Vlog #14 Motivation to train

A vlog on how I motivate myself to train. It’s pretty simple.

Vlog #13 Hangboards - what to measure?

"What gets measured, gets managed". Measuring aspects of performance in sport is a good thing, but only if you are measuring the right things and interpreting the data correctly. In this vlog, I draw attention to potential problems with performance metrics in climbing, especially related to basic finger strength, both at an individual level and with normative group data. In the video I talk a lot about fingerboarding. The fingerboard I designed and I'm using in the video is this one, The Edge.

Nevis Faces - Helen Rennard

Nevis Faces is a 6 part series of short films Claire and I have made for the Nevis Landscape Partnership that explores the faces of those who work and live around the Nevis area. Helen Rennard is an accomplished winter climber living in Fort William. When not helping the local community through her job as a social worker, Helen spends all her time either training for her climbing or out in the mountains climbing hard mixed routes. Helen has been involved in many first ascents of hard mixed routes on Ben Nevis and around the Scottish highlands.

I actually can't believe I managed to get this one made given the crazy winter we've had.

Vlog #12 Physical versus Desk Jobs and Your Training

A comment after Vlog #11 prompted me to do a whole episode exploring the pros and cons of physical versus sedentary jobs and their interaction with your training for climbing. Folk in physically demanding jobs are often strong and resilient, but can be overtired if they don't stay on top of their routine. In sedentary jobs, climbers can need extra work to keep on top of basic physical conditioning so that they can actually handle the physicality of hard climbing.
I go through some practical as well as general ideas and perspectives on how to make the most of your current situation, as well as encouraging anyone to at least consider changing it altogether if it isn't right. Not an easy thing to do, but what is?

Nevis Faces part 2 - Dave Cuthbertson

The second in our 6-part series about interesting folk in the Nevis Area is out. This time about Dave Cuthbertson. I spent most of my youth trying to repeat Cubby’s desperate rock climbs all over Scotland. In recent years, I’ve been in front of Cubby’s lens while he takes his amazing climbing shots. I may be slightly biased but I do think he is the best landscape photographer I’ve seen and in this film we explore that a little. I think it’s clear that his life as a climber gives not only an awareness of locations and conditions that would be hard to get otherwise, but also a highly tuned in eye for the detail and structure of the mountains.

We spent a fantastic but very cold night on the summit of Carn Mor Dearg and were rewarded with a sinner of a sunrise.

Al of the rest of the films will be published over the next week or two on the Nevis Landscape Partnership youtube channel.

Vlog #11 Training/Injury Rehab Wreckers

People are busy, including me. This post goes through how I manage busy work periods from a training point of view. I also discuss a common theme related to failure to recover from climbing injuries which I've discovered through the many thousands of messages I've had from climbers worldwide since I published Make or Break. In the video I'm signing some books and talking about how I do this for all the books I sell from my site. Of course you can get my books via Amazon But I sign all the books I sell from my own shop.

Vlog #10 Three strategies for a stronger new year

Here are three strategies I use in my own climbing to reflect on the previous year and plan for better results in the coming year, with some examples of how to implement them. Near the end of this video, I discuss some supplementation I do while recovering from tendon/ligament injuries. The paper I reference is this one by Keith Baar and colleagues.

New film of Michael on Tower Ridge

A Fine Line from Nevis Landscape Partnership on Vimeo.

Here is a wee film I made recently with Michael Tweedley and my DJI Inspire 1 drone, running the always fantastic Tower Ridge on Ben Nevis and the excellent paths around the mountain.

I made the film to help draw attention to the great work of the Nevis Landscape Partnership and Friends of Nevis in building and maintaining the paths in the Nevis area, alongside other organisations such as the John Muir Trust.

When I think back to the Allt a Mhuillin path as just one example, it’s in so much better shape that it used to be. Most grateful to the teams, especially the volunteers who build them. Please do volunteer and help - the days out are always good craic.

HELP WANTED! from Nevis Landscape Partnership on Vimeo.

Ben Nevis - Wild Times

Ben Nevis · Wild Times from Nevis Landscape Partnership on Vimeo.

I’m delighted to finally be able to share this film that I’ve been gathering footage for since last summer. The Nevis Landscape Partnership asked us to make a series of films for them related to the Ben Nevis/Glen Nevis area over a few years. Last year we focused on the huge survey of the Ben Nevis north face.

This year I wanted to focus more on Glen Nevis, and great people who are connected to it, both in the past and today. One place that I have always found one of the most special places on the earth is Steall in upper Glen Nevis. In the film I featured a little of the history of the folk who lived there, just a couple of generations ago. 

One of the things I find fascinating is the idea of the similarities and differences between the people of the past who lived and worked in these places, and those who use it today. Often, today people are using the mountains for sport, although many are also lucky enough to work in the mountains too.

I decided to do a bit of filming with local Fort William GP and British fell running champion Finlay Wild. Finlay is well known among the locals for winning the Ben Nevis Race every year and breaking various running records around the Scottish mountains, such as the Cuillin Ridge record.

I wanted to ask him about his relationship with The Ben and the Glen - whether the mountains seemed less wild or intimidating when you are fit enough run up Ben Nevis in less than an hour? What went through his mind while he was running? And for someone who could live anywhere, why he chose to stay among the mountains he grew up in. His thoughts on these issues were great, all with the backdrop of his amazing running.

I was particularly keen to capture his winter ridge runs with my drone and naturally it took a bit of time and organising to get a day when it might be possible to fly in full winter conditions. We waited in falling snow and mist until we were all freezing and finally the clouds just started to clear. At first I didn’t think the drone batteries would handle the cold, but I got one warmed up enough to fly and got some nice footage that to my mind captures something about why you would want to go to such effort to get fit and deal with all the hardships of the winter mountains and training. I was so exited to see the ‘drone’s eye view’ of Finlay charging along a snow-clad ridge, it was hard to concentrate on flying the drone.

After all the work of putting this together, I had a short break and start filming the next one tomorrow!

Natalie Berry's film

Natalie Berry, recipient of the 2016 Youth Award for Excellence in Mountain Culture from Fort William Mountain Festival on Vimeo.

Here is a film I made about Natalie Berry, this year’s recipient of the Scottish Youth Award for Excellence in Mountain Culture at the Fort William Mountain Festival. Special thanks to Paul Diffley at Hot Aches Productions for the additional footage from the film Transition. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a great film and you can download it from here.

Scottish Winter Kit list and Ellis Brigham ice event

Scottish Winter Kit list from Ellis Brigham on Vimeo.

Here is a video I made going through the kit I take for Scottish winter climbing - sack, clothing, climbing equipment, food etc. It’s something people quite rightly obsess over since it makes a huge difference to your day on the face.

Thanks to Ellis Brigham, Mountain Equipment and Gore-Tex for arranging the video. Speaking of Brighams. I’m speaking and running ice climbing technique masterclasses at their stores in London Covent Garden on Feb 3rd and Manchester on Feb 10th.

If you’d like to win a free ice climbing masterclass at the indoor ice walls in both locations, head here to enter (and best be quick). The classes are during the afternoon. In the evening lectures, I’ll be speaking about various adventures on Scottish hard bits of climbing and other adventures on big faces around the world. Look forward to seeing y’all there. You can get your tickets for the evening lectures from here, and it may be a plan to get them in advance.

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.

My first drone film 'Miles Away'

Miles Away from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo.

I’ve had my drone for several months now and been gathering some footage for various projects in Scotland, but I’ve just finished my first drone film. It’s just a short fly about the Swiss alps, and Catalunyan hills, following Alicia Hudelson as she explains what mountain running means to her. It was great fun to make on my rest days from climbing. Thanks Alicia for being describing your thoughts about running so well and taking us to such nice places.

I just heard its been shortlisted for the Drone Fest film festival in London next month. Nice! I think it's the first time I've entered a film competition since my first film Echo Wall seven years ago!

Natalie's Transition

A couple of years ago Natalie Berry asked if I’d be keen to show her some trad climbing places around Scotland as she was making a move from competition climbing into trying out trad and general mountain adventures. Of course I was delighted to climb with her and along the way, the Hot Aches crew of Paul Diffley and Chris Prescott followed her progress and the fun times we had. The trailer above is for the film which is now finished and premiering at the Kendal festival shortly. We’ll see you there if you are coming.

The process nearly fell at the first hurdle thanks to my ineptitude at catching a tiny crimp properly on Hold Fast Hold True (E9) in Glen Nevis. It was the very first day Nat and I climbed together. Nat did her first trad lead and then we climbed another few pitches before I decided to go for Hold True. I was actually climbing it really well and was almost distracted by the fact that I’d just dispatched the crux totally static. Then I just caught a crimp one finger-width to the right of where I should. A tiny error. My left ankle was already in a sub-optimal state after a fall 15 odd years before. Landing on it again from a great height didn’t help it much at all. I was seriously not happy with myself for making an error at one of the worst possible moments, not least because of how the experience of watching someone fall earthward might affect Natalie. It’s not really in the ‘mentor’ job description.

However, she still wanted to climb with me (once I’d had surgery) and so we went on to have quite a few nice trips to some amazing corners of our islands. We did quite a few mega classics, got freezing cold on ice routes, got too warm on melting ice routes, took falls, went for long runouts, opened new routes and stood on top of the Ben on a perfect day after a fine ice climb. It kind of led up to Natalie’s ascent of Dalriada on the Cobbler just a few weeks ago, a fantastic effort in very cold late season conditions. 

The film is great because you don’t normally get to see someone as they progress right through from fumbling wires on a hard severe, to calmly running it out on mountain E7 in the mist, while shivering away from the cold.

It was a pleasure to watch Nat’s progress unfold. It’s always a pleasure to watch great climbers progress - when they have talent and a determination to see through what they started, you know they will get there in the end. Watching the film back also made me want to have more trips like those, if Nat will tie on the the rope with me again. I promise I wont fall off and hit the deck, and will leave the crag before it’s totally dark!

If you are at Kendal, I'm speaking there at 10am on Sat 21st. Transition is premiering at 7.30pm on Friday 20th. All the details are on the Kendal site here.

Claire in Outlandia

Claire MacLeod - Outlandia Artist in Residence from Nevis Landscape Partnership on Vimeo.

Here is a short video I made of Claire’s week up in the fantastic Outlandia in Glen Nevis. Claire used her artist’s residency week hand stitching text that was written by residents of the Glen a few hundred years ago onto clothing.

If people are interested in a residency, Outlandia is run by the Nevis Landscape Partnership and take applications.

Warming up the climbing a bit more

Transition Film Preview - Toast E7 6c 1st Ascent from Hot Aches Productions on Vimeo.

Last week I visited Suidhe Biorach on Skye for the first time, on a cold and windy day with Natalie. There are still plenty of great cliffs around the highlands that I’ve never visited, and I always have the hope of discovering good hard new routes to climb on them.

Climbing the excellent Mother's Pride, E4, Suidhe Biorach. Photos: Chris Prescott/Hot Aches Productions

That day we climbed Mother’s Pride, the big classic E4. Mega steep, mega jugs. At mid height I couldn’t help noticing the massive horizontal roof to it’s right. At the right end of this, Hovis (E6) crosses the roof at a narrower section with good flakes. But I could also see the odd ripple in the expanse of roof in between. 

At the end of the day I abbed down to have a look. At first it looked like there weren’t enough holds, but then I found one section of roof with just enough holds. I had to come straight back for this amazing line!

A couple of days later we were back. I abbed down again, giving the pitch a clean and checking out the gear and holds. It looked like it would go, but one move to spin round and toe hook the lip while holding a slopey press in the roof looked tough and was hard to try off the rope since the roof was totally horizontal.

It was gently raining although none of it was really bothering the route. So after a bit of hanging around we just abbed down and got on with it. You can see how we got on in the video above. The line was one of the best I’ve done in a long time. A great boulder problem in the roof, followed by a chilled out dangle about on the lip on big jugs and then a fun pumpy headwall with bomber gear. It’s obviously going to take me a little while to build up trad stamina after so long doing pure strength work while I was off my feet. This pitch was basically perfect for me right now.

After we had finished it was mid evening and had been raining most of the day and getting steadily wetter. I asked the team what we should do now. There was a suggestion of going for some food. I was keen as mustard to be out climbing and suggested we go down for another E6. After a brief pause I said “Only joking”. Diff said “Oh good” and we headed off. I wasn’t really joking, I wanted to CLIMB!

This week I’ve been staying in Blair Atholl with my family and trying to get out and run as many laps on Silk Purse down at Dunkeld as I can. That is definitely having some effect on the endurance. Hopefully enough to take another wee step up next week.

The fantastic pumpy headwall on Toast, E7, Suidhe Biorach.

Robin Campbell film

Here is a wee film we put together about Robin Campbell for this year’s Fort William Mountain Festival. As well as Robin himself, it also features Jimmy Marshall, Paul Brian and Ken Crocket (thanks for joining in the singing Ken!).

Project Fear film

Here is the Project Fear film about my new route on Cima Ovest last September. Truth be told, I was incredibly lucky that myself and Alan Cassidy were able to get the route climbed given the very poor weather in the Dolomites last season. Of course, to a certain extent we made our own luck as you see in the film, my cleaning and preparing the route through the poor weather rather than just sitting waiting.

However, the two sunny days we had were a crucial ingredient and I was desperate to make them count. I’m sure you’ll understand that my favourite part of the film are the parts playing with Freida at home in Glen Nevis. But this it is also a great memory of the adventures on that massive roof. It gets me psyched for summer's big wall expedition will be rather bigger in scale.

A special thanks to Mountain Equipment for supporting our trip and the film idea, Karl for exploring the roof with me and dodging the blocks I knocked off, Alan for coming with me on the route and the Coldhouse guys for being great craic and teaching me a lot.

Zeki Basan

Zeki Basan from Nevis Landscape Partnership on Vimeo.

Here is a short film we made about Zeki Basan, a great young character from over in the Gorms. Zeki won the Scottish youth award for mountain culture at this year’s Fort William Mountain Festival. He is the inaugural winner of the youth award and joins a formidable list of winners of the 'adult' award; Hamish McInnes, Jimmy Marshall, Richard Else, Myrtle Simpson, Ian 'Spike' Sykes, Andy Nisbet and Robin Campbell. We also made the film about Robin Campbell for his award this year and I'll post that up as soon as it's live.

I’m certainly used to meeting enthusiastic and smart young folk involved in all manner of mountain sports, but it was great to learn more about Zeki’s passion for bushcraft when we travelled over to speak to him for this film.

Let's get a climbing centre in Fort William!

Three Wise Monkeys Climbing crowd funding film from Three Wise Monkeys Climbing on Vimeo.

Check out the video we made above for Three Wise Monkeys Climbing, who have just launched a crowdfunding campaign to open a climbing centre in Fort William.

The video says it all really, but it’s a simple pitch - all of use who live in the area or visit it for climbing would love a high quality climbing facility in Fort William. They need to raise £40,000 in 28 days. The climbing scene here is pretty small, so don’t leave it to someone else. Go and make your pledge here, and I’ll see you in the wall in the summer.