Extreme Real Rock Trip

On the 16th and 17th May EICA: Ratho coaches Neil McGeachy and Neill Busby ran a trip to the sport climbing Mecca of Malham Cove for Scotland South British/Scottish Junior Team members. For all of the kids, this was their first trip to a crag notorious for fiercely technical routes that are almost always hard for the grade!


Over the two days the young climbers tested footwork and route reading skills on a selection of routes and after a bit of time adjusting to the new challenges of climbing outdoors, they soon started ticking of some of the classics the crag has to offer.

Rachel Carr made a highly impressive sport climbing debut , managing to on-sight 'Begozzi and the Ledge Lizzards' 6A+ as well as top roping a selection of 6C's and 7A's. Callum Forsyth also made an impressive start to his sport climbing career, by top roping a selection of classic routes from 7A - 7B. Eleanor Hopkins was on fire as always making swift work of red-pointing 'Frankenstein' 7A+/B, as well as top roping a selection of other 7A & 7A+'s. Jonny Field carried on from a successful debut season to outdoor sport climbing last year, with numerous on sights of 7A+'s & 7B's including 'Yosemite Wall', '7th Aardvark' and 'Something Stupid'.

As a climber and coach, I was truly blown away by how easily the young climbers transferred their indoor climbing skills to real rock with such ease. Especially at a Crag as technical as Malham Cove!

European Youth Climbing Series - Selection Day

European Youth Series (EYS) - Selection Day

The 19th & 20th of September will see EICA: Ratho hold their first ever round of the European Youth Climbing Series. This event will bring together the top junior climbers from all over Europe to test their skills on EICA's world class new Competition Wall - 'The Hanger Wall'.

As host nation for the event, the British Junior Climbing Team are allowed to enter 6 competitors in each of the six categories. Normally there are nowhere near this number of junior climbers on the British Climbing Team, therefore action was taken to hold a selection event to highlight the best 36 young climbers in the country. The EYS Selection day was held at EICA: Ratho on Saturday the 9th of May and saw over 70 of the country's most promising competition climbers descend on Edinburgh with the dream of gaining a chance to represent their country on the international stage.

The event consisted of 2 qualifying routes for each category, with the top 10 placed climbers progressing to the final. A selection of British Team coaches were also on hand to study the form and skills of the climbers on the day, to ensure all possible information was collected with regards to finding the best young climbers for the job. As usual, the Mountaineering Council of Scotland - Scottish Climbing Team rose to the occasion and showed some tremendous displays of strength and determination that lead to some very impressive results for the Scottish climbers.

Once again Scotland has shown at a national event that their youth climbers at right at the forefront of competition climbing. Congratulations to all who took part and good luck in the forthcoming British Championships and in September at the Edinburgh EYS! Also a big thank you has to be made to Edinburgh Leisure who once again assisted with route setting and made the EICA: Ratho climbing arena available for the event free of charge. Their continued support along with that of the Mountaineering Council of Scotland is currently helping Scottish youth climbing progress to exciting new levels within the sport.

Results for Scottish Kids:
Youth C (Year of birth - 1996/1997) This category are too young for EYS and were there to gain valuable experience!
Female
1st Eleanor Hopkins
2nd Nikki Addison
3rd Rachel Carr

Male
3rd Dylan MacKenzie

Youth B (Year of birth - 1994/1995)
Female
4th Jaime Davidson*
11th Ellen Barber
14th Christie Macloed

Male
4th Alisdair Johnstone
6th Stephen Addison

Youth A (Year of birth - 1992/1993)
Female
4th Ellen Macaskill*
5th Jessica McCaskey*
6th Jasmine Ryan
11th Abbey Niven

Male
1st Jonathan Stocking*
2nd Ross Kirkland*
4th Paul Williamson
6th Jonathan Field
11th Callum Forsyth
12th Liam Watson

Juniors (Year of Birth - 1990/1991)
Male
1st Robbie Philips*
3rd Connor Robertson
4th Jaimie Barron

* Climbers who have gained a place on the British Team for September's EYS. The other climbers will be assessed again on their performance in July's British Climbing Championships.

Spain limestone trip

I have just returned from a trip to Terradetts in the north of Spain with ex BRYCS/YCS climbers Greg Boswell, Ally Swinton and Jonny Stocking. Although the weather was not the best, 2 weeks of solid rain and snow! some pretty radical ticks were achieved by the squad!

Terradets is a huge single pitch limestone fault with almost 50 top class 30m+ sport routes ranging from French 7a - French 8c+. The routes either follow never ending Tuffa systems up the steadily overhanging left hand end of the crag, or they force their way powerfully through the massive cave and overhanging sector at the right hand end of the crag. The variety of terain and style of route at this crag makes it the perfect destination to both push your on-sight climbing and get stuck into a project or two on the same trip.

We were given the guided tour to the crag from ex EICA: Ratho BRYCS coach & world class sport climber Tom Bolger. It was pretty phenominal watching him dispatch 8a onsight after 8a onsight and come very close to ticking another French 8c+ through the steepest cave I have ever seen. The only thing preventing the chain being ticked being an absolutely soaking head wall for the whole 2 weeks we were out there.

The Scottish kids were on fire as usual and despite constantly being frustrated by wet tuffas and swamp like approaches to the crag, every one mannaged to push their sport climbing grade. Fife climber Greg Boswell mannaged to build on a quick early season tick of Hammish Teddies and red pointed his first ever French 7c 'Avant Max'. He also came agonisingly close to ticking his first French 7C+, falling off the last move on his last repoint attempt on the last day of the trip.

Fellow fife climber Ali Swinton also had a productive trip, ticking his first 7c+ redpoint on 'Energy Posativa' and coming very close to ticking 8a on the trip also.

Finally Johny Stocking was on fire as always, nipping out after blowing away the competition at the Leading Ladder Finals. Johny spent the trip making light work of everything he tried being stopped only by wet rock from ticking his first 8b. He also made a very impressive flash of 'Primera Linea' French 8a. I wonder if 16 years is the youngest Scottish onsight or flash of French 8a!

All in all it was a good trip and every one made the best out of bad conditions. If you want to check out photos or read more about the trip chech ot Greg's blog on;

http://www.gregboswell.blogspot.com/

EICA: Ratho / Mountaineering Council of Scotland - Introduction to Onsighting Event 26/04/09

Hi Everyone,
Just reminding everyone that there is a youth development event at EICA: Ratho on 26th Apri. This event is open to all climbers from YCS level - through to British Team level climbers. The day will consist of lots of onsight/comp practice on a range of new comp style routes set specifically for the day. The day will be split in to 2 halves with British Team Climbers (& invited guests) attending a workshop from 10 am - 2 pm, where they will have a range of national competition style routes to test their skills against on our new Hanger Comp Wall. YCS level kids are welcome to attend this session as spectators and draw inspiration from watching our country's best competition climbers in action.

The 2pm afternoon session will be open to any climber, who has entered this years YCS series. It will consist of a 4 hour workshop with coaching tips on onsight and competition tactics. Plus there will be a range of YCS Comp style routes to test your skills against throughout the afternoon. There will be British/Scottish Team Coaches and British/Scottish Team members on hand to offer top tips and encouragement throughout the afternoon. Please book on to this through phoning 0131 333 6333 it is completely FREEEEEEEEEEEE of charge, so don't miss it. I know it is the day after the YCS, but it will be well worth making the effort to attend!

If you have any other questions, contact me at neilmcgeachy_1@hotmail.com

2009 YCS Round 2

The second round of the YCS was held on Saturday at Inverness Leisure Climbing Wall for the North of Scotland kids and at Avertical Wall, Dundee for the south Scotland kids.

The full results can be found on the MCofS website or here:

There is also a few photos uploaded to Picass web albums, they can be accessed here:

I apploigise for maybe not getting photos of all the kids.

2009 1st Round YCS Series

The first round of the 2009 YCS series of regional competitions were held at Transition Extreme in Aberdeen for the competitiors in the north of Scotland & at EICA Edinburgh for those in the south of Scotland.
The full results can be found here:
And on the MCofS site here:

There will be a link and photos posted on this blog asap.