Those of us who are following Dave MacLeod's blog know it has been a struggle, those of you who haven't can go there and read all about it, but now, finally, Dave has been able to make the first ascent of what he believes to be his most difficult boulder problem yet: Seven of nine, V14/8B+, at Glen Nevis.

In the end it came down to:
- A necessary change of mind set, inspired by Chris Sharma's comments about how he killed his "First round, first minute" related demons.
- A subtle refining of beta, in this case a changed foot sequence.
- Tenacity, or as Dave puts it: clocking up the necessary hours

It's a funny climb, somewhere between a highball and solo. I certainly wasn't at all keen on falling off above the crux, and had to go all out to avoid doing just that. Grade wise I don't have much to compare it to since I haven't bouldered much for a couple of years, except that it's definitely harder than any of the V13s I've done and seems harder than some V14s I've played on a good while ago now. Or is it? I'm not sure if it's my style or not.