flynn067

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 forwar...

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.

On the steep corner of Rutless, VII,8 Ben Nevis. My camera misted up a bit in the west coast air! After a huge dump of fresh snow, a lot of folk, including myself, were desperate to get back up the Ben and get some winter routes in. I walked in on a rather wet morning with Helen and Harry to see what we could safely get to. Not much. In the CIC hut, we went round in circles trying to figure out what would be frozen, but not going to avalanche us. In the end, we walked out of the door with no plan, and just went upwards, expecting nothing. Ice damage Harry had mentioned a steep wall on the Douglas Boulder. Going beyond this looked dangerous, and it looked a bit more frozen than expected, so we tied in and started going up. After Helen’s tunneling pitch (in snow) and my tunneling pitch (the Gutless chimney), we arrived below the wall. Harry passed me back the lead and I set off, at first trying to go rightwards, before getting pumped trying to get any protection in an ice choked overhang...

Here is a little film that myself and Claire made about Andy Nisbet. Every year the Fort William Mountain Festival make an award for excellence in Mountain Culture. Andy was this year’s recipient and this film talks about his contribution which is huge. I went out filming with Andy and climbing partners, attempting a new route on Beinn Fhada and captured some pretty scary footage of them going for it and falling off! Enjoy! It's  great  to see Andy recognised for being an inspiration to so many climbers and a huge direct help to them through his exhaustive and  diligent guidebook work over the decades. Thanks Andy.

Above is a video of a super problem I did in Patagonia called Wasabi (V12). I made the video while I was out there but the connection was too bad to upload it. I’d seen video of it before I went out and was determined to climb it while I was there. In the end it only took a few sessions. The next video was put together by Calum Muskett of an attempt on a hard new mixed route on the east face of the Mermoz. Unfortunately we didn't have the right gear to protect a pitch high up and just didn't get another weather window to try again, this time.

Walking out from the Mermoz in Patagonia, frustrated by yet more crap weather and conditions. With a bit of time to think about our trip there, the memory of the waiting is fading and the fire to return growing. Photo: Calum Muskett During February Ive had a lot of sorting out of my life to do since getting home from Patagonia. These sorts of periods are never very good for your health. It’s not good for you to get less than 8 hours of sleep for long periods. So I have to be careful. However, I have got a lot of important stuff done or in progress. First of all, I have been continuing to tie up my injuries book. I’ve been editing the text and  collating feedback from other I’ve shown it too. I’m most grateful for the feedback which has been excellent. John at Croft Eleven is preparing the illustrations and I have finalised the list of photos I need to take. It’s really taken a huge step forward over the past three months and I’m excited to see the last bits fall into place. I’ve re...

I have a new sponsor! During our arrangements to head to Patagonia I spoke to Clif Bar and will be now be eating a lot of Clif Bars in the hills. I’ve always been buying Clif bars by the  box load  online and had thought about speaking to them directly for some time. So it was a nice surprise that we got in touch with each other through our Patagonia trip.  Their Energy Bars (oat, raisin and walnut bars are my favourite) have long been a staple for me for mountain days. But I also often eat the Builder’s Bars after training sessions or when I’m trying to be careful about weight. I used to get boxes of them from Amazon if they were hard to find in the retail stores, but they are much easier to find in outdoor retailers now, such as Cotswolds. Finding energy/recovery bars that are actually nice to eat and made of good ingredients can be a lot harder than you’d think it ought to be. For running back in the spring I was using a lot of their Clif-shot blocs as an alternative...

Eiger north face. One of the best bits of 2013 climbing for me. I wrote the post below a while ago, but just posting it now. It's mainly for my own benefit to see what I did in 2013 and get an idea of what direction to head in 2014. 2012 which was a year of intense projecting for me (to climb Font 8b+ in Switzerland and redpoint my long term 9a project at Steall). So in 2013 I made a casual decision to swing the other way and go to some new places and do some disciplines (multipitch climbing and dry tooling) which I haven’t done much of for ages. In January 2013 I was just learning to climb again after surgery on my right ankle. I kicked the year off with a nice week in Spain where I was able to start gaining some confidence and claw some fitness back on Malsonando (8c). In February I started to be able to move around cautiously on crampons and in the mountains, and after a couple of short winter routes, I inadvertently got involved with the huge overhanging walls near the CIC casc...