Had a great road trip up to Scotland climbing a variety of esoteric and classic climbs. I’ve often wondered how Scottish climbers dealt with both the poor weather and the midges but before setting off Northwards Julian Lines assured me there was always climbing to be done up in Scotland. He wasn’t wrong and we managed to climb every day for 8 days on some of the best single and multi pitch climbs I’ve done only getting partly shut down on an over optimistic walk into the Ben on the 2nd to last day. Having taken up 8 bottles of midge stuff I actually hardly used any and didn’t really notice the dreaded midges although Sophie wasn’t as lucky. Whilst up there the usual suspects were very active with Tony Stone having cleaned up some great routes, Blair Fyffe was keeping an eye on the avalanche conditions and Ian Small & Co were putting up some knarly knew routes. Murdo was obviously doing loads as well. 
 
    Highlights of the trip were climbing Steeple, Juggernaut- thanks to Tony for the chalk(quite reachy/dynamic so chuffed to os it) and Dalriada on the last day, as well as staying at the great Hutchison Hut beneath Etchachan. The
lowpoint was walking out from the Hutchison hut and a farcical retreat off Wild Country as the last route of the trip. Although we got rained off Titans Wall/Agrippa area of the Ben the routes themselves look absolutely stunning and
I can’t wait for a return visit.

   When in the Cairngorms if the weather is too poor for Shelterstone and Dubh Loch then the Pass of Ballater has excellent granite which stays dry even in the rain, like an inland Sennen Cove and Ballater itself has some excellent
cafes, particularly the Bothy. The lines at Shelterstone look to be some of the best slabs in Britain and deserve some attention. It unfortunately crapped out before I could try Run of the Arrow but I'm looking forward to going back and seeing how impressive Dinwoodies first foray on it was to the last gear as well as Whillances ascent.  
   
  Scotland holds more Extreme Rock routes I’ve not climbed yet than anywhere else and I was keen to reduce the list somewhat. I’ve now got about 55 left to do in Britain. Most are between E1 and E3 but with a few outstanding E5/6s and of course Revelations in the Peak. I’m hoping to get it done in the next 2/3 years as almost all the routes I’ve done from the list have been great and they are found in some of the best places (apart from Avon). Calums just lent me his copy to make a plan of which ones to go for next.
  The final day of the holiday we met up with Dan Varian, Kevin Avery and Mickey Stainthorpe. Driving from Roy Bridge we met them near Arrochar where it was raining and grim. Varians enthusiasm led us to walk up where the crag was wet and in the cloud. We minced at the base feeling cold before racking up to do Club Crack (which felt hard when damp). Getting back to base the cloud had cleared and the crag became dryish very quick. Me and Mickey set off up Dalriada which was exactly how it looks, absolutely stunning. It’s pretty easy to fluff the crux and when the top headwall is unchalked it’d be easy to cock up so I thought the E7 grade seemed fair enough as some of the pegs will disappear soon no doubt. Dan and Kevin both made light work of it making for a great afternoon. 

   Whilst they were on Dalriada I borrowed their rack and set of up Wild Country a Dave ‘Cubby’ Cuthbertson route from 1979. I grabbed the good hold at the base of the crack and swung out onto it and was quite disappointed by the gear beyond. After plugging in 2 crap wires and half a cam I reversed to a lower ledge to rest and retrieve a different cam. I climbed back up to my high point and remembering it used to have a stuck rock 6 I lobbed one in high up the crack. I used one of my q-draws on it and feeling too knackered to do the crux beyond I stripped out the gear beneath thinking to down climb protected by my wire and come back when fresh. Unfortunately as I stripped out the lower gear my arms went to the end of their tank, I had time to throw back in an outward
pulling rock 2 and pulling outward on it whilst saying the classic words ‘take’ to Sophie on the ground I watched to see if the rock 6 was going to hold. A few frantic moments later I plugged in a good cam 1 above. As well as being really knackered and quite scared I had Jack Geldards smug voice saying ‘you can’t win them all’ reverberating through my head. 
    Admittedly I was tired and the route not in great nick but the crack is tricky to get gear you’d want to lob onto and you are on a countdown. Good onsight/flashes from Macleod and McNair and a great effort for 1979 as I think
it could be knocking on for both E6 and 6b. It’ll have to wait for fresh arms and a return visit now. I was impressed with the quality and difficulty of many of the Cubby routes we did on the trip.


Some of the best routes were:

Steeple- a contender for the best E2 in Britain

Freakout- The main line of Aanoch Dubh

Spacewalk- Great crux right at the end

A Sweet Disregard for the Truth- On a great wall, good gear, steep and brilliant.

Juggernaut- Brilliant reachy/dynamic climbing. Crux for me was leaving the jug, I got a heel on the jug and flagged. Probably the best short E7 I’ve done, tough for 6b, good gear but need to climb quite fast. A Macleod classic.

The Handren Effect- Great wall climb with pretty good small wires/in-situ stuff and involving lovely pinches on the 2 upper hard bits.

Dalriada- Climbs as well as it looks, a must do.

Just a Little Tease- Extreme Rock cover & fun dyno at start.

Cosmopolitan- Great gear, easy to make it 6c if you weren’t careful!

Plague of Blazes- Great rock with good abseil point.


  I’ve got a week or so booked off for the start of October and it looks like it’ll be back to Scotland with Calum, I’ve told him he’s no chance on any of these routes that are harder than E4!!!

   Some old school footage from Al Hughes and Al Leary of Neil Carson on the Big Bang LPT for the Welsh channel S4C. Apart from talking through the style of the route Neil talks about how he thought climbing could be in the Olympics. When I was starting out climbing Neil was an inspiring character, climbing well in the UK competitions, sometimes winning them as well as putting up a climb which at the time would have been amongst the hardest in the world. 
   The Ormes are really coming into there own the past few years with loads of great new climbs being put up on them with 3 friends polishing off really good projects and a new guide coming out it seems an appropriate time for this footage.

   In 2011 I told myself I'd do whatever it took to try and climb the Big Bang. The long repoint style epitomises everything I hated about climbing when I was younger and on moving to Wales George Smith asked if I was going to try it, I said absolutely no way thinking I'd never ever have the physical capabilities and would never be boring enough to spend days and days trying 1 climb. The repeat came after a not inconsiderable effort over 2 months involving no alcohol or cake, waking up before work with my blood boiling for training and worst of all resting on some nice days. At the start of the siege I was onsighting some 8as in the UK and the odd 8a+ abroad and couldn't touch it. Chris Doyle shouted at me that his Grandad could do better, I retorted I'd send him a postcard from the 9th grade. 
  
    It's about 8b+/8c to 3/4 height where a fingery crux of V9/10 at the top is reached and you need to be hitting the end boulder problem relatively fresh to succeed. After finishing the siege on the 31st July I 'peaked' smashing through a bit of a performance platuea and for a month or so afterwards no climb felt off the radar in Britain before I went back to normal - bummer. Although I went back to normal it was Carsens brainchild which taught me that a section of climbing which feels like it takes everything can end up feeling easy with enough effort and attitude and led on to the ascent of the Meltdown the year after. The climb had taken me 13 session that year but it ended up saving me time as soon after I climbed routes which would normally have taken me a few days each I could do in  a few hours. 
   
  Although I followed a vague/flexible structure to my training, rest and attempts it wasn't until afterwards whilst reading some sports science style books where things started to make sense about the siege. The best one I'd recommend is 'Bounce' by Matthew Syed, other than Dave Macleods book obviously. Some good snippets I found useful were: 
  
When the body is put under exceptional strain extraordinary physiological processes are activated.

Top performers take active steps to stretch their limitations every session.

World Class performance comes by striving for a target just out of reach but with a vivid awareness of how the gap might be breached, over time through constant repetition and deep concentration the gap will disappear.

Purposeful practice is transformative

A few key points to performing well for sporting types were:
        Setting specific goals
        Working Hard
        Showing tremendous discipline 
         Taking responsibility for their actions
         Receiving immediate feedback
         Putting as much emphasis on technique as on the outcome
         

  I thought I'd finish by showing some footage from the opposite end of the rock climbing spectrum, at least in terms of scale. Pictures of the big walls were definitely one of the reasons I first got hooked on climbing.
    The video below was probably the hardest pitch on Premuir wall which myself, Hazel and Dyer climbed last year. This is pitch 25, overlooking the base of the Nose more than 2000 ft beneath us. The gear for the corner has to be preplaced as its fiddly RPS which would be near impossible to place on the lead. The morning after climbing it Dyer got some footage of Hazel showing how the blank corner can be climbed. The corner is harder than Hazel makes it look being probably 8a+ on its own before finishing with an evil bouldery crack above. Your shoulders and calves are gauranteed a thorough drumming on this corner.
 It was a desperate pitch. Climbing the 2nd to last pitch (another desperately slippery 8a+, gear pitch) by headtorch with Hazel and Neil on night 6 stands out as one of the wildest moments in climbing the last few years and the ascent had an element of everything I got into climbing for.