Defending Champions – Mark Mosgrove

Mark Mosgrove was the Adult Male series winner of the 2008 Scottish Tooling Series with 2nd place in no less than three of the five competitions.

I remember talking to mark before the Final of the first event of 2008 at avertical world with some experianced climbers in the holding area for the finalists.

“Ive never been in a climbing  competition in my

life before let alone the final”

Mark attended all five events and remained in the top end of the results thoughout the competition a worthy series winner!

What have you been up to since winning last years series?

After the tooling comps I got out into the hills a few times and got some routes done before heading off to Canada for the whole of February. Spent a week boarding in Whistler before a bit of an epic drive to the Rockies and our hostel in Canmore. Spent the next three weeks climbing ice and mixed routes with the highlights being Polar Circus – a 500m WI5 ice route where each pitch is harder than the one before with the final pitch putting you in an outrageous position. The other standout route was Red Man Soars which was only a 2 pitch M5 but it had a real Scottish feel to it. It was trad protected, the snow was coming down pretty heavily and it actually had a walk-in!

Have you been training hard for the 2009 Series?

Up until recently I wasn’t sure if I was going to enter the Dundee Comp or any of them for that matter.  I haven’t done any real training for it but a guy at work who’s mega keen and only did one round last year has convinced me it’s a good idea so i’m off to go and get my file out and do a few laps on my board before Saturday. Apart from that i’ll be crossing my fingers and maybe lay off the beers on Friday…

Sum up your experience of Winning the series last year?
I can sum up my experience of winning the title last year in one word – unexpected! In a sentence it might be “Cracking banter and completely unexpected!”