A MacLeod near miss

The west highlands almost lost two of it’s MacLeod’s to the A86 on Saturday morning after Claire wrapped her nice Audi around a tree. I was sitting in the passenger seat and believe it or not I was happy it was a direct head on hit on the tree, because if not it would have been over a retaining wall with a probably terminal drop on the other side.

A very wet road, a little too much speed for the bend, and a little touch of the brakes on the cusp of the bend were the combination of causes. The back of the car slid, followed by wild veering and steering, and the next thing we saw in the windscreen was a large tree.

We had a split second to either tense or relax in preparation for the big smash.

It felt a little surreal stepping out of a completely re-shaped car, with only a sore neck and the odd scuff between us. The split second after the impact of turning to Claire to see if she was still with me was not something I’ll forget in a hurry. Thankfully she was looking back at me and immediately agreeable to getting out of the car.

Apologies to my climbing masterclass students who had a bit of a wait for me to arrive and a slightly frazzled coach once I finally did.

Kudos to Mr Gardner for being on the money that there are often more pressing things worth worrying about than falling off rock climbs, terrorists and nasty flu viruses.

To Hell and Back programme online

The 'To Hell and Back' programme is online now on the BBC site.

You can watch it here

To Hell and Back – Want to see it on BBC2 national?

On To Hell and Back E10. Photo: Steven Gordon

Lots of people commented that they would like to see the To Hell and Back programme on BBC2 national as they couldn’t get BBC2 Scotland or download it off the BBC iPlayer in time. If that’s you, please add a comment to this post with your name to register your feeling. Maybe you live in Scotland and saw it and feel it was good enough that the rest of the UK folks should get a chance to see it? Again please comment below.

I’ll flag this post up to the BBC in a few weeks and if enough people comment, maybe it’ll swing it?

Thanks!

To Hell and Back programme - thanks!

Thanks to everyone who contacted us after the To Hell and Back programme on BBC2 last week by email, txt, blog comment etc, we appreciate the thought so much. We liked the programme ourselves, although our toes curled when we saw that our tour round our wee Glen Nevis house had made the edit. You know that feeling where you hear the sound of a recording of your own voice and cringe a little? Multiply that by a good few times to get the feeling of watching yourself showing a TV audience around your wee hoose.

The programme obviously focused pretty heavily on the danger aspect of the new route I climbed. Here are some reactions from people who watched it:

“I thought it was a great film, but it worried me. It just worries me. The whole thing of someone putting their life at risk... and us all encouraging them to do so, even if we don't mean to, by posting saying how great it is ... it worries me”

“After something like this it's only natural to ponder and if you ever wonder whether you should lift your foot off the accelerator then that is the time to call it a day .. and time to change down a gear and enjoy the ride a bit more. I'm guessing that time has not yet come for you?”

Another comment that folk made was the number of times we were reminded of the consequences of me falling off the route on lead – ‘death’. That word was mentioned many times over. Of course it’s natural that the documentary editors would keep reminding us of this as it creates tension.

‘Climber makes solid and smooth ascent of potentially dangerous climb’

Isn’t really an eye catching documentary premise, compared to:

‘climber attempts death route and nearly doesn’t make it’

Of course the former was what actually happened. If you downloaded or taped the programme, watch the footage with the sound off and look out for any wobbles. It would make quite different viewing. Of course it’s necessary for me to look carefully at the potential consequences of failure and analyse the potential for that occurring. So all I’m doing there is taking a serious route seriously. The bottom line is that there is no way I would have been there if I thought I was going to fall.

I couldn’t eliminate risk of things going wrong, nor would I want it that way. But my preparation and execution of a solid plan for my approach to the climb kept the danger (just) within an acceptable limit.

As the quotes above allude to, films like this make us wonder a lot about risks in life, that’s why they are interesting. To me, it’s simple and clear that some risks in life are utterly essential to get anywhere, whether they are physical, emotional, financial or other types of risk. A live life with no risk at all is not to live – because nothing useful could be accomplished. So the question is not whether to take risks, its whether a given risk is the right risk to take.

What we never see in documentaries like To Hell and Back is the flip side of risk – not taking enough risk, and missing out on doing something amazing with your life. Getting to the end of a long life, never having taken a risk (and never accomplishing things you had the potential for) is a WAY bigger tragedy than coming unstuck while taking a risk that was really worth taking.

So when Dax said “ever wonder whether you should lift your foot off the accelerator?” I say never, ever lift your foot of accelerator, so long as you are accelerating in the direction that is right for you.



As Seth Godin says “safe is risky”

To Hell and Back programme – next week!

Stripping the gear from To Hell and Back E10 after climbing it

Back in August, a massive team of climbers and production staff including myself gathered on Cairngorm to try and make what would have been an amazing live program of new routing on the cliffs surrounding Loch Avon. But the huge effort did not pay off because of the deeply frustrating (at times) Scottish weather. It chucked it down all weekend long on the broadcast days.

I was all set to attempt something that really scared me silly – a new E10 rock climb with very little protection, live on telly! In retrospect I’m quite exceptionally glad I didn’t have to climb it live, but I still wanted to climb it very much , and wanted something good to come of all the effort that went into The Great Climb programme. So I went back the following week and did the route, with the crew filming. My route, To Hell and Back, E10, was the scariest lead I’ve done in my climbing life and a pretty full on experience for both myself, Claire who was belaying and everyone else who was there, it seemed.

We all wondered when the footage would finally be shown on TV. Well, it’s going to be on BBC2 Scotland, next Wednesday (Oct 24th) at 8pm – 9pm. I understand that if you can’t get BBC2 Scotland, you can watch it via sky (if anyone can confirm this or knows of other ways to view BBC2 Scotland around the UK and the world – please comment on this post!).

Loch Avon from the top of To Hell and Back; The Cairngorms are a cool place.

I haven’t yet seen the film myself, but I imagine it could be a bit full on?

My post about leading the route is here and the producer’s view of the experience is here.

Enjoy?

To Hell and Back

Yesterday was the scariest day of my life, and the end of the scariest ten days of my life. The impending lead of my ‘Great Climb’ project on Hell’s Lum crag was hanging over me like a guillotine. It’s the most dangerous lead I’ve ever done, and right now, I’m not sure exactly how I feel about it.

Falling off from the crux or above would have meant death. 80 feet to the gully bed. In the moment of the lead, I screamed at myself twice at the top of my voice because the reality hit me of where I was and what I was doing. I think it achieved little more than spreading my fear across everyone who was there filming, Tony who was on the skyhook rope and especially Claire on the gully sprint rope running through the only good gear, 40 feet below me.

An outcome was needed to free everyone from the sentence, so I screamed away all my thoughts and uncaringly hydraulicked like a robot through the slopers and on to the belay.

When I got there I just felt guilty for engaging with this undertaking in the first place. On a personal level it’s OK – I’m up for this type of experience, full on as it is. But it’s not fair on everyone else for me to be walking around for ten days consumed in my own ugly world of fear, and blind to other people’s needs. I’m massively in their debt, especially Claire’s.

Being with Cubby last week was very helpful – having a history of this type of situation, he knew the score, and was great counsel.

This route overstepped the red line for me, but not in terms of personal danger, just in terms of the cost of dealing with the danger. I want to be a climber pushing my limits. But I don’t want to be a climber pushing everyone else’s limits as well, even temporarily. I’ve learned, and my next challenge is to climb something like this or harder, without my personal hell spilling beyond my own head.

A brief moment of top out relief. Meanwhile Richard Else swoops out of the mist for the interview

Anyway, now it’s over, I’m happy that I could do something positive for the guys behind The Great Climb programme. By the sounds of it the footage will be used soon by the BBC. Everyone is still recovering from the day, it was a long one! A very tired Claire and me (with 4 ropes and 2 racks on my back) left Hells Lum last and eventually found the top of Coire an t’ Sneachdha in the dark and rain and picked our way carefully down the Coire and back to the ski car park after midnight.

Claire took the pictures of pitch 2, a superb forty five metre pitch of E5. Description for the route at the bottom too.

Was it worth it?

Stripping pitch 2 in the gathering mist

To Hell and Back E10 6c *** 80m
The route climbs the big smooth vertical wall right of the waterfall in Hell’s Lum, crossing Chariots of Fire higher up to finish up the smooth overhanging headwall. A fall from anywhere on the second half of pitch one is unlikely to be survivable.
1. 35m Start just left of the open groove. Move up the wall on positive holds to a dyno. Follow a sloping rail rightwards to a stopping place (good cams). Climb the wall on crimps to a fragile and hollow flake (dubious skyhook and cam). Dyno left to a quartz edge, then crimp desperately to a good edge. Move up, then left along slopers to a flat and often wet hold in the hanging groove. Climb the groove (poor RP2 on right) then move left around the arête and up to easy ground in the groove, leading to the belay on Chariots of Fire.
2. 45m Follow Chariots of Fire through it’s crux then break left across an overhanging wall on flakes, to eventually gain a groove with some detached blocks. Climb it to a small ledge. Step left and climb the faint crack in the headwall past a thin move to an exhilarating finish.

Starting up pitch 1. Photo: Steven Gordon

Why do hard and dangerous climbs?

Learning moves on a project. Photo: Steven Gordon

We can all readily appreciate the beauty of rock and the shapes it gives to the world, we just have to travel through the landscape. If we want to dig deeper, we can travel over mountains and look at them. A visual interaction with the rock.

Rock climbing is a deeper interaction with the rock. The medium of movement on rock allows us to crack open the beauty of rock not fully visible to the eye and get more back.

The harder the rock climb, the more we have to understand the rock to move, the more we learn. The more dangerous the rock climb, the more we have to understand the rock so we can stay alive.

The hardest and most dangerous climbs are the most meaningful, but they come at a cost most rock climbers wouldn’t dare to pay. Every climber finds their own balance of cost and reward.

The Great Frustration

There were a lot of very upset people camped underneath Cairngorm this morning. Over sixty people worked their asses off all week to make something amazing, but the Scottish rain had the last word as always. Richard Else held up his hands and exclaimed “it’s the one thing we could never control!” Of course. We could only hope for a bit of luck.

Although I’m like everyone else involved – gutted – it was still worth taking the great chance. Only the people involved will ever know it, but if the sun had only shone, the show would have been something folk would have talked about for a long time.

All sixty would have their own story to tell about trying to make the live BBC climb happen, all proved themselves experts and it was a pleasure to watch them in action.

My own part was to climb a very hard new route on Hell’s Lum. On Friday the sun shone and I worked on the route and felt very confident I could pull it off. I would have led it on Friday and it was hard to walk away knowing the forecast was bad. But, if it had turned out different, it would have been worth it. The route I prepared has some of the most perfect rock and moves I’ve experienced.

You wouldn’t believe the lengths everyone had to go to to get everything in place for the programme, bt by Friday night it was all there and there was a massive team will for it to happen. Utter depression when we woke to rain on Sunday.

It might not be the end of the story though… more later.

Below are some pictures by Steven Gordon from last Thursday on Cairngorm:

A great climb, still a great project... for now

Rupert makes the 800th brew at base camp, running an efficient ship all week

Enjoying the ride

Nikki - always relaxed

Inspecting Hell's Lum from the viewing gallery

The cameras arrive

Millie wasn't bothered by the rain

Off to Cairngorm for The Great Climb

Tomorrow morning (Tuesday) I leave very early to travel back across east to Cairngorm, racing the low pressure system that’s going to soak us all once again later on Tues and wed…thurs…

Hopefully Cubby and I can get a couple of hours in Hell’s Lum preparing a bit more for Saturday before the heavens open again. It’s all a bit nerve wracking really seeing as the Atlantic just keeps thrashing Scotland with rainstorms back to back every day. The freezing level is dropping near to the summits too, so maybe even a bit of white stuff is in prospect? Here’s hoping for some god fortune by Friday at least. If it’s wet Friday then the harder line is out of the question for The Great Climb – the drainage lines on it need a full day to dry.

If anyone wants to get in touch during the week, I’ll sometimes have mobile reception, sometimes not. Leave me a message.

I’ll hopefully get onto the net at Glenmore in the evenings and I’ll post up some words and pics of what we get up to over there during the prep climbing days.

The Great Climb – I might try and climb something a bit harder??!

The chopper flying off from the top of Hell’s Lum crag yesterday morning, dropping off the first of the equipment for shooting The Great Climb for the BBC. They did offer me a lift up from Glenmore Lodge, but that would be unthinkable for any self-respecting climber so I declined and trekked off up the path ; ) I’d only been in a helicopter once before as a kid as well…

After I’d wiped the sweat from my brow from the slog over Cairngorm to Hell’s Lum I abbed into the depths of the Lum for the second time for another 8 hour shift of cleaning and prospecting new routes.

On my first day I looked across at a beautiful smooth marbly wall which looked utterly inspiring. I abseiled down it quickly and found a perfect line of miniscule brick edges running up it, but very (extremely) little protection available. “E11” popped into my head. But yesterday I got stuck into it and found that I could actually pull on those holds. That was quite a surprise, and after a while I linked it in one go at hard 8a+. Thing is, falling from the hard part or the sustained moves above would mean certain death, no question. So where Indian Face is 7b with bad pro, this is top end 8a+ with even worse pro. Hmmm E10 for sure.

I’m psyched!

It’s probably the best quality rock on a new route I’ve ever tried, so the motivation to climb it is so strong. What better day could you choose than when such a momentous event as the great climb will capture such a great route on film?

Well yes, but it’s not as simple as that. At E8, even E9, I could wait until the filming team were ready and wear a radio mic etc so they get the grunting they want. But E10 is very very close to my limit, and the consequences of blowing it as high as they could get. So to climb this next Saturday, the temperature and humidity must be right, the build up must be right, the social vibe must be right, the resting times must be right. If anything upsets the necessary rhythm of preparation, I will have to make a cold decision to pass up the opportunity to complete this amazing project and go back to my plan for the E8/9 just to the right. Exciting!

Some more details on the programme:

BBC 2 Scotland between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.
BBC 2 Network between 5.25 p.m. and 6.35 p.m.
The BBC High Definition Channel between 5.25 p.m. and 6.35 p.m.
The Web – all day, streamed live from The Great Climb site.

So anyone on the planet with either a telly or an internet connection will be able to catch it. The Great Climb’s website is live on Monday www.bbc.co.uk/greatclimb

In typical Scottish style, a deep autumnal low with flooding and gales are forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday. Well, the Scottish weather gods were never going to make it easy for us were they?


The line I tried yesterday with some notes on it describing the full horror… I sooooo hope the conditions are right for it next Sat. Do a sun (plus fresh breeze) dance for me.

The Great Climb – climbing live on the BBC!

Some time ago the BBC asked me if I’d be keen to climb something hard on Cairngorm for a live outside broadcast this summer. I couldn’t quite believe it. 40 years ago the BBC did a live OB over three days with Bonington, Patey, Haston and others climbing the Old Man of Hoy. It happened again a generation later in 85 in Glen Coe, and now once again in 2007. Broadcasting is very different now, so it was quite a surprise to hear that climbing was going to be on primetime Saturday television for 7 hours in a single day!

Better climb something good then…Hmmmm

The venue is going to be the Loch A’an basin and its impressive cliffs; Shelterstone Crag and Hell’s Lum. This is somewhere I’ve climbed rarely, being a west coaster. So it’s cool to be exploring somewhere new so close to home. My brief is simple – to climb something very hard, and preferably a new route. I’m more into steep climbing so I opted for Hell’s Lum and went for a look at it. I knew there were new lines to climb in there, but I’d never seen them up close.

Wow. The lower part of the wall is quite amazing. Perfect granite with four pristine straight up new lines to do, and that is just the first pitch. If the conditions are good on the day, I’m going to try to climb a beautiful smooth wall, about E8 or E9. The protection is poor so falling off hopefully won’t be in the screenplay. If I do you’ll see me getting carried off in the helicopter to hospital. Amusingly, the hardest move is a wild dyno as well. Most TV friendly for the viewers, most terrifying for the climber.

Cleaning new lines on Hell’s Lum crag on Saturday

Pitch 2 looks like an E7, a bold traverse across a smooth wall, only protected at the start. So the further across you go, the bigger the pendulum you face if you fall. We’ll go for the flash and see how we get on. Perhaps I’ll allow three falls before I succumb to a plan B. I’m not sure what plan B would be right now? The final pitch isn’t quite so physically demanding, even though it’s the steepest. The holds are quite big, but they are also detachable! This means the chances of protection holding a fall are… erm… somewhat reduced. E6 6a/b and sudden death if I fall. I might not be smiling on this pitch too much. At least the topout is quite stunning if we succeed.

My partner for the climb will be Cubby. After a few years of injury troubles, I’ve been getting txts from him with tales of mileage done and fitness coming back. Thing is, I’ve seen how strong he is in his ‘unfit and injured’ state and lets just say it’s something rather different from what you or I would call unfit or weak…

Hell’s Lum Crag, Cairngorm. Coming to a screen near you!

Folk have been asking me if I’m nervous about doing a top end dangerous route on live TV. A TV camera is not a scary as an E9 that’s for sure, but it’ll be hard if I can’t climb it on the day. The producers asked for a hard climb. Hard climbing means uncertainty. I might fall off and hurt myself, or I might pull off a three pitch E9? I guess we’ll find out…

When is it on? Saturday 18th of August 1pm-7pm (yes you did read that correctly!) BBC2 Scotland or streamed live on the BBC site.

More info and a trailer for the programme here