flynn067

Good Drying, 8A+, Arisaig Cave from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo . As ever I’ve found recovering from being broken and stuck on crutches a long road without many shortcuts. I’d definitely lost sight of light at the end of the tunnel for a while. But since Christmas, things have begun to look up quite a bit. My gait has normalised, I have much less pain, I feel a bit more agility coming back. But most importantly, I completed another phase of my long running diet experiments, a phase which definitely didn’t work. It had caused me to put on quite a bit of fat. After the experiment I switched back and even after one week started to get leaner again, and feel like I can climb! I’d put a bit of effort into training for winter climbing. But winter does not seem to be coming this year. So on with the boulder projects. Readers of this blog will know that last winter I did a straight-up 8B in the Arisaig Cave called 4th Wave. Its an absolutely brilliant piece of climbing, and so it was a shame the ...

A minute away from breaking a leg. And I just thought I was about to climb a great new trad first ascent. Photos: Masa Sakano During August and September I was a wee bit frustrated, bothered by my decision to stay in Scotland and do mountain trad projects, only to be met with a dire wet summer. Still I was aware how lucky I was to have these sorts of problems to worry about. I did a ton of training and felt pretty fit, waiting for a weather window for a cool project on Binnien Shuas. My time finally came. As soon as the rain stopped I headed up with Masa, finished cleaning the line and tied in to lead it. Although it was a tough route and I didn’t expect to succeed first try, I was relaxed and just so delighted to be outside, with a cool breeze in my face and starting up a hard rock climb. Inspecting the new line. It will be an amazing route, when I get the opportunity to go back to it! I was just getting started, two moves up the route and was lifting my feet ready to place a good wir...

Myself and my friend Niall McNair who also spoke at the Urban Uprising event at TCA Glasgow the other week A couple of weeks ago I gave a talk at a big boulder comp/party event at TCA Glasgow organised by the charity Urban Uprising. Various talks I’ve done in the past have raised money for Climbers Against Cancer, various mountain rescue teams and others, but I mention this one specifically, just because I really like what they do and want to encourage you to support it. Urban Uprising take deprived or otherwise at risk kids climbing. Usually it’s the first time they’ve had an experience of an adventurous sport like climbing. In my view, this is a pretty special thing to do. I’m biased of course, because one experience I happened to have as a kid (randomly going out on my bike and finding mountains) totally changed my life. I have no doubt at all that this one experience not only set me on a path to make far more of myself than I otherwise would have, but it also allowed me to gain ex...

Completing my hard yellow circuit on the board for the first time yesterday. A small training milestone for the summer. If you would like to join me for some coaching at my own wall, I just announced some dates for coaching in December, and then in February. The details are here . As the wet summer continues, my plans of mountain trad projects continue to wait in limbo and my body is broken on a daily basis with tough training. This is all good, I am fit! I got a day in Binnien Shuas and revisited a potential project I tried to abseil down about 5 years ago but gave up on. I say tried to abseil down - the line goes through a huge barrel shaped too system, and I couldn’t get any gear in to pull myself into the wall and get a look at it. Now armed with better aiding skills and kit, I managed fine this time and cleaned it up. It looks around 8a with fantastic moves and a thank-god cam near the crux, although the crux will be placing the cam and managing to keep going! I was hoping to get ...

Completing my hard yellow circuit on the board for the first time yesterday. A small training milestone for the summer. If you would like to join me for some coaching at my own wall, I just announced some dates for coaching in December, and then in February. The details are here . As the wet summer continues, my plans of mountain trad projects continue to wait in limbo and my body is broken on a daily basis with tough training. This is all good, I am fit! I've also used the time to tie up some other skills I've wanted to learn and am now a qualified drone pilot! I got a day in Binnien Shuas and revisited a potential project I tried to abseil down about 5 years ago but gave up on. I say tried to abseil down - the line goes through a huge barrel shaped too system, and I couldn’t get any gear in to pull myself into the wall and get a look at it. Now armed with better aiding skills and kit, I managed fine this time and cleaned it up. It looks around 8a with fantastic moves and a th...

Mid crux on The Inconvenient Tooth E8 6c. Thanks to Cubby Images for these great pics. During the good spell back in June, Dan McManus and Ross McKerchar climbed a great looking new E8 8c new routes the arete of the Bhasteir Tooth on Skye. I had never been up there but obviously knew the arete had not been climbed. I always wondered if the roofs would either have any holds on them, or be escapable onto the side walls, so I never went up to look. As it turned out, the side wall gave an E8 - all good! So I was obviously keen to go up and repeat it. After going up with Calum last weekend and diverting to Algol in the drizzle, I had to return home for a couple of days work. Calum was working on Skye and managed to squeeze in a repeat of the route on the Thursday. I walked in with Iain Small and Cubby on Friday (my first opportunity) on a forecast of rain arriving around mid afternoon. However, as we dropped our sacks at the foot of the route, it started to spit with rain. We both quickly ...

Calum Muskett entering the crux of Rapid Learning Curve E6 6b, Elgol, Isle of Skye. In my last post I mentioned that I’d spent a fair bit of time on my board in the past few (wet) weeks and had prepared myself a detailed training program to prepare for the autumn’s sport climbing challenges. With a break in the weather forecast, I met up with Calum and Gabby and we headed for Skye to try and climb something in the Cuillin. As is the theme for this summer we were met with drizzle and mist on the drive over Glen Shiel and onto the island. What a surprise. After tea and regroup in Broadford we diverted to Elgol and saw off the two E6s there, Rapid Learning Curve and Hovis. After doing these the midge defeated us. It was good to climb some actual rock but after driving home to Roy Bridge I couldn’t wait to try out my new campus rungs I’d spent the previous day making. I had needed to take a couple of rest days from training as my Brachioradialis was complaining from rather relentless dead ...