BLCC 2009

Last Saturday was the BLCCs, which was held at Ratho climbing wall Edinburgh. I was in the Junior category (U16), We had to climb two routes graded between 6c+ and about 7c.
My first route was about 7b (I think) I managed to get 3/4 of the way up until a really long stretchy move spat me off.

My second route was about 7c I managed to climb about 25 moves up and was trying to clip one of the quickdraws off a small slopper/ crimp then my right arm got flash pumped.

Over all I came 20th, I would have liked to finish in a better position.

Applecross bouldering

This weekend I managed to persuade my dad to take me to Applecross so I could do some bouldering, the weather was scorching hot about 25'C. I went to sand bay boulders and managed to get a little bit of bouldering done, despite the weather was really hot and there was lots of horse flies biting at my back and legs.

Me on MOD Traverse V4+

We were going to stop off at Torridon boulders on the way home, but it was getting late in the day and we had no food or water left, the nearest shop was 20miles away, so we headed home as the weather forecast for the following day was heavy RAIN !!

Gory Magazine

A few months ago my friend Lukasz Warzecha took some pictures of me climbing at Dumbarton rock, and this month some of his photos went in Gory climbing magazine, one of the best selling climbing magazine's in Europe.

YCS Final, London

On Friday myself and 4 other North Scotland team members flew down to London from Inverness to compete in the YCS final at Westway climbing wall, London.

The day of the comp was really hot but pretty well organised by the BMC, as there was not a lot of room for everyone (climbers & spectators).

I managed to get 8th place overall, I would have liked to have done better but as it was my first year in the oldest catagory and I was competing against guys a lot bigger than me, I am quite pleased with the result.

Overall Scotland North done really well getting 3rd place in the team results, beating Scotland South (5th place)... Thanks Ruairidh for the training :) :)

The Old Man of Stoer

About one month ago Ruaridh Mackenzie invited some of the Inverness Climbing Crew (ones that he has climbed outdoors with before), if we wanted to go up the old man of stoer. so this weekend 6 of the Inverness climbing crew went to the old man of stoer, along with 6 adult backup climbers. We camped Friday night so we didn't have to drive up in the morning, but it were thinking it may be a bad idea as it was chucking it down on the drive over.

On Saturday morning we got up at 8 O'clock and got ready. We walked in about an hour then I saw the old man of Stoer, It was really big and awesome.

We abseiled down to a sea level ledge and set up a Tirolean, which we needed to cross to get to the stack. Ruaridh went up first and set up all the belay anchors, We had a adult at every belay station so we could all climb to the top without hanging around too long.

After a couple of hours, all 12 of us stood on the very top of the Old man for a team photo before abseiling back down.

Wakeboarding

Yesterday Ruaridh Mackenzie offered to take me out on his boat wakeboarding, with some more friends. The boat was in the water at Doors beach, we went about 1/2 mile out and went on the board. Dylan went on the board first, and showed us what to do, It looked really easy but when I went on the board, I could not even stay on the board for 10 seconds!!Dylan wakeboarding



I really enjoyed attempting to wakeboard and would love to do it again.

The Scottish Final

On Saturday was the Scottish final, which was held in Extreme-Dream Aviemore, The temperature was really hot, about 25-30'C. In the morning we had to complete 15 boulder/ top rope problems, then go into the semi/Finals in the afternoon. Four of the top rope warm up routes were out side on a transportable wall, which was really good as we were in the sun.

In the morning I got 1492 points out of 1500, which made me manage to climb in the semi finals. The semi final route was on the roof, which I think was graded about 7a. Only three people out of my group got through to the final in the afternoon, which was also on the roof. I managed to get the end of the roof which was 7c and so did Paul Williamson. So we had to have a super final on the same route, keeping climbing it over and over again until one of us came off, we both had two goes at it, I managed to get to the 2nd last clip on my 2nd attempt, and Paul got to the end.