Addictions, Aversions

Bank of Scotland arête, Nairn High Street

It’s been another week of ups and downs working on our film of Echo Wall. We were most definitely in need of a break from the screen by Friday. It was Claire’s birthday so we headed for Tilda Swinton’s very retro cool film festival in Nairn. Just being outside the house was so brilliant. I got really excited to be out travelling around Scotland after so long indoors. On our return I managed two brief escapes to Sky Pilot to claw back the fitness, throwing myself on the problems like no tomorrow.

The film inches closer to a final cut. Most exciting! We’ve certainly chosen the right moment to be editing a film. The Lochaber monsoon has been impressive as usual, but excelling even itself for August.

As always, I’ve been learning lots from the whole experience of doing Echo Wall, even though the route itself is done. I was expecting to feel, and did indeed feel a massive sense of nothingness after doing the route. After so long aligning yourself to one goal, it’s suddenly gone and you are left with no focus until something replaces it.

That’s nice because it reminded me just how much I like the simple act of climbing, solving climbing problems being outside. A massive reminder has been of my need (or addiction) to exercise. I’m not sure if it’s exercise or rock movement or whether they can be separated at all. But either way, it’s real! I’ve been in total withdrawal these last two weeks, literally climbing the walls in the house. This is a happy addiction. If it dies before I do, I’ll be extremely surprised.

I’ve been reading a lot too about approaches to risk, and satisfaction from things like sport. Partly for my own sake and partly to help me distill my ideas to communicate in our film.

Three general traits of human nature, demonstrated in research, but obvious and tangible to ourselves only in moments of clarity, usually after a highly emotive experience, stand out for me.

The first is our aversion to loss. People hate to lose things more than they take pleasure in gains of a higher magnitude. A gift of an amount of money affects our mood far less than the stress caused by losing an equivalent amount. This aversion to loss progresses to a default position of unreasonable aversion to risk when coupled with a second trait. We aren’t very good at visualising probabilities and usually end up stressing far too much about remote possibilities while distracted from the really important stuff. We worry more about small chances of injury, public failure etc than we do about the rewards and satisfaction of going for something good.

The third is our rather poor ability to forecast our own feelings down the line. In general, we place way too much importance on immediate gratification, at the expense of suffering short term discomfort for a much larger windfall of satisfaction later. This has the secondary problem of us not giving enough weight to things that will make us happier for longer, but forecasting in error that sources of immediate happiness will last much longer than they actually do.

Avoiding these natural pitfalls is a tough job, requiring constant attention. But awareness of their constant pervasive influence at least allows the opportunity to stay above them.

More on this later

From one extreme to the other

Over the past two weeks I have done a good job of replacing climbaholism with workaholism. It’s funny how things fit together nicely. August just happens to be the worst month for climbing in Scotland (often too wet in the mountains and getting colder, but still warm and midgy in the glens) and this August as been something of a monsoon. It was a good decision to grab my chance on Echo Wall when I did. If I hadn’t it would have been next year for sure. 

Is this workaholism healthy? Definitely not. A week straight of 4/5am finishes makes one’s edges a little frayed. But it has it’s uses. and in the very short term can be a good idea. After setting up our production company to make the film about Echo Wall and working with Claire on some editing, I headed back up the Ben as soon as the clouds broke to film a bit of running and nice footage of the mountain.

Bill Murray said “ No man will ever know Ben Nevis” When I was climbing Echo Wall I did feel like I did have a small window, a partial insight into understanding how to move well on this mountain, just for a second. But the feeling, illusionary or not, soon wore off. Arms and legs are hurting once again from the climbing and running efforts - a good feeling.

Time in the computer chair can be deadening for both mind and body at times, but so long as the connection to climbing isn’t allowed to become too distant, it can strengthen the motivation.

I always forget just how much I love rock movement until I have enforced time away. This is great for me. After 15 years of rock climbing, to still feel the psyche to be on the rock stronger than ever makes me so excited and full of energy to start new projects, whatever they might be???

Right now I’m in the car with Claire on our way to meet with Jimmy Marshall and talk about Ben Nevis climbing. You’ll see it in the film.

Psyche!

After a week of loooong days in front of the screen or filming things for Echo Wall, it's hard to express how much I want to boulder at the present minute.

I was knackered after finishing work at 10pm and contemplating the choice - train, or go to bed. I'm really glad I trained. Good feeling to be hanging from one hand on the hangboard again. Note to self: if in doubt, train, you'll be glad you did.

More blogging tomorrow. Now, sleep. 

Filming Echo Wall

A sublime morning on Tower Ridge (Video still)

Many many thanks for all the comments you guys sent Claire and I over the past week about Echo Wall, and thanks for coming with me on the path, through my blog. It’s been a strange week since doing the route, with many thoughts running through our heads and interesting discussions.

The only time I’ve ever done this type of thing before (really dedicate myself to one thing for a spell) was with Rhapsody in 2006. So I was expecting to feel a highly strange sense of ‘nothingness’ after completing it, where this enormous part of your life suddenly evaporates. Whilst I am deeply happy with climbing the route and about every part of the process, it’s kind of sad in a way when it’s over.

It might sound funny or even objectionable to some people but I’m most in my element in the thick of grappling with these projects. Right now I feel kind of like a crashed car lying in the middle of the road on it’s roof with the engine still roaring and wheels spinning. It’s hard to wind down, suddenly at least.

No worries, because life always serves up so many brilliant things to fill the day while you wonder what to do next. Some days off are planned with Claire. But the main immediate activity that has replaced climbing Echo Wall has been filming Echo Wall!!

Claire decided to film the whole process of me trying this climb back last year. We blew all our savings (and then some) on the necessary equipment, and Claire began slogging it up the hill with me to capture the blood sweat and tears of trying to do a new route on the Ben. The idea of a film remained just a hypothesis until last Monday. Even though I realised last month that the climb was possible for me, we were at the mercy of the weather and it could easily have been next year or beyond unless I had been blessed with a perfect day of conditions and form last week. Now that the route is done, we turned around the next day and said to each other “we’ll be making a film then!”

Yikes.

The implications of this are somewhat scary. And scarier still after we worked out some ‘to do’ lists. But we are going to have a go at getting it ready for October. We reckon that the Ben is such a special place and it really deserves someone to go for it and try to capture it’s character, inspiration, intimidation and of course it’s beauty on film.

I’ll talk more about how this is coming along soon, but for now here are some photos from my filming the other day. Echo Wall, being on a big north face, doesn’t see much sun, But Echo Wall catches an hour or so just after dawn in mid summer. So my first stint behind the camera was to sleep out on Tower Ridge and capture a time lapse of the sun hitting Echo Wall.

All I can say is that it was a sublime night of visual delights – the milky way, amazing shooting stars, and a beautiful sunrise. I could get into this film making lark…

The morning sun hits the topout of Echo Wall

Tell me that doesn’t make you want to climb?!

The mountains of Knoydart bathe in the cold morning mist

Pre Dawn over Carn Mor Dearg

Near Miss

Claire swings away from the slabs to begin ascending the ropes to film Echo Wall. Would you like to find out someone had removed your belay at this moment? Read on…

After I did the first ascent of Echo Wall last week I abseiled back down to the base as it got dark to get Claire off the slabs and the hill safely. I left the 100 metre static rope in place to return and retrieve some other gear etc.

Just as well I ended up going back up Tower Ridge to the top of the route rather than going to the base and jugging up!!!!! It was only a whim to decide to solo an easy route to get to the top rather than jug the line.

Someone obviously climbing tower ridge had dismantled my belay (Camalot 4, Camalot 5, BD microstopper 5, slings etc), stolen the kit and left the rope wrapped around a small rock on the ground that might have held long enough for one of us to swing out into space above the slabs and then have a fatal drop.

It was totally obvious the rope was left deliberately for ongoing climbing activity rather than an escape abseil – a 100 m white static 10.5mm with a rope protector at the crag lip. I was pretty dumfounded that someone thought it was OK to leave such an obvious situation for a fatal accident. Why not just steal the rope too or at least throw it off or pull it up?

I hope whoever it was will at least do the decent thing and post the equipment back to me. My address is here. If you hear your mate tell you he found some big cams on Tower Ridge please shame them with the story above and encourage them to return the kit.

New shop stuff

Kev Shields models the ME pro-Team Tshirt in Glen Nevis

A couple of months ago we started selling the ME pro-team Tshirts from my webshop. They were so popular you sold us out of Male mediums several times over!

We’ve just got another load in if you missed out last time and it’s now available in Black too.

The shop page is here

Echo Wall first ascent

The final hard move on Echo Wall, Ben Nevis. This is a video still shot by Claire.

On Monday night (July 28th) I led my Echo Wall project. I was for me a perfect climbing day. Folk always ask me how doing a degree in sport science helped me do hard routes, expecting to hear about little details about physical training practice. But the biggest thing I learned was about how disparate the ingredients of a good performance are and how big an effect it has on the rare occasions when they come together at just the right moment. Monday was one of those days for me.

Throughout the spring and early summer, I pounded myself with training to reach a higher base level in my all-round strength and fitness. Once I started tapering in early July, I felt that strength come through. But my body was heavy from putting on a little too much muscle. 3 pounds taken off with a little diet in America (despite the lovely pancakes!) slotted in another piece of the puzzle.

Racking up for the lead, looking pale. Video still: Claire MacLeod

The break from the route in the US brought back the freshness and the fire to be back at the wall spending more time in those beautiful surroundings and reminded me just how badly I wanted to climb this piece of rock. But it also took the edge off my fitness.

Two hard days on the wall immediately off the plane with two gentle rest days afterwards put me in really good physical shape. Then, Kev Shields, a man who ‘knows the score’ when it comes to bold routes and a good person to be around on a scary lead day, was up for a look at some other unclimbed rock beside my project. A day’s worth of clear air broke the cycle of humidity of late, so we walked in on a relaxed morning.

At the shakeout before the most serious part of the climb. Video Still: Claire MacLeod

The air was so crisp but it was hot. Kev checked out a big groove, I belayed, time passed. I was waiting for the Katabatic winds of the late evening rolling off the plateau and snowfields just above the route. At 8pm the chill wind gently got going. I waited and waited until the temperature and rock friction was perfect, and at 9pm exactly, all this preparation over months crystallised and I led the route in a dream state of confident execution.

It felt easy, as every hard route I’ve ever done has – the great paradox!

Echo Wall, I am just pulling over the roof, low on the arête. Video still: Claire MacLeod

As I hoped, my feeling at the start was not “how can I dare to lead this route?”, but “how can I dare not to lead this route?” What an opportunity! All these ingredients coming together to put such a fine climbing experience on a plate in front of me.

There was the question of the last boulder problem. I had fallen there sometimes on the toprope. To fall here on the lead is to leave yourself with only an RP in a finger width flake of suspect rock, with a skyhook stacked on top of the RP as the last barrier between you and a 20 metre fall to the floor.

The only chance of falling would be to continue above the roof knowing you were too tired due to poor conditions or errors. A clear judgement to jump off before it got too late and you got out of range of the gear. I would have done this if I needed to.

I felt that the biggest risk of all would be to stand at the foot of such a great and memorable route (experience) and back out due to fear of injury. My fear of lost opportunity is greater, attraction to the positive experience on offer greater still.

Claire a tiny dot in Observatory Gully, left of the snow.

The feeling of climbing the moves on perfect rock, in perfect conditions in the company of Claire and Kev will stay with me all my life for sure. It’s hard for me to describe the feeling of freedom from experiencing that something that had seemed so unreachable could feel so effortless, all that was required was to draw the right ingredients together, piece by piece over time.

My strongest image from the day though was of Claire as Kev and I arrived at the top of the wall, high on Tower Ridge, looking down on Claire – a tiny dot climbing the endless nightmare of scree (Observatory Gully) yet again. Although my name only is on the route description, it was a team ascent.

There are so many things to talk about – Ben Nevis climbing, what to do now, more about the climbing on Echo Wall… But that will do for now. Thanks for all your messages you sent me about this over the past months I really appreciate it! There are more video stills from the route and thoughts from Claire on her blog.

Claire looking remarkably happy to be on the Ben after midnight!

Route description:

Ben Nevis, east aspect of Tower Ridge, about 1100m alt.

Echo Wall **** 100m Dave MacLeod July 28th 2008

Grade: Harder than Rhapsody (or anything else I’ve been on)

A spectacular route taking the huge sharp arête of Echo Wall, well seen from Tower Ridge or when ascending Observatory Gully. Poorly protected in general with groundfall potential at 20 metres near the end of the crux section.

1. 30m Climb easy slabs to a belay at the foot of the grossly overhanging arête of the buttress.
2. 70m Pull into an overhung groove and exit this with immediate difficulty. A hard and poorly protected boulder problem leads to the roof and an upside down rest. (wires, poor camalot 6). Pull leftwards over the roof with desperate climbing up the wall just right of the arête to a shakeout (RP & Skyhook in suspect rock). Move left to the arête and make very serious moves up this to a good spike and reasonable gear. Continue with more ease up the arête (runout) to a small ledge (drop your left hand rope to relieve drag). Continue up steep flakes in a great position to gain easy ground and a short solo to reach Tower Ridge.

Looking west from Ben Nevis at the end of a long and perfect day's climbing.

Pushing through

Yesterday’s stint on the wall was a ‘pushing through’ day. I was amazed how after just two weeks away from the routine of training crimp endurance and ‘big day on the Ben’ endurance, how much I’d lost. I needed to put my body through some pain to get back to where I was fitness wise. The north face was feeling decidedly moody again with dark swirling thundery clouds and a strong wind. Wet holds have not been too much of a problem on this route so far, but the humid air was drawing every little seep out of the rock and made a link through the lower crux impossible. 

Some good links still occurred though - still learning more about the sequence, feeling like I’m getting close to understanding how to climb the route and generally being inspired and really happy to be spending more time among these cliffs.

Things are a bit fluid now. More time working on the moves and a little more training to be in 100% perfect condition would still yield some improvement on the physical side yet.

But psychologically I feel that I want to lead this route now. A fall from the end of the crux is possible for sure. But only if I make an incorrect judgement leaving the shakeout before it. This impending moment is weighing on my mind. Ticking... like a clock. I wouldn’t say I dread it. In fact I look forward to it more than anything. It’s what I am looking for - so I get it...

I’m at a point where my thoughts on the lead are beginnng to go round in circles in places, building up pressure where there needn’t be any. I want to lead it, I’m nearly ready to lead it, so I will lead it as soon as the right time arrives.

That might not be anytime soon as the current humid conditions look like continuing as far as the forecasts go. More work on the shunt in bad conditions will do no harm.

Back to the fray

After a late and rather sleepy jet lagged start I bounced up to Echo Wall for an evening shunt session. I had a good feeling after the scales read that I’d lost 3lb during my trip and back to a pound above fighting weight. Did it make a difference? Oh yeah! Although I’d lost a fair bit of crimp endurance I was way stronger on the moves and managed one more complete link. Unfortunately on the next two tries I fell from the death move at the end of the hard part. Scary stuff. But more time on this yielded an improved entry to the boulder problem and a dynamic spring to save an energy sappping static lock I was doing before and occasionally falling from. 

So my task now is to get that endurance back on track with some more days on the wall and training. 

Sadly, one of my other tasks this week is to try and encourage (again) someone to pay me for a lecture and coaching work I did for them back in January. I wish they would just do the right thing...

Dead end business

My trip abroad was a strange experience in putting me back in proximity to ‘real world’ companies. I’m involved in a couple of internet businesses and these days Claire and I do most of our shopping online now we live in the Highlands. It’s amazing to see that some businesses still don’t get the fact that they are about to be annihilated by online.

My compact camera is one of my most important tools for being a ‘pro’ climber and a blogger. It needed replacing. I was eager while in the US continent to see if I could get hold of a certain model cheaper than on the the net (which, needless to say is far cheaper than in the UK shops). 

So I walked into a large high street dedicated camera store called Lens & Shutter in Vancouver and looked for the camera. It worked out within a few pounds the same as I’d get it on Ebay but the Ebay prospect had a large memory card thrown in. I told the salesman my situation and that I’d take the camera right now if he would throw in the memory card. If he couldn’t do that I’d just buy it there and then (on Ebay) and it would be at my door back in Scotland before I was.

He let me know their policy was only to price match against stores in British Columbia. Surely if you don’t even try to compete with the biggest threat to you business since it began, you’re already as good as dead. I guess they must not have heard about the struggles of camera high st stores on our shores. 

I laughed and left, wishing him good luck in my head. Thankfully the shop on the other side of town had more sense, gave me a good deal and made the sale. 

Sure, if you sell coffee or your service adds some sort of value then you can choose to compete only with your neighbours down the street. But if you sell cameras, magazines, or climbing gear, realise that the real map is online, and expensive and slow and only open ‘business’ hours is not prime real estate.

Earlier this year I needed to replace my 100m static rope for working on Echo Wall. Claire happened to be in the same (unnamed so not to embarrass) city as their biggest store at the time so I called to see if they had any in stock, ready to buy one there and then. Whoever answered can’t have been in front of a computer with their stock info as they told me they’d need to put me through to the climbing dep’t. After some time on hold the same person came back on and told me ‘there doesn’t seem to be anyone around’ in the climbing section and asked me to call back in 5 minutes. As I waited the five minutes I searched, on my phone, for some prices online. One click on google found an amazing price and before my five minutes was up I’d ordered it and called Claire to let her know she wouldn’t be needing to visit the retail store.

I had phoned the store first out of loyalty after having bought a lot of gear from them over the years. But ultimately, it was a hands down win for the more switched on web stores.

As I write I’m still waiting for my lost baggage to arrive back from Air Canada. They told me it would definitely be here yesterday. Even if it had come today, I might have had my cams do climb a good new route in tomorrows sunny forecast. I won’t forget the lost day next time I want to go to Canada.