For about 6 months I’ve been working with Magnus Mitdbø on a course for his platform Altitude. My course is on movement technique for climbers and it releases in a few days time. If you’d like to see a free video series from the course, focused on footwork, you can check it out here.
Anyway, Magnus said he wanted to come over to Scotland for a couple of days climbing. Despite a stormy forecast, I was determined as always to climb outside. I also really wanted to get on some new routes. We had a wild day trying some projects in Arrochar. I didn't expect the wind to be quite that strong!
A film I made over on the Fort William Mountain Festival channel about Caitlin Connor - an ice comp and dry tooling specialist. It was pretty tough to film this and not join in with the training! Caitlin received the Youth Award for Excellence in Mountain Culture this year. If you would like to nominate a young person making an important contribution in the mountains for this award, you can do so here.
In June I had my fourth ankle surgery. I managed to get back to climbing E10 in a few months with a few key strategies and tactics I describe in this video.
In the spring, we have to get our leading head back on. Depending on how you choose your routes, mileage can either train or detrain your confidence. In this video, I take you through how I choose climbs that get me ready for bigger leads as the season progresses.
Failure on projects has been the most important training tool I’ve had. But as with any tool. It’s all about how you wield it.
Videos of Robbie’s first ascent and my second ascent on the same day of What we do in the Shadows E10 at Duntelchaig. This was a project we tried together a fair bit during the autumn of 2020 and then came together for both of us last month on a great climbing day.
Something that has really helped us get through the lockdown has been doing big walks from the house with Freida. Over the weeks Freida has realised how far she can walk in a few hours and we’ve seen a great deal of sunshine, forest, wildlife and many other interesting discoveries in various corners of Lochaber.
One objective Freida had was to walk to school which is about 14 miles. We’ve done this a few times now by various routes. We made a wee video on Freida’s YouTube about our first walk to school. I’m highly biased but I think Freida’s commentary is great.
Check out the film I made about Fort William Pro downhill MTB rider Mikayla Parton. Mikayla is receiving the Scottish Youth Award for Excellence in Mountain Culture this year and for good reason. I thought Mikayla has all the ingredients needed to be a successful athlete and was really impressed by her clear vision of where she wants to go and organised approach of how to get there. The comments of both Mikayla and Miles in the film allude to what those ingredients are.
I’ve been making these films for the Fort William Mountain Festival for both adult and youth awards and shooting them has been a fascinating study in the common ingredients that underlie great achievements in life. These obviously take many forms - great literature, art, activism, filmmaking, and sporting success to name some. In most of the recipients, a driven and uncompromising nature seems either immediately apparent or not far below the surface.
Where does this come from? I feel that it can originate from many different sources. Influence from a parent or mentor can be important, or really strong experiences in nature at a young age. I have no doubt that some experience of hardship might be important in a few as well.
Another important ingredient is agency. The ability to take hurdles by the throat and solve them even if they seem impossibly big or complex at the outset. A question I still have; is this agency a separate ingredient for success that evolves separately from a driven nature, or is it a downstream consequence of it? Or is it a mix of both? Perhaps If I keep making the films one day I might have a more useful insight into this!
In the meantime, enjoy getting to know Mikayla in this film and remember the Fort William Mountain Festival is live online now and you can stream the festival films any time over the next month.
For several years I’ve made films about the recipients of the Scottish Award for Excellence in Mountain Culture. They are always fascinating to shoot and hard to edit because the people are so interesting and are often my heroes!
This year Dave Morris is receiving. Among many other environmental campaigns, Dave played a central role in securing the superb access laws we have here in Scotland that give us all reliable access to our mountains and wild places. Something I feel grateful for nearly every day, as I spend my life on highland estates that were not always welcoming places to climbers and walkers.
Check out the film I made about Dave. I’ve uploaded all the other films onto the Fort William Mountain Festival channel as well. If you enjoyed my Nevis Faces series you might like these films too.
The Fort William Mountain Festival runs over this coming weekend. This year It’s online of course. A lot of good mountain films will be showing so check it out.
Some people seemed surprised by my video of soloing an 8b+ In this vlog I go through why I did it, why it wasn't that risky and why not doing it was a bigger risk than doing it. The footage of the solo is part of the movie Echo Wall. You can still stream, download or buy the DVD from the shop here.
An extract from the movie Echo Wall, free soloing Darwin Dixit 8b+ in Margalef, as part of my training for Echo Wall. The full movie is still available in the shop to stream/download/DVD.
Nevis Faces is a 6 part series of short films we made for the Nevis Landscape Partnership, exploring various characters who work and live around the Nevis area. Dr Cathy Mayne is an ecologist who specialises in mountain and upland environments.
Nevis Faces is a 6 part series of short films we made for the Nevis Landscape Partnership which explores various characters who work and live around the Nevis area. Jamie Hageman is a self-taught mountain landscape painter and is suitably based in the West Highlands of Scotland where, surrounded by mountains, much of his painting inspiration comes from.
Nevis Faces is a 6 part series of short films we made for the Nevis Landscape Partnership which explores various characters who work and live around the Nevis area. Helen Rennard is an accomplished winter climber living in Fort William. We have made many first ascents together on Ben Nevis over the past ten years and Helen is one of the most solid climbing partners I know.
Nevis Faces is a 6 part series of short films we made for the Nevis Landscape Partnership, exploring various characters who work and live around the Nevis area. Dave 'Cubby' Cuthbertson is a mountaineer and landscape photographer. Watch his overnight stay on Tower Ridge to capture the sunrise over the North Face of Ben Nevis.
Nevis Faces is a 6 part series of short films that Claire and I made for the Nevis Landscape Partnership. It explores the characters of those who work and live around the Nevis area. Dr. Blair Fyffe is an accomplished climber and a scientist with a PHD in slab avalanche release. His keen interest in the mountains, snow, and avalanches has coined him the nickname Dr. Snow.