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Starting up what was to become Final Wave E7/8 6b. Photos: Dorota Bankowska Yesterday, after a rather damp day, a good dry breeze picked up. So I called Kev and half an hour later we were walking in to Wave Buttress. I had my pick of either trying to repeat his E7 Cu Sith, or trying a new one that I’d cleaned last time I was there. With the breeze strongest on the new route, I chose that and finished cleaning it. I’d forgotten to bring a top with me and I actually got rather chilled as I cleaned the route in a good strong wind. Once I lowered down for a think about leading it, I started a comedy wobbly shivering fit. Right then, two of the world’s best trad mixed climbers, Guy Robertson and Greg Boswell came past. I tried not to look freezing cold on a June evening.  The route started up a gnarly old E5 called Frantic Across the Atlantic, put up in 1987 by Mark McGowan. Mark is a pretty bold trad climber and even with the in-situ nut and peg (long since fallen out), the route is a ...

Kev came round to my place so I could help him capture the footage from his tape of his recent new E7 at Wave Buttress, Cù Sìth (pronounced Ku Shee, it’s Gaelic). I ended up cutting it into a wee clip which you can see below. Well done to Dot for filming with one hand and taking pictures with the other! As you can see from the film, the climb has a lot of personal meaning for Kev. You can’t help but feel cheered by his obvious genuine ecstasy on topping out. It’s quite a big moment to realise you can still make good things happen after so much trouble with injury, and several years regaining fitness and confidence. Apart from that, simply completing a hard and dangerous route you’ve put a lot of work into is a fantastic and highly addictive feeling.  If you’ve never tried projecting something really hard, this is a great advert for it. It has to be properly hard though - if you know it will go, eventually, it probably isn’t hard enough to take you on a real adventure of doubt. Thi...

Last autumn I extended Blair’s traverse of the Ruthven boulder, making a mega 40 metre F8b. But the challenge remained not to go up at the crux to the good line of holds, but to take on the full challenge of the tiny crimps and slopers below. I tried it for a few sessions last October, and two days before my ankle surgery, I got reasonably close to it. It was looking like an F8c or Font 8a+ standard piece of climbing. I intended to go back this spring, but I built a climbing wall instead. So I just got round to it last weekend with Alicia, reworking the sequence and having a quick burn. I didn’t quite have the flow required to stay nice and fresh for the crux after 30m of F8b climbing. But after another focused visit of getting it wired and having good training burns, the other night I managed to do it. You can see the video below - It’s a great trip with an intense crux after a lot of climbing.  It was a little bittersweet leaving the boulder after the successful redpoint, knowin...

Leading pitch 3 of The Wicked, E6 5b, 6b, 6b, 6b, 6b, Ben Nevis. Photo: Dave Cuthbertson/Cubby Images. In 2000 and 2001, Gary Latter and Rick Campbell worked on a major new line on Carn Dearg Buttress of Ben Nevis. It took the obvious challenge of stepped grossly overhanging wall pitches, followed by the attractive wall left of the Bat corner pitch high on the buttress.  At the time it was by far the hardest rock climb on Ben Nevis, before much harder routes such as Anubis and then Echo Wall were put up in the years following. They approached the climb ground up, cleaning the route on aid and then redpointing the pitches. However, they did not climb it in a single push, but rather climbed various pitches on different days (and years) by accessing them from the easier routes, eventually grading the route E6 and calling it The Wicked. This left the obvious challenge of a first continuous ascent. It was a great challenge too, as the climb has four consecutive hard pitches. I had stoo...

On October 19th I am at the International Mountain Summit in Bressasone/Brixen in the Dolomites. Gore-Tex are running a competition as part of their long running experience tour for myself and David Lama to take some of you guys climbing for the day on Oct 19th. Gore-Tex are paying the expenses to get to the Dolomites too! If you like the sound of that, all you have to do is enter the competition here with a few clicks and a note about why you would like to come climbing with us, and then get yourself some votes on Facebook. See you in the Dolomites then...

I mentioned before I’d been doing some filming in front of camera. I was on the sea cliffs of Lewis and some footage of me throwing myself off Screaming Geo is now in a Land Rover ad which reached the TV screens of the UK last night. You can see it above. I was aware I needed a bit of falling practice after the last proper trad fall I had ended in surgery. There is a short film about one of the other guys in the ad called Mike Goody (the blade runner) below, which is a really nice and honest film. Worth watching. It’s amazing how feeling a bit powerless can really creep in and affect you after an accident or injury. I must admit I’ve let that happen quite a lot at times over the past year and been in need of a bit of support  (understatement)  from friends to help me get through. It’s not as black and white as just finding the will to be positive, as some sources of advice would suggest. You have to have something to be positive about. I.e. there has to be a plan, and knowing...

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. Ahh...

Freida like to tire me out at the swings.

View from the walk in to Creag Rodha Mor The past couple of weeks have been filled with a couple of exciting film jobs, one involving taking some air time. More on that later. I had a weekend booked in with Steve to head to a good sounding Gneiss crag near Lochinver in the north west called Creag Rodha Mor, or more commonly known as the supercrag. It’s the sort of terrain you’d normally have to travel to the islands for; big steep pitches on positive holds and generally good gear. On our first day we sped up from Roy Bridge, abbed in by 2pm and got cracking on ‘My own personal Mingulay’ (E4 5c, 5c). The morning dampness was still hanging about the crag a little, but with such huge holds and sinker gear, it didn’t matter. Steve was going well despite little opportunity to get out climbing for some time. I wouldn’t say I was going well, but at least I was going up. Steve on pitch 2 of My Own Personal Mingulay (E4 5c). Once the blazing sun hit the wall, it went from damp to roasting and g...