Remember to charge the battery!

I put together a very rough video compilation of some of this season's local (ish) boulder problems. Naturally, I ran out of battery or forgot to press record when I did some of the year's better problems, so it's a bit of a random assortment.  If anything it's perhaps a showcase of what's lurking out there if you can be bothered to put in the effort.


Highland Boulders: Winter 2014-15 from Gareth Marshall on Vimeo.

Clearing the Decks

My job as Capercaillie Project Officer for RSPB, SNH and Forestry Commission Scotland means that around now things all get a bit hectic.  There aren't too many of these elusive forest grouse left in Scotland, but for those that are still holding on, mid to late April is business time.  Capercaillie breed by their peculiar lekking bahaviour, when all the males in an area get together and have a battle to establish who's the biggest and baddest and gets to pass on his genes while females hang around the sidelines and decide on the winner. It makes for a pretty dramatic spectacle, but in a rather antisocial manner all this happens deep in the woods and within the first hour or two of daylight.  In order to get an idea of capercaillie numbers from year to year, it's part of my job to spend the next two weeks sleeping out in hides, or getting up very early to get into position before dawn and, naturally, they don't have weekends off. The data we get from the famously grueling two weeks of lek counts are the basis for much of the rest of my work, and as this is my first year in the job, I'm pretty excited. 

Still, from a climbing perspective the next two weeks are going to be a sleep-deprived caffeine-fuelled write-off. I've known this was coming for a while, so have been trying to get out as much as possible in the last month or so to make up for it. As luck would have it, there's been some pretty good weather up here lately, as the state of my fingertips bears testimony.

The routes season started with two glorious March Saturdays in a row at Goat Crag, and despite tying-on for the first time since Australia in October I came away with a nice haul of amnesia onsights and a redpoint of Too Old to be Famous, my first of the original Goat 7bs. Next weekend I joined Dr Dave for a guided tour at Zed Buttress at Brin.  This is Andy Wilby's latest sport development crag, with about 15 routes bolted between 6b and brick hard, and home to his piece de resistance and the areas hardest route; The Force, at a possible 8b. Ouch.  As per my first visit to Crag One at Brin, I was well impressed with the work Andy and co. have put into the crag - cleaning, bolting, occasionally reinforcing suspect holds, and generally making it a cool place to be.  I managed not to disgrace myself by onsighting the warm up (phew) and then flashing future area classic The Rockness Monster Returns, a morpho 6c/7a/7a+, depending who you talk to.  It all went downhill shortly afterwards of course, with a failed siege on Little Minx 7b(+?) in the hot sun.  Next time? There's plenty there in the grades I'm approaching, so I'm psyched for a return.

Andy on The Force 8a+/8b (Photo: Murdo Jamieson)

On a sunny evening after work last week I put two long-held boulder ambitions to bed: the high but not too hard Brin Done Before 6Cish, which I had walked under to get to Zed Buttress a few days before and could hear it mocking me: "call yourself an Inverness boulderer? Not without me on your ticklist".  With another hour of daylight I raced over to Ruthven and put paid to White Russian/Mike's Problem 7A+, which I first tried in 2013 but lacked the power.  It's nice to see some things changing.

The olden days on Brin Done Before (Photo: Rich Betts)

Betts doing White Russian.

Nearly up to date: this weekend I made 3 trips across the Dirrie Mor towards Ullapool. It was Reiff in the Woods on Friday afternoon for another battle with The Crack, an unsung 7A+ gem that I still can't do, then Saturday and and Sunday turning left at Braemore Junction and heading to the church of Am Fasgadh with Tess and Murdo respectively (see why I've got no skin?).  I was keen to do Warm Brown Streak, with it's crux of three long powerful moves after a strenuous clip.  I'd been on it late last year, but that was before the shed regime.  On Saturday I was close, but puntered myself by working out better beta late in the day when I was too tired to perform.  I managed to persuade Murdo he wanted to go there on Sunday and eventually got it done by the skin of my teeth on the 3rd go.  I'm not sure about the grade.  If The Warm Up is 7b then Warm Brown is 7b+, but who know's what The Warm Up is? Regardless, it's enough to keep me happy and the FOMO at bay for the next two blurry weeks. 

Right, I'd better get some sleep.          

The Clamour

You'll never find this.

The changing of the clocks is supposed to herald the arrival of Spring, bringing the promise of sunshine, dry crags and getting pumped. Instead, as I write there's fresh snow falling on the hills just outside the house, which makes me think that the winter bouldering season is lingering on.

The generally crap weather has meant limited trips to the West coast sandstone Meccas: I think it's only been one day at Torridon and Three at Reiff in the Woods.  I've been getting withdrawal symptoms. If you're a boulderer living near Inverness these really should be your first choice venues. Amazing rock, genuine national standard quality problems across the grades and in a truly beautiful setting. And they're really not that far away.  I'm not entirely sure why I'm banging the drum, because I like them as the quiet, unspoilt places that they are, but with more and more people bouldering at the wall in Inverness and all the current clamour on Facebook for better indoor climbing facilities, I find it strange that all these 'climbers' aren't actually doing it out in the real world.  The truth is, you're more likely to meet climbers from Sheffield at Torridon than from Inverness.

Rare sunshine on Wild is the Wind at Reiff in the Woods (Pic: Richie Betts)

Closer to Inverness, where the weather can be a bit more reliable, there's still quite a bit of half-decent stuff in Easter Ross that I'm pretty sure 90% of boulderers using Inverness wall will never have heard of.  Having moved out of Inverness to the sticks near Muir of Ord I've spent a fair bit of time exploring these esoteric delights this season and I can't help but think that some of them deserve more people knowing about them.  The vast majority of it isn't hard to find out about, with topos, pics and videos all online.  And if you fancy some development, there's still stuff out there, if you're willing to do some walking and cleaning.

I'd already visited Scatwell quite a few times before moving house, but it's now very much my local boulder.  The Richie Betts classic 7As of Road to Domestos (bunched up slapping into graunchy mantel) and Scatwell Massacre (scary heel-toe or biiig jump?) pave the way to the Mike Lee 7B crimp-fest The Catch.  Highly reccomended.

The Domestos graunch.

Back out towards Contin, on a lone block underneath Glenmarksie trad crag is the singular attraction of Super Beetle, a great 6C crimp rail traverse into an exciting rounded top-out, another Betts number.  Cross the Meig dam back into Strathconon and you've got the Meig Boulders, developed by Rich Betts (see the theme?) and Nick Carter.  I need to go back and give them a spring clean before getting stuck into them for a good local after work circuit, but I did Nick's 6B The Lone Ranger on a flying visit and it was a little corker. Here's Rich showing the way:

On the way back from an abortive soggy Am Fasgadh session a while back I visited Inchbae for the first time and did the crag classic Long Winning Streak.  Not a bad spot.

Suffice to say, I've never met anyone else at any of these places.

This weekend I was up Strathrusdale (where?) and did two really cool granite slab problems that I cleaned up a while back. Probably a 6B and a 6C, but who knows.  Good slab problems, forest bouldering and granite are all rare in these parts, so I was pretty chuffed.  When I first found boulders up there a few years ago I did the problem in the video below, and there's more to be done for the keen.

Somewhere in Easter Ross from Gareth Marshall on Vimeo.

 No-one will ever find them, which is a shame, but that's Scottish bouldering for you.  Oh yeah, I forgot about all the keen climbers clamouring for a new training venue in Inverness.  They'll be straight there....

Different

It's hard to know what was different on the last go.  Sometimes things just click.

I'd been there for well over an hour already, my toes starting to freeze in the March night, my fingertips starting to burn. I existed with the boulder in a glowing bubble of white in the inky darkness, spotlit by two lamps and my headtorch, the woods and roaring river beyond forgotten.  I'd never been so close to success, but with each failed attempt I new the window of opportunity was getting smaller: the accumulation of skin loss, fatigue and battered motivation all taking their toll.

This was my fourth session here in two weeks: two on weekends, two on weeknights with lamps. After each one I'd come away with a glimmer of hopeful progress: a new hold reached, a shift of weight. The unknowns becoming known.  I'd occasionally tried the first few moves before, but was no-where near making or sticking the crux move.  It's hard to say exactly what had changed, but building a board at home probably helped.  Tonight's task was to bring them all together in one: a series of static points of contact linked through movement, timing, balance and power. Now, after the umpteenth crash back to the pads, the clock was ticking and I was gearing up for another defeated retreat.

One more go.  This one really will be the last.  I even said it out loud to the darkness beyond my island of light.  "One more go".  Sat on the pads, chalked and ready, a thought crossed my mind. Every time I've done a problem I've found hard I've tried to work out what made the difference on that final attempt.  More often than not I couldn't tell you what it was. Better accuracy? More power? Maybe it's more mental than physical: focus, desire. Sometimes things just click.

On the final go last night something clicked again. A millimeter shift of body weight? An intake of breath? Perhaps. Suddenly I found myself  outside my bubble of torchlight, dark and alone, and standing on top of The Catch at Scatwell.

Dancing in the darkness

Creating

Very little to report on the climbing front of late.  There seemed to be no respite from the January storms, so when the boulders weren't wet from rain they were wet from snow. Not to worry though, I've been busy creating things:

The nearly-finished shed board.  Not long after I took this photo I boarded over more of the rafter space where the campus rungs are to make a bit more height.  The remaining holds are waiting on a delivery of more T-nuts and bolts before they can go on, and then with the addition of a few more shit screw-ons for feet it'll be done.

I spent most of today cleaning up this bit of Easter Ross esoterica to produce a couple of just off-vertical granite crystal teetering beauties.  I've not tried them yet as they were still damp post-clean and that wasn't going to change in today's watery sunshine, but I think they might be tricky.  

The Setup

There are many reasons why becoming a homeowner has been really exciting, but high up on the list is the fact that I now have the space to construct my own board.  I've been living in rented accommodation since leaving my parents and going off to uni in 2002 so I've never been able to drill, saw and generally vandalise my home in order to dangle from my fingers.  I've partly circum-navigated this issue by using temporary kit – rock rings hung from rafters and a Beastmaker mounted on a board that fits onto and off an Argos pull-up bar (a design dreamed up by Murdo, my training guru), but nothing beats the convenience of having your own setup in the garage.

Since Rich built his I've been a regular in the exclusive Bettsmaker user group, and although every session I have there is a general lesson in punishment and humiliation I do think it’s probably given me some gains.  If nothing else, I love the simplicity of board sessions: short, sharp, hard.  In the near future I can only imagine that life is going to get busier, so being able to get in regular good sessions without having to trek into town will be a big bonus.

So now it’s on.  The month of January, a month that’s brought some of the wildest weather for a while, has been put aside for me to convert our big wooden leaking shed into a, um, big wooden leaking shed with a board in it.  At the start of the process I knew almost nothing about construction or woodwork or design, but a couple of weeks in I’m pleasantly surprised at how things are going.  I still know nothing about construction or woodwork or design, but I’m learning that with a liberal application of cement, screws, bolts and half-arsed trigonometry and with regular trips to Wickes, Homebase and Highland Industrial Supplies to buy an armoury of metalwork, you can make things stand up and stick together.

There’s still a fair way to go before it’ll be ready, but I’ll let you know when it’s done and you can start the countdown to my first injury.

2014: Top 3

Another year comes and goes and we keep stumbling on.  Queue the annual reflective blog post.

2014 was definitely the year I grew up: getting engaged, turning 30, buying a house and finally getting a job that doesn't mean I'm always away from home.  I'm sure the 20 year old me would be deeply disappointed to see me now: a slave to the wage with a mortgage.  But it seems to me that unless you're very lucky, very talented or willing to live hand-to-mouth from other people's charity there's not much choice. Anyway, we've just bought a cool house in the sticks and I'm doing a job that 20 year old me would be proud of, so there.

In previous years I've listed my climbing, reading and musical highlights, so I'll follow the tradition, but this time I'm doing top three's (in no particular order):

Trad routes:
1. We the Drowned, E5 6b, Diabaig. The realisation of a long-held ambition: a tricky new slab route in the North West Highlands.  I was well chuffed when I heard that Jules Lines had on-sight soloed the 2nd ascent. Nutter!  He agreed with the grade and reckoned it would be 3 stars on grit.  I guess he would know.

Pretty Crag at Diabaig

2. Sumo, E3, Beinn Eighe. A great day out with Ian T who's almost ticked the crag so was happy to be my belay bitch.  Steep, positive, safe climbing and on a crag with one of the best views in Britain.

Sumo Pitch 2 (Photo: Ian Taylor)

3. Kachoong, 21, Arapiles. The only route I'd heard of before we went out to Oz.  I'd blown it up in my head as a must-do, so was pretty relieved not to take the ride.

Quality bumshot (Photo: Rob Greenwood)

Sport routes:
1. Primo (Curving Crack), 7b+, Am Fasgadh. Four years passed between first attempt and eventually clipping the chains, which is quite a long time for a 15m route.

Game face (Photo: Ian Taylor)

2. Giza Break, 7b/+, The Camel.  I totally fluked this on my first redpoint of my second session, three days after turning 30.  Happy birthday.

Starting up the 30m long potato field of The Camel (Photo: Nick Carter)

3. Wicked and Weird, 7a+, Kujho Crag. Spring in the North West Highlands: birds singing, sunny redpointing and no midges.  A punchy little route too.

Boulders:
1. Vapour Trail, 6C, Torridon. On the to-do list for a long time but I'd never plucked up the courage before this year.  Superb.

Getting high by myself.

2. Scatwell Massacre, 7A?, Scatwell.  A classic Richie Betts sandbag ('Betts 6C+') at  my new local boulder, tucked away in the woods of Strathconon.

Lamps out at Scatwell (Photo: Rich Betts)

3. The Link, 7c, Tom Riach.  OK, so it's a long boulder traverse, but I'm counting it.  My hardest link on anything to date, pieced together over a couple of months of summer after-work evenings.

Book:
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel.  Part one of Mantel's fictional biographies of Thomas Cromwell.  Uniquely written and about an era that it would seem GCSE and A-Level History skipped over. Poor old Catherine/Anne/Jane/Anne/Kathryn.

Tunes:
This is always impossible, so rather than thinking too hard I'll just pull up three from my current 'most-played' list:
1. Remurdered by Mogwai.
2. Marcos by Kan
3. Open Eye Signal by John Hopkins

All in all, not a bad year on the rocks. Merry Chistmas one and all!