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Repeating Iain Small's Siege Engine E7 6c yesterday. Amazingly carefree feeling just to have to worry about sending the route and not much else. The rope is hanging down another project which goes out left across the roof. Cant wait to get back on that one. Photo: Kevin Woods Last September I broke my leg on Binnien Shuas. I didn’t really write much about it on this blog for a couple of reasons. First, because I was pretty upset with just how badly the whole climbing day went wrong and second, because the accident was only really the start of the story. I felt like I needed to try and recover before making any sort of sense of it. Yesterday I was up at Binnien Shuas again and repeated Iain Small’s superb new E7 ‘Siege Engine’. On the way down I stopped at the nice beach by Lochan na h Earba and just took a moment to enjoy being there and not having a broken leg, and instead to be heading off for some dinner after a nice afternoon climbing. What a contrast to when I stood by that be...

FA of The Mighty Chondria E7 6c, 5c on Creag Mo, Isle of Harris. Pic by Chris Prescott/Dark Sky Media It’s a good sign when you are too busy being outside climbing all the time to write a blog. Finally it is raining today after quite a few weeks or largely dry and fine weather in the highlands. I’ve been keen as mustard to get out after the general absence of climbing last season. After climbing my project at Arisaig in April, I spent a couple of weeks trying another 8B+ boulder and was ridiculously close for 5 sessions in a row. But for one reason or another, it didn’t work out and I’ve missed my window. It was a long shot anyway. I was losing fitness from being out on rock with lots of rest days and zero training, so you can only maintain a peak for so long in this pattern. I've got to say, I will really miss the bouldering season. I really really enjoyed it and didn't want it to end. Maybe that's because I focused on it a bit more instead of trying to go mixed climbing i...

A video still on the send of Lithium 8B+, Arisaig. Yesterday, I sent my project in the Arisaig Cave. Nine years after Johan first told me about the cave, that’s me climbed all the good lines. Time to move on! I’ll really miss the place. I’ll miss driving west on the Road to The Isles, leaving behind torrential rain or snow in Fort William, to arrive into bright sunshine as you hit the coast at Lochailort. I’ll miss watching otters and sea eagles going about their business on the beachfront by the cave, as I went about mine. I’ll miss a pre-climb brew in the Arisaig caf, looking out to Eigg. And of course I’ll miss the superbly physical and technical climbs. In many ways, my days at the cave have helped me to see just how much climbing helps me with life. Given that the climb is almost 50 moves long, in the past few weeks as I’ve reached the stage of redpoint attempts, I’ve needed to rest for the best part of an hour between tries. This experience took me back to doing the same, seven y...

The Fort from Nevis Landscape Partnership on Vimeo . I’m delighted to share a film we shot last summer for the Nevis Landscape Partnership , and premiered at the Fort William Mountain Festival last month. It’s my first archaeology film!  The Iron Age fort of Dun Deardail in Glen Nevis always caught my eye when walking off the summit of Ben Nevis after a winter climb. It’s striking ring-like remains on the summit of a conical hill across the glen always catches the late afternoon sun. I always resolved to find out more about the fort but never did. So it was great to hear that the Nevis Landscape Partnership had arranged a three-year project to excavate the fort for the first time, and that myself and Claire would be filming it this year. I’m always fascinated to learn something about scientific disciplines I know little about and the archaeologists I interviewed during the excavation were great to listen to and really opened my mind to think about the themes of archaeology in ge...

Natalie Berry on The Original 7B, the classic of the cave. Pic: Chris Prescott/ Dark Sky Media I've been meaning to prepare a topo of the Arisaig Cave for ages. I've also made a PDF version of it here if you want to print it and take it with you. Enjoy! The cave offers a weatherproof medium-hard bouldering venue that is in good condition for at least 6 months of the year. In the dark Lochaber months from October until February, it can often be the only outdoor rock climbing on offer, at least on the wettest days. There are not a huge humber of climbs, but the ones that are there are good quality, generally long and involved and so provide good entertainment. I opened the first problems in 2009 and still have not quite climbed all the obvious lines. Most of the problems were opened by me and have not had many repeats so the grades may still need adjustment. The rock is quartzite, relatively kind on the skin, but the climbing is generally powerful and gives a good workout. All o...

Get the left hand squeezed a few mm to the left, and the move works! Photo: Chris Prescott/ Dark Sky Media Two days on my project in the cave this week, in the company of Chris Prescott, Natalie Berry and Kevin Woods. On the first day it was still a bit warm and I was feeling pathetic on the climb. I was full of thoughts and chat about sacking it for the season. Maybe it has to be mid-winter for this project? An hour later, a couple of blasts of wind came soon before my second redpoint of the day, and next thing I got three moves further. Maybe I should not be so hasty to call it. After a rest day we were back, with a cold front having passed over. Yet the day started off very badly and still I struggled. There are a couple of themes I have noticed in the cave. I always seem to do better on this project late in the session, when my skin is getting thin. I’m not certain why. It may be something to do with the smooth rock. It gets a bit ‘glassy’ if skin is too thick. Also, I’m noticing I...

highpoint March 3rd from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo . The video above is my best effort so far on the project, from a couple of sessions ago when conditions were quite good. Yesterday, I went to the project in Arisaig and was slapped. Here are my list of excuses (feel free to skip directly to the following paragraph): Still tired from a new mixed route 48 hours before. Humid conditions. Skin too thick. Not enough sleep. New boots I hadn’t tried before or broken in. Too weak. Too heavy. Too many days away from the training board. Still, I learned a lot, so the time was not wasted. I have been here before on many projects. None as hard as this, but the stages are often similar. Often, at least at my age, the lessons are not really new things you didn’t know, but crucial reminders of things that are easy to forget. The first thing reminder was how important the small details are. My ankle must have been a tiny bit stiff from winter climbing a couple of days before. Who knows how little, but...