Greg Boswell talks about FA of Bring da Ruckus (XII 13)
- Wednesday 18th January 2023
Having climbed what he believes is the hardest Scottish winter route, Greg Boswell reflects on his first ascent of Bring da Ruckus (XII,13), the difficulties and mental commitment involved and how his training helps him push the envelope.
Last week, Greg Boswell – climbing with Jamie Skelton and Hamish Frost – made the first ascent of Bring du Ruckus in Lochnagar in the Cairngorms. Describing his ascent afterwards Greg said, “The sustained nature of this route and the power-packed and blind crux roof puts it above every other high-grade route I’ve climbed in Scotland.” He graded his route XII,13; the first ever winter route to be given that grade.
The 32-year-old has been repeating hard routes and pioneering his own new winter routes in Scotland for some time now. He was the first climber ever to on-sight an X,10 graded route when he made the first ascent, on-sight, of The Greatest Show on Earth at Cul Mor in January 2015. Just three days later he repeated that feat with the first ascent, again onsight, of Range War at Coire an Dubh Loch.
Greg climbed his first XII,12 graded route in March 2015 when he made the first ascent of Banana Wall in Coire an Lochain in Cairngorm. Click here for that report.
In February 2019 Greg repeated Anubis, Dave MacLeod’s testpiece on The Ben taking just three attempts to do so. Click here for our report on that.
This winter alone, Greg has already climbed The Nihilist (IX,9) at Lochnagar and Vortex (X,10) at Cul Mor. Following these ascents, Climber questioned Greg on his approach to those routes and how he was able to get ‘switched on’ to winter climbing so quickly at the start of the season. Click here if you missed that report.
Talking to Greg it’s obvious that he’s totally “on it” with his winter climbing, not only has he the fitness, skill and mindset required to make these desperate ascents but he appears to have a gut instinct as to when conditions are right and when to push hard. Almost every time Greg pulls his boots on he climbs an amazing new first ascent from what seemingly is a bottomless pit of projects based on his encyclopaedic knowledge of the Scottish mountains in winter. It’s also obvious that he can apply the fitness and techniques he’s learnt in training to his new routes in the hills carefully crafting both the crucial techniques and mental control necessary to get the job completed.
In the Q&A that follows we drill down into Greg’s approach exploring not only what he’s done but how he climbed Bring da Ruckus and what it demanded he had in reserve. It’s a fascinating insight into yet another brilliant first ascent; in this case, Scotland’s hardest winter route yet climbed.
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Let’s dive straight in then - XII,13! Mighty big set of numbers there alongside your comment, “The sustained nature of this route and the power-packed and blind crux roof puts it above every other high-grade route I’ve climbed in Scotland.” You seem emphatic then, it’s the hardest thing you’ve done and the hardest winter route in Scotland?
Define hardest… It’s definitely the most powerful and home to the most physically hard moves stacked on top of each other that I’ve done in Scotland, but some of my bolder routes on bigger cliffs have felt challenging for different reasons. It’s all relative to the route’s style. My routes on Cul Mor are physically much easier, but if you fall off you might break your legs, so it’s hard to relate. But yeah, BDR is not a walk in the park.
In your write-up, you said that “some moves of a difficulty that I’ve never come across in Scotland.” Come on then, spill the beans then, what sort of moves did you have to do on Bring da Ruckus?
Well basically once you commit to moving up the wall to the roof from the turfy pod, it's game on! Techy thin moves up an icy turf chocked crack lead straight into the roof and then it’s a frenzy of big powerful moves to blind crossly hooks and baggy torques, so it’s a major core workout as well as on the arms to keep the tension on the axes. All of which whilst you are horizontal.
Like many, we watched the video of you climbing the roof and only saw the orange-coloured rope at first; only on second viewing did we spot the second darker-coloured rope clipped through gear in the roof! Fortunately, however, at least the roof seemed pretty well-protected though? How hard was it to protect the roof and what’s it like above?
Ha ha yeah, I’ve had lots of people saying I’m irresponsible, as they haven’t seen the grey rope. But even though there is gear in the roof, the problem is that it’s in a crack where the whole left side of the underside of the roof that forms the crack is a huge delaminated and boomy section of rock. Like, it moves when you tap it, kind of delaminated. So in my head, I don’t know what will happen if I took a big fall onto the cams, especially once I’m over the lip. Part of this delaminated section ripped off as I was turning the lip on my second try, so this just added to my head battle issues. So this sort of thing is what you have to try and overcome when you’re forging upwards without any knowledge of what’s in store, climbing or protection-wise.
Three attempts then? Can you talk us through how they went?
Attempt one I got to the roof, did the big move and got my axe stuck that I was moving away from. I had to commit to the move and leave the axe behind, as I couldn’t retrieve it but drastically wanted to find more protection over the first lip.
Second try I got through the roof and below the second roof/overlap, but the terrain and hooks were so difficult to read, that I was well and truly burnt out.
Third attempt I was fully relaxed as I was pretty sure I was going to be off mid-roof move, I managed to push on through the steep terrain and after running out of hooks and adopting some weird axe manoeuvres, I eventually gained the headwall. This is where I was lured into a false sense of security and relaxed too early. The climbing got very technical and the feet ran out, which made it heavy on the arms again, of which mine were pretty tired! Slow progress and a lot of mumbling, eventually lead to the top.
And a sting in the tail! Gotta love that – right?
Yeah, in hindsight you’ve gotta love it, but at the time I really, really didn’t want to fall off less than a metre from the turfy ledge! It was almost all over though when my foot blew as I was moving a tool whilst the other was on a minuscule hook. I fully barn-doored and started to peel off from the crag. A few expletives later and one very dynamic swing and I was on the downhill road to the finish line. Phew!
How does this compare to say Anubis and Banana Wall?
It’s kind of a mash-up of Anubis and Banana Wall, which are both given grade XII,12. Anubis has a steep crux that’s not overly long and after that it gets thin but you could stand around forever to figure out the moves, as I did. Banana Wall is way more sustained but without the boulder problem crux, it’s on steep terrain for longer and thin rippable hooks. You feel pressured to keep moving due to the steepness and lack of sinker axe placements, but the crux is an overlap rather than a proper roof.
BDR is much harder through the steepness and has at least twice as many powerful moves where you need to search for hooks and gear on steeper terrain than Anubis. Then above, even though the angle eases off, the lack of feet really minimises the recovery you can milk out of the moves. But remember it’s only a tech grade harder, so they’re all going to be fairly comparable in overall difficulty, just a harder crux on BDR.
You do a lot of indoor training. That clearly helps massively with fitness but also with the opportunity to try crazy moves in safely. Having done them indoors, taking them outside must be very satisfying. Was that the case with Bring da Ruckus?
It definitely recruits your body to know what you are capable of. However, it’s very different doing a huge move on the training wall where you cut loose and if it feels too hard you just step off onto the mountain of mattresses rather than doing it to an unknown hold through a 2.5m roof with the view of Coire Lochan 300m below your feet when you look down and your gear is wedged into a crack that you’re sceptical won’t just rip a massive flake off and kill your belayer. Yes, this sounds like I’m being massively over dramatic, which I am, to prove a point. But I’m trying to reiterate that it’s not all just about busting big moves and being able to swing off one axe when you’re trying these routes ground up. It’s the mental battle of knowing you can do the moves, but should you be doing them if you want to keep safe, if you do commit, you have to be very sure you can handle whatever the route throws at you to keep everyone’s safety a priority! That’s the main reason I train so hard for the adventurous style of climbing I like to do!
The name appears to reflect – in part at least – the weather conditions on that day which were clearly quite challenging with the recent/heavy snow causing avalanches in the gullies; as ever, flexibility with route selection is key for safety. This line must have been perfect for the conditions and that must have been in your thoughts as you were walking in?
Yeah, it turned into a bit of an avalanche party around us as the light faded, which is no laughing matter! We didn’t remotely have this route in mind as we walked in but this area of the mountain was on our radar for the fact it is guarded from above by a ridgeline. So the snow could not collect above our location and definitely would be deflected if nearby slopes/cornices released. There were some absolute monster slides releasing way off on the other side of the Coire that Jamie and I were watching as Hamish seconded the crux pitch. There’s something almost satisfying about being in that terrain, watching all that go on around you, but feel 100% safe where you are. It’s a bit surreal!
How do you think the conditions are shaping for the rest of the winter and your list of potential projects?
Conditions seem to be great this season. Hopefully, they continue and we get to get on some long ephemeral-style harder routes up in the NW. But yeah I always have projects in mind, they just usually get put aside for spur of the moment amazing looking conditions elsewhere. But there’s loads of the season left, so we’ll see what happens.