http://www.steve-mcclure.com/ en verticalglobe@hotmail.com Copyright 2010 2010-07-29T09:49:11+00:00 http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/compromise/ http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/blog/compromise/#When:09:49:11Z 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! 2010-07-29T09:49:11+00:00 http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/a_boulder_problem/ http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/blog/a_boulder_problem/#When:21:02:02Z 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! 2010-07-18T21:02:02+00:00 http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/a_very_strong_team/ http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/blog/a_very_strong_team/#When:08:33:32Z 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! 2010-07-16T08:33:32+00:00 http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/a_new_skill/ http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/blog/a_new_skill/#When:07:04:59Z 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! 2010-07-09T07:04:59+00:00 http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/in_search_of_adventure/ http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/blog/in_search_of_adventure/#When:21:42:11Z 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! 2010-06-06T21:42:11+00:00 http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/preparation_is_everything/ http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/blog/preparation_is_everything/#When:09:16:10Z 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! 2010-06-02T09:16:10+00:00 http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/spain_goes_british/ http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/blog/spain_goes_british/#When:18:21:42Z 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. 2010-05-14T18:21:42+00:00 http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/the_adam_ondra_blitz/ http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/blog/the_adam_ondra_blitz/#When:10:14:23Z Picture by Keith Sharples Adam Ondra came to Britain!  A very big deal indeed. Adam is the best sport climber in the world, no questions asked. Chris Sharma, who has done a bit of climbing, said he was totally blown away by Ondra’s performance! He went direct to Malham and directly to try some of my routes that have laid untouched for years… I went up to Malham cove to catch up with him, its been two years since I last climbed with him and I was keen to see how he was doing. But I already knew how good he’d become. Al Austin texted me on the way to say “at least you’ll know how it feels to be a punter at the crag now”. Good style, just turning up and going climbing, why should people know his agenda? I guess we assume that with his status there will be some kind of press release announcing his movements and selling tickets for the display. But no: Just him and a mate, over for a week. No team of photographers, no film crew or helicopters. I arrived at the crag and there they were, just another team trying their routes. Adam climbed a lot of stuff in a week, the most anyone has ever climbed by a large amount. It sounds impossible almost, but then we remember he is just at that new level, away up there by himself, a good notch above anyone else really. It was exciting for me as seem to have been operating in a vacuum for years putting up new routes with no one to gauge them with. You never know their real difficulty and you always stand to be knocked down The British climbing public are very fast to throw mud, and though grades are not that critical to me, having everything down graded would have led to a real beating!! But it ended up being perfect, Adam nailed a load of stuff and commented that though our grades were stiff they were not super hard, so that helps put a sock in all the Brits that think they are so good with their super hard grades that would be harder than any of Europe. He also found Overshadow hard and didn’t manage a repeat, so I wasn’t being a bumbly. But he did do Northern Lights and North Star confirming quality and grade. His visit was almost like me climbing the routes again, a confirmation perhaps being just as important than the actual first ascent. And if anyone knows his stuff it’s certainly Ondra!! 2010-05-10T10:14:23+00:00 http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/here_comes_summer/ http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/blog/here_comes_summer/#When:07:36:05Z Climbing on Holyhead Mountain (E4) photo - Neil Foster. About time too! The winter was a long one, cold, possibly good for friction, but not when covered with snow or for the unmotivated who has been there too many times before. Occasional trips to the Plantation weren’t doing it for me and I pressed on and booked in work with hopes for the spring. And here it is, all in a bit of a rush in the end. What seems like yesterday I was away in Scotland over Easter, it was constantly raining and cold and dark and windy, then two days later I was in Wales in the middle of summer! Holyhead Mountain, hardly the most inspiring venue in Wales, but a compromise for all team members guaranteeing good trad and good sun. Out of the wind, belaying at the top of the cliff in just T shirt with shoes cast aside was a joy, soaking up the rays like memories from a past life. Taking in the rope then watching as Rab popped over the edge below me rattling with doubtfully placed equipment, my skills rusty with under use.  E3’s and E4’s were fine for now, and just right for the sun and the scene. And it gave time to hit the Cave on the way home. After yesterday I was sore, a few hours on a long link in here is like a complete session, then it was downstairs for routes and Melancholy for a quick tick. Today was the only time in history where the weather was worse at Llandudno than in Llanberis! We watched as the thermometer dropped from 17 to 11, and as the sun rounded the corner and the wind howled in. Huddling in the back of the cave, duvet jackets essential, winter was back! Horary, conditions were awesome, pity my condition was not! 2010-04-20T07:36:05+00:00 http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/skymasters_2010/ http://www.steve-mcclure.com/site/blog/skymasters_2010/#When:13:06:07Z I used to compete internationally, for Britain on the British Lead Team. It was fun, but not for me, I’m an outdoor climber, not a competitor. Maybe I just can’t cope with the stress and rise to the challenge; not good enough. It’s a skill I lack, staying cool under pressure, being able to perform 100% right there and then. Looking down from the viewpoint on the climbers about to race head to head in the final of Skymasters 2010 it made me shiver, what was in their heads? What happened next, win or lose, was probably my fault as I set the routes. Lead climbing competitions are basically dull for the audience: someone comes out, inches their way up the wall until getting stuck and shaking out forever like a piece of washing hanging from a line hoping to get stronger until eventually sagging onto the rope. Skymasters is different, 2 competitors race head to head on mirror image routes over spectacular horizontal terrain. It’s very easy to see who is winning and the race only takes between 1.5 and 3 minutes. For the spectator it’s awesome, and that’s why this was the third year of the event. Even the climbers love it. But I’m glad to be just the setter! When speed is everything and a human being can blast this route in less than a minute and a half the tiniest of mistakes count, a poor clip, the rope round the leg, wrong handed on a hold; game over! It has to be perfect and there is no time to think. The men’s final was amazing, a blaze of precise movement right to the end with only a photo to split the result! Awesome. But I’ll stick with the setting! Full results at http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=52675 2010-03-31T13:06:07+00:00