Dave MacLeod

Dave MacLeod

I'm a full time climbing obsessive based in Lochaber in the Scottish Highlands. I'm best known for my trad new routes such as Rhapsody E11, Echo Wall E11 and The Longhope Route E10/11. Echo Wall might still be the hardest trad route around at the moment as is probably my best effort so far. I do most of the climbing disciplines to as high a level as I can, climbing in winter up to XII,12 (Anubis on Ben Nevis), F9a (A' Muertre, Siurana), V14 (Seven of Nine, Glen Nevis) and Big Wall (Bongo Bar 400m E8 6c all trad on Blamman, Norway).

My inspirations for climbing are first and foremost movement on rock and spending time in the mountains. I'm also very interested in sport science and have done a lot of study and writing on the subject. My book '9 our of 10 climbers make the same mistakes' is a ubiquitous climber's text these days and I also write a lot on my blogs on davemacleod.com about all aspects of improvement at climbing. When I'm not climbing or writing I like a bit of hill running and I'm also involved in making climbing films quite a lot. My long term climbing goals are to climb F9a+ and V15 and also use the fitness i get from those goals to keep finding hard new trad routes in the mountains.