UKC

youtube.com/watch?v=MIurTukUOpU&

DM always has top quality YouTube videos but I found this one particularly exciting, interesting and inspiring

Now that's a line, DM cool as a cucumber, understated as usual now time for a cup of tea!. 

Yeah such a good video. There's some great climbing content creators on YT, but DM's production is unmatched. Really really cool.

I was just going to post about exactly the same vid, but was going to title it either:

"Taps af for Youtube!"

Or:

"What would Magnus do?"

It's a brilliant little film, even being unexpectedly LOL funny at the above bits. Dave is just such a machine, normally you feel that there's not much at stake  - by the time he says he is ready to go for a lead it often feels like there's no real question - he will do it. But here some f-bombs get dropped, something gets faded out - it may have even been a c-word! Dave huffs and puffs and shakes a bit, messes up the order of his gear placements - and looks like popping off is highly likely! Basically he looks human while doing something super human. I was yelling at the scream by then cheering him on!

An excellent little film. Well done Dave (and Robbie in support).

Yeah noticed this last night and gave it a watch, as usual a great video, an amazing route, and having Robbie in the video was an added bonus! Dave is an absolute legend!

Yeah, he puts out some great stuff and this is indeed top drawer.

DM continues to be the most interesting climber out there - thanks for posting. He is so analytical, clear and reflective, and relevant to all levels and so many aspects of climbing that his videos are well worth coming back to 

The calm, matter of fact commentary does sound like an instructional video.  It's like having one of those guys who show you how to do tricky car maintenance narrating 'How to lead E9'

No doubt Needle Sports will be inundated with orders for sky hooks today.  

A modern day Indian Face? Dave has been doing so much hard and potentially dangerous traditional climbing over the last few years (and his entire climbing career) I sometimes feel like they often fail to gain the recognition they deserve on both a national and international level.

Not that it matters but I wonder if in 20 years time this route will be celebrated in the same way the likes of Indian Face is now.

Probably not. Indian Face had been on a lot of people's radars for a long time and was a real sought-after line. It took someone like Dawes to get over the appalling difficulty and risk.

The one criticism I have seen about Dave Macs hard climbs is that they are sometimes a bit of a non-line. I'm sure there is absolutely no doubting the difficulty and quality of the climbing but are they recognised LGPs? I'm sure the location has a lot to do with this, and Dave should be praised for his development throughout Scotland but it might be the reason people aren't necessarily queuing up to repeat a lot of his routes. 

I'm probably talking out of my arse though, as I'm not sure I've ever stood at the bottom and looked at one of his routes (apart from the big roof near Arderikie Wall, which was prior to it being climbed). 

Quite possibly, but I wouldn’t say his most prominent ascents are particularly remote or difficult to reach. Echo Wall for example, has never seen attention since it was first done and isn’t seriously remote or difficult to reach and takes a strong line up the left edge of a proud feature. All that and the claimed hardest traditionally protected route in the world and there’s been no takers.

I guess there’s not many people operating at Dave’s level and that obviously a big factor in it all, but I can’t help feeling that Scottish rock climbing being somewhat under appreciated plays an equally big part. 

I don't remember the walk in to Rhapsody being that difficult when I did it last year*.

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One fact asserted here is incorrect.

Hostage to fortune with that mate.  

Titan's Wall is Titan's Wall - I'm pretty certain that you are staring at it most of the time as you slog up the Allt a' Mhuilinn. I think the the waterfalls he films at sections must be the "summer versions" of Shield Direct, Gemini and Waterfall Gully? And IIRC just around the corner from the Bat, Centurion, Sassenach and so on. So it's an area of classics summer and winter.

I think the way he narrates is dire compared to the quality of the rest. The climbing, the ideas, the filming, the attitude, the skills are awesome.  But I so much wish he wouldn't do the narration as if he was reading from a piece of paper.

Apart from that one thing everything else he does is brilliant.  I think he should just do the rest justice by speaking as if they are his own words, rather than a stint of Jackanory

I assume he's reading from a previously written blog or something - carefully considered thoughts which he's then adapted into a video. It must be; the narration is not at all how he or anyone else would speak in real life. 

Putting it crudely, it sounds harder but less serious than Indian Face - 8a with hard to place gear, but if you get it all in properly you should hopefully be OK. No-one is going to be downclimbing from the Indian Face runners! 

I'm not sure there's a big correlation between quality and whether something is a recognised 'last great problem'. Plenty great routes have been climbed which previously weren't on anyone much's radar.

I fully agree with you. I have the utmost respect for Dave Macleod and his amazing achievements and I've always enjoyed his films. This is an amazing route and in every other respect a great film. But you are right: the narration is so very stilted. I appreciate that he may have been aiming for very considered thoughts but more spontaneity would have been of benefit. He was talking about hugely emotional moments (e.g of great fear) with virtually no emotion in the voice which just came across as odd.

Isn't that how narration normally works? Seemed fine to me - a mixture of explanatory narration and live chat as it was filmed.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2021/09/new_ben_nevis_e9_6c_by_dave_macleod...

I guess it is but that doesn't stop it sounding odd. If you watch e.g. a self narrated travel documentary on TV, the presenter still comes across as speaking naturally. No-one expects Dave to be an expert at this sort of thing (though a lot of his filming is excellent) but it does come across better in written blog form.

Actually, I didn't mean my comments as a criticism.  I enjoyed the cool, concise understatement - I thought it reflected his careful, precise preparation and climbing style, with just a hint of mortal peril on the down climbing! 

Interesting that people can have such divergent responses to his narration. I am a big fan of his style of narration, which I would summarise as gentle, conversational, natural and understated combined with the confidence of deep insight. 

Maybe. The ageing memory seems to tell me that Caf said of indian face something along the lines of 'you can down climb it, it's only 7b'.

7b to 8a. Huge difference. 

exactly, he is not a natural orator, or indeed naturally charismatic. Few people are. You cant learn charisma, you either have it or you dont. He has had to learn to be good at public speaking and therefore it comes across as very formulaic and rehearsed (probably because it is). I am pretty terrible at public speaking and therefore have to learn my words almost like a script when giving a presentation or whatever. it makes me sound very robotic compared to somebody who can just get up there and wing it becasue they have natural flow.

So considering that oration is not one of his strengths (compared to say Robbie phillips or tom randal) he has done incredibly well with his online content!

Tom Randall is really outstanding in his materials.

I find Robbie Phillips often deliberately histrionic shouty hard sell youtubey - ALL CAPITAL LETTERS!! AND EXCLAMATION MARKS!!  youtube.com/watch?v=66G-O0ljzo0& ugh. Looks like he went to a 50 quid "content creator" class.

His videos seem pretty popular though, so maybe it was 50 quid well spent? It's what the yoof wanna watch bruv, innit? It's just what his mandem want, blud.

Personally I think Tom R's youtube persona grates just a little. I have no doubt he is a lovely chap in person - in fact at least one friend knows him a bit and said he is a really nice person. But in the videos - just a hint of posh-boy trying too hard to be "wacky". Perhaps it's just in contrast to Pete's dry professional northerner (well, Edale is sort of the north even if its Derbyshire) youtube persona.

To be fair I should say that I still enjoy Robbie Phillips' videos anyway.

What does come across very well in this video are Dave's thoughts about the route and how he attempts it.

I wonder if he did any gear tests (weighted rucksack etc), would be interesting to know if the gear would have held.

Also, the obvious challenge is now to do the route without downclimbing to the belay, although I don't see many (if any) contenders.

Why would that be a worthy challenge - to climb a route in a less efficient way? Granted, it sounds like it would be harder, but if greater difficulty is your goal, I'd say there would be better ways of seeking that out.

Would just be slightly purer in style - although I'm not criticising DM's downclimb after placing gear - something most of us will have done sometime when just out on a "normal" day's climbing.

Agreed

I like Robbie's videos. Lots of enthusiasm and, if the style appeals to the "yoof", that's fine because it comes across as nicely ironic to me.

What I think Dave does really well is break things down in a way for us punters to get our noggins around. He's climbing E10/E11, something so hard I don't think I'd be strong enough to pull into the carpark. But when he says "the last good gear is here, so I knew I could climb the start of the crux and know that if it wasn't feeling great, I could comfortably reverse the moves from here back to safety" etc.

The man is at the cutting edge, he could just as easily go "This iS a DeAtH-DeFyinG chOp RoUt WiTh 9a cliMbiNg aBoVe cERTaiN DeATh FaLllLlLl!" 

His methodical commentary is a mirror of how he climbs and rationalises the risk.

Robbie grates on me but I'm a big fan of his mate Cullan.      

I think what constitutes a "worthy challenge" is pretty personal. I've certainly done plenty of far easier routes in a similar style and found them to be worthy challenges. But I seem to recall Sonnie Trotter repeating one of the harder British mountain routes (I forget which) with a downclimb to a good rest/ledge after placing the crucial gear (as was the style of previous ascents). The next day he went back and climbed it again in one push, placing the gear as he went. Clearly he felt that was "worthy" in some sense.

Calling Dumbarton Rock a mountain venue is somewhat stretching the definition!

But I agree that using different tactics could be personally fulfilling. However, I'm sure the only reason someone would choose to eliminate such a downclimb as on MacLeod's new line would be to avoid a desperate downclimb! Different folk have different strengths / preferred methods, and Dave seems particularly adept at this tactic. On Trauma for example, MacLeod elected to downclimb from higher than James Pearson did.    

But would anyone ever do so on lead? If they got to the rest below the crux and felt they'd lost it mentally, it seems more likely they'd call for a toprope?

Ah yes. That would be the "not gritstone" definition of mountain. My memory is not what it was.

Lest I seem to be carping, I will say I was impressed by both the ascent and the presentation, which came over as pleasantly matter-of-fact but with a distinct overtone of steely determination.

It also amused me to translate the route into grades that I might have some hope of climbing. So that would be an E2 5b crack with reasonable gear that is somewhat strenuous and awkward to place, followed by a pleasantly exposed V Diff stroll to the top.

Indeed! As I type I'm looking at a copy of Graham West's 'Rock Climbs on the Mountain Limestone of Derbyshire'.