​When Lorna Hargreaves from Vertebrate Publishing got in touch about reviewing the 4th edition of Hard Rock, compiled by Ian Parnell I jumped at the opportunity. When Ian had said that he was redoing Hard Rock I was worried it might be a flop, like the BMCs ill fated ‘Climb Britain’ rebrand which was taken as well as if radio 4 said they were going to change the name of the Archers. 

​  To say Ian was stepping into big shoes would be an understatement. Ken Wilsons love of UK climbing is shown in many of his publications and particularly the trilogy, Classic, Hard & Extreme Rock which have helped inspire generations of climbers. The list of routes which appear in each were chosen according to Ken:
“Certainly there are many qualities that contribute to a climbs reputation: history, singleness of line or, conversely, subtle complexity, good rock, good position, interesting technique, length, consistent difficulty, inescapability, commitment- all are qualities that one looks for, and each of the climbs in this book can lay claim to one or more of these merits”.
 
To be fair to Ian Parnell, he’s done a hell of a job.
   The front cover of Mary Jenner on Central Buttress, Scafell in atmospheric conditions is very apt, with the 1st ascent in 1914 by Herford and co being a testament to both youthful boldness and a precursor to the ‘abseil inspections’ that would become common for cutting edge routes many decades later. It is the earliest of the Hard Rock routes with most of the others done from 1930/40s onwards. The climb itself also has an element of tragedy with Herford dying only a few years after the first ascent in WW1, aged 24 and on the climb itself  when the critical chockstone fell out whilst climbers were on it in 1994, killing one of them.
    On a less serious note the front cover is also funny because Marys partner Dave Birkett will be gutted its not him on the cover, as he once mentioned to the climber on the front of the most recent Scafell guide, George Ullrich how he wanted it to be him. The back cover is another great shot with Heart of Darkness at Mowing Ward, highlighting the coming of age of sea cliffs in the UK with Pembroke being a contender for the best of its type in the world. 

​  The main content of the book is still there with gripping essays from the likes of Jimmy Marshall, Ed Drummond, Pete Crew, Royal Robbins, Chris Bonnington, Martin Boysen on some all time routes such as Carnivore, Old man of Hoy, Dream of white horses, Great wall (cloggy), Cenotaph Corner.
However, Ian has made some logical changes with some routes having fallen down and with routes such as Main Overhang at Kilnsey (now Mandela) and Scoop having free versions and which would now belong in the Extreme Rock genre. There are 13 new routes with pieces written about them. Some of the new ones are quite inspired. 
Prophecy of Drowning, on Pabbay is thought by Scottish guidebook writer, Gary Latter to have the best rock in Scotland on it. It is fitting that the piece about this climb is by Ellie Fuller, one of the 4 creators of the notorious and brilliant Women’s Trad Festival. The final paragraph of Ellies account sums up much of what can be great about climbing some of the routes in the book, and given from the perspective of someone who is a member of the next generation of climbers:
 “This is why you are here. Prophecy of Drowning is far more than the sum of its parts. In fact, the climbing is at times the least memorable aspect. It is about finishing up this imposing feature, with the sun on your back, the sea beneath your feet and seals playing in the waves far below. It is the satisfaction and glow of time shared with another, navigating a challenge in a remote and wildly beautiful location with no one but a handful of other climbers for miles and miles. It is time stretching on as you lose yourself in marbled gneiss walls jutting out over the waves, between the blue of the Hebridean sea and the sky”.
 
There are 2 more Scottish mainland additions. One is on the much acclaimed but tricky to get to, Beinn Eighe, with the route Angel Face given a great write up by the sadly recently deceased Martin Moran. The other is Vulcan wall on the Isle of Skye by another one of the most prolific Scottish pioneers, Kev Howett. Anyone who has been to Beinn Eighe or clung onto the Gabbro of skye in its amazing landscape will give these the thumbs up. 

​The Lakes additions are also safe choices, with Nimrod on Dow crag having some fantastic rock and Totalitarian on Raven Thirlmere also being well deserved of belonging in Hard Rock (if it’s not too dirty) and an appropriate substitute for North Crag Eliminate on the opposite side of the valley which has fallen down. Rigor Mortis, Hiddenite, The Niche and Bonzai Pipeline are great routes nearby which are of a similar level if you are making a trip of it. If Niall has been training hard during the Great Lockdown he might be able to free one of these Lakes routes, however much Bullocks been doing he’s no chance. It’s also worth noting that many of the Lakes routes will be found to be too tough for trustafarians.
A key addition and an area where I’ve often recommended it to people as the best sea cliff climbing areas in the world is Pembroke. Ian did well to get the input of Emma Alsford and Paul Donnithorne who wrote the excellent definitive guidebooks for Pembroke. Although I slagged off traverses at the start of this review I will be putting the Heart of Darkness and Plane Sailing on the ticklist and finishing a route at Stackpole or Mowing Ward with the evening sun on your back is hard to beat. Rock Idol and Zeppelin give 2 of the best wild sea cliff pump fests to be found in the UK too, with other great routes like Wraith and Airship nearby.  

​Paul Harrison has had a justifiable long love affair with Lundy, going there year after year and having produced the recent brilliant most recent guidebook to it. The 2 routes he’s chosen are exceptional routes in amazing rock architecture. Double Diamond sits next to the Cullinan as the front cover of the Lundy guidebook, it gives stunning technical crack and face climbing on a granite plinth on the attached arch of the Battery (see pic). Quatermass in Deep Zawn, gives 2 great pitches in forbidding surroundings. Lundy has much of the best granite in the South West and the small island is a wonderful place to stay. To get the most out of your trip be sure to try not to deck out during your stay.
   The new ones in the South, Mars and Soul Sacrifice at Swanage I don’t know too much about but as Dave Pickford has spent a good deal of his life doing classic routes all over the world you can bet these are high quality and his ability with the written word is 2nd only to Shakespeare. I’ll probably wait until one of the cave parties is back on and try to do them before that. 

​ The pictures in the book bring it into the modern era, although I do enjoy some of the atmospheric black and whites from back in the day. Ian has obviously put in a huge amount of work in getting pictures to do the climbs justice, as well as contacting other photographers and friends to use their images in the book. A personal favourite of mine is Will Birkett on page 93, normally found at the front of a dance floor with is shades on and top off I found it strange seeing him in a different setting but as you can see by the pic, Will still looks like he is dance floor.
Ians managed to give an old school book a new school makeover that makes you want to grab a friend or 2 and go and try some of them. The new pieces and pictures help highlight some of the best climbs to be found in the UK, combining the rich histories of prior generations with the new adventures to be found on sea cliffs like Pabbay and Pembroke. Hopefully the new book will help inspire people from the next generation to sample the marvellous delights of UK climbing. Its certainly made me keen for another trip to Pabbay, Pembroke, Swanage and Scotland, if any friends are keen for a trip once we are able drop me a line.
Top effort from Ian Parnell, Vertebrate, the contributors and of course to Ken Wilson.
  
 

  He was stocky, unsurprisingly really as he’d lugged rocks around for much of his life. He had a fairly wide face, curly dark and unruly hair which went grey to white with age. One of his eyes didn’t really work, the story he gave was that in the 1960s during a pub fight involving numerous people, he pushed a guy out of the back door when a few people banged against the door trapping his head in it, the guy he’d chucked out came and smashed a bottle across his head, which damaged his eye. His physical characteristics were considerably outweighed by is key defining feature, his ability to talk. On leaving the house in Keswick once to go climbing down Langstrath I remember returning home flabberghasted at his ability to talk, non stop, all day, some kind of circular breathing going on.   
Stories about friends who were climbing in Newlands valley in the 60s when one fell 100 feet and the belayer who was belaying with the rope around the waste was more injured than the climber. About pushing someones brain back into their skull who had taken a bad fall, about Pete Whillance being unbelievably bold and taking 100+ foot falls off Top gear and Life in the fast lane. Histories of Millican Dalton living in his cave in the side of Castle Crag, the Abraham brothers and their Victorian climbing photography and endless stories of the Lakeland mountains.

​   Every time we went to Carlisle he’d always have to tell us about the time he climbed Dixons chimney and left pyjamas on top for a bet and that it used to be 30 feet higher. He’d say how when he was first getting into climbing he soloed Kern Knotts crack, a VS and that some people in the Carlisle climbing club thought he’d be dead within 3 months.  
  He loved Borrowdale and would often be at Shepherds café when he wasn’t building footpaths for the National Trust. He said climbing had saved him from a life of trouble and from some of his stories it sounded probable. He used to be a ‘Teddy’ boy and when sat in the pub with some fiends once a guy wanted to have a fight called Erton Cole. It was rumoured that Erton had killed someone and Ray was bricking it. They left the pub and when walking down some steep steps to the area they meant to fight Ray kicked Erton in the back, down the stairs and beat him unconscious. A few weeks later they saw each other and Erton said it was lucky Ray had done it as he would have killed him otherwise.  Ray said that they became friends but I found this hard to believe.
   Back to the Borrowdale valley. Anyone who has been there can see why you’d fall in love with it. It must be the greenest valley in the Lakes. I hitched a ride from Ambleside to Keswick many times in the late 90s and one time an artist picked me up, they said that many artists struggled to paint the valley as there was just so much to take in. 

  ​   Ray did his first new climbs in Borrowdale in 1962. Voodoo, a HVS on Gowder crag with a guy called A Kew and Rays lifelong friend, Lez Kendall. That same year he climbed the Niche and Interloper with Adrian Liddell. The Niche is actually a great route and fairplay to them doing it in 62 as routes like this and Paul Ross’ and Pete Lockeys climb Post Mortem in 1956 would have been exceptional pushes with the kit they had back then. The Falcon crags (lower and upper) in Borrowdale are much under rated. The rock is normally good and it gets a lot of afternoon and evening sun and fantastic views over Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite Lake. Some great routes to do here are the Niche, Dedication, Plagiarism, Kidnapped, Illusion, Usurper, the Joke, Dry Grasp and Route 1.
From 1962 if you look in the back of the Borrowdale guidebook you’ll see his name on many first ascents with a good find of a now popular cliff in the early 90s which is well worth a visit, Sergeant Crag Slabs. He did quite a few first ascents on here, Lakeland Cragsmen, Endurance, Holly Tree crack and Death stroke are well worth a walk for. His partner for these was Joe Bosher who was one of the nicer guys I’ve bumped into and who also very generously gave me my first set of RPs as a gift.
   Ray worked in a wood factory in Carlisle before he moved to Keswick and soon after married Margaret (mum) and became known as ‘Mac’. Workwise he’d do everything from rock climbing guiding, labouring, building, working for the water board, slide shows to eventually working for the National Trust building footpaths for many years. After getting home from work my main memory of him was watching him stand with his back to the fire in the living room and often saying to me and my sisters, Jennifer and Heather “I’ve had a hard day on the hill” followed shortly by advice to get an office job when we grew up.
   He had his smelly ropes and climbing gear stashed under the stairs and mum would often tell him off for leaving a mess. He also had a fondness for fry ups and would use the same oil/fat in the frying pan for weeks, gammon, bacon, sausages, eggs, beans and a ton of butter were staples.
  He didn’t drive so his main transport was a push bike or else talking mum into dropping him off or friends picking him up. When I was a kid I thought he was weird biking down the valley all the time to go climbing, although some Sundays when my mum and sisters were at the Jehovahs Witness meetings he would sometimes take me for walks over hills like Walla crag I would really enjoy.
   To supplement his National Trust wage he’d do 3 slide shows a week in the Moot Hall (church like building in the main square in Keswick, used to be a market place back in the day). The 3 shows were; Walking the Lakeland fells, Climbs and fells of Lakeland and the last was Lakeland in Winter. For quite a few years I pressed the button on the projector for him and could probably recite the talks even now.
  A story which stuck with me in his climbing show was one regarding one of the UKs great climbers. The story went…
 
“I was at Shepherds crag one day when a guy came up to me and said”
“Hows it going? Do you fancy doing something hard?”
Dad wondered who this guy was and pointed him up a hard route.
He climbed up to a hard bit with dad belaying before shouting down
“Is it alright if I fall off?”
Dad couldn’t believe his ears, being from an era of ‘the leader never falls’
He shouted back “Pardon?”
The guy shouted with more urgency “Is it ok for me to fall off?”
He fell and lowered to dad saying “I don’t mind falling off”
He got back on and did it fine next go.
A week later dad was in the pub and a guy with long hair came up to him and said
“Eye, eye, I hear you’ve been climbing with Douggie”
Dad said “He fell off!”
The guy with long hair said “Douggie Hall is one of the best climbers in Britain, he falls off every week”
 
At this point the audience would normally laugh but for me I was just starting to get into climbing and the story seeded the idea of the importance of facing the fear of falling.
  His favourite climb which he did well over 1000 times was on Black crag in Borrowdale, Troutdale Pinnacle. It is a brilliant and varied climb and most times I’m in the valley I try and do it too although I doubt I’m into triple figures yet. He was also known for climbing the classic Shepherds route, Little Chamonix in boxing gloves and roller skates.
When developing new routes on Grange crag there was some competition from other climbers, Colin Downer and Chris Bacon. Apparently Colin had heard dad was keen on doing some new ones that he had wanted to do and was incensed, he found out where dad lived and got Chris to cover the back door incase ray tried to et away. As it turned out after they talked they became friends and ended up doing quite a few new routes together. 

​In 1989 I would have been 8 and he took me and my sisters, Heather and Jennifer to Wodens face where we did a new route (probs done before) called Family outing. I remember crying and not enjoying it much which may have disappointed him somewhat, it wasn’t for another 7 years when I asked him to take me up Troutdale Pinnacle when it clicked what climbing had to offer. I remember we were alone, and there was snow on the ground on the way down that was slippy as hell in rock shoes. Soon after I’d second him on other routes, often in shit weather, Mandrake on Quayfoot, Illusion on Falcon and could be heard shouting at him that the he’d put the damn wires in too hard as I struggled to get them out.
I remember being a pushy little sod on Shepherds telling him I wanted to lead. I set off up Brown slab corner, a VS and put in what is surely one of the most catastrophically shit performances on a first lead climb. Disco legging, slipping off and sliding down being caught on a foothold, scrappling back up in a flurry of fear and thoughtlessness. Although Ray couldn’t see too well he’d clocked well enough it had been a shitshow. Thankfully sometime later he let me lead again. We had 6 quickdraws and on my first HVS, Lakeland Cragsmen he said to space my kit to make it last. On a few Christmas days we’d bike out to do routes, like Overhanging bastion on Castle Rock and the Shroud.
 We did a few new routes together. On the left hand side of Shepherds I belayed him on a short rib, I remember I’d bought a micro wire and he tugged like hell on one of them to seat it firmly and I stupidly had a go at him, thinking he was wrecking my new wire. He informed me that your life was worth more than the cost of a runner, which was another good lesson and if the opportunity to back up an abseil by leaving a runner I’ve always taken it. I went looking for this climb 15- 20 years later and couldn’t really see where the climb went, there appeared no line and the rock that was there was plastered in thick moss. We did do some better new ones together at some point, up on Castle Crag, but looking back we mainly did a lot of climbing up grotty bits of rock, moss and heather.
We’d sometimes argue, unsurprisingly with me being a stroppy and ‘ambitious’ teenager. I remember having a hard time on an e2 on Goat Crag called Manpower, struggling to see exactly where to go. I shouted down to Ray who had done it before and expected him to tell me exactly how to do the move and couldn’t believe he couldn’t remember, I was incredulous you could forget a move. A couple of years later mum was concerned about my soloing and dad would give me a chat about being careful. Looking back it must have been awful as parents of a teenager who mainly climbed without a rope.

​ As we edged towards the late 90s and early 00s a lifetime of physical work began to catch up with Rays body, particularly his hip which made it difficult for him to walk normally and parkinsons crept into one side of his body giving him a shaky arm. Although he struggled to walk he would still bike down Borrowdale to climb and sometimes go for adventures with Yorky who was one of the nicest people I’ve met.
One of our last climbs together was an ascent of Interloper on Lower Falcon in 2002 that he’d done the first ascent with Adrian Liddel 40 years before. The very last one was with Ray and my sister Jennifer on Hedera grooves, also on Falcon crag, and again although he would struggle on the walking side his ability to talk never waivered. He would be down Shepherds cafe chatting to anyone he could at most opportunities.

​His physical deterioration was frustrating for him but he seemed to find peace with it and mum was always there as she’d always been. He always got out and had was immersed in climbing, always getting all the magazines. I’d moved to wales in 2002 and didn’t get to see him as much as I would have liked. In 2005 I climbed a route on the slate called The very big and the very small which with our unhealthy lifestyles at that point was something of a miracle but I remember having a chat with him on the phone and he sounded pleased. He passed away later that year, in Keswick with mum by his side.
Julie bailey was a star in organising his funeral and Yorky and Les Kendall gave lovely tributes. We scattered his ashes in a small hollow above Black Crag and his favourite climb, Troutdale Pinnacle. The jaws of Borrowdale, aka Mac, he was a hard git and a great dad. 

​A 100 good E7s list. I’ve been meaning to do one for years but held off because of not getting up to do Scoop, Chisel and Shadowdancer on Lewis/Harris nor the ones on Shelterstone such as Realms of the senses and Elise D’amor which also look like some of the best around. Dave Macleod also says Hard Drive on Creag Mo should be on the list (as should Sunburst). I guess this is a slightly more Welsh and Lakes based list but most are well worth an ascent and I’ve listed some of the more amenable ones with a minus (-) sign and the ones that are tough or bordering on E8 (or might feel it for an unchalked onsight) with a +, most of the tougher ones are big leads which are fine if you abseil inspect them but nails otherwise. For truly piss ones I’ve put 2 – signs where tons (100s) of E6s will feel a lot harder than these routes and they might well be E6 and I promise hand on heart i didnt do this specifically for the only ones Calum, Posh Tom and Angus have done. Some of the routes are rather small but nevertheless worthwhile, particularly routes like the recent Dispossessed and the old Beau Geste and Braille Trail. I’ve only thrown the Bells the Bells in there because it is a contender for the UKs first E7 but many of the other routes on the North Stack wall are much better (and safer), such as the Clown. I’ve been rather shameless and have thrown in a few of my climbs, but they are some of the best recent ones and most have good gear and deserve traffic. I’m not sorry to say that none of Calums routes in Tin Can Alley or elsewhere made it onto the list.

​ I remember the mental ‘push’ I had in 2000 when I first managed to onsight E7s, starting with Camouflage, De Quincy and The Bells the Bells in the summer before getting the kicking of my life on Masters Wall which I’m sure is E9. I was soloing a lot of the big lakes E4s and the odd e5 at the time and could solo 30 e2s-4s in a morning but onsighting serious e7s still felt ‘pushy’ as it meant climbing technical 6a/b moves where you were going to hurt yourself badly or die so confidence, competency and fatalism were pretty key. Part of the reason for this list is because at around this level often not a lot is known about the climbs, hence you can have the mother of all fuck ups such as Masters Wall getting a grade of E7 which was a key factor in me nearly disappearing age 19. All the routes on the list are around the E7 mark and are of good quality (beware the Craig Dorys ones for rock obvs), Cure for a sick Mind is soft E7 7a with a long sling on the 3rd bolt and would be E8 without this sling, and you go direct past the 3rd bolt!.

​    If you manage to onsight any of them when unchalked and without watching your friend climb it first then well done, many people who have climbed E9s haven’t onsighted at this level or have done very few because it’s hard to do, particularly when they are unchalked which can make route-finding miles harder on blankish rock which is I presume partly why the ‘cleans hands gang’ was once a thing. Of the 15 E9s I’ve done only 2 have felt as ‘difficult’ an experience as onsighting a route of E7 and they were 2 of the technically easiest E9s but which had the highest dose of danger!.  The hardest onsight ascent I know of in the UK might well have been Ian Vickers on Nothing to Fear (Pembroke) back in the 90s, pumpy, dangerous, insecure and importantly unchalked.
    Many of the ones listed are actually pretty well protected, the ones on Dove, Nesscliffe and Pembroke particularly which is why they have some of the better travelled E7s in the UK. Some on the list are on there to try and get more people on them, for instance 2 of the easier E7s are on the Lleyn, where you’d normally expect very serious routes you actually have 2 fun ones with good rock, Deep Sea Spex and the Apprentice. Most of the routes are pretty varied, some famous, some esoteric but all of the climbs are worth a trip for and some, such as Skye Wall, Great Escape, Always the Sun, Marksman, Kaya, Flying Dutchman and Spirit Guide are totally brilliant. Good luck

                     -Rumblefish (Cromlech)                         Violent Breed (painted walls, Rhoscolyn)
-Juggernaut (Glen Nevis)           Marksman (Bosigran)              -Romantic Reality (Craig y banchair)
                 - -Authentic Desire (cloggy)- probably E6 with lots of good small wires (brilliant and easiest on this list)
Flying Dutchman (lundy)              +Dawes Rides the shovelhead (raven, langdale)       -Fifth Ace (lundy)       
-Dalriada (cobbler)                          Intensive Scare(lundy)          Strawberries (tremadog)
Rocafella (fairhead)                   Masters Edge (millstone)
         -Way of the jive monkey (fairhead)                  -Great White (Pembroke)
            Eye of the Tiger (dovedale)              Charon/styx   (fairhead)              
    Raped by Affection (slate)           Monster in a box (Pembroke)
Primate   (mournes)                           Heart of Stone (gallt yr ogof)               Toploader (millstone)
                    -De quincy (bowderstone)                 Borderline   (scafell)                 
Camouflage      (Langstrath)                 Flattery (Langdale)               
Sex & Religion (Gogarth)             Remission (Reecastle)                +Zero direct (suicide wall)                
            Iron Man  (iron crag, lakes)                 Always the sun (Pembroke)                
Over the Beach  (Llanberis pass)                 Vlad the impailer  (dove, lakes)         
      Big softy (Pembroke)                    Mad Brown (wen zawn)
              -Bucket dynasty   (dove)            Dusk till dawn (dove)               
         Dusk till dawn (huntsmans)            Boat to naxos   (huntsmans)       
-On the rocks (back Bowden)        Fettish for fear (dove)           Terminal Twilight   (Huntsmans)                   
Good the bad and the ugly (gordale)
-Nightflight (Pembroke)                      Janus   (curbar)                      Dispossessed (ogwen)
-From a distance (Pembroke)              Beua geste   (Froggat)             Satans little helper (langstrath)       
--Big Boy  (Meirionydd)          -Hindenburg   (Pembroke)                          Clown (Gogarth)
-Wash Doubt ( Pembroke)             Kaya (ogwen)                The bells the bells    (gogarth)
      -Wolverine (Pembroke)              Braille Trail (Burbage)             -Demons of Bosch (gogarth)
             -Inferno (Bowderstone)                          -White Lines (Curbar)
-Wreath of deadly nightshade   (Gogarth)                         Black Lagoon (Pembroke)
    --Horizontal Pleasures  (Pembroke)                            -Broadchurch (gogarth)
Harmony (lleyn)             --Roof of the world (Pembroke)          -Isis is Angry   (gogarth)       
           Box of Blood (lleyn)            -I ran the bath (Vivian)           Yellow Shark (gogarth)
         -Apprentice (lleyn)                     Treacherous underfoot (Treaddur)            +Bam Bam  (lleyn)   
--Deep sea spex    (lleyn)          -Katies delight (Craig y Forwyn)                 -Surgical Lust (Llanberis pass)  
-Imminent departees (Craig Y Forwyn)       - -Balance it is (burbage)           +Peaceline (mournes)
         -We are all learning (mournes)
+The Great Escape (arran)           +Skye Wall  (coruisk)            -White House Wall (gogarth)
           -Divided Britain    (gogarth)               Stone Masonry   (gogarth)     
          +Combined energy (gogarth)
       Unfamiliar  (Stanage)                +Spirit Guide (lundy)
-Thug    (gogarth)                   -Road Rage (raven, thresthwaite)       
       Black Lagoon    (huntsmans)               Mercia wall  (Pembroke)         
  -Nesscliffe Monster (nesscliffe)                 Marlene Direct (nesscliffe)
       -Tombola (nesscliffe)             +Dawes of perception (Vivian)             
 +Cure for a sick mind (rainbow slab)              Flight of Ideas     (stanage)
      --Very big springs (Burren)                                Fuck the demagogues (Pembroke)
 
 

    We’d had 30/40 mph winds for 4/5 days, the worst run of weather I’ve had on a UK trip. Having tried and failed to get onto Promised Land that morning due to tides and dampness I was now strapped onto the first few metres of Controlled Burning hoping to reduce the Extreme Rock routes down to 6. Getting committed past my first runner a small flake snaps and when my weight comes onto the rope the rock the wire was in also broke. I hit the deck and arrived crunched up under some boulders a few metres back from the base of the climb. I manage to squirm out with help from Georgia. My back spasmed and it took a minute or 2 to realise it wasn’t broken. On assessing a head cut my hair started to come out in clumps where a granite block and tomahawked the top of my head. My wrist and hand were starting to go into bulk and I was disgusted at myself for taking my first deckout in more than 20 years and scaring my partner. It didn’t look good and indeed Georgia stepped over into the sun and started to meditate.
 It was a fitting end to an already unlucky week with my mood matching the bad weather and Georgia having implied my duff karma was the reason for mishaps with the weather, vehicles and obviously the fall. Although I disagreed about my somewhat dark soul having effected my vans water pump or of bringing storm Ali over to Lundy I did think its heavier than normal weight (from pints of Lundy Light perhaps) might have helped the 2 bits of rock to break, placing my sorry arse down hard.
   Karma is not meant to be a punishment but rather a lesson to people who need to learn. Leaving Georgia to meditate I stumbled my rather beaten body out of the zawn before it had time to stiffen up and contemplated some of the key lessons I’ve learned from trad climbing.
​

1.       Build it up slowly: I’ve seen a lot of accident over the years with people who haven’t got their eye in for placing gear well. Start on climbs you have NO chance of falling off. There is quite a lot of things you need to be able to do well, from placing gear, moving confidently, getting acquainted with the grades, not having the rope around the back of your leg etc. This advice is certainly rich coming from me as I nearly spooned it on my first lead. Halfway up the realisation I was on the sharp end set in and I went to pieces and slipped off cats clawing down a slab before my feet caught on a foothold and I stopped. Dad was belaying and justifiably cursing me for having been fool enough to jump on it without being ready for it.        On another occasion on Dinas Cromlech my friend Adam Hocking climbed Right Wall and having found it easy (he was onsighting 8a+ at the time) talked a chap into trying it who had climbed a few E3s. He put in a valiant effort, arriving at the jugs beyond the port hole unfortunately he lacked the energy to hold onto them. I was halfway up True Grip on the opposite face when his grip gave out. With a blood curdling scream he took flight, some gear unclipping from the rope and heading towards the scree. He was in the foetal position for much of the fall and just stopped before the ledges at the base of the climb.
 2.       Get 2 bits of pro between you and the deck asafp: You know what the f stands for there. I’ve seen afew people deck out who only have 1 piece in (don’t say it), sometimes from the belayer being too far out, giving a shit directional pull in a fall. Get the belayer close in but not underneath you if the start is poky/wire reliant low down. Try and keep at least 2 runners between you and the deck when above. I’ve seen people shove in microcams a long way apart then getting into difficulties above where they were reliant on them holding to stop them being on the deck from high up. Get some normal wires in if you can. I often place a cam next to a wire to try and make the cam stop the ropedrag from effecting the wire placement.
3.       Confidence and calm: Normally built up from experience on lots of climbs and having the knowledge of what you are letting yourself in for and of your own ability at that point. Confidence might be the biggest asset there is for trad climbing, along with keeping calm and making good decisions quickly. Most people will have at some point in their climbing ‘lack of confidence’, where they don’t want to climb into the unknown. Having climbed into the unknown a few times and not always liked what I’ve found there I can tell you backing off if you are not feeling ‘it’ is no bad thing. If you feel you just have ‘the fear’ though and are backing off when realistically it’s safe to carry on, just tell yourself you will find a good hold and gear not too far beyond, as usually you do. Don’t sue me if you go for it and you find neither. If you are tired or having a shit time of it in life I’d recommend saving the bolder leads for another day.

4.       Helmets: Wear 1. I was brought up in a culture of not wearing one, dad, friends and soloing. My friend Ryan doesn’t wear one because he likes people to be able to see his haircut, pure vanity. The best way of not having to test them is not to walk or climb under other climbers who can be the ones to pull off a loose rock or block. It seems pretty obvious that a small rock falling a few meters onto your helmeted head could mean you dust yourself off and head to the pub but the same rock landing on you without a helmet can be a life changing event or death. As well as protection against falling rocks they are also handy when you are bouncing backward through granite blocks having your head shaved by them. Should the worst case occur and you lose half your brain the only silver lining is you’ll still beat Georgia at scrabble (this will never grow old).
5.          Endurance: Jesus it can be slow on some trad routes. So slow. Build up as much endurance as you can and quit smoking. Like many endurance activities a lot of the battle will be mental rather than physical. The best possible mental training for endurance is to spend time with people who are both vegan and Buddhist, they are all killjoys.
6.       Aerobic: A big pitch on trad might take you an hour or more to lead, and on some of the bigger cliffs it could be 2 hours walk in with a heavy bag. Then you are bridging, recovering in shit rests, nearly always on your feet. Running and general fitness stuff can help out on trad climbs a ton. Quit smoking.
7.         The comfort zone: As mentioned in lesson 1, newbies should try and keep within the comfort zone for some time before exploring or expanding its edges. For very experienced climbers though it’s when you are well within the comfort zone that many and possibly most dangers lie. How many good climbers do you know of who have hurt themselves or died on routes that are very easy for them. It’s easy to switch off, not place enough gear, become too blasé. Much like people crashing on a road they know well near where they live. In some arenas they call this a Heuristic trap.  In fact I think my fall hits most elements of a heuristic trap; over-commitment to a goal, familiarity with the terrain, scarcity, social proof (tony stone had done it the week before).
   The best case if you have an accident and survive is that your climbing partner will pass you a Buddhist book of proverbs open on ‘Nowness’: An arrogant and proud woman was keen on seeking enlightenment and got told to climb a high mountain top to find the cave. On arriving in the cave she finds an old wise woman and gets down on her knees asking for enlightenment. The old woman asks if she is sure she wants enlightenment? After she is given the confirmation the old woman turns into a demon and starts to whack the woman with a stick shouting ‘now, now, now’.
 
You may find this patronising but being lame are left with the only option of trying to incinerate the patroniser with your gaze.
 
Don’t get caught out when you are well within your comfort zone.
 

8.       Young people: Have 3-4 times more road accidents than older drivers, some of the causation is over-confidence, feeling ‘invincible’, poor assessment of hazards, taking unnecessary risks (and right hand turns). With this in mind if you are a young person who trad climbs I recommend making sure your ego doesn’t write any cheques your body can’t handle, at least not on any bold routes.  
9.       Self rescue: Anybody going sea cliff climbing where your abseiling into cliffs its worth being able to do a few things. Principally ascending a rope using a couple of prussiks. If you’ve misjudged the tide or your partner hurts themselves getting back up the abseil rope to get help might be the only option. If you fall off into ‘space’ seconding it’s unlikely your partner will be able to hoist you so it might save your bacon there too. If you’re going to be in more remote areas then being able to escape the system with your harness is also worth knowing as is being able to do a tandem abseil.  If your partner gets injured on a sea cliff and you don’t know anything about what I’ve mentioned above your unlikely to be their hero, just shout for help, or meditate.

10.       Stiff boots!: You can smear in an edgy pair of boots but you can’t edge very well in a smeary pair! 2 is better than 1, even Hazel can do that sum. On trickier routes that you are on for more than 20 minutes that are a bit edgy if you’ve got your smeary boots on you better have a set of extremely well toned calves. If anyones heading for the slate this is imperative!
11.       Quick pro: God some people are slow as shite at placing kit. It looks like they just whack the wires against the wall expecting 1 to slot in somewhere. Get good at putting it in fast and well, practice on the deck a fair bit first. Aim for cams to be more over-cammed than under-cammed to stop them walking/flicking out as easily. It can often be the most stressful part of a climb and there may well be moments in your climbing where your life is very much reliant on the speed you can fire an ok runner into a rockface.
12.       Cutting it close: Or pushing the boat out, perhaps on a climb which is a harder grade than you’ve done before. People see unexpected gains as having twice the worth as gains they expect to get. So it can feel good having the uncertainty element thrown in there. I’ve seen a lot of climbers over the years going for their ‘big lead’ and quite often you can tell before they’ve set off how it’s going to go. It’s always great to watch when someone is throwing absolutely everything they have into a climb, wether or not they get up it. They’ve decided to Carpe Diem and when you are really keen and switched on it can make you into a different climber. Be sure you’ve assessed everything you can about the climb from the ground before setting off, and be ‘en guard’!. It’s often the first bits, when you are near the ground which are the most dangerous, same indoors incidentally with most deckouts around the 1st-3rd clip.
13.       Mental Health: I’ve lost more friends who climb to suicide than to climbing, they’ve often been climbing pretty well at the time but admittedly their behaviour showed some of the warning signs of depression in the months leading up to their deaths. It’s worth keeping an eye out for your friends if they start doing things they wouldn’t normally do.
    Will Perrin was one of the best rock climbers the UK has seen. I remember telling him that the first pitch of Conan the Librarian was tough before he proceeded to make it look piss. I’d been to Hendre Hall the night before and arriving at the crux groove wearing all our clothes the breeze had died and the sun baked me. He had put no runners in the traverse and said his belay wasn’t that good. Sweating profusely and with a dry hungover mouth I got the fear and remember shouting and swearing at him as he smiled back.
14.       Great places & people: It can take you to some really stunning places, sometimes not that far away. I’ve been to Yosemite, Madagascar, Patagonia but when I get back to Gogarth, Fairhead, Pembroke or Lundy it feels as good as anywhere really. Trips to Dubh Loch, Skye and Lewis are also hard to beat. As I’ve stated many times I think in many respects North Wales is a contender for the best or one of the best trad climbing venues in the world (for smaller clmibs obvs). By and large most climbers I’ve met have been pretty sound too, apart from Andy Kirkpatrick with him being both a Trump and Kavanagh supporter-chodes.


I’m sure there were loads of other lessons I could have thought of but I was kind of sick of the talk about karma and if anyone mentioned it to me in the near future I’d use what imagination I had to send them a suitable lesson when they least expected it, even after I got told off all week about the Buddhist teaching of causing no harm.
  I’d given the Extreme Rock routes priority one for the year and there were still 7 left: Revelations, Promised Land, Controlled burning, The Clearances, Megaton, Scansor and Unicorn. I actually felt pretty good, I’d broken the back of it and the Lundy fall might have been the luckiest I’d taken, it certainly appeared to be a life changer in the 1st few minutes. I tried to think of any good deeds I’d done to warrant such good luck..…I was certainly struggling. Perhaps it was that time we woke Niall in the middle of the night…I’d need to do some more research into this karma thing.
Thanks to anyone who climbed and put up with me this year. Next year, I’ll put it to bed, or die trying.
Trips for any friends next year are 3 days in the Burren then onto the Fairhead meet from there and 10 days on Lewis in early August, Sron Ulladale then the sea cliffs. There might be a free ticket to Lundy in late March if anyone is keen too!
  
 
 

   One of the best quotes regarding peoples’ attitude towards the environment that I’ve heard is from David Mitchell in the Peep Show.
​
“if we don’t like the evidence we are seeing why not just ignore it, like the environment”.
 
 I used to see myself as environmentally minded, trying to minimise consumption of fossil fuel use, waste, heat and even giving lectures at Plas Y Brenin for a while on the risks of climate change, I used to love depressing people given the chance. The talk would look at the IPCCs (inter-governmental panel on climate change) predictions, the Stern report (2006) was just out giving a very similar outlook. Big changes in weather pattern distribution, increased extreme weather events, displacement of many millions of people. It was a rotten old list. Nigel Lawson brought out a ludicrous programme called the Great Climate swindle at the time saying it was solar flares but the Met office disagreed quite strongly with this idea. That the guy was chancellor is a fact I find quite disturbing as I doubt he based his decisions on any evidence.
​

  At some point in time, and I can’t be certain when it occurred I did exactly what David Mitchell said regarding the environment and just started to ignore it. Hedonism at its best, flights left right and centre, rarely sharing a lift so I can play decomposed tecno at full volume, buying any shit without any thought for where it was sourced. Those grand ideas of ‘inter-generational equity’ and the ‘precautionary principle’ (the idea of not causing harm to the environment which will effect future individuals) really had gotten blown out of my diesel exhaust.
   There was a pretty condemning experience I had in the not too distant past! To contrast myself with my friend Glyn Hudson who is probably the climber I most admire for the environmental ethic he carries with him at all times. Such a good egg. I follow Glyn on the usual social media channels and he puts on his electric car journeys; levels of convenience, cheapness, a kind of 'how to' guide.
   He is an electrical engineer and him and his physicist friend Trystan Lea have a company called Megni  and the open energy monitoring project. My only environmental investment to date has been into this company as I’ve never met anyone as dedicated to promoting positive changes by leading a modern life whilst having a low impact. One of the best journeys I’ve heard him do is to get to China on the train to meet one of his component suppliers.
Glyn, you are my hero, although it would be nice to try and get you to tap into your inner bastard at some point, there must be one in there somewhere.
 I mentioned earlier I’m not sure when I fell so far from what used to be part of my ‘principles for existing’. It’s very easy to be myopic in life (short sighted, which as I used to be -5.5 in both eyes I can tell you a bit about), but I don’t really want to use ‘living in the moment’ as a substitute phrase for just being a thoughtless twat. Its impressive how very clever people can become dense, perhaps with info overload, like a singularity of stupidity. They make actions now whilst paying no heed to the effect they have in the future, feigning naivety.
    Imagine that you could increase your energy efficiency by 20% right now, today! I bet a ton of people could do that with next to no impact on their quality of life. Over the course of 20 or 30 years how much less CO2 is being pumped into the atmosphere for that person alone. It’s that volume over time where peoples habits really add up. ​

  The most profound question I’ve ever been asked was in a staff appraisal by Martin Chester, he said: “where do you see yourself in 5 years time”. It blew me away because I’d never ever thought about looking that far ahead and I can tell you it is worth doing.
   Written goals are considerably more likely to occur than unwritten goals, the more detailed and process based they are the more likely they are to come about. What do you want to be doing work or life wise and what do you need to do to get there. Scribble something down for gods sake.
 
  I’ve been extremely fortunate to enjoy time with friends in some of the most beautiful environments you can find. When I blagged Laser eye surgery it meant I could visit Patagonia with too tall Tim Neill, seeing the huge crazy snow mushrooms on top of the granite towers and feeling that god awful wind off the ice cap. We eventually got that controversial CAC calendar up Domo Blanco.
    Madagascar is probably the most romantic landscape I’ve been to, being full of very strange critters and overshadowing in its own way even the great Yosemite Valley where John Muir found a landscape he thought deserved preserving for future generations to experience.
I didn’t actually want to go to Madagascar. I’d been invited by Jack Geldard and thought it was going to be a waste of money. Arriving at Antananarivo with fatboy and Pitchfork we made a 15 hour journey south towards the 3000 foot granite domes of Tsaranoro with the longest and most impressive electrical storms I’ve seen going on around us for hours. Every day you’d see a creature you’d never encountered elsewhere, chameleons, lemurs, zebu. It became quickly apparent that to visit Madagascar was not only not a waste of money but a truly priceless experience.​

Obviously the landscapes mentioned above pale in comparison with time spent in the greatest valleys on earth….Borrowdale and the Llanberis Pass. Christ, I’ve had a lot of great times with friends in these valleys, climbing and larking about.
 I look around at my nephews, nieces, the kids on the youth meets and the students who come on the seminar and hope that they can have similar opportunities to enjoy the great landscapes I’ve experienced with their friends.
  Heading up to Skye in 2016 with Dan Varian we had a related conversation about how long we can carry on just driving and flying about everywhere. The trip was unfortunately cut short as although fast on the fingers and arms Dan was too slow on the pedals and crashed the van the 3rd day of the trip. I obviously have absolute faith that Trump and his A-team will lead the world into a low carbon, clean energy world in the near future.

   A young friend I was chatting with the other day was doing some work in sustainable housing and made me think about what I could do. Ignoring the environment is morally pretty bankrupt as I spent years looking at the catastrophic consequences which I’m partly accountable for, as are you. The consequences appear to be on the doorstep.
    I regularly go to a café in Appleby with mum and I asked if they’d been flooded before. They’d had to redo the whole café 3 times in the last decade. Jesus, I thought, do you just keep doing that?
A book called the Bone Clocks by David Mitchell had a good phrase for the mad max style future which could be seen by ignoring the looming crisis.
‘The Endarkenment’
 (I’ve dibs on this for a new route name)
The anti-science brigade do seem to be having a fine old uprising the last few years, with Goves comments about people having had enough of the experts being both poignant and dangerous.
     My friend who inspired me into this ‘environmental rant’ said they try to be nice and not push things on people too much as a good way of doing things. I knew I was screwed there but think anyone with an interest in it should start reading up, helping or else start building an ark.​

   I thought about what I would do. I would take some money sat in that bank doing fuck all and invest it somewhere useful. I would find someone who likes loud tecno to share a lift with them. I’d do what that dickhead Norman Tebbit said to do and get on my bike. I would only eat meat once a week. Veganism, like Tinder just wasn't going to happen for me, I didn't want to end up looking like Dan or using naff lines like 'what do you like about Sheffield' (Oli G, 2017).
    When someone starts harping on about some little bit of erosion somewhere I’d shut them up immediately and start telling them about some serious environmental problems to start putting their brains into solving. What would Stevie do?
​ I'd get the best minds in the BMC onto the case, Niall could keep us topped up with tea.
   I’d troll those wankers like Nick Bullock and Hazel Findlay every time they step off a flight from Nepal about the size of their carbon footprint. I guess if my sleep deteriorated any more I could form an underground army like Edward Norton in Fight Club, there was plenty of room in the slate quarries to station it. The CCCC, Cumbrian Climate Change Crew, what were those drugs they used to give soldiers to keep them going?
 
Podemos were right. We can do it.
 
I looked at the viewcounter for my website. The impact wasn't looking good.

 There was my sister, Heather, always supportive. Shit, my mums been reading this. Niall Grimer, ha, always there, lurking, he’d be in the BMC office nervously looking over his shoulder wondering when I’d appear to inflict revenge. I doubt it will hurt him for too long. Some people tell you 2 wrongs don’t make a right but I can tell you they are religious types who will therefore swallow anything. As we all know, 2 wrongs make an even, which is both fair and square and always the best bit of any story. Ahh, that lazy git Bransby was there too, I didn't think he could read. Only 4 people.
 
​Well, you have got to start a change somewhere.

​It will do for a memo to myself for now.     
 
 
 
 
 
 
​

3rd times the charm they say.
 I still remember in 2000 as a 19 year old feeling invincible, I guess that’s why the insurance is so high for that age category. The first half on Indian Face had felt pretty easy, I’d failed to find the critical rock 6 as indeed it doesn’t even look like a wire slot and had put on 2 hooks there instead.
After a few tough sequences leading up right to get stood up in semi balance on crimps I thought I was ‘in’, a small amount of euphoria started to arrive. Unfortunately the handholds went dry, just having those ‘only for balance’ type hand holds. The move was obvious, put your left foot high onto a small edge and spring for what was hopefully an edge above. I was pretty baked from the effort so far and could see the feet went shit beyond. Half an hour of failing to progress via any possible option and the invincibility had worn off with the pain of reality soon to become the biggest epic I’d ever had in climbing dangerous routes. I think the sun had hit me before I’d realised I’d have to drop the ropes and it was 2 hours or so later before the ropes, 2* 9mm’s tied together got thrown blindly from Adam Wilde out over Cloggy to rescue my absolutely fucked body and mind from the clutches of the black cliff. 
   The situation had been horrendous for both of us, he was looking at having a teenage kid die on him and I had assumed for some length of time I was going to die as my tendons had been ebbing away in a really terrifying manner.  I also knew my family would be devastated and I knew it was stupid. I remember thinking so fast about everything. Everything I wouldn’t ever be able to do. I was so sure I was a dead man. I’d pleaded with every god I could think of for a miracle and tbh when I sailed down to near the base of Vember on that line it did feel like I’d received one.
In 2013 I did Indian Face and felt I’d layed this to rest somewhat but I guess I hadn’t treaded in Moffats footsteps so to speak , Just Dawes’ and hadn’t climbed through my dread zone.
 The next attempt on what is Masters Wall happened solely because the route is named in Ken Wilsons Extreme Rock book! That’s the only reason. With Ken passing away not long ago I thought it would be good homage to his brilliant books to try and ‘tick’ the last 1.
    When you abseil down Masters wall you realise it is profoundly dangerous and risking your life for a puerile tick (Tony Stones words) would get you the Darwin Award should the worst case happen, and the nature of the moves mean that the worst case could easily happen unless you are trying quite hard and up for a fight.
My partner was Ferdia who I first met at the Works party in Sheffield. Her 1st sentence when we met was to ask if I’d be dancing in a cage at dempsies the following night, I figured after enough drinks it could have happened. We’d agreed on going on a climbing trip to Scotland together and this was a test day to see if climbing in Scotland was prudent. After doing Jelly Roll I thought I’d have a punt. The first 10 metres above the overlap has never felt as easy as when I was 19 and I was cursing my younger self, the little shit. At 13/14 metres the main wire, a sideways hex looked totally shit when I put it in, it blatantly wouldn’t hold a lob and if you fluffed 1 of the many higher 6b moves it could be taking a 15 metre+ lob and apart from some shit hooks would be your lifeline before the deck.  
The next best wire on the critical midriff is halfway up indian face, an offset RP1 before you break right into sustained and dodgy moves. The little bastard wire wouldn’t go in on my first few efforts and my feet felt in bulk. There was a strong feeling that I was doomed to die on this fucking route and justifying it at this point was proving difficult, I slung on a shit hook and did a scary lower. My bloody onsight effort was considerably higher than my ‘headpoint’ effort. This was my bogey route.
We did Daurigal, a brilliant E3 left of Great wall and once on the ground I asked Ferdia if she fancied a brew in beris. She mentioned how she was keen to try Midsummer Nights dream. Earlier in the day she’d said she probably wouldn’t climb and that she felt shit. I told her that it was great she was going to try it but secretly thought we were going to be in for another bloody epic.
Starting up Midsummers, Ferdia proceeded to make a fast and super smooth lead on the bold pitch! Scotland was looking optimistic.
 That evening in conversation via messenger with Emma I told her with some passion that this route was just so fucking dangerous. It can be tricky getting pepped up for serious routes at the best of times and I have to say if you think your destined to die on a climb it doesn’t make it easier. 
We pissed off to Scotland soon after and I was looking forward to doing routes with gear good enough to lower off without being backed up by a shit hook.
We had a fantastic trip. I put up some pictures up on facebook to ensure some people who had already told me they were jealous about coming on the trip were even more jealous. God how I laughed about this imagining their facial expression, almost as funny as keeping Niall awake all night for his immensely hairbrained idea that I’d like to be filmed wearing a bear suit. He saw the funny side…some months later.
We were both tired at the start of the trip. Myself due to the Night Kitchen party in Sheffield and Ferdia seemed to think she had Lymes Disease although I believed it may have been Lazy-itis but it would have been rather hypocritical of me to express this with the amount of time off I’d been having.
After some chilly days on some small outcrops (although still considerably bigger than most cliffs found in the Peak area) we made the hike into Dubh Loch. Christ my bag felt like it weighed a ton. After making base on the beach on the loch we strapped it onto Naked Ape. A route I’d wanted to do for 20+ years, being put up by Lakes extraordinaire, Pete Whillance. It didn’t disappoint. Ferdia made rapid work on the first pitch. The rib on the 2nd pitch was poky and I got Ferdia to change position in case I landed on her. The move to gain the arete I thought may bump it up to E6 as well but I could be going soft. Ferdia wore every down jacket we had with us to 2nd and looked like a zorb. The 3rd pitch was highly deceptive and Ferdia did a storming lead on it with a slo-mo mantle at the end which must have felt like a lifetime.
​

So it is
 70 metres long, with a tough and intimidating first half and at around 35-40 metres you’ve got ten metres of arete climbing with a lot of moves around 6b/c which are on the wilder side with a drop zone Ricky had mentioned could be down much of the Rathlin wall. It made it even better that it was Rickys route, someone who has blown me away with his terrifying and novel looking new routes in great settings all over the place.  
 I’d clocked it was going to be a sandbag and on arriving at the base and looking up at it I immediately gave up on trying it without an inspection. If Ryan had been there I would have sent him up for a laugh to check out the flight paths and test some gear. My first lead effort felt a real calamity.
​

 
   I’d been to Fairhead for a week in 2010, 2011 and a day with Swaily in 2014. It’s one hell of a cliff, certainly a contender for the best of its type. John Orr has always organised the trips. The 2010 one had shit weather but we still did loads as it dries so quick, I remember having about three 3 hour belay stints on a hanging belay with a northerly wind and losing cards for washing up the pan a load of us had cooked sausages in, I got hot aches. Chris Guest and Luke Brooks made up the rest of the team and Sean the farmer took pity on us all being the only ones camping in his field and brought us some beers.  The 2011 trip was the windiest conditions I’ve ever climbed in but again was a great week with one of the highlights watching Ian Small onsight an E7 called Styx having had to sit out the rain for ages and let it dry when he was on a shelf halfway up. The one day with Swaily he managed an impressive piss hanging on the end of the traverse on the E6 Above and Beyond before continuing up the headwall, the first time I’ve seen that kind of thing managed.
  This trip had once again been sorted by John Orr and with Tim Neill in tow we headed out for the Fairhead meet which must have had 250-300 climbers in the field. The great Calvin Torrance was there new routing and offering advice and calum gave a great talk with the best climbing footage I’ve ever seen of him truly scraping up Kaluza Klein-unbelievable.
 We all had particular objectives this trip unlike the previous visits. John wanted to do The Complete Scream, Tim was keen for Hells Kitchen arete and I was on to try Rathlin effect.
  The first day we arrived we all went abseiling, John to clean Seabhac, Tim HK arete and me a possible new route which unfortunately wasn’t going anywhere.
​

  One thing I don’t like about hard routes is that you can’t do as much climbing as normal but on the bright side if you make it up them it does feel good and even trying them is kind of good fun (type 2 perhaps). Abseiling down Rathlin effect for the first time felt fairly epic, having to climb sideways for several metres at one point before getting scared and pumped trying to get a runner in whilst looking at the edge on the roof your rope will be see sawing across should you fail.  After abbing it twice I was bolloxed and needed a rest day.
A day eventually arrived when I could try it. I’d had 2 brand new 70 metre ropes sterling had given me stashed in a cave and when I got ten metres up John said one was cored. I couldn’t believe it and was convinced a rat had been at it. After sorting a new rope strategy I set off on my calamitous go. To get to the nest of gear at 20 metres is the easy part of the route that I thought to be E6/7 and the traverse left from here is what I wasn’t looking forward to having some of the hardest moves on the route and a reasonable runout. I was chuffed to get through the traverse to a jug at the lip and ok-ish cam right on the lip of the roof. When Ricky did it he missed out this cam which would mean facing a real pearler of a lob. From here a lunge left leads to a wild layback and the main rest on the route.
Feeling pretty confident I set up for the lunge and realising I wasn’t getting anywhere near the distance required I knew I was in trouble. The move off an ab rope feels very different after 30 metres of climbing.  Ricky was there to egg me on but after 10 minutes of trying to rest in a shit position with intermittent chucks for the arete and lots of swearing I was totally cooked and gutted I had to do the intimidating traverse again. After abbing back down to reassess that move me and John did Seabhac which gave me my first pitch of climbing at Fairhead on this trip on day 5!
The next day whilst I was having a properly chummy rest day in Ballycastle Tim was at the other end of the spectrum laying the demons (put there by a Cumbrian) to rest by climbing Hells Kitchen arete. During the Fairhead meet a climber had taken a huge fall off Hells Kitchen itself, falling 20 metres onto his belayer then another 20+ metres to near the ground. After being airlifted off they were fortunate to be out of hospital a few days later.
​

  The 2nd to last day I was keen to give Rathlin Effect one more go, after warming up on the top half on my grigri things didn’t look optimistic with crampy lats from the calamitous go. Ricky and John gave me a pep talk and this time the new sequence worked for the lunge and after a good breather at the resting foothold the next half of the route still felt a fight all the way. Rick was at the top when I arrived to offer congrats amongst other needs. I told him the truth, that it was the best and the wildest pitch I’d ever climbed. Abseiling down the other side of the arete to get down I gave another of his routes a cursory glance, the Big Skin and I can confirm that this also looks like a sandbag at the grade.
   Kris Mcoey and Tim had managed a new route, Blackout which Kris had knocked himself out whilst cleaning on a prior trip. We celebrated that night in Johns yellow trafic van, John, Tim, Kris, Liz, Leon, Heather, Aggie, Kelly +. There really were some great tunes being played.
  The last day was Johns day. The Complete Scream, I remember him eyeing it up in 2010 on our first visit. I abbed into the belay first and on arriving there was chuffed to be getting 4G. I started streaming James Williams’ set from the Youtopia party straight away. Once John arrived at the belay I knocked it off to let him find his ‘zen’.
As he set off with his hooks and gaffer tape I prayed that he wouldn’t be coming back down to land on me like the poor lad belaying on Hells Kitchen a few days previously.
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He romped steadily through the crux and after a brief word with himself mid crux he gained the better gear and I knew what he was thinking, his catchphrase…’so it is’.
We finished on the amazing corner of Conchubair before guinesses on the ferry back to Holyhead. We all promised to be at the Fairhead meet again next year.
Good skills John, Tim, Kris and the Fairhead party crew. But also bloody great sandbagging Ricky.
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It was one of the more lethargic starts to a trip that we’ve had.
On the first day I set off up Earthsea Trilogy, an E6 on the right and on getting halfway it finally dawned on me that the crack with the pegs in was missing along with a big part of the cliff. Emma and Maddy checked out Once Upon a Time in the South West before the sun stopped play at 16.00.
On the Sunday OUAT has a queue on it. Emma and Maddy work out where it goes and some of the gear and I send Ryan up for the big flash effort. He looked solid for a while but it became apparent that it wasn’t piss and he started flapping a bit, it didn’t look good. Placing some microcams off a full Pasquil lock he came back down.
The next day I’m up and getting to a similar point as Ryan start to flap as well, I had my fingers in a slot which would have taken a good small cam but after some panicked efforts to replace my fingers with a cam I parted company with no success and Fred Halls warning of not relying on what I was about to lob onto.
Our highpoint on our flash effort seemed pretty low to me (it was) so I gave up and abbed down Walk of life. I was glad I didn’t try this one ground up as I don’t think I would have gotten anywhere but was confident Ryan would get through the start with a bit of beta, I’d get him beers for a week if he got through the upper bit onsight though.
Me and Emma took a rest day on Tuesday and Maddy went and dutifully belayed Ryan on his ground up effort, getting to the base of the crux.
Wednesday arrived and having done jack shit our departure day felt like it was looming. After abseiling Walk of Life again I was made up not to fluff the upper cruxes and had to shake my feet out loads from the 30 meter mark. What a pitch.
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​Emma was up next and with all the microcams, RPS and sliders she had to carry for a 50 meter E9 she looked like a Christmas tree. She seemed nervous on the loose but piss start and I was worried she had no hope but as soon as she hit the hard climbing she proceeded to ‘walk’ up all the main difficulties.  Having climbed with Emma since she was 12 years old, belayed her on her 1st E1 and had several epics together over the years it was great to see her make an E9 look easy. I took a look at the route afterwards and was blown away by the quality of the rock and climbing, the quite cheesy video of hazel on it made it look a bit naff but it was the opposite. I think it might be better than the one to the right.
We celebrated a bit that night. Emma, Maddy and Ryan are dead nice so it was great having Ray on the trip for a good slagging session. Ray got it started about someones Instagram account doing his head in but very soon I was laying into everyone. People in North Wales, Sheffield, Chamonix….if you are reading this I was probably talking about you at some point. Admittedly Bransby took more flack than anyone else having bailed on the trip last minute. If he wasn’t careful he risked no longer being my perfect partner, after all, Ryan, Emma and Dan were all in tears that it was him rather than them.
He is replaceable.  I was confident no one had ever had reason to slag me off because my friend Pete Robins had told me recently that I was a person with NO faults.

The following day was to be our last at Dyers Lookout much to Rays disappointment. Ryan had gotten through the crux moves after 1 rest on gear but was too rinsed to try again. I put this down to having lain in the sun for hours each day with no suncream on. He thinks because you can’t see the UV it can’t do you any harm.
Maddy gave me dibs for a go on OUAT and after abbing to check the 2 crux moves and gear I gave it a pop. Where Walk of Life had been a slick operation this route did have a particular ‘shitfest’ moment of terror.
I’d had to climb quite quickly to the rest above the 2 cruxes as my feet were pretty baked. The runnel I’d been up once the day before and dismissed as steady was about to come back and haunt me at the most runout point, having latched a good quartz hold I was dismayed to be getting really pumped on it. Rocking left I eventually lifted my right foot onto the quartz but a fall was feeling probable. After a few more moments of feeling I was coming off backwards and upside down a long way lady luck stepped in (I kind of doubt it was karma) and I got my arse over the foothold and eventually the top.
 Maddy was up next, having not been put off by my shit show. She’d impressed me a lot last year onsighting loads of hard routes in Pembroke day in and day out, pulling ryan after her. After one false start Maddy made a very smooth lead and it was no surprise to learn she was an excellent dancer. I very much doubt that she would be able to teach Ryan anything about dancing having seen his moves at the works after party….it was a beautiful thing.
​We celebrated that night, myself and Ryan being the DJs. Ryan really had learned a lot this trip. He'd learned I was a bit of a bastard and that if he'd got his hands dirty and abbed the routes he would have found them piss. I had let him down on this trip but I was very impressed by his efforts on OUAT.
   The morning after we bid Ryan and Maddy farewell , they were off to do a route called Booby Prize. I once again told Ryan no Lancastrian would ever reach the top of it.
 I dropped Ray off at the train station in Bristol and set off towards Pembroke. It had been slow on the M5, a 2nd and 3rd gear job but the M4 made that seem fast being a 1st gear job for much of the way. I got a message to say Ryan had in fact got up Booby Prize, even though it was raining and in piss poor condition!
I regard Pembroke as the best sea cliff climbing venue in the UK and perhaps the world for single pitch routes. There is a ludicrous amount and variety of climbs in a great setting.


Me and Emma went to the Range West briefing and headed into Mount Sion East. My memory of it didn’t disappoint, there must be at least a dozen brilliant looking new routes around the E5-8 ,mark left to do on the cliff. A roof crack 7 meters right of Littlejohns ‘Come all ye faithful supplied a fight and new route ‘The Royal Westing’. I had a swim at Broadhaven and after an excellend talk Emma gave at the Pembroke Festival of climbing I finished my evening at St Govans Inn with Paul Donnithorne and some whisky.
I felt pretty rough the next day but I could prognosticate that if I made it to the Royal Westing it could be much worse.

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    It was impressive. Emma walking up Mind Control with plenty in the bank, Josh and Jack Ibbertson showing that the future of UK sports climbing looked bright, Hock still able to do a 1 armer on an edge with his dadbod.
​   Yeah the Ibbertsons were the coolest family I've met I reckon. The only downside to the trip had been Angus’ morning routine of doing topless yoga in the living room in his skimpy leggings.
 I looked back on 2 weeks in Oliana:
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   After picking the hire car up from Barcelona airport I went and grabbed my old friend Adam Hocking who’d arrived an hour behind. In 1994 Hock had won the Juniour BICCs and could do 2 little finger 1 armers without warming up, still strong he now had 2 kids and a dadbod.
We put the trance on and took off to an apartment in Organya where Emma Twyford, Angus Kille and Rhos (with an unspellable surname) were already ensconced. Rhos was the only person I didn’t know and it became apparent she had a humour dryer than the Sahara.
   The first climbing day we immediately set about looking at projects and I settled on Fish Eye, with form in the past to have had a good go at doing it in a session this was my goal for the whole trip and I have to say I’ve not been on a sport route as good for many years. The routes that go to the top of the main face of Oliana are around 50 metres long and on the main face the easiest of them are 8a+.
   A couple of days later both Emma and Angus were lobbing off near the top of Mind Control. It was obviously going to be doable after a rest day.  On the rest day we all took a spin up to Coll de Nargo and Hock impressed everyone by still being able to do a 1 armer on an edge and holding a front leaver off an edge for 10 seconds even with his dadbod!
   I was nominated to share a room with Hock. He had his laptop on until 3 am watching movies before turning it off and immediately starting a low rhythm of snoring. This helped give me stimulus for keeping the world up to date with the ‘cragdads’ progress and coaching tips during the week.
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   James and Jenny Ibbertson are their parents who are also great climbers, teach D&T, Geography and Psychology and are having a sabbatical for the year. They are keen to keep the youths away from social media and the often unhealthy elements it can entail. I was impressed with the Ibbertsons for not only being probably the strongest climbing family from the UK but for having an extraordinary attitude.
   Having a good scene out there has made me committed to head out to that area for 2/3 months next winter. Having been inspired by my young friends I also swear that I’ll try to be on form where Hazel says “oh, you’ve done that already” rather than “have you not done it yet”!
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“Would it be the best new route you’ve put up?”
“Bloody hell, it would be”
 
  Thus was the reasoning for trying a rather risky passage and I think it’s fair to say one of the ‘best’ bold wall climbs to be found in the UK. A route which belongs somewhere in the 1980s being technically pretty straight forward but having those classic 6b/c rockovers which become strangely tiring and where a fall leaves plenty for the imagination. I’d slept poorly for much of the trip and could empathise with Edward Nortons character suffering from Insomnia in Fight Club. There were a few thoughts which were reverberating around during the week leading up to and during the ascent of it:
‘Mind blowing, reasonably unjustifiable, somebody in the higher echelons of Equip is a patronising tool, tormented ejaculation, indian face, hellraiser, bolts, massive falls, danger, old age, death, life ‘crossroads’ and desire’
It’s admittedly hard to make one climb sound interesting, myself I enjoy sci-fi, fantasy (not s&m) but I thought I’d give this one a write up as it did give what felt like a fairly powerful experience and after all, this is my piece of the internet so I'll bore you for a minute.
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Coir’-uisg  Buttress is in a stunning location. Arriving at Elgol supplies hopefully a view of the Cuillin ridge where a short ferry journey leads past seals to the landing where a short walk up the river leads to the Loch where the cliff can be seen in the distance.
 In 2007 Dave Birkett and Alan Steele put up Skye Wall having been tipped off by Tom Walkington. The pictures of the climb showed it for what it is, one of the UKs great hard wall climbs on immaculate gabbro.
Dan Varian had mentioned he’d be keen to have a trip up to try it and in mid October last year we had the opportunity. Making camp at the far end of the Loch we walked on to the base of the cliff in the evening to size it up and stash some kit. The skies were clear and it felt very warm for mid October. We walked out in the twilight and a near full moon came up and shone a light across the loch. The venue was idyllic and after having finished the busiest month of work for the year it already felt a worthwhile trip just to hangout camping.
   The following day was still clear but cooler. We did Skye Wall and a new route to the right which provided a great day out, one of those days where you feel you can’t put a foot wrong. A friend Ken Toms who passed away a few years ago once said that when you are climbing well it is one of the best feelings in the world.
   Skye Wall tackles a seam and crack on the right hand side of the face. The big expanse of rock to the left was unclimbed and appeared more featured with grooves and scoops to aim for. We left the morning after but made plans to return to attempt a new line to the left.
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  Roll on May 2017 and some exceptional weather, we made our way back to the campsite paradise with 3 more friends, Adam Long, Ben Bransby and Ray Wood. I felt haggardly tired that 1st evening and slept like a log, waking up feeling bouncy I was confident we’d be up at least one new route and probably 2!
Arriving at the base we geared up and Dan led up to a good ledge, I carried on through and after some prospecting a few metres above committed to some sloping ramp moves to gain a steep corner and a belay where this became a roof.  This is where we were hoping we could go, the roof looked short and with good gear and would lead into the stunning white groove feature. Looking back down the ropes hung away from the rock and it dawned on me why the last pitch had been trickier than expected.
Two moves across the roof led to a tricky move to gain the white ‘groove feature’. There was more good gear and I was ecstatic with how well it was going, believing it would be slabbing off above and become easier. After climbing up to the next roof and booting a loose flake off I made my way onto the main feature allowing access to the upper wall, a long sloping shelf.
As soon as I gained it the fun feeling left and the nature of the climb changed. There was no gear on the ledge but worse still the wall above appeared steeper and more impregnable than we’d hoped for.
After attempting the 2 most obvious weaknesses I eventually set off up leftwards from the hooks thinking the weakness above would lead to a groove on the left and possible belay.
 After getting into a pumpy position I prevaricated in this position to drain the rest of my energy before slapping into the scoop above. Once I was stood in this slight scoop I knew I was screwed and true fear set in for a minute as I realised I’d climbed myself into a cul de sac. It was one of those moments where you felt you haven’t just overcooked the chicken but the bugger is on fire, destroying the kitchen and scaring the neighbors.
 After attempting to climb the ‘weakness’ a couple of times I eventually committed to the one of the more terrifying lower offs I’ve been party to, using a shit partially in wire,  I was glad I’d been taking it easy on the cakes the month prior. I made it back to the safety of the hooks and lowered down to the belay. We abbed to the ground, I sighed with relief and Dan undoubtedly did the same after being sat at the belay for ages.
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​We went to the top of the cliff and abseiled down to the highpoint and I was gutted. It appeared devoid of gear and a quick brush wasn’t going to do the job. The ‘possible belay groove’ had no gear and led nowhere. I retrieved the gear and jugged back up and let Dan go down for a peek.
To say it wasn’t what we were looking for would be an understatement. Skye Wall had apart from one short section low on the 2nd pitch been full of good gear. We’d expected something similar on this. There appeared to be a few cul de sacs where you could get lured and climb yourself into a dead end.
 I considered leaving our 1st effort as the highpoint as we’d got to there in a ‘good style’, much like the tormented ejaculation. The dirtiest most filthy word in the traditional British climbing sense is almost certainly ‘bolt’, those things that foreigners and yorkshiremen use. Obviously I’d never place one at my highpoint but did think it would have been a great laugh with all the grief Dave Turnbull and Nick would have gotten, I figured they’d had enough in the last half year or so.
 Dan came back up and made his way out. I abbed once more to my highpoint for a last look and noticed a line of edges and sidepulls going almost straight up above where I’d been.  Once out I told Dan that after one more abseil of the crux section I thought we could do it and suddenly felt a palpable pressure like a lead weight pressing on my mind.  I really was getting too old for this shit, I’d come out for a fun holiday which had turned into some mental necessity to climb the ‘terror face’. I liked it less than that French climber with a name like a chocolate.