Steve MccClure

Norwegian Rock Master

picture - Ivo Ninov - Five Ten

The Nordic countries are awesome, and the people are always super nice. This year I’ll be in Denmark twice and Norway twice, mainly for work, but way back in February I was invited to take part in the Norwegian Rock Masters Competition.

So my level of psyche has varied a lot! Of course I was keen, it’s Norway, it’ll be great, but hang on, the wads are going, and anyway I hate comps, maybe not for me!! But it’s on real rock and sounds chilled! I committed. Then got injured and backed out, recovered and joined in again, then finally wrecked my finger 3 days before going but 3 hours after booking my flights! I was along for the ride!

All of my visits to the Nordic’s have been plush and the people chilled. This was obviously the same, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I made my excuses for coming last whilst the other climbers talked of their next international indoor competition in a few weeks and how well they would most likely do. This comp was on granite, new bolted routes unclimbed by anyone. Two qualifiers, the first one I climbed like a beginner, which is about right considering my sport experience on this rock. But I topped it, and no one else did! The finger didn’t snap and I felt better. Next route I was going OK but snapped a hold. I could try again. However, according to the judge I went into the final in first place, climbing last, so count-back would be in my favour anyway. 

The final route looked awesome, and it was, very technical, my favourite. 15 metres to a no hands rest where you clipped a bolt, then a hard 10 move sequence to the next clip. I was totally in the zone, but just messed up an easy foot stab half way through. Gutted! But luckily I’d got higher than anyone and I landed to a congratulating crowd!

However, luck actually wasn’t on my side! The rules were that high points were marked only by quickdraws clipped, and thus everyone was equal in the final! It would not have mattered if they clipped from the no hands rest and gave up, or climbed the next desperate sequence and peeled off with the rope about to go through the beener! So for future reference this method of scoring doesn’t work. And as a double downer there had been a mistake and actually I wasn’t in first place in the qualifiers, but second. Not having a second go after breaking a hold in the qualifier was a big mistake which would undoubtedly have put me in first! Never has second place felt so bad!

But I tried to see the cup half full, my finger didn’t snap off and anyway I’d expected to come last! I made some cool mates, and the winner, Daniel Joung is such a nice guy it’s good that he’s lumbered with two massive trophies! The next day we did a bunch of great routes, I onsighted 8a+, and got to experience some of the great routes around the area of Skarvann. The local activist Borre Bergshaven has put in an unbelievable amount of selfless work in preparing the place. He was the dude organising pretty much all the competition too, and I learned he put in 30,000 euros of his own money to make it work!!! I also got involved with next years event. The organisers (mainly Borre) already had some big plans, but I turned them upside down by suggesting the World’s first International DWS…… I’ll keep you posted! 

September 01, 2010 07:11 AM

Glue

Picture - Pleasure Dome. Keith Sharples Photography

This last month has been mental, ridiculously busy. I’ve had a weeks holiday in Cornwall, a week coaching in Denmark, Route setting in London and Derby, a few days 1-1 coaching, a weekend in Pembroke, a few days sightseeing in London, some friend visits, a few days at my parents, loads of parties and just basically loads of stuff. It’s been great, even though the weather has been a bit rubbish.

It went rubbish on the 12th July. I remember it pretty well. Up to that point it had been amazing for a very long time, like half a year! Climbing was going well and I was feeling fit and strong and keen. July the 11th was boiling and sunny. July 12th was pissing down and cold and I was at work route setting where I busted my finger ligament. Not totally, but bad enough, enough to make climbing painful and hard stuff out of the question. Good timing I guess with the weather, and the amount of stuff that was about to happen – I couldn’t have climbed much anyway!

So it was a great month, but something was missing, the glue that holds it all together. Climbing is what my life hangs on, with this taken away all the other stuff doesn’t seem to fit together properly and doesn’t stick well.

It seems to be fixing now, but I’m going through that tricky patch of constantly re-injuring myself, as soon as progress is made I mentally jump back to where I used to be and pull as hard as I used to pull. Then I am reminded I have an injury. I need to stick outside, indoors is too much about pulling hard, outside is about movement.

A good weekend in Pembroke, maybe one of my top places in the world, I spent a load of time here in my youth. No expectations at all, maybe a bash at ‘Ghost Train’ and then some recovery plodding. We were in a 3, so a few hours to kill allowed me to abseil down Tim Emmet’s new E10. It looked amazing, and very my style. The gear was better than I thought and a spark seemed to light. An hour later I’d done it on a shunt placing the gear and was ready and prepared for a lead. I needed a rest so we went off to do an E3. It took a while, and darkness was close, but no worries. Tomorrow it would be fine.

Unfortunately tomorrow went from about 15degrees to 25degrees and humidity from low to 100%. Pembroke – August – we had forgotten that it’s a hot place, The conditions we had yesterday were awesome. The route is not to be underestimated. A very long run out with the climbing getting harder and harder leads to some gear. It’s maybe 7c+ to there. The gear is a little fiddly to place. If you fall off clipping it you’ll die! If you place it bad and it comes out you’ll die. Then it’s the crux. The whole route is 8a+/b with 7c+ climbing in a death position. Onsight would be horrendous!

So it will have to wait, annoying as it could have gone in 2 hours and now it will probably take 2 years. But not so annoying as I could feel that glue starting to stick everything back together again.

August 22, 2010 09:28 AM

Nordic Youth Camp.

My work is pretty varied, and it takes me all over the place. Some is good, some is not as good. But for the good stuff Denmark is way up there. I’ve been four times now and every time has been a pleasure. I’ve coached, lectured, set indoor routes and helped clean new outdoor lines. The Nordic Youth Camp this year was awesome. Set on the small island of Bornholm, there are kids from Denmark, Sweden and Iceland; they are keen, and climbing well! It’s a big event, spread over more than a week, and I’m impressed at the amount of effort the organisers put in, all for no payment of course. It runs like clockwork and the kids are clearly loving it. This island has the only climbing in Denmark and it’s great to get them out on the rock, where movement and exploration is important and competition results are kicked into touch! 

I was there for five days and it felt like longer, not in a bad way, so much going on! From the off the organisers, Stephan, Asbjoern, Brian and Jeanette, and too many more to mention treated me like their old mate, feeding me like a king and dishing out the beer. I spent a morning trad climbing with them and climbed possibly the hardest route in Denmark, which sounds pretty cool, but in reality it’s only about E4, E5 on a heavy gravity day! They are passionate about the place, and we should feel lucky in England and not moan about out lack of rock. Right now they are developing a new quarry, a cross between Llanberis and Horseshoe but on Granite. It climbs well, there’s about 15 routes from 4+ to 7a+. It’s all big features; corners, grooves and arêtes; kneedrops, bridging and jamming. For leaning it does a good job, and there is more potential, a lot more!

I gave a few talks and helped coach the kids. Their enthusiasm was infectious and I witnessed some impressive efforts and a real passion for the sport. It’s not often that we get that, seeing literally hundreds of kids loving it, not caught up in performance or being the best, just trying their hardest and helping each other out, right from 10 year old beginners, right up to the A team of Katrina, Aurora and Natasha. These girls were climbing hard, but more importantly they were their own climbers, already travelling around Europe. They knew the history and what they wanted to do; they reminded me of me when I was 15.

A good trip. I made a lot of mates. I went out for five days of work but came back from a weeks holiday! (Though I must admit I’m completely shagged! Note. SAS might be a jolly nice airline, but how often is your flight cancelled due to a technical incident on the way out, and then AGAIN on the return!)

August 07, 2010 02:21 PM

compromise

Mike cruising the E5 ‘Black Magic’

compromise - Not my favourite word, but a poor understanding of the word will lead to a sticky end! I learnt more about this word when I had a kid.
I’m in Cornwall now, a few days by the sea surrounded by beautiful coastline, the landscape criss-crossed with deep cut single lane roads. The sun is even shining. Pentire Head is only 5 miles away, but with the family here there is no chance of a route – or is there? Luckily I came with my good friend Mr Shunt!
It’s not the same, climbing with a shunt. Traditional climbing is all about that ground up experience, placing the gear and assessing the danger, picking your way through the obstacles. As I rapped in I met a couple of lads on a long UK road trip, Mike was leading the E5 ‘Black Magic’ and looking very smooth indeed. I was jealous of their road trip and of the gift of this route. However I was climbing. The last time I was here was 15 years ago and I’d forgotten how amazing this wall is. With danger removed with the shunt I could cruise the E5’s on the wall, a different challenge but a special experience all the same, moving continuously and being absorbed by the technical footwork and tiny finger edges. And the great thing is I could have all that, plus a few miles on the bike through beautiful countryside, and be back on the beach building castles before I’d even been missed. Really, compromising is the way forward!

July 29, 2010 09:49 AM

A boulder Problem.

But 140 moves long! That’s pretty long! But never more than about a meter off the ground, with a perfect landing for the majority of the way, flat and grassy. It’s the ultimate boulder traverse, if you like your routes, with the crux coming after about 100 moves and each attempt taking over 25 minutes!
I talked about this traverse a few weeks ago. Paul Smitton first did the huge traverse across ‘Dog’s Dinner Buttress’ just opposite the Peak’s Cheedale Cornice about a month ago calling it ‘Pedigree Chum’, 8c+. This is a route garde, a boulder grade makes no sense. It’s a route of distinct sections climbed left to right. The first half makes up an amazing section in its own rite with flawless rock and an obvious good ledge to finish on, maybe 8c to here. The next quarter is about 8a+, very sustained and very fingery.  A few people have been aiming to end after this section at an obvious flake line. It’s a clear place to end, but avoids the challenge of the entire wall. To link the whole thing Paul went up, a little scary but amazing vision and determination. There was no way three quarters would have done for him! The high version drops back down again to crimp its way along the final vertical wall to step off as far as you can climb. But the high version is just slightly out of character. A low version looked impossible, but a few useless holds were just enough. This 17 move section at somewhere between V9 and V11 was the hardest section of climbing, but the crux was resting enough before launching into it, a leg destroying back and foot low down in the flake line being the only way I could get shot of enough lactic to even consider the moves.
This low version, the ‘Finest Pedigree version’, took me another five days of effort after the initial three to do the original. Keeping low is the only rule and its much harder than the original. A boulder problem that is really a route that’s all about recovery!

July 18, 2010 09:02 PM

A VERY STRONG TEAM

The team gathered on Saturday morning and boarded their coach. 24 climbers, including some of Britain’s best, Nick Sellars, Ryan Pasquil, Neil Mawson, Paul Smitton, Sam Whittaker and Myself. That’s a fair collection of E9’s and 8c’s in there. The destination? Not a day’s climbing! Too hot for that, and way too humid. Instead it was an all day dance festival – ‘Cocoon in the park’. After last years great success it was back again, but bigger and better, with thousands of like minded people gathering at Temple Newson in leeds.
It could not have been more perfect, huge open fields of dry grass to lounge around on under the sun with the temperatures soaring. The pumping tunes and a massive stage in the centre was where the action was going off. Noon till 11pm, non stop. I chilled till 1pm then got on board the dance train and amongst the techno. Ten hours straight. Awesome. It was a long walk back up the hill later with legs of lead, and an even further cycle ride home at 2am.
Next day I was 3kg lighter than the day before! Maybe I should have gone climbing. Though maybe not! Instead it was a very different party, my daughters 4th birthday complete with bouncy castle and many bouncy kids. I had figured an all day event compared to an all night event would be easier on the head the next day but funnily enough it was not!

July 16, 2010 08:33 AM

A new skill

I’ve been working on and off at this for years and never quite managed to be any good at it. Doing nothing!! I find it desperate. I like to be doing stuff and this is lucky as it burns off the 10000 calories of chocolate I eat for breakfast. However I thought I’d put the effort in and go on a ‘doing nothing’ training camp. A week beach holiday to Minorca. No climbing at all, no hills to run up, and loads of beaches, kids to look after, food to eat and beer to drink.
It looked scary! But after a day I found that it wasn’t so bad, and soon I was getting the hang of it. In fact I was beginning to wonder if actually I was a natural, an expert in the art of nothing. But of course it’s far from nothing. With a 3 year old and her mates there is no time to stop. I took a book and didn’t read a page! But there was zero exercise. So after a week off completely, and the previous week only working with no climbing I had to wonder what would happen.
Nothing! I am climbing exactly the same as always. Nothing is obviously the way forward!

July 09, 2010 07:04 AM

In Search Of Adventure

First things first – The Arch has still not been climbed! Somehow this is how the news reported our ascent.

Traditional climbing is where my roots lie, but sport is an easy tick, fitting in easily around work and kids and a desire to perform rather than be scared. As the grades go up the amount of gear goes down making hard routes that can be onsighted hard to find. But I still needed the adventure, it feeling more distant with every soggy summer that passes. Pabay has been on the list for a while, “hard pumpy climbing with excellent gear on amazing rock” was the word!
This island is where The Great Arch lives, not the objective of my trip but becoming the assumed one by everybody else. It was blasted to fame in the Scottish Climbing film a while ago. I’ve not seen the film, which was probably poor preparation as usual on my part, because seeing this massive feature made me want to climb it, standing out as one of the biggest natural challenges I’ve ever seen. I knew it hadn’t been climbed without falls and that the roof was the crux so I abbed down to the lip figuring if Lynn Hill and Cubby couldn’t do it there was no chance of me onsighting it. I was right, a complex arrangement of poor holds that you’d never see from under the roof looked to be the crux. 95 metres off the boulder field below with the waves crashing and a freezing gale blowing the ropes all over the place and tangling up slings and jumars and other bits of random kit I roughly memorised the position of these holds before I got the hell out of there and kind of hoped it went away!
I wasn’t really there for any of this, I was after quality onsighting and a thoroughly nice time. The Arch felt like a job in comparison; it was going to be hard, long and scary! But it was already too late, I was hooked, the only thing that could save me was a lack of partners, and Lucy Creamer was up for it!
So we set off, already rattled by the very first move, wet from sea spray. Not good with 6 pitches to go! Deviations around nesting birds added difficulty and extra loose rock to the guide book description of ‘the rock on pitch 3 and 4 is very loose and unpleasant’. I’m bad on loose rock. It took a long time to get up to the arch, swinging leads Lucy put in some big efforts and I was pretty glad I had someone competent to hold my hand. However, reaching the final pitch, the roof pitch, we both had the feeling that this route was a route for the sake of it. A much better path is to the left, staying in the corner and avoiding the roof. Solid E5, and amazing if you can handle a little rubble. However we were at the main event. 8 hours of warm up for one hard pitch, not your average stroll down to the local sport cliff. The lip of the arch was a long way up, a safe haven, a target to aim for. Holds that I’d seen despite their size gave me comfort. Even the final unprotected wall, snappy and hard would be a breath of relief simply because I was sure I could do it. Up to there was a mystery. I set off following my nose, as you do. Pulling on a flake the size of a car it moved, my gear was behind it and my ropes under it. Not good! Heart beating fast; a scuttle left. This looked like the way. More gear a long way out and moving up now to the holds. But the holds are falling off, bits the size of bricks coming away. I have gear behind these bricks. I take it out. Another plan. I’m traversing a long way right now, gear in a sugary crack. Maybe there’s another way but its’ too late to find. If I fall off now I’ll probably be OK. And I will fall off because there is no way up. Totally blank. Stopped dead I wait for the inevitable, I want to fall off, but a hold appears, sloping and small, at the max of my reach. Somehow, stupidly, I’m pulling on it and committing to something. I’m trying as hard as I can, it could be the crux of an 8b sport route. Then I’m facing an all out slap for what looks like a hold. A complete deadpoint that has to be perfect but my chances are slim. No chance to think about my position, my gear, the slab below or anything at all in fact, with my whole world shrinking to a point resting on an edge about a metre above me. I make it, I can’t describe how close I was to not making it. It was one of those real climbing moments that don’t come along very often, where everything comes together and it all comes good. This was the route for us. If I’d fallen, even if I’d been OK I doubt I’d have had the balls to try again, just getting to that move had already shattered my feeble nerves. A 70m abseil would have been in order or rescue if it was longer. But here I was at the back of the arch, good gear greedily thrown into solid cracks. Then out over the roof, more flakes the size of tables creak under my weight, good gear maybe, but not behind them! Easy climbing at least. Then at last another solid runner and the start of the hard climbing. I can see the lip, only a span away, a relatively easy move to the sanctuary of hard moves on bad holds, familiar though, I’ll be happy there. Then I’m rushing it, feet all over the place, wanting this all to be over, and suddenly I’m in the air. The gear holds. I’m cursing. No fear now, just utter disappointment. I pull up the rope, and back onto the big flakes and this time straight out to the lip with ease and through the hard lip moves and so to the top. Lucy follows with a combination of climbing, prusiking and fear. There is no time for another go as I’m already watching the sun set over the sea and the wind is whipping over the arch and making me glad to be wearing performance kit.
So the Great Arch still awaits a no falls ascent. We could have gone back to ‘redpoint’ the last pitch but that proves nothing to me, a relative formality with gear sorted and fear removed. However, even if I did fancy it, who would sacrifice their last day in paradise to belay (as the next day was our last). And I could never have even asked. Would I go back again for this? No chance! I don’t need to. I went to Pabay in search of adventure, and for sure that’s what we got!

June 06, 2010 09:42 PM

Preparation is everything.

But I keep screwing it up over and over. Friends of mine have pointed out my lack of preparation before and I listened but still don’t seem to have sorted it out. Just a few days ago I messed up big time, but I’ll tell you about that later, and last weekend I made my usual mistake of falling off the last move.

It was on a long traverse on Dogs Dinner Buttress in Cheedale. Unclimbed but looked at by many. I spent a few days on it about 7 years ago, then a few sweaty afternoons last month and then went early to avoid the sun for my third visit this year. The traverse is very definitely a route of four quarters, and a route rather than boulder problem being over 100 moves long. Each quarter is split by a rest, though the one between the first two is poor. The first half is the meat of the problem, 8c+ to a very good rest. It could end well there. Then maybe another 8a+ to a natural break in the climbing before the last section. This is where I was aiming to finish, previously the last section had been under ivy and trees, and though now cleaned off, there was no low level traverse possible, only some potential way up at 30 feet to complete the entire wall traverse.

Five Ten athlete Paul Smitton was there already when I arrived, it was 8am, and he’d been there for ages; keen! I warmed up on bits of the traverse, and noted that the last quarter looked easy but high, something too worry about another day. I went for a burn expecting to fail but somehow ended up in the middle, more than I’d hoped! Then the next section I was freestyling, unclimbed terrain for me with Paul behind pointing the way. I sketched it to the last quarter by the skin of my teeth. So that was my aim, time to dismount? No – the whole challenge was there. Paul spotted as I progressed, up high on loose flakes, though cleaned and dry and chalked. He’d put a lot of work in! Dithering I made it, then at last back down low and across the final slab on good crimps, the easy looking section. I was within a few meters and began my celebration, a smile building within for another success. But suddenly I was stuck, right hand where my left needed to be, the finishing hold winking at me barely out of reach. Unable to reverse the move I’d dropped into I hung, clawing at the nothingness with my left as my right gradually exploded. Then I was off, gutted, only to instantly find the hold I needed, a good one too, and now a place I’d never fall off, and, had I seen this hold, a place I would not have fallen off on this go!

Preparation lets me down again. In hindsight it was easy to see that I should have given this a quick glance, guaranteeing success. Now, with the sun coming round and my energy burned it would have to wait for anther day! Sometimes though something good comes out of it (rarely). I’m glad I dropped it there. For a start Paul had put a lot of work in and was really after the first ascent, he’d been there a lot. He absolutely deserved first dibs. The last section I would never have touched if he hadn’t cleaned it all. He was to go down in the next few days and get the complete ascent to give ‘Pedigree Chum’ - one of the best traverses in the country, now totally clean and dry. Secondly if I’d nailed it I’d probably never have gone back, but now I had to, and it was yesterday that I scurried along the high last section again, aware of my aloneness should any of the snappy flakes depart, to finish easily across the previously unprepared slab. But it was back down on the ground when a spanner dropped neatly into the works of my success, the final quarter somehow unsettling me. Three quarters was not good enough, now clearly the climbing cannot end there, but the final section is out of character, high up and not hard with a very good high up rest before. But the low version is impossible – isn’t it? What about those holds? Small and facing the wrong way. Three hours later the moves were done, the section climbed with just one fall. Desperate for sure and with no rest before it: 9a+ for the lot most likely. So it’s not over. Good news, a mere three days on such quality rock would have felt too few, now there is gonna be a good bunch more!

June 02, 2010 09:16 AM

Spain goes British

Spain in May, a good bet you’d have to guess. Can’t win em all though. Right now I’m in Rodellar, Northern Spain and it’s utterly wet, so much rain and even snow that the entire cliff is soaked through seepage and run off! Apparently the UK is basking in the sun and all the cliffs are dry as a bone. Good news really, I’ll be back in a few days and at least by then I’ll be well fed, as there isn’t loads to do but eat here.

Still you can always make the best of it and we’ve still climbed every day, towel in hand and ready to dry off feet between river wades. Some of the cliffs are so steep they never get wet through rain, just through seepage, so not all the holds are wet, just the good ones. So the routes are harder, just drop the grade and off you go.

It seems Spain and Britain have swapped weather, and the amount of Brits here is crazy too, loads of us from all over, but funnily enough barely and Spanish. Spirits are high though, we love it, climbing in the boiling sun or sliding around in the rain, its all climbing.

May 14, 2010 06:21 PM

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