Hyperlipid

On the lower quarter of Hyperlipid 8c, common to my other route Testify 8b. Photo: Chris Prescott/Dark Sky Media

Last October I bolted two 50m new routes, sharing the same start, at Loch Maree Crag. I knew they would be among the best sport routes I’ve been on anywhere. The variety of climbing, quality of the rock and moves, length, exposure and setting are all pretty hard to beat.

The easier one ended up being a soft 8b and a nice introduction back to climbing after separating my shoulder in July. The left hand line looked much harder. After the 8b lower section, although there are good rests, there is a further 8a+ section leading to a brilliant but tough boulder crux, right below the last bolt. The holds on the crux are amazing but tiny edges. I couldn’t really imagine them feeling like actual holds after nearly 50m of climbing to get to them.

I’ve visited Loch Maree crag as often as I could during the last month. First I completed another nice 8b first ascent called Rainbow Warrior, and an escape left from my project just below the boulder crux to give Spring Voyage 8b/8b+. These were really great climbs but also useful to build a little fitness.

I was feeling low on power though, after getting a bout of food poisoning on holiday at Easter that took a little while to recover from. However, every time I went on the project I seemed to chip away at the beta, finding several big improvements that lowered my initial estimation of hard 8c+ to more like hard 8c.

I felt I’d left it too late though. The crag is very sheltered and so its best just to avoid it in midge season, not just for the midge, but because of the difficulty in getting a good breeze for the hardest routes. The season there is really March-May and late Sept-early Nov. I had one more visit booked with Murdo yesterday before I leave for 10 days on Shetland. When I return, it will be time to hit the trad for the summer.

At the car park there was little wind and strong May sunshine even at 9am. Maybe I’m just not used to warmth on my face after a long cold winter shivering under boulders or icicles? But as we entered the shade of the crag, the air was actually surprisingly cold and dry and there was a fair breeze. On my warm-up I found another wee tweak on the crux that took the edge off it, and the intimidation of that crux, so high on the route, waned just a little more.

After a rest I made the long voyage through the lower wall, stood on the rest for an age, attacked the 8a+ power endurance part above and arrived at the pre-crux jug. This is a great place to hang out. I stay here for well over 5 minutes, relaxing, recovering, focusing, letting my body cool down after the work done below and also just enjoying the spectacular position up on that headwall.

Hanging out at the rest before the crux of Hyperlipid 8c. Photo: Chris Prescott/Dark Sky Media

All this, followed by a brilliant explosive boulder crux. The key moment of the route is really taking the first of the two ‘tinies’ with the left hand. If you are even slightly tired, it just doesn’t feel like a hold and your momentum evaporates in an instant. But I got there and thought ‘I can pull on it!’ and so gave it everything to match and then throw for the good edge above. I woke up with a shock when my body, starting to fall, stopped and maintained contact with the good edge. Time to keep the effort level up!

The following moves are easier, but a little delicate for the feet. If you stood a little too hard on the smears, and one slipped, you’d be off. I was acutely aware of my shouts and grunts echoing round the crag, adding to the sense of being super high on the route. What follows is a rest and then just a little 7c+ crux to get to the top. It ought to be easy if you can get to this point, and in the end it was. The north west of Scotland has several excellent sport crags, and it’s nice to finally get an 8c on one of them.

I know I often say it, but I was not expecting this project to go down so quickly, even taking into account that it had started off as an 8c+/9a prospect until I found better beta. I suspect that I am feeling the benefit of being injury free for a sustained stint. I’ve not had more than around 6 months of continuous climbing since 2012! I’ve either just broken ankles/legs/shoulders, or just had surgery on one of those. I managed to climb most of the projects I had lined up for the winter/spring. So now I can turn thoughts towards summer projects with a good vibe of confidence. Top of the summer list is the E9 project on Binnein Shuas I started cleaning the day before I separated my shoulder last summer. 

For now though, I just want to say that Loch Maree Crag is well worth a visit for long, high quality sport routes in a lovely setting, many of which stay dry in the rain. The 6bs are just as good as the 8bs. I would recommend visiting in the spring and autumn ‘windows’ rather than summer though. I will miss day trips up there. I guess I’ll just have to get myself to Carnmore at some point soon - something I’ve been meaning to do for years.

On the FA of Rainbow Warrior 8b. Photo: Chris Prescott/Dark Sky Media

The 24/8

Enjoying the summit of Ben Nevis on a climbing day I will remember for a long time. Photo: Kevin Woods

I moved to Lochaber ten years ago and one thing you cannot escape as a local is that in spring, conditions are amazing for every type of climbing. If you are an all-round climber in the area, spring equates to doing very little work, having no rest days at all, being exhausted for three months straight but having a huge number of fantastic memorable days out climbing. You find yourself trying to recover from winter climbing fast enough to take advantage of great conditions for your rock projects, almost wishing for a rainy day to make an excuse to rest. This is why it is the best all-rounder climbing area I know of, anywhere.

Soon after I moved up, I had the spark of an idea to link up routes of all the climbing disciplines in one day. There are so many different types of climbing crammed into the Nevis area. I wondered if it would be possible and if so, at what level of difficulty? I don’t normally do link-ups or that sort of thing (not because I don’t like them, I just tend to focus on my climbing projects), so if I was going to do one, it would need to be a special one, that would be hard to complete and require a high general standard of climbing ability.

Kevin Shields at Steall just before we left him at 9am, the refrozen Steall Falls behind

I settled on doing ‘all the eights’ as a good target:

- An 8A boulder

- An 8a sport route

- An E8 trad route

- A VIII,8 winter route

- And 8 Munros

In 24 hours.

I started calling it ‘the twenty four eight’ in my head and mentioned it to various people. I put a recce day or two into preparing for it in various winters over the past 8 years or so. I even lined up to have a proper go at it once, about 4 or 5 years ago. It was the usual problem. If the mixed routes on the Ben were white, the rock routes in the glen were either also snowed up, or soaking wet. Or if the rock routes were dry then so was the mixed on the Ben. So although I said above that spring in Lochaber allows you to do everything, thats rarely true on the same day, at least if you are talking about EVERY discipline, and going for hard routes. If it was grade Vs it would be no bother. The problem with picking hard routes is it narrows the choice considerably.

The idea drifted in and out of my mind each winter, but it was always such a long shot to catch it in condition at short notice, yet be fit enough to actually do it, it hardly seemed worth bothering with. But at the same time, I’d been going on about it to friends for years and years.

This year, with the ‘Beast from the East’ easterlies we had in early March, I was stuck in Glasgow in the snow and hearing that at home in Lochaber there was no snow in the glens but it was really sunny. The 24/8 suddenly popped into my head again. That period of weather didn’t yield a suitable day. But when a second bout of easterlies came into the forecast models, I started to take a closer interest, and leapt out to Glen Nevis to look at the rock routes I might try.

I spent a couple of utterly grim days trying to re-familiarise myself with Misadventure (E8 6c) and Leopold (8a) while getting pummelled by 60mph easterlies with snow stinging my eyes, on a low level crag! It seemed ridiculous. Previously, I’d thought the boulder of choice would be my own ‘Bear Trap Prow’ 8A+, but that is also often wet in winter. When I walked up to recce it, it was completely soaked. So my mind jumped to the Cameron Stone Arete, climbed only recently by Dan Varian at 8A+ and I’d repeated it a couple of years ago. It is very sharp and can cut your fingers, but does dry quickly. Thankfully I could repeat it in a session and felt like there was a good chance I could do it early in the morning if conditions were good.

Monday 19th emerged as a weather window from nearly 6 days out. As the high pressure approached Scotland, the cold eastern would drop and leave a still cold, but fine day with light winds. It seemed possible that it wouldn’t be too cold to lead Misadventure, but the mixed on the Ben would stay white.

Topping out on Frosty's Vigil VIII,8 around 5pm. Photo: Kevin Woods

Choosing a winter route for the challenge was rather more tricky. Winter routes on the Ben at grade VIII do have a habit of taking a good chunk out of a 24 hour period, not leaving much time for 39km of walking and all the other rock routes. It needed to be something I could do quite quickly, and ideally as reliably in condition as possible. I had two days out last week with Helen Rennard, trying to figure it out. Both were complete failures. On the first day we headed for the routes above Echo Wall but had to turn back with avalanche danger. On the second, I climbed most of The Secret, but the crack was so completely choked with hard ice and reversed from a good bit up the crux pitch without any runners worth speaking about. Frosty’s Vigil was another idea, being high up and often in condition. But it was still an unknown whether the top pitch needed specific conditions of useable ice, or ice free cracks?

On Sunday I was in Glasgow, watching Freida do Judo. The forecast looked pretty good, if cold, and I’d arranged to climb with Kevin Shields for the rock routes, Iain Small for the winter route, and Kevin Woods to film the whole thing and join me for the Grey Corries traverse.  A strong team!I was grateful to Claire for getting us home early and I thankfully got to bed at 8pm which set me up to feel rested and ready to climb hard at 6.30am. In case I did get a day to try it, I’d deliberately had nearly two weeks on climbing every day to really wear myself down, winter climbing, training and rock days back to back, followed by one rest day.

I got up at 4.30am and made my usual pile of eggs, but struggled to eat them. I think I was actually a little nervous. There were quite a lot of logistical things to remember, but thankfully I’d spent the Saturday afternoon packing gear into separate packs so I could just lift them out of the car without thinking.

Arriving at the Cameron Stone just as it got light at 6.30am, I realised the conditions were going to be even better than forecasted - probably the best day of the whole winter. It was zero degrees and no wind. Spot on. I had been worried that the forecasted minus two and northerly wind would just make it too cold for E8 trad.

Pulling down on Cameron Stone Arete 8A+ at 6.50am. Photo: Kevin Woods

I took maybe ten minutes warming up, doing the moves of the Cameron Stone Arete (8A+) all first try. Then I pulled on just to do the start moves but continued all the way to the last move. I pretty much knew I could do it next go. A glance at my phone - 6.50am, chalk up and go. I climbed easily to the last move again but fumbled the foothold slightly, so the jump to the good hold was a bit wild. I grabbed it and felt like I was falling but just didn’t let go for a long second. Next thing I was standing on top of the boulder. Game on.

Don't let go of that jug! Photo: Kevin Woods

Half an hour later I was starting up Misadventure (E8). The climb takes a blunt arete with a bouldery sequence of slaps. There is gear, but it’s off to the side in a corner, so a fall from the crux would smash you off the left wall of the corner. Its obviously hard to predict what would happen. But I doubt you’d get away uninjured. I suspect you couldn’t turn to take the impact feet first either. A sideways smash could be really horrible. So it’s not really a route to start up without knowing it will go. But after the boulder I knew I felt really good. However, as I set up for the crux slap out right, my foot slid a little on the foothold. I was completely committed, so the only solution was to up the power output and commit even more. I realised sometime afterwards, replaying back the sequence in my mind, that in that moment of psyching up for the move, I’d completely forgotten to move my right hand to an intermediate crimp first. Oh well, it worked out anyway, and I raced up the easier top section, carefully avoiding some holds that were covered in ice.

Dispatching Leopold 8a about 9am. Photo: Kevin Woods

At Steall car park it was still only 8.30am, half an hour ahead of schedule. Kev Shields, Kev Woods and I bounced up the gorge path into lovely morning sunshine in Steall Meadows and I felt plenty warm enough for jumping straight onto Leopold (8a). The crux all felt easy (it ought to, I’ve done it countless times while trying my 9a there in the past). But as I approached the upper part, I realised that there was a lump of ice on a key foothold for the final rest, and a sidepull on the upper crux was completely encased in an icicle! Thankfully, I’d already sussed out an alternative sequence on my recce day, so could just move through without a problem. By 9.15am, I was back at the entrance to Steall meadow, thanking Kev Shields for coming out and off we went, contouring across Meall Cumhann and up the shoulder of Ben Nevis to the Car Mor Dearg Arete by 11am.

Iain Small literally making a VII,8 pitch look like a walk. He has a habit of this.

I had arranged to meet Iain Small between 12 and 12.30 in Observatory Gully. Thankfully, Iain carried up a full rack and a single rope as well. I opted for going over the summit and down Tower Gully, being careful at the cornice, since twenty years ago this is where it collapsed on me and I ended up going the full length of Observatory Gully in the resultant avalanche, including some impressive airtime on the way down Tower Scoop. No such problems today in the bullet hard neve. I met Iain just cutting a ledge at the foot of Frosty’s Vigil VIII,8. The route was first done by Greg McInnes, Guy Robertson and Adam Russell in 2017. I led pitch 1 and had a great belay stance under a roof, to protect myself from all the rime Iain had to clear from the corner on pitch 2. While I suffered the hot aches after seconding the pitch, Iain helpfully leaned out from the belay to arrange a nut runner to protect the steep looking traverse out right across the wall.

Iain sniffing out some useful ice in the steepness.

This pitch was really the linchpin for getting the link done. Would it be in climbable condition? I knew that it sometimes gets iced, but looked fairly mixed in the pictures of Greg leading it. Somewhere in between (iced up cracks, so no rock protection, but not enough ice to climb) could be a stopper. After a couple of steep moves across the wall, I had the reassuring ‘thunk’ of my ice tool finding a nice runnel of climbable ice. Moving up under a roof, everything fell into place with two really good Spectre runners to protect a steep step out from a roof to gain an icicle dribbling down the left wall impressively. Climbing this was very exposed and amazingly satisfying. With every ice tool placement I could feel the success of the day getting closer. I think it was just before 6pm by the time we were all stood on the summit of Ben Nevis, hurriedly rearranging kit and having a brief chat before saying cheerio to Iain and jogging off down to the CMD arete, now a team of just Kevin Woods and myself.

What can you say? Photo: Kevin Woods

Running round to CMD was stunning in the sunset, one of the best I’ve ever seen on Ben Nevis. Kevin was just laughing all the way round. No words were needed. I felt exactly the same, it was so good it was funny! The sun was just about to drop below the horizon as we legged it down to the low col between CMD and Aonach Mor. The 400m climb back up was always going to be a calf burner. So there is nothing for it but to embrace the pain and keep moving. As an aside, I guess everyone has their own mental technique for beasting themselves through a big hill climb. I’m sure it will sound ridiculous to some but I always tend to find the rhythm of my feet kicking steps in snow aligning to proper trad pipe marches in my head. An acquired taste even for Scots but its what I grew up listening to so it is in the blood, as they say. They are so ruthlessly simple, bright and cheery, they just keep you going, putting one foot in front of another and somehow actually enjoying it. It’s no accident that they were often designed for the express purpose of making men march to their death. So now that we lucky modern folk have to dream up mad challenges to push ourselves to the point we actually realise we are alive, unsurprisingly they still work. My favourite is probably Mrs John MacColl, expertly played in this clip by Stuart Liddell.

Lovely sky from Aonach Mor some time after 7pm. Ben Nevis on the left, Carn Mor Dearg centre.

We were rewarded as we reached the Aonach Mor plateau with a stunning deep red horizon and amazing colour in the sky. But I noted that it already seemed extremely cold and I was starting to shiver after a couple of minutes food stop.

Aonach Beag was straightforward as you would expect and we ploughed on down the ridge, Kevin’s good knowledge of the range helping us to locate the right spot to drop through the cornice and down to the col at the start of the Grey Corries. On the way down, we discussed our mutual state of dehydration. Gear carrying had been an issue for both of us (climbing gear for me, camera gear for Kevin) and the downside of the sunny day was more fluid requirements. We skirted around the col before Sgurr Choinnich Beag in futile search for some moving water. There was none of course, so munching on icicles and rime biscuits it was.

The Grey Corries ridge line is always a pleasure to move along. Of course we were getting tired, but just plodding on is not so bad. It is only really an injury or fuel crisis that would stop you on this terrain. Several years ago I was doing a fasted Grey Corries run and had just such a fuel crisis; acute hypoglycaemia symptoms that forced me to stop, lie down and then have a long stumble out to Leanachan Forest and Spean Bridge. No such problems now with a much improved metabolism from two years of eating a lot of fat and doing a lot of fasting. I knew I would eventually slow down a bit with fatigue, but not stop, regardless of taking on calories.

In fact, as we reached Stob Coire an Laoigh I noted a slight euphoria spreading gently across my brain, and feeling slightly stronger again in the legs. The wind picked up a fair bit and still felt colder than I expected, which I thought must just be the effect of eating ice biscuits and having damp gloves I’d sweated into for 8 hours. It was definitely chilly though. I had stuffed rime crystals into my Platypus and then put it into my base layer to melt. But even after two Munros I got barely 5ml of liquid water.

Another from Aonach Mor, since it was so nice! Photo: Kevin Woods

I remembered slogging up Stob Coire Claurigh at the east end of the Grey Corries with Andy Turner while filming ‘The Pinnacle’ eight years ago and feeling kind of knackered (we’d done Orion Face in the morning). This time it felt okay and so we wasted no time in ploughing on to the base of Stob Ban, the final Munro. I did feel tired enough on this to need to stop for five minutes and eat a tasty combo of dark chocolate and ice biscuits to help it go down. The funny thing was, once I got up and started again, the summit was only another 40 odd metres above! As expected for this type of day out, I was a bit too fatigued and cold to jump around and celebrate the success. I just noted the time (1:20am, 18.5 hours after starting) and we celebrated by taking a bearing for Larig Leacach and discussing the imminent prospect of getting down to a stream.

The first water we found was right by the bothy in the larig. Kev pointed out that it was still an 8km walk out to my house in Roy Bridge and asked if we could have a quick snooze in the bothy. Kev snoozed. I was impressed he could. I couldn’t even sit still without shivering like mad and instead had myself a mini aerobics session in the bothy to arrest the shivering (didn’t work). I’d warmed up after a few Kms and all that was left was a nice wade through the river Spean. It was partially icing over. I later found out it had been minus 8.6 at Tulloch during the night, which explains why it  felt so cold in the wind. The dawn just started to break as we walked up my street and back to my house. Claire kindly got up and made us piles of eggs and tea and I started to realise that a little climbing dream of eight years had actually been quite a big climbing dream I had never thought I’d get in condition, or myself in condition to manage it.

It was so glad of the opportunity to do it and to have a good climbing team of Kevin Shields, Iain Small and Kevin Woods, all excellent climbers and exactly who you’d want on a day like this. Having filmed Ramsay's Round last summer I was particularly impressed that Kevin was able to follow me for the whole thing and film at the same time. Not an easy thing to manage, either physically or logistically. I’m looking forward to seeing his footage!

Its been a fantastic winter where I’ve done most of my projects for the season, all of which were hard for me. Time to move onto my spring rock projects I think. But this one will definitely live long in the memory.

Testify

On the headwall of Testify 8b, Loch Maree Supercrag last weekend. Yesterday, on the first ascent, these lovely rough Gneiss crimps were a wee bit wet in the pouring rain, but they are incut enough I could get past them. Photo: Chris Prescott/Dark Sky Media

In May I got a chance to visit the brilliant new sport crag at Loch Maree - beautiful setting, excellent crag, mostly waterproof routes. Thanks to the NW usual suspects for putting a huge amount of effort into developing it (or anyone who opens new sport crags anywhere!). On my spring visits I ticked the 8as already established and completed an 8a+ extension which was 50m long (The Circus). I couldn’t help eyeing up the  unclimbed terrain to the right and figured there would be at least one great route to be done here.

Approaching 1/3 height on Testify 8b. It's massive! Photo: Dark Sky Media

As soon as my recovering shoulder was up to it, I packed my Hilti and my titanium glue-in bolts (to last many decades in the maritime environment) and drove north west. I bolted a line right of The Circus that splits in two at 25 metres (halfway). The right hand version looked around 8b with an easier but exhilaratingly exposed upper half. The harder version has a brilliant but desperate boulder problem at 45m.

Last week I got stuck into the easier version. The tech crux is actually low down and is a fingery cross-through move - pretty much the only move that still hurts my recovering AC joint. I knew it would take a couple of sessions to get used to moving dynamically on this move, and it did. But yesterday I got through it and the sustained section above. But with numb hands I slipped off near the end of the crux section and split my ring fingertip which bled everywhere and seemed to indicate the end of my session.

It was the first cold day of the autumn and I’m not up to speed with my cold weather tactics yet. Next try, I spent a few minutes moving large rocks around at the base to improve the sloping gully ledge at the foot of the route, but more importantly to get muscles up to temperature for the next blast. It worked a treat and I felt way stronger and found myself on the brilliant easier middle section of the route. I checked my finger, which was only bleeding a little and so was fine to go for the top. The previous week of heavy rain had some serious waterfall action fringing off the top of the crag and unfortunately was catching four of the crimps near the last bolt. But this section is not that hard so I was pretty determined to make it through. It was just too good not to! Of course I didn’t let go and was delighted to clip the anchor on my first new route since the shoulder injury.

I would say that this closes a chapter on the shoulder injury story for me, but not the book. I am obviously beyond the sufferfest stage of climbing withdrawal, but I have a bit to go to feel my right arm is really strong again. For that I have the harder line to focus my efforts. Given the encroaching cold weather, this is most likely a spring project for me, but I’ll give it some goes and this can direct some winter training for it. I think the boulder at the end is in the V10 range, and on some really tiny edges. It’s going to be hard to pull on these after so much climbing below. Exactly the sort of project to fire up a winter’s training.

Summer monsoon training

During July I was mostly to be found here in my wall, running many a lap.

After a successful couple of days in Early June visiting the lake and climbing Return of the King (E9), I returned for another quick trip of three days. On the first day I made the most of the uninspiring weather and repeated The Keswickian (E8 7a) in a couple of hours work. Unfortunately I was rained off the other two days.

I decided not to go on an alpine big wall trip this summer and instead stay in Scotland to try and climb some of the great mountain trad projects I have here, especially on Ben Nevis, where I have not climbed on in summer since I did Echo Wall way back in 2008!

Unfortunately, I have picked the wrong summer, and my gamble has not paid off. The last part of June and all of July has been very wet and poor and I’ve not been able to get on the projects in the west. Never mind - I’m used to being adaptable and trying to make the best of the situation to get ahead for the next goal.

On my horizon is the sport climbing season in the late autumn. I always like to set myself various all-rounds challenges that are fun to try and focus my energies. After last winter’s successful focus on bouldering, I wondered if I could climb an 8C boulder, 9a sport route and a really hard Scottish mixed route in one year. I’m not at all confident I can do it (no climber ever has, to my knowledge), which is the point - I want to push well out of my comfort zone. With the 8C boulder ticked, next up I would like to climb a long endurance 9a, probably in Spain, if I can turn myself into an endurance climber quickly enough. 

I know I’ll have to train in a very organised way to manage this, so I have written myself a very detailed training program. Although I’ve done this many times for other climbers, I’ve generally trained myself on a flexible basis because I’ve focused on going outside climbing whenever the weather is good as my first priority, and just fitted in training whenever it rains. This can work well up to a certain level and is a good option if you are able to keep a good working record of your training load and priorities. Not many people can/do.

Perhaps the awful weather in July has galvanised me to take a more long term view focused on the trip. Not to mention the success I had with doing my winter goal of climbing an 8C boulder with this approach. During July itself, I trained most days on my board, building a base of endurance and general conditioning, on which to build upon during September and October.

Full stretch on the reach crux of Nuclear Nightmare 8a+ on Creag Nan Cadhag near Gairloch.

I’ve snatched the rare dry days in the west of Scotland to tick off some of the harder sport routes in the north west. First, Remember to Roll (8b) and Stalks 8a+ Creag nan Luch. In the past week I had a couple of days at Creag nan Cadhag and ticked off Game Over (8a+) and Nuclear Nightmare (8a+) as well as flashes of the other 7cs on the wall. All great routes and great to be able to just turn up and climb sport routes in Scotland without having to equip and clean them first! Kudos to the equippers.

I can definitely feel my month of base training has done something and I have made some progress already. Looking at my training program is slightly terrifying though. I’ll just have to see if I have judged the training and recovery correctly. Already I am running into some issues; my right brachioradialis is complaining a little. I do get some aches here on and off, maybe every couple of years, and usually it passes if I take my recovery seriously and make sure I complete my antagonist workouts. Ongoing monitoring and adjustment is essential for any training program, since life never works out as planned.

I’ve planned the training as far as my sport climbing trip in November, and have a first crack at some hard routes then. If I get on well, I’ll switch straight onto tool training for the mixed season. It seems so far away, but it’s not. On with the training!

Climbing Stalks 8a+ on Creag nan Luch. I also climbed Remember to Roll 8b just to the right, back in June. Both fantastic routes which can be climbed in the rain.

Blair Fyffe on Whip and Ride, 7c, on Creag Nan Luch. I managed to get the flash of this great route shortly afterwards.

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!

Black Diamond video of Fight the Feeling

The video of my 8c+/9a from last autumn ‘Fight the Feeling at Steall is now up on the Black Diamond digital catalogue here. It’s on page 9. While you are there you should check out some of the other videos and articles from fellow BD climbers. There are pretty damn good. My favourite has to be The Wheel of Life footage of James Kassay. Would LOVE to go there sometime soon.

Scottish Sport Climbs guide is here

Finally, we have the first stock of the new Scottish Sport Climbs guidebook by the SMC. It’s in the shop here. It has certainly been a long time coming. I first submitted a draft of the sections I wrote in November 2004! A lot of bolts have appeared across the lowlands, highlands and islands since then, so the book is a lot fatter than it would’ve been if it had been released at that time. So the wait has an upside.

Flicking through the guide as I took it out of the box, I was struck by the great selection of sport crags all over the country now. There are 1300 routes in the guide, on 100 crags. Who out of the slightly older generation of Scottish climbers would’ve thought we would have 1300 sport climbs in Scotland. That’s great! As you’d expect from an SMC guidebook it’s a nicely produced book with careful descriptions, good maps and plenty of nice pictures to inspire. So many of Scotland’s new routing activists have been very energetic over the past decade and the options now available for routes to enjoy has basically exploded. Now, there are sport crags for us to visit no matter what corner of Scotland you find yourself in or fancy travelling to. Also, the diversity of locations mean that I can’t see many days of the year where there won’t be some dry rock on which to clip bolts somewhere in the land.

Kudos to all who made the effort to open new sport routes, as well as all the authors and producers of the guide. It is so badly needed. Talking to the new generation of young sport climbers coming into climbing through Scotland’s climbing walls, it frequently nagged at me that so many are unaware of the lovely crags that are out there. Some of them in stunning, wild and far flung locations like Gruinard in the north west. Some of them just up the road from our major towns and cities. 

The guidebook pictures brought back some nice memories for me of places like Dunglas just outside Glasgow, where I did my first 6b (Negotiations With Isaac)and 6c+ (The Beef Monster). I remember being very excited when Andy Gallagher asked me to give him a belay on the first ascent of Persistence of Vision (7a+) after watching him bolt it. A year after my first 6c+, my first 7c+ (Dum Dum Boys) was a liberating experience and straight away I wanted to get to the ‘happening crags’ of the day.

I found myself at Steall for the first time shortly afterwards, abseiling down Cubby’s project (Ring of Steall 8c+) and being totally inspired by how poor the holds were. The whole ambience of hard physical climbing in beautiful highland surroundings was where it was at for me. So in the following years, we made after school/uni/work hits from Glasgow to Glen Ogle, Dunkeld and Loch Lomondside sport crags, with weekend trips to Tunnel Wall, Steall, Weem and the Angus Quarries.

Once I got involved in exploring new routes, under the influence of Dave Redpath and Michael Tweedley, I immensely enjoyed tearing about bendy roads in Argyll developing crags like Tighnabruaich and eventually the Anvil.

One thing that I like about Scottish sport climbing particularly is that the easier graded routes in the 6s and 7s are often so much better to climb than those on the continent. In Spain or suchlike, the majority of the time, the hard routes on big overhanging sweeps of limestone are the most inspiring lines, while the easier lines can sometimes be either a bit scrappy or, dare I say it, a little boring. As with our trad, the variety of rock types we have in Scotland often make for much nicer routes in the lower and mid grades too. However, if you are into hard stuff, the two hardest routes in the book (Hunger, 9a and Fight The Feeling, 9a) give as good climbing as you’ll get anywhere. Both were climbed in good conditions in the summer and you wont find any queues or some barky dog wondering about eating your lunch at the base of the crag. The only negative on offer from Scottish sport climbing is, of course, the midge. Just remember that the wind direction is as important as the rain when you look at the forecast. Choose a crag exposed to a breeze on the day, and you’re sorted.

Enjoy the guide, enjoy the climbing. It’s here.

Another Steall milestone.

Michael gears up for another scrap with Steallworker (8b), a cloud of midges above. Get tied in, whirr your jacket around a few times to disperse the midge pack, rip the bag off your head and go!

The other day I completed a new 8b+/c at Steall. ‘Irn Age’ climbs pretty much all of The Fat Groove (8a) to the roofed groove and then pulls right to climb pretty much all of Maxwell’s Demon (8b+). Although it has two no-hands rests on it low down, it’s still a good test of stamina and a mega trip up the crag with a tough finale. I certainly felt I needed to be quite fresh for the crux of Maxwell’s Demon which is right up near the last bolt after 35 metres of climbing.

After I got a nice sequence on the crux I did think Irn Age would be 8b+ and Maxwell’s Demon could actually be 8b. But Michael pointed out that it is way harder than any of the 8b+s or even the 8c’s I’ve done abroad. A classic case of a route feeling easy when you do it. Too many of the routes at Steall are my own and there’s noone repeating the harder ones them despite attempts, so I don’t have much info to go on to figure out what grade everything might be. Moving on...

Finally I can feel the effects of my circuits in my arms, climbing The Fat Groove without getting a pump and actually recovering on the better holds high on the route. Although it’s obviously miles easier than my 9a project just to the right, it’s still a confidence booster that these routes can go despite wet holds, bad weather and the odd midge.

I’ve put in the hours on my harder project, so I have the moves really smooth. I’m feeling 85% there fitness wise. But I think the real issue might come down to conditions. Last week I had a brief go on it again and just couldn’t even hang the two crux edges. Unless it’s cold and windy the tiny crystals just cut my skin. The northerlies of this week have turned out to be way too weak to be of any use at Steall.

So there are still some hurdles, but I’m making enough progress to want to keep at it for now.

Failing higher

A big jump on my project today. New highpoint three moves higher!!! (yes that does deserve an exclamation for each move). The move I fell from is probably the hardest on the route, but after that one, the climbing eases off to a 12 move sprint of maybe 7c+ to the belay. I’m still just getting fitter on the route and stronger on the moves, increment by increment.

This was the last big link to do before it’s time to get serious. And so that’s what I better do. What does that involve? Well, it partly depends on the weather gods, who seem in a grumpy mood. I’ve been blessed with a dry crag and cool conditions for over 2 weeks. Now it’s looking wet.

Worst case scenario is I have to take a few weeks of dedicated training on the boards while the route drips. It might be no bad thing. Best case scenario is the the unsettled weather keeps bringing cool winds but not enough rain to start the bogs oozing from above Steall crag. In that case, I could just keep trying and see if the pattern of getting higher continues?

I’m not so sure it would. Some circuit time would surely give me an edge, as will more runs, good sleep and rest. So not much has changed except now I know I’m not wasting my time. In good conditions at least, I can now start up the route knowing there is a slim chance I could get through all of those tiny holds and actually get to the top.

This is what hard projects are all about. Although I’m partly in the hands of the weather, making that final hurdle from ‘close’ to ‘complete’ is the really difficult and really important step. Anyone can make progress on a project just by showing up with no pressure. But when you know there is a chance it could happen, can you keep making the right moves without feeling the strain and the moment fizzling out.

Send me those gale force easterlies please!

Confidence materialising?

That’s the fourth session on my project this week, every one with progress to speak of. So I can’t be close to my limit yet. Yesterday I was with Michael instead of alone on my shunt. I made the big step of linking from the start of the Ring of Steall crux to the top of my project. It’s the first time I’ve felt like I was linking on a route instead of doing hard bouldering moves on a rope, if you know what I mean.

I know that to have proper attempts to complete the route, I need to be at a stage where I’m really confident on the moves and don’t feel that they are low percentage. So now I’m getting the Ring of Steall crux static which is good progress. I can’t be fully confident until I’m actually getting highpoints on the headwall above where the route leaves Ring of Steall. Although I’ve got very overlapping halves on the route now, there is still one more big step to make before it’s time to get properly serious. I must get myself through that desperate cross through move.

The other thing is that conditions have been perfect. Yesterday it was 9 degrees on the drive up the glen! Windy too. Warm weather has to come sometime and that might put me back a bit in the coming few weeks. Although I feel strong (for me) and climbing not bad, my power endurance still feels about 50% of what it could be, maybe less. The past week has been great. Totally the right decision to take advantage of relatively midge free windy conditions to get more time and confidence on the route. 

Although my more dedicated power endurance training on the circuits has been delayed, it will be all the more useful when I’m finally forced indoors by the weather. If wet or midgy weather comes next week and I have a stint of circuits and runs, I could be in good shape for starting redpoints after that. If conditions stay windy, I have a backup plan of trying a new link up of Fat Groove (8a) into Maxwell’s Demon (8b+) which is pretty much perfect endurance training. It has some good rests so it might be 8b+/8c. I can have two or three good attempts on my project and then get a workout trying the link-up.

Today I can see the midges outside my window as I write (they are after the CO2 from my boiler exhaust!) and the trees are totally still. Board time!

Tempting Fate

Current highpoint on my project at Steall - a horrendous gaston/cross/backhand/fingerlock move to a perfect little edge I have to hit with my fingers and thumb in just the right spot.

In my blog post last night about my recent efforts on my Steall project, I knew that if I said out loud that my sequence wouldn’t couldn’t be improved much, I’d immediately prove myself wrong. And so it was. Today, With fresh body and mind after a seriously needed rest day I found five new bits of of beta which help my sequence. Of course, most of them are small; a change in body position or momentum in the move. But one change in particular might make a significant difference in how consistently I can get to my highpoint. So maybe I can get a little higher sometime soon?

I still am two steps (links) away from doing proper redpoints. I have yet to climb from below the Ring of Steall crux to the top. That’s a pretty important link that still feels a good bit away. After that, the next important link is from the ground to two moves higher in the crux than my current best effort. If that ever happens I’ll be on seek and destroy mode immediately. I’m feeling good enough on it to justify keeping on training my endurance on the route, at least for another session. Maybe next week I’ll do some targeted training elsewhere in case I get stale on the route.

It’s helping that England is currently getting the chains of rain bearing fronts that we normally get up here right now. Apparently thanks to the Jet stream? In the easterly today it was around 13 degrees at Steall with a 30mph wind. Sticky holds and even the hungriest midge grounded. A good session!

Following a good vibe

After returning from my travels I was interested to see how the effects of 2 months bouldering followed by a week and half of sedentary time in the car would affect my fitness on my Steall project. After a couple of sessions, it’s obvious I can pull a few % points harder on the holds. Endurance is pretty poor, but not quite the disaster I expected. After doing Seven of Nine last year (3 months not climbing anything longer than 10 moves) I went to Tunnel Wall and took 3 tries to do Fated Path (a stamina 7c+!). Despite the moves feeling like V-Diff, I just got pumped doing virtually anything. That was a memorably depressing session. Of course it only took four sessions to be able to lap the routes there aerobically and then move back up through the 8s.

At the end of my lecture tour I did have just a handful of short but good sessions on endurance. I made a good decision to start on some pretty easy but steep ground and err on the volume side. This seems to have been a good kickstart. After a few of those I managed to get through the crux of Ring of Steall (8c+) again for the first time. Great, but on arriving at the real crux of my project finish, I could only slap uselessly at a tiny crimper I must get static and perfectly.

I’ve had two more sessions trying to work on the climb on my own since then. Although there is no dramatic progress to speak of, I know from experience that these sessions do get you closer to making breakthroughs. I’ve learned all sorts of little things about how to do the moves better. Dare I say it, I don’t think my sequence can change a great deal now.

So it’s down to 30 move power endurance. Training for the route by trying it sometimes works really well so I’m keen to take advantage of the easterly winds at present and get on it. But It’s not a great route for training on, mainly because the hardest moves are a bit too hard! They only really work if your arms are completely fresh. Ideally a mix of circuits and maybe one session out of three on the route would be right I think. I might even try a bit of power endurance work on the campus board for this.

I have a choice really between getting serious about this project and really putting some dedicated work on it, or going to play on other things. Even if I’m on project mode, certain other venues and routes will make good training, and my gut is telling me I’m getting high enough on the route to get serious. I know that my power endurance has never been good, and it would be a great experiment to see what could happen if did train it properly for a spell. It seems pretty clear that the bouldering trip has given me a base of strength that really ought to be enough to make this route possible. It would be crazy not to give it a good shot then.

New links

On the crux of Ring of Steall 8c+, on the way to the actual crux!

I have been enjoying good sessions in fine conditions on my project at Steall. My objective was just to get a sequence I was happy with before I leave for Switzerland. But It’s gone better than I expected. On the last session I linked from the block after the Ring of Steall crux to the top. This rather brutal section of climbing revolves around three big moves in a row. Each of them used to feel pretty damn hard in isolation. But on my second link they felt pretty solid.

It’s taken a bit of time to re-learn the subtleties of the Ring of Steall crux. But I think I’ve got it again now. But I’m still a good bit away from the pre-requisite of managing to redpoint through it every go! I still think the egyptian move must be one of the best moves on British rock. Easy if you do it perfectly, impossible if you are even slightly out of the right body position.

I’m definitely feeling some momentum of a good run of training and can’t believe I’ll be in Switzerland next weekend! First up, more STEEEAAALLL!

Michael getting the workout on my own route Steallworker, 8b.