“It’s always hard to just blame conditions,” says MacLeod on his blog. “I was determined that my movement was getting worse; more errors, less confidence.” But conditions can make all the difference, and after delaying his return back to Scotland, MacLeod sent the problem on his first attempt of the day as an oncoming cold front lowered temperatures.

“If you’ve really set yourself the target, and you’ve done enough work to know it’s possible,” said MacLeod, “then giving in when the ‘extra mile’ to completion is there for the taking makes it difficult to move on with confidence to the next challenge.”

Macleod also sent New Base Line (V14) two weeks earlier in the same area.

The Scotsman started climbing at 15, and has completed the hardest boulder problem, trad route, sport route, and winter climbing in Scotland, and has made the ascent of two historic E11s, Rhapsody and Echo Wall. Established in 2006, Rhapsody was considered the hardest trad line in the world at that time. Then in 2008, MacLeod finished Echo Wall, calling it harder than Rhapsody or anything else he’s done.

Date of ascent: May 13, 2012

Source: davemacleod.blogspot.com

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