First discovering climbing at age 15, Scottish climber Dave MacLeod stands as one of the climbing world’s most prolific leaders in the challenging realm of first ascents.

Over the past decade, Dave has developed countless new routes across the world in virtually every discipline of the sport; but, his first and arguably most profound first ascent came about in the establishment of Rhapsody (E11, 5.14b/c) in 2006 on Dumbarton Rock.

At the time, that route was quite possibly the hardest traditional route in the world, and certainly the hardest in Scotland. The discovery of that line and the process of venturing into the unknown have fundamentally shaped the climber Dave is today. This short film shares that story.

The unknown is an essential part of an adventure, and one of the easiest ways to find that quality of ‘you don’t know what’s going to happen’ is to climb something that no one has ever climbed before.

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