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.
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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.
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  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.     
 
 
 
 
 
 
​

   There is the balance that gets talked about in some forums nowadays, between being a good ‘athlete’ and being good at marketing or social media. Sponsorship being seen in most circles as being attributed to a person for being good or great at an activity and/or helping companies sell their products via marketing. If individuals have 10s or 100s of thousands of followers on Instagram+ some companies will want to associate their products with them, potentially giving them free stuff or money and free stuff with some kind of contract to oblige them to throw the free shit onto their media feed or say how great it is. I think the term is ‘influence’. The more followers/disciples you have the better.
 I’ve been seen in the past as a crap ‘sponsee’ and some ‘cyber-wankers’ comments recently made me think it was a good opportunity for doing some serious slagging and putting forward some general thoughts about the era of climbing and sponsorship which we live in. As I didn’t want any potential sponsor to be put off by criticisms of my social media and general ethos regarding climbing promotion stuff.
   Anonymous ‘cyber wanker’ said how he didn’t know who sponsored me and that it was my fault. They said I had shit pictures and was clueless about all things social media which is why Rab decided to part company with me. Now, I’d generally not take any cyber-wanker seriously because there are a lot of unbelievably clueless people who will enjoy voicing an opinion about something they have no expertise in whatever.
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  I’m reasonably old school in my thinking in that I like to mainly chat about things I think are interesting or newsworthy rather than sending forth a constant stream of human consciousness which the modern era of social media can become. I think I’d argue the point with some of the marketing moguls who have started to take a hand driving parts of the outdoor industry who value quantity of posts people make over quality which is what I’ve seen in some of the sponsorship contracts people have which don’t appear too enviable.
I think it’s also worth questioning wether some elements of the new social media frenzy which have become prevalent are very healthy. Leo Houlding once said ‘the modest man goes hungry’ and it appears this has gone from a slogan for the odd extremely skilful individual to become the ethos for a large % of the sponsored climbing community. I know it appears unhealthy enough that the parents of the best youth sport climbers the UK has seen don’t want their kids involved with it and many other parents in similar position questioning wether they even want their child to be sponsored.
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How sponsorship works with my current sponsors is that sometimes I may do something of interest, maybe its onsighting 3 e7s in a day, maybe a new route in a cool place or an e9 after a quick ab, whatever.
 It gets on some news platforms, ukc, Climber magazine. Perhaps a photographers been on hand such as my friend Ray Wood (I never climb harder than 5c less he’s there with his camera). I’ll be wearing my sponsors kit, maybe they’ll make a poster and a news story for facebook or twitter. I’m no bear grylls so the amount of attention it will receive will be rather limited but either way when I send the links and pics through to Pedro Pons he makes me feel appreciated and Bransby is a mate and pretty clueless so I can get away with anything with him and although he’s meant to be team captain he seems to leave me to organise most of the DMM trips!
   I’m not totally clueless about social media, after all I need to sometimes spread the news about BMC youth events I’m running and after that brexit vote I was forced to up my game. I was trying to hound UKIP and with the spats I had Ray showed me how I could block people to help me keep my feed that bit cleaner. I never got the # gamblingwithchlidrenslives tag into a proper campaign but I’m a more experienced practitioner now.
   So back to Rab. I don’t mind saying I do have a bit of bad blood here. The marketing manager did say how they would be keeping me on but a couple of weeks later I received that classic ‘standardised’ and rather patronising email obviously sent to loads of other people. Even after I’d chipped part of my soul away for them wearing those bloody awful red trousers on loads of new routes, jesus what was I doing?
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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.
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   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.
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  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.
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  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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It did feel good, a very potent form of escapism, totally absorbing and for my younger self an addiction. Something which lots of people tell you is a bad idea but you do anyway. I remember the first day I started in 1996. Sat at lower falcon it had become evident my climbing partner Adam Hocking was unlikely to arrive. Feeling pretty  frustrated I set off up a VS called Spin Up, it felt wrong from ten metres height and my instincts told me not to carry on like people trying their first cigarette. I slowly made progress to the top and once there my 15 year old self felt quite elated at having stopped my instincts from backing off low down. I walked back to the base and looked at a HVS further right called Funeral Way, my memory of this is vague and I’m pretty sure I backed off that day and did it at a later date.
  From that day a totally different realm of rock climbing opened up, without the ropes, the need to stop and place pro or of belaying a partner you could do a ton of routes so fast. When I hit 17 it had become integral with most of my climbing done alone. I remember Prana and Bitter Oasis being a big deal the first time I soloed them which makes sense as I wasn’t leading that much harder, eventually they were just part of bigger days out. Many routes in the Lakes I’d look at and wonder how it would feel to do them without a rope and more often than not I would find out. It became a habit and I saw it as an extension of scrambling. I did a lot of routes in the Lakes, down Borrowdale, on Pavey, Dow, Scafell, Hodge Close and down in Wales in the Pass, at Gogarth, Slate, Tremadog, Ogwen, Carneddau, Pembroke and elsewhere. Never too hard generally but quite extensive, in the several 1000 route mark, often onsight or routes I'd not done for a few years unless they were on a regular circuit.  ​

 I remember the feeling of euphoria of going near the edge soloing contrasting sharply with going to school a few years before when I dreaded going in. From wearing old clothes I’d acquired the name ‘Tramp’ which at various times (over many years) became a group chant; Tramp,tramp, tramp. Combined with being brought up a Jehovahs witness made Christmas time quite special and even a quarter of a century later when someone asks if I’m psyched for Christmas my eyes glaze over and I think about where I’d like Santa and Christ to go.
   On moving to Wales I remember a few times that first summer; spinning around on the top shelf of Lubyanka to look outwards, going for a swim beneath Main cliff after a few routes like Big Groove and Assassin in March, crawling through the hole on the top pitch of Ducking Stool and Ray Kay talking me out of Heart of Gold at a party. It had even helped me escape from an argument with an ex after a car chase.
   It’s a habit I got out of and in fact would more say lost for a good few years partly due to choking. This apparently can only happen to an expert and is where in extremely stressful situations the expert loses their head and becomes literally a complete beginner! Its one of those things you don't really believe in (like chronique fatigue/lazyitis) until it happens to you. I won’t linger on the details although it is worth a read in Matthew Syeds excellent book Bounce. Choking in a sport competitions is humiliating but think about choking when soloing. For a few years it felt like a piece of me was missing, imagine the strongest bit of your climbing just disappearing, almost completely. It led to some farcical and dangerous moments when I decided to rid myself of the block to regain access to this Elixir.
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When I set off to do the 100 in the Lakes it was still a big unknown wether it would end on the first route or thankfully as my friend Hazel would put it I’d get into the flow state which is what I was hoping for. The day after I was sat in the bath at mums flat having a bottle of wine, soaking in the fatigue and thinking about how much my poor mum had had to put up with over the years.
  Although kicked into touch as a regular habit the ability to cover a lot of moderate climbing fast is still there and once in a while there would be an urge to do so. Unless you are a very fortunate person life will have its periods of feeling rather flat and feckless and if you go out and do 30+ routes you know the feeling will evaporate with any worries just falling away.
    The last 2 years I had in mind a list of 100 Welsh routes to do but having left it too late in the season both years had settled on doing 60 of the best in September. This would still have given a very good day, giving homage to many Joe Brown with routes like Vector, Vember, Cenotaph, Cemetary Gates and I figured I could do it with plenty of energy still in the tank. I did the odd timing out of curiosity to give an idea of how long some sections might take. Gogarth was under 9 minutes, Pull my daisy, 2.45, Dervish 4 and thought I could rattle through a lot of it fairly quickly believing I was 17 again.
   The enchainment of routes in the mountains felt like my main forte and if you really want to do something you can find reasons to justify it. Taking something that you feel good at as far as you can, which you find tricky to envisage and pays homage to an area and some of its pioneers.  A channel of energy.
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   Nigel ‘Yorky’ Robinson was a friend of the family and a regular climbing partner of dads. One of those rare super nice guys on every level, driving goods he’d collected out to orphanages in Kosovo over many years. We had a day out one Friday in the summer going to Malham as the weather was duff but the original plan had been for him to join me in the Lakes as I got my head into gear for the welsh one, doing a 30 route day, when he said he was keen to come and hangout I was a bit incredulous. He met with the rest of my family for lunch at Shepherds café later that wknd.
   A few weeks later I’d just had 3 days climbing in Pembroke with Emma Twyford, a climbing partner of mine now for 20 years. In fact I first climbed with Emma when she was 12 and she said she was keen to try an E1, I pointed her at the Grasp she took 2 lobs totally unafraid then did it!
It had been a cracking weekend, Preposterous Tales and Stargate when piss wet on the 1st afternoon, Pleasure dome, mutiny on the bounty, big issue and a good piss up with friends on day 2 then Emma kindly took me up Barbarella and Headhunter before a good tide let us finish on Woeful on the last day. We finished with Fish and Chips in Aberaeron on the way back.
 I was starting an ML assessment the morning after when Eve Lancashire delivered the news that Yorky was dead. He’d been found in Donegal with boots and chalkbag on. He’d been so proud to go to his sons’ wedding 2 weeks before in Berlin.
The weather was appropriately shit on the ML to go with the news and it gave me some time to reflect on how nice a guy he was. When dad was on his last legs Yorky would travel up from Nottingham to the Lakes and take him out to crags and after dad passed away he would always email me and stay in touch with mum.
  At his funeral there was his wife Pat who is a stand up comedian and although we’d never met she took the time to grab me for a chat about Yorky. I also spoke with his son Tom who runs a Theory and Bio-Systems lab in Potsdam.
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  There is not much you can say when one of the really good and kind people of the world leaves it.  I’m glad it was quick, I’m glad it was doing something he loved but bloody hell I wish he was still around and can’t imagine the loss of such a character to the people who were really close to him.
   The best days I’ve had over the years haven’t been on my own, they’ve been the days doing a couple of routes with a good friend and having that shared experience. The wknd in Pembroke with Emma and having a brew on the top of Carn Gowla with my favourite doctor after climbing Guernica and going too direct on America were the best times climbing this year. It would be great to be climbing with Emma in another 20 years.
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   I often tell people I think the climbing and ‘scene’ in North Wales is a contender for the best in the world.  A recent day which involved shuffling a few centimetres higher on a sport redpoint, soloing some easy mountain routes and watching friends going for it and succeeding in their endeavours encompassed much of why I give Wales a big seal of approval.
   Dream of White Horses, Cenotaph Corner, Hope, Flying Buttress, Great Wall, Main Wall, Christmas Curry, Positron, Comes the Dervish, Right Wall, Vector, Path to Rome, Statement of youth are all route names that will resonate with climbers, the list of classics is near endless.
I’d made plans on this particular day to climb at LPT with Dan Mcmanus. The forecast was due to be poor until 8.00am before becoming good. I’d predicted that Dan would look out of his window which overlooks the Orme towards the end of the bad weather and cancel. At 8.00am Dan messaged to cancel proving my guess correct. Whilst on a big wall trip Dan will happily live on his own dandruff and wait out bad weather sleeping in a waterfall for a week but back in blighty he might crumble at the first whiff of a cloud.  After an hour or 2 of calls and counselling I picked him up and we headed down. It was as good as summer conditions get, dry with a costant breeze.
  After putting the clips in his project, Youthanasia, Dan did it first attempt making it look very easy, shaking out on most moves and obviously in good shape for his trip to Ratikon. Nick Moulden did a climb on the left and it looked like it was a ‘low gravity’ day on LPT. Having strained my elbow on an undercling on Sea of Tranquility earlier in the year a high step had proved elusive. I arrived there feeling good and getting past the elusive move got very excited, taking time to set my feet in the final positions I began to get set up for the last move before everything caved in and I was spat out into my usual air haunt. I was still pretty happy though and reminded myself that once this one was completed I’d have to attach a mobile at the belay of the last one ready to message Oli Grounsel immediately upon success.
  Leaving LPT I headed back for a brew, the day was cloudless and with friends in the Pass I drove round to see what was going on. The conditions were incredible, that golden light with a soft breeze.
I headed up to Dinas Mot and did Diagonal and Superdirect rapidly, feeling I was moving as well as I ever had where you hardly need to stop before going into the next move(doing Gogarth in sub 9 minutes a few days later felt similar). I think Diagonal might even have been the 1st route I did in the Pass with Wez and Adam Wilde sometime in the 90s.

Looking up at the Cromlech there was a climber in a white helmet setting off on Right Wall. Kate Keltie had been talking about it and as I made my way up it became apparent it was her.
On arrival at the base there was a bit of a party vibe; Gus, Duncan, Fatboy, Sophie, some Spanish climbers…..but as my eyes rose and I got a terrible surprise. Jesus.
  Howard Lawledge was 8 metres up Lord of the Flies!
I yelled to his partner:
“Sophie, tell him to get down, it gets serious above”
 I’d once watched Howard make a terrifying ascent of Minotaur in Huntsmans Leap involving all kinds of crazy disco legs,whole body quivers, gear dropping out, slapping. It hadn’t looked hopeful for him at all.
  At least there were 2 doctors on hand this time and Gus could probably catch him from 20 metres without straining.
 After shouting encouragement I went up Ivy Sepulchre and round to the top of Left Wall to get pics and become a voyeur.
  The Cromlech itself can seem quite intimidating, being exposed and high in the Pass. Right Wall and Lord of the Flies are both big leads giving runout climbing where a fall in certain sections would be highly unadvisable, courtesy of Pete Livesey and Ron Fawcett. Some of the biggest falls I’ve seen have been off Right Wall.
 My friend Adam Hocking had been a bit phased by it when younger but found it easy when he did it, which is no surprise as he was onsighting 8a/+ at the time. He helped talk a chap into trying it who had only led E3 previously. He put in a valiant fight. I was on True Grip opposite when he reached the good holds above the port hole. He was too pumped to hold on to them. As he parted company with the rock he let out a scream and I locked up on the holds I was on and gazed across terrified. The scream continued and he curled into the foetal position, some of his gear banged against the rock, unclipped from the rope and flew out towards the scree below. It looked like he wasn’t going to stop but thankfully he did. Lord of the Flies has also seen some big ones off the top. The footage of Big Ron on it is well worth a watch.
   Back on the routes Howard was looking very solid and it looked like the gear he placed was staying in. Kate was also looking well solid. I’d climbed with Kate recently and knew she was a great climber having a deliberate style well suited for trad but she’d mentioned she hadn’t onsighted E5 and I thought Right Wall a reasonably big lead for a first.
They both arrived at the ¾ ledge at the same time. Kate moved up towards the port hole which to reach and get passed many people find the crux. Reversing down a move or 2 but not bothering to step onto the ledge for a rest she committed above once more and reached the port hole. As an observer at this point and having witnessed the consequences of people ‘letting go’ made the tension feel palpable, staying focused for a few more moves the good holds leading rightwards were reached convincingly.

  Turning my attention back to Howard I was impressed how strong he looked on the moves as I’d generally identified him as a similar morph to the chap off the Mister Muscle adverts. Half a move below some jugs and bomber kit he locked off some crap holds and wasted time putting in some rubbish gear, much to my amusement, if he’d been struggling I would have said something…maybe. He was cruising though.
  It looked as if both Kate and Howard topped out at the exact same time, in sync. I went and offered some peppermint tea to go with the bilberries on top. North Wales and the Pass had given great times again. I had to shoot off to prep for work the following day but the others finished with a pint in the Vaynol before their journeys home. Reality kicked back in but the memory never fades...apart from Ry Pasquils, his is mush.

 
“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.