Fort William Mountain Festival reel

Fort William Mountain Festival 2016 showreel from Fort William Mountain Festival on Vimeo.

I just put together the reel for the Fort William Mountain Festival which is coming up in mid February. The showreel has just a fraction of the films and speakers involved in this year’s festival

I’ve been to the FWMF every year for a decade and I know I’m highly biased, but it is the best mountain festival I’ve ever been to. Why? The combination of location, great shows and especially great vibe. 

I remember being blown away at a previous festival when during a hill running night the MC asked the audience how many people in the room were active hill runners and I reckon over 250 people raised a hand. I don’t know anywhere else where you get such energy of like minded people coming together and sharing their keenness. The great thing about FWMF is that folk are always out on the hill or in a workshop during the day enjoying some climbing or other activity. So everyone shares the ‘glow’ as they head back to the Fort for the evening film and lecture sessions.

As always I’m doing quite a lot at this year’s festival. as well as putting together the showreel, mountain culture award films and various sponsors films, I’ve also entered my own film ‘Miles Away’ and will be premiering the film I’m making this year for the Nevis Landscape Partnership, which will feature characters old and new from the Nevis area.

I’m also running my climbing technique masterclasses. In previous years I’ve run them at the Ice Factor, but this year, I’m pleased to say I’m running them at my own climbing wall!! It will be the first time my wall will be open to the climbing world beyond my friends. The Saturday and Sunday sessions are sold out but there are a couple of spaces left on the rock climbing and also dry tooling/winter sessions on Friday 19th Feb.

Tickets for the festival nights are here. If you want to grab those remaining spaces on my climbing sessions, check out the details here. See you there in a handful of weeks.

One project done.

The MacLeod wall. Done. Let's get climbing!

The past few weeks have been varied; film work in front of camera, behind camera, voiceovers in studios, training for summer in the alps, researching for my injuries book and finishing getting all the holds on my wall.

It sounds a bit stupid, but I underestimated how long it would take to actually get all my holds on the wall. And I was grateful to be gifted lots more from friends. Being the slightly maladjusted character I am, I was anxious to finish the project completely before starting to climb on it. I just didn’t want to be climbing on it when it still felt like a building project. So it was really nice to get it all perfect and then start to climb. The only pieces of the puzzle left are the mats which are being made right now. It feels just great to be training. It’s just over a year since I dismantled my wall in my old house, and it’s only after starting to climb on the new one that I’ve truly realised how much I’ve missed it.

Ahhhh. I do like to see projects, of all kinds, complete. Now, what shall I do now? Oh yeah, I was writing a book on injuries wasn’t I...

Between days of setting, training, and book work, we have been making a film for a Glasgow based Geology company called Midland Valley. They make software for structural analysis of geology and have produced a smartphone app for digital mapping in the field. We had a nice couple of days running around the north face of the Ben shooting with them and me abbing down cliffs and getting my phone out instead of doing what I normally do!

Readying the crane above the CIC hut. Photo: Jenny Ellis

Holds going on my wall, and new routing on Harris

Some holds going on the climbing wall at last!

After a month straight of 16 hour days on average, my climbing wall is finished. Well, apart from getting all the holds on. I must admit that after completing the build and various other jobs that needed doing at my place, I was a bit too broken to even climb on it. I just wanted to sleep! But now there are some holds going on it I’m getting more and more excited as it turns from a building project into what I had originally envisioned - a brilliant place to train.

However, rather than jump straight on it, I opted to take advantage of the dry weather and head to the Outer Hebrides for a couple of days new routing and prospecting with Calum Muskett. We did a handful of new lines from E3 to E5 and I worked on this immaculate 40m wall of perfect Gneiss that has been on my projects to look at list for a few years. It was just as good as I hoped, if maybe a little hard.

There were a couple of different ways you could go. The best, and hardest looks upwards of 8b+ climbing with adequate gear. But the crux is super hard. On the first day I was climbing all day in a Citadel jacket and still had numb hands in the wind. In those conditions I could get some purchase on the crux crimps, but couldn’t see how to use them. The next day it was much warmer and I needed a bit of help from the rope to stay on, but did get a sequence that may work. So now I have something great to direct my training, and an excuse to get the ferry back to Harris pretty soon.

A very very hard project to go back to.

Climbing wall, week 3.

I was hoping to keep posting some daily, or at least frequent climbing wall progress updates. But the chain 16+ hour days working on it kept me rather busy. It has come on a lot over the past week.

All the ply is now on and tidied up with a mission of long hours and going for it with Scott Muir from Dream Climbing Walls. Now the structure is built, it’s up to me to get it all finished. Last night was a bit ridiculous, still washing sanding dust off it at 4am. But today the first coat of paint has been going on and it’s looking great.

I took a couple of days off after Scott left and went to Glasgow. I managed to get my hands on some of Malcolm Smith’s new resin holds which are launching in a couple of weeks under the brand Stonesmith. They are pretty cool and I’ll post up some pics as soon as the paint dries on the wall and I can get them on.

I’ve also been making some of my own holds from hardwood. I’ve never had the tools for working with wood before, but have accumulated some better tools over the past year and I’m really keen to get better at making nice holds. Well made wooden holds are something a bit special. 

Not too long now before I can get rockshoes on and start training on this beast!

Climbing wall, Day 3

By day 2 of building my climbing wall, we’d moved the horizontal trusses up, giving four metres of height. Then it was time to start cutting and drilling the timber frame.

By the end of day three, we’d build most of the frame and I could start to see what the wall space will be like for the first time. It looks soooo good!

Scott from Dream Climbing Walls would be back on Monday, so I had the weekend off. I was feeling a bit fatigued after the building mission. But I was too excited and carried on over the weekend, doing more building and making holds out of hardwood. With any luck, within a week or a bit more, I'll be training on it and getting fit for the rock season.

A nice break came in the form of taking Freida camping since the Lochaber monsoon has finally broken at last. We had a great wee adventure. I woke to the sound of heavy breathing outside the tent in the wee small hours. I peeked outside to see around 15 highland cows surrounding the tent. I’m very much looking forward to taking Frieda on more adventures like this in the hills over the summer.

Climbing wall build, Day 1

Day 1 of building my wall! Moving trusses, sawing, grinding, drilling and generally trying to keep up with Scott Muir from Dream Climbing Walls.

So excited.