CLIMBING
Arco Rock Master and
Rock Legends
28 August – 7 September 2014
Q Both winners: Adam Ondra (L) and Steve.
“You can’t fi ght it. In fact, there’s something sad about seeing 60 year olds still training hard, focussed purely on performance and grades and not the fun of it. They’re not going to get anywhere. I’m not back in the environment stage yet. I still try, I try really f*cking hard, but, yes, it means less when I do fail.”
What does he still get out of being a climber? “It’s like any other outdoor sport, there’s an element of wanting a fi x, wanting to get fi t, being outside. But, for me, it’s the movement – to be in that zone when nothing else matters. Your mind is empty and all that exists is the next few moves. That’s why I climb, and that’s why I don’t like bouldering so much.” Steve fi nally clips back in, and shoots up a steep rock wall, barely touching the iron cables, admiring the rock to his left and pointing out possible new lines. Whilst he might be famous for his sport climbing, surprisingly, his heart lies in trad climbing: “I didn’t clip my fi rst bolt until 24, and I had a good ten years of solid, psyched trad.” With ascents of cutting-edge trad routes, such The Big Issue (E9) and Rhapsody (E11), plus several E8 onsights, did he have any remaining trad ambitions, I wondered? “I still enjoy trad climbing. But as I get older, I’ll need to
take a look at my routes list. I was saving Edge Lane for the onsight, but I’ll never do it now. What I’d get out of doing it is totally outweighed by what would happen if I blew it! “I like the whole process of a really hard route. Redpoints
of a certain level aren’t that interesting – you’ll know you’ll get it; it’s just a question of when. I’m more interested when it gets incredibly hard, when you can be on it for over 60 days. The whole experience adds to it: the environment, the people, the location. You come away from the
P So, you can onsight 9a? Let’s try arm wrestling. Steve takes on Alex Megos (R). But who won?
Visit Arco for the 2014 Arco
experience with more than just the sum of the moves. “That’s when we’ll see the next breakthrough. When people like Adam Ondra spend over 80 days on a single project. Adam will probably climb F9c or F9c+, I imagine.” It’s late afternoon. The sun has been beating down on
the surrounding vineyards for hours. The sky is bruising; a thunderstorm is brewing, and it doesn’t take an engineer to work out that being tied to a mile-high iron cable is a bad idea. We sprint along the summit ridge until sanctuary is reached in a small hut near the summit. As the fi rst fat drops of continental rain start to fall, I’m inspired by his relentless enthusiasm. Forget about the elite, what about the rest of us, I ask. If we really trained, how hard could someone normal aspire to? “There are Olympic-level trainers and there are the natural climbers,” he mused. “And there aren’t very many who are both. If you’re not genetically gifted, then F8b+ is possible, you just have to train harder than everyone else. Beyond that, you have to have something extra.” What about him? Will he break into the next grade? “It’s not about the numbers for me. I don’t need to climb the next grade; I don’t feel that pressure. Which is good because, weirdly, it feels like I’ve set my own level. I can climb F8c+, even F9a now, and it’s not news. “For sport climbing, there’s not much left in the UK for me now, apart from Malham. Malham has given me everything. I’ve had such a good run there, and there’s one very hard project left for me. I’m not good enough to do it now. It might be 9b, fi ngers crossed. It’s harder than Overshadow.
“But you’re not in the club until you’ve climbed three of a grade,” he grinned. “So I’ll probably never be able to call myself a 9b climber, which is a shame.”
www.expeditionhotrock.co.uk
Rock Master and Rock Legends. The week-long programme of
events includes the original Rock Master
competitions, a round of the IFSC Speed World Cup and the IFSC Youth Boulder Championships.
www.rockmaster
festival.com
Steve is a BMC ambassador. He is sponsored by Petzl, Marmot, 5.10, Beal and Entre-Prises holds. Find out more at
www.steve-mcclure.com.
South America
Patagonia – Cordillera Blanca January – July 2015*
Expedition Hot
Rock.indd 1
Stage 1 - Cordoba – Bariloche Stage 2 - Bariloche – Santiago Stage 3 - Santiago – Lima
46 | 70TH ANNIVERSARY YEAR | FOR BRITISH CLIMBING AND WALKING SINCE 1944
Contact:
info@expeditionhotrock.com *start and end dates flexible
24/03/2014 14:16:49
PHOTO: ALEX MESSENGER.
dirtbag edition
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