MacLeod Climbs 8a, E8, 8A, VIII and 8 Peaks in a Day

Dave MacLeod is one of the world’s best all-round climbers who has mastered alpine, ice, run-out trad, sport and bouldering.

He has just completed a new list-goal that included an 8A (V11), 8a (5.13b) sport route, E8 trad, a grade-VIII,8 alpine line and 8 Munros.

He wrote a blog about his 18.5-hour day in the mountains here.

First up was Cameron Stone Arete 8A+ (V12) at 6:50 a.m. before heading to Misadventure E8.

MacLeod said, “I was completely committed,” about the E8 testpiece, “so the only solution was to up the power output and commit even more.

“I realised sometime afterwards, replaying back the sequence in my mind, that in that moment of psyching up for the move, I’d completely forgotten to move my right hand to an intermediate crimp first.”

He got back to the car at 8:30 a.m. and headed to Steall Shields for Leopold 8a. He then headed to Ben Nevis to climb Frosty’s Vigil VIII,8.

“Somewhere in between (iced up cracks, so no rock protection, but not enough ice to climb) could be a stopper,” said MacLeod.

“After a couple of steep moves across the wall, I had the reassuring ‘thunk’ of my ice tool finding a nice runnel of climbable ice. ”

MacLeod then went and climbed eight Munros before getting back to the car after 18.5 hour on the go. For the list of what he climbed visit here.

“It was so glad of the opportunity to do it and to have a good climbing team of Kevin Shields, Iain Small and Kevin Woods, all excellent climbers and exactly who you’d want on a day like this.”