You may not have realised that he'd been away, but for those, like me, that follow Dave MacLeod's blog, it has been pretty quiet of late.

Has he stopped climbing? Stopped blogging? Himalayan expedition perhaps? Injury?

Nope, he has had trouble with his internet connection. Which now seems to be fixed. Welcome back Dave.

Working his way through his climbing exploits of the last few weeks, Dave details his first ascent of a superb looking E8 (photo on Dave's blog) he has named Inimitable (E8 6c).

"Feet not quite right on the smears, hands not quite right on the crimps, bum sagging and the realisation that I'm probably looking at a broken leg in three seconds time..." recounts MacLeod.

Inimitable takes a shortish line on the Styx buttress in Glen Nevis and Dave estimates the difficulties to be around F8a.

Later in his blog he describes an onsight ascent of Chairoscuro (E7 6b) in Glen Nevis. The route was first climbed by Kevin Howett and Andy Nelson back in 1988, with Howett taking a rib crunching fall from the top moves, held by an RP1.

MacLeod described his onsight (and probably second ascent):

"wobbling and gibbering through off-balance rockover onto a sloping rail after 35 metres of E7 climbing, when that RP1 is so far below you can't even see it..."

UKC have an article by Dave MacLeod coming up next week - watch out for Relocate - Fort William.