from Dave MacLeod Climbing
I can’t believe 2 months had passed without climbing outdoors on rock in Scotland. I can’t remember the weather being so unhelpful during the winter for several years. Lochaber has just been hammered with rain and gales and it seems my options for getting on projects have been basically nil. No matter, all the training on plastic has been worth it. But severe withdrawal symptoms from climbing a real piece of rock set in and so I took a gamble and drove over to the Aberdeen sea cliffs in the hope of ...
published: 4 months ago
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downloaded: 4 months ago
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68 views
from Dave MacLeod Climbing
With Scotland being hammered by the usual January gales and rain, I’ve been directing my climbing attentions over Christmas to a sustained attack on the fantastic TCA bouldering centre in Glasgow. I climbed a mountain of fantastic problems and definitely feel stronger for it, especially on big moves. There’s a lot of climbing space there and there are no shortage of leaps and jumps between the holds (some performance related comments on this over on my other blog ). An uninterrupted spell of good ...
published: 4 months ago
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downloaded: 4 months ago
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57 views
from Dave MacLeod Climbing
My house was still standing after Hurricane Bawbag and all is well as we settle into a long awaited full week at home and not on the road. Despite a million flattened trees in the glen around our house, everything except our TV signal (dodgy aerial down at the loch shore) survived. Our internet connection survived and that has been keeping us busy with Christmas orders from the webshop (thanks for those!!). We are dispatching every day as always by first class post. While the gales and sleet rage outside,
published: 5 months ago
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downloaded: 5 months ago
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56 views
from Dave MacLeod Climbing
A week of coaching abroad last week marked the end of a crazy few months of various work projects. Last week was very strange, going climbing every day and having great days but only on easy routes. I was absolutely stir crazy on the way home to pull hard on some small holds again. The need to take things to extremes seems to be a deep set part of human nature, and not just ego driven need to stand out from a crowd. Climbing at a relaxed pace without battling my way up routes to the last just doesn’t ...
published: 5 months ago
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downloaded: 5 months ago
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60 views
from Dave MacLeod Climbing
Fresh snow on Sgurr a’ Mhaim yesterday As predicted the west of Scotland deluge has been pounding Glen Nevis. Cubby and I squinted out of the car window just long enough for an eyeful of rain and sleet and sacked it off. But on the way home the end of the first front arrived, so I hung back and read my book for a bit and then walked in. Unbelievably the severe gales had seemingly blown a lot of the rain over the top of the crag and my project was mostly dry. As the sun came out I felt good and started
published: about 1 year ago
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downloaded: about 1 year ago
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40 views
from Stevie Haston
Peuterey Integral versus Ben No comment! I get some criticism about my work. Surprisingly I do a lot of work, so not surprising that some of it is not 10 outta 10. One of the funniest complaints I get is why don’t I climb in Scotland and do some climbs over there! I live in Courmayeur, don’t you square headed Jocks realize that it’s more beautiful here! One of these chauvinistic nincompoops complained to two of my sponsors and to another manufacturer who doesn’t even sponsor me, they all told the
published: about 1 year ago
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downloaded: about 1 year ago
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112 views
from Stevie Haston
The Malta marathon was great as I expected, but had a couple of tricks up its sleeve. Most north Euros are a bit down in the winter, and need a bit of sun and warmth, so why not do the Malta Marathon? The marathon is on a week end in February, and is only a few hours from certain lucky cities in northern Europe. It’s a good time for jaded runners from Britain, or wherever, to hop on a cheap plane and have a weekend in more clement weather. So it was a bit of a surprise to wake up at 6am on race day with
published: about 1 year ago
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downloaded: about 1 year ago
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133 views
from Dave MacLeod Climbing
Just in from a shivery afternoon under black skies and gales in Glenfinnan. Kev couldn’t make it out for sessions on the slab so I took the shunt and worked more on the harder of the two projects there. When I originally looked at it I could see that it was possible but it looked like an E11 slab (!) Can you imagine how nails that would have to be? But after some hours of deciphering I decoded a sequence and with much wild slapping for various tiny things, got it linked on the top rope. Oh dear. There is
published: about 1 year ago
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downloaded: about 1 year ago
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84 views
from Dave MacLeod Climbing
I’ve just done my first climbing session in 8 days after a week long trip to Sron Ulladale. The session was back home on my board! There’s nothing worse than moany blogs and I do try not to post too often about the many many failures I have trying to make Scottish new routes come into existence. But as Claire and I agreed the other day (day 4 of sitting in the car watching the horizontal rain), people often don’t know what goes into opening new hard trad routes in the mountains. I’ve been to the
published: about 1 year ago
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downloaded: about 1 year ago
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186 views
from Andy Mountains
I took a drive down that A55 again today despite the decidedly ominous weather forecast from the Met Office. Parked up in Gerlan and did the walk into Cwm Llafar alongside the Afon Llafar ('Black Ladders' approach). I wasn't exactly sure quite what I was planning today due to the constant sideways rain, howling gale & poor visibility across the summits, but fancied a couple of hours solitude. On reaching the impressive crag of Llech Du, I hung a right and headed high into the upper cwm. I ended up ...
published: about 1 year ago
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downloaded: about 1 year ago
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44 views
