Whilst the rest of the country battened down the hatches in anticipation of gale force winds and severe flooding, Dave MacLeod, the ever-optimistic Scottish phenomenon, made a lightning raid south of the border to grab yet another of the country?s hardest trad routes. Adrian Berry climbed Blind Vision at Froggatt in February 2003 and made quite a splash with the grade. Magazines and websites around the world picked up on the fact that not only had he given it E10, but technically established it as 7b, a previously un-heard of combination which put it amongst the very hardest trad routes on the planet. The reason for the big grade lies in the fact that it is a climb of two halves requiring the skills to climb a hard boulder problem off the ground and a pretty hard and poorly protected upper wall. Adrian was both transparent and public about his opinions, giving a lengthy write up here on planetFear, even going to the lengths of specifically describing how he had trained for the boulder problem. Over the New Year break Dave made an abortive trip down to the Peak from Glasgow, thwarted by rain and spending most of his time in the caf at Outside or on Jerry?s Roof. He managed just 3 sessions on Blind Vision, each of about an hour, and was never able to link all the moves of the boulder problem together because of a wet hold. Yesterday it wasn?t until twenty past three that they left the cars at the roadside, having sheltered from rain and hail, and made a beeline for the route. Dave?s Blog gives an inspiring account of the ascent. In a nutshell he climbed the upper wall once on a shunt to warm up and then dispatched the whole thing, linking the boulder problem start for the first time and only pausing to have a quick hard think about the fading light before climbing to the top and making the coveted ascent of another E10. All in all the team (Hot Aches Productions were at the crag filming ? you can read about the ascent from their point of view on their own Blog) were at the crag for a shade over an hour! 
Dave hanging the first hold of Blind Vision. Photo courtesy of Hot Aches. When we asked Dave about the grade he declined to confirm it, claiming that he plans to repeat as many other hard routes as he can before going out on a limb. When pushed he conceded that it was easier than Rhapsody and other routes he has done in Scotland, but harder than Breathless and Divided Years, both originally graded E10. What next we asked him? Equilibrium and The Zone. Watch this space… Dave´s Blog: http://www.davemacleod.blogspot.com/ Adrian´s original write up: http://www.planetfear.com/news_detail.asp?n_id=4758 An interesting comment from Adrian: http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/ The ascent from the point of view of a film producer: http://hotaches.blogspot.com/
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