holds lend themselves to are predictable, often fast, and basic (in certain aspects of the movement at least). Ever noticed that your grade indoors is waay higher than outdoors? This is the most common reason.

So, Scott has gone fully the opposite way and provided an alternative, making no compromises and taken moulds directly from our finest rock types, from chunks hand picked for their loveliness/evilness (these may be interchangeable terms for lovers of training for rock climbing).

What has come out is a range of holds with a true variety in every aspect, just like you’d get visiting a different rock venue on a road trip. There is glassy smooth, there is Gabbro cheese-grater rough, there is spiky sharp, massive, tiny and just plain weird. Exactly what you find on the crag.

To climb on, you have to slow down a bit overall because it’s not obvious at all how to take the hold on first acquaintance. There is much more udging, adjusting and matching hands than you normally find on indoors, exactly the types of moves indoor climbers often fail to spot when climbing outside. These minor adjustments, you could call them ‘components’ of whole moves that you get so commonly on real rock are what provides much of the pleasure in rock movement; the feeling that a small adjustment made such a huge difference. For sure this will be good for those who climb indoors for the purpose of training for outdoors. 

But even for those who don’t, these will be a very welcome break from the mundane blob pulling experience that is rather too common these days. Every climbing centre should have at least a few routes of these I think. In fact I think these holds will be at their best on F6 to low F7 graded routes on more friendly angles that make up the bulk of what climbing walls must set.

My personal experience is a little different from most, given that my indoor training is purely strength training since I get a fair bit of time on real rock. My requirements are very much something skin friendly enough to pound away for hours on a 45 degree overhang and be limited only by muscle fatigue. But even though Dream Holds are sometimes a little hard on the skin for high end training sessions, I’d still have many of them on my board as it’s just not possible to source manufactured holds with certain grip positions these provide. 

Good work overall by Scott and I’d expect to see them in most climbing walls in a year or two. The range still needs a bit of expanding - more pockets and super incuts please! But these are only just off the first moulds so plenty of time to develop more.

Scott has made a couple of neat patents with some technology to stop the holds spinning or breaking, but I’ll let him explain these on the Dream Holds site. Currently available in Gabbro, Torridonian Sandstone, Gritstone, and Gneiss, with Dumbarton Basalt, Mica Schist and granite on the way. 

Dream Holds are here.

Bouldering in Scotland Review

For bouldering in Scotland, 2008 will be a pivotal year. The pace of development of Scottish bouldering and discovery of new areas has accelerated more and more over the past ten years. Now, anywhere you live in Scotland, there is documented bouldering not far away from you. That’s fine if you are the ‘new routing type’ who doesn’t mind trawling the net to keep up with new developments and search out printable topos. But the bulk of climbers still want to just buy the book and get out on the crags in their precious spare time.

John Watson took the bull by the horns, left his job and jumped in his car for the best part of two years travelling repeatedly around the glens to make the first Scottish bouldering guide a reality. And here it is, in my lap! Wow!

Bouldering in Scotland details in full, inspiring colour 60 of the best bouldering venues with superb photos, topos and and a straightforward layout. The standard and payout of the guide is reminiscent of the recent Peak bouldering guide. Really, all there is to say about the standard of production of the book is that it competes with anything that is out there, and you’ll find it a pleasure and an inspiration to use.

The interesting thing to talk about is the content. John has opted for the selected approach for describing problems, which in many people’s opinion is the best way to go for many rock types in the sport of bouldering. In the 60 areas covered in the book, there are many problems not described. But here’s the problem – if you are a local, you know all the eliminates anyway. If you are a visitor, you just want to find the best pure lines. The nature of bouldering means a lot of climbs get squeezed into a small area. Over describing the climbing at a venue takes away from the classic lines. Bouldering, still young, seems to be still moving in a direction where it’s considered better to work on the best lines and overcome their barriers of difficulty, rather than potter on a thousand eliminates at the same level and never progress. So the book shows you the best bouldering lines that have been found in Scotland to date.

Some gorgeous photos lead off each area section, with more small shots, all in colour to help you quickly find your way around and spy the most appealing lines to try. It fulfils the important guidebook attribute of making you want to go out bouldering RIGHT NOW! As well as just passing on information. I particularly liked the ‘circuit’ approach John used to describe Scotland’s big daddy bouldering venue, Dumbarton Rock. We used to do circuits based on British tech grades, but these are so variable it made for an unbalanced session. A session trying to complete John’s ‘yellow’, ‘blue’ or ‘red’ circuits will be a blissful experience! Anyway, I’m wallowing a bit in memory lane there…

For sure this edition is the first in what will no doubt be a series. It’s as essential a part of Scottish bouldering kit as the mat, midgy spray and beanie. In the next one I’d love to see photographic contributions from a wider range of photographers. For instance, many a stunning shot resides in Cubby’s spare room that should be inspiring climbers in this book. But hopefully this edition will be a platform for John to keep celebrating Scottish bouldering in print. Us climbers owe you one John, thanks for this book!

If you want a copy, you can get it from my webshop. Posted straight to you and remember I’m giving away my ‘How to Climb Hard Trad’ E-book with purchases from my shop. So you are getting more for your cash than if you waste a potential bouldering session walking to the shops to get it!

Northern Highlands South Guidebook out

Yet another of Scotland’s climbing heartlands gets the new SMC guidebook series treatment. For sure there is no going back for the SMC guidebooks, the photo topos just bring the guides alive to another level.

A photo-topo window into the remoteness of Scotland’s North West, all in one book is like being told a thousand secrets in one go! It almost feels like cheating. So now all the NW area have up to date guidebooks, and I’m sure it’ll breathe life into these climbing areas. There’s really no need to analyse the content – its an SMC guidebook so you know you are getting lovingly written and scrutinised information by the minister of route recording detail, Andy Nisbet. Nuff said.

This book will be a must for lovers of Torridon (whether its roadside Diabeg or big days on Ben Eighe), Applecross (Beinn Bhan ice heaven) and the mystical winter world of Fuar Tholl.

I’m still not sure if new guidebooks are a peculiar fascination of trad climbers, but no printed material about climbing gets me quite so psyched to call up my friends and say “no more delays, lets just get in the car and go to the North West – NOW”.

Northern Highlands Central review

I know that some folks wondered why the SMC had to separate the North West of Scotland areas into even more separate guidebooks. Well the introduction to the new Northern Highlands Central book has the answer loud and clear; 100 routes in Gairloch and Gruinard in the 1993 edition, over 1000 in this edition! Nuff said. If you know the north west of Scotland well you’ll know it’s really a bit ridiculous that it is referred to as a single climbing area in itself – “were going to the ‘north west’ to climb”. Well, I suppose it’s better than Scotland being referred to as a single climbing area of the UK as it often is, with 12,000 routes! When you think of the size and amount of climbing in the NH central area compared to the Peak district, it starts to become more amazing they could even fit it into one book.

Anyway, what about the book. Well, the great thing about SMC guidebooks is that I don’t have to tell you about the quality of the information and presentation; it’s an SMC book so you already know it will be top notch! Predictably detailed, comprehensive, enthusing and now even better with the glorious photo topos and loads of colour photos. Perhaps one of the enduring reasons why solitude is still virtually guaranteed on the north west crags (apart from the remoteness, weather, midges etc!) is that so little is known about them in the climbing-public consciousness. What are the classics? What are the best crags for short days, long days? Westerlies? Wet weather? Dry weather? Etc etc. The photo topos really help you connect with crags which in most climbers’ cases you’ll never have seen before.

So, why buy the book and go climbing in the NH central area? Well, ‘the main events’ in this book are Carmore, Gruinard, Loch Tollaidh, Stone Valley, and An Teallach. This encompasses the area north of Glen Torridon and south of Ullapool. Many of these are cragging venues, I hear you say, and wouldn’t you want to be on mountain crags if you were contemplating a trip to the NW?

Well, you might, but the weather will probably have other ideas. Accessible cragging which often stays reliably dry when the mountains are driech will save your trip. But quite apart from that, the cragging is brilliant! There are absolutely stack loads of routes to go at, at all grades now. All in the ubiquitous stunning scenery with very clean rock.

But when the sun does shine, get those walking boots on and get into Carnmore for a really BIG experience. The photo of Gob (HVS) sums up what North West mountain cragging is all about – pure adventure, with the climber looking small and vulnerable inching off into a sea of rock scenery with a gathering storm brewing up the glen behind.

Climbing in the north west of Scotland will always bring out the romantic element in climbers for good reason. No matter what it throws at you, it always leaves a big impression on you – an infinitely more powerful experience than another forgettable trip to clip bolts in the sun.

Hostile Habitats review

The Scottish mountaineering club are best known in the climbing world for a) stuffy gentlemen looking down their nose at the modern climbing scene, and b) lovingly produced and highly detailed climbing guidebooks. But despite this polarised image of the SMC as an organisation, its love and appreciation for the Scottish landscape and its climbs is undoubted. The fact that the SMC continue to dominate the market for walking and climbing guides in Scotland is testament to the ongoing improvement and passion for making lovely books. So it’s really quite a treat that they decided to bring out a book looking at the detail of the Scottish mountain environment itself. Whether they are ‘into’ landscape and wildlife as an interest in itself, no Scottish climber can honestly claim not to have appreciated the glories on offer just by travelling and climbing in Scotland; its just too beautiful, as they say.

The new Hostile Habitats book is a rough guide to everything natural that meets the eye in Scotland. But this is no dry environmental science textbook, its aimed at walkers and climbers, so its content is focused on what we see and are most likely to find interesting on out highland and island travels. The book covers in separate chapters Scotland’s geology, landforms, vegetation wildlife and human influences on the landscape. Few of us would sift through each of these huge disciplines in turn just to get a better feel for what we are seeing out there in the hills. After all, climbing is just a pastime for many of us. But with everything laid out in one book, well illustrated and supported by accessible text, we can educate ourselves and enrich the experience all the more, for the sake of a quick reference in one place. The idea here is that knowing that little bit more about the seasonal life of the mountain landscape, our eyes will be opened a little wider and we will get just a wee bit more from the day on the hill.

Surely all of you have been out climbing and been sat on a rock eating or belaying, starting to look more closely at the rock, the vegetation, or the shapes of the mountains and thought “I wonder…”

Cubby Images review E11

The raw footage of E11 - thats a lot of hours behind the camera! (Hot Aches Images)

Jo has written a review of the E11 film on Cubby Images site along with an interview with Dave and Diff from Hotaches about the film. You can see it here. Glad the film made an impression on you Jo! Jo finished off her review by saying "I wonder if there will be a sequel?". Oh my god what a thought. I think I know what the sequel would be though...

Its just about a week now until the film comes out. Thanks to everyone who's already pre-ordered it from me. If you want to order it I hope you will from my shop! I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival next weekend. At my last count there were a couple of spaces left on our coaching sessions on Sat and Sun and I see this morning that there are still some tickets for the showing of E11 and Tim Emmett's lecture on the Saturday night.