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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.

Cameron Stone Arete 8A+ from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo . After an abortive September start in the warm weather, bouldering season felt like it kicked off a bit today with a chill breeze and a notable absence of the midge. Here is my starter for ten - a repeat of the Cameron Stone Arete (8A+) put up by Dan Varian in the spring. I should really have done this years ago, but it gave a nice excuse to return to the boulder.

Finishing the hard section on The Force, 8b at Brin Rock. I'm just in from bolting a potential 8b+ or 8c there which looks excellent. Photo: Chris Prescott The weather in Scotland over the past six weeks has been too damn good! My plan for the autumn was to start trying a couple of hard bouldering projects early, so that I would hopefully be well placed to maximise my chances of success from the start of the autumn good conditions. I had about 5 sessions on my project in the Arisaig Cave it super hot conditions in early Sept. Although I made much progress and have a good sequence, I started going backwards on the problem. It was getting hotter! The other problem was a common one with projecting - I was actually losing strength because I wasn’t training, just trying the project with rest days in between. After a couple of weeks the weather was showing no signs of cooling, so it was better to go back to some training and wait for the cold winds. Repeating The Fury 8a+ at Brin. Most o...

Disco 2000, 8a+ Blåmman from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo . The video above takes in some of the great climbing on Disco 2000. The pitches went at 7b, 8a+, 7a, 8a+, 7c, 7c, 7b+, 7a, 7a, 6a, 6c, 6b+, 5+. It was while freeing Bongo Bar on the north face of Blåmman, 4 years ago that I got the spark of curiosity to try to free Disco 2000. Looking across at the maze of roofs to my right, I saw a bolt belay looking lonely in the middle of nowhere on a blank looking granite wall. Huge roofs above and below. I could picture Marten Blixt hand drilling them by headtorch in some blizzard during their winter aid ascent in 2000. After 4 days of sitting in the rain in our tent below the wall, Jacob and myself were desperate to make more progress in aiding up to that belay and finding out if the line was even possible to free. We continued aiding through the ‘night’ (the midnight sun period had just passed) and made it up to bolts. There were definitely enough holds on the crux pitch. However, the next r...

Myself and Jacob Cook enjoying another night shift on Blamman’s north face. Right now I am in arctic Norway with Jacob Cook and Calum Muskett, climbing on Blamman’s north face. I was here 4 years ago on a Gore-Tex Experience Tour trip and made the first free ascent of Bongo Bar (400m, 8a). While I was dangling around on Bongo Bar I remember looking to the right and seeing the aid line of Disco 2000, going through roof after roof of rather blank looking granite. I remember seeing a bolt belay, seemingly in the middle of nowhere on a smooth face between roofs. At that moment,  spark of curiosity was opened in my mind to see if this could make an obviously really hard free route. And so now we are here, trying it. The first few days have been a little slow in progress. We have aided through the crux pitches in the first half of the route and done some cleaning and investigating if there are enough holds to make a free ascent possible. We have done nearly all the moves on the th...

Waiting for the breeze to come back at the base of Bark at the Moon E8 6c, Glen Clova. Photos by Masa Sakano. Last week I went for a wee wander about Glen Clova. I hadn’t been there before and checked out a couple of routes I’d heard about. One was Tim Rankin’s E8 6c Bark at the Moon, a great looking line up a big steep prow. I felt it would be a good milestone to build a bit of confidence in my trad climbing. I worked out the moves quickly and was desperate to get back with a partner and give it a try. So yesterday I returned with Masa to try and do it. Masa started with an impressive tussle with Empire of the Sun and it was great to watch him top out after really going for it. I seconded and didn’t feel I was moving very well. But it was just the strong sunshine I think. We abbed into the start of Bark at the Moon and conditions felt much better. On the headwall of Bark at the Moon. After a quick wait for the sun to go behind a cloud, I headed upwards. The route is pretty bouldery so...

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 amazin...