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Choronzon E10 7a(8b+)

9/23/2014

   “The gears a slider, a tricam, a cam and a wire”.

   I nod my head to Neil in the hope he thinks I like the sound of what he’s telling me. A slider, what bloody good is a slider? So its 7c+/8a to get to this gear at 15m. A fall anywhere near the end of this first runout would deposit him on the ground. From this gear, all placed at the same point hard and dynamic moves lead right and then straight up for another 5m to a crux slap. From here 2 more wires are had, small offsets before more hard moves lead to easier ground.
I’d known about Neils Pembroke project as long as he’d had it, since about 2011. It sounded pretty epic but I’d expected something looking similar to The Big Issue, a steep face with a load of good looking pockets and good gear here and there. Standing beneath Neils route it only shared the steepness. There were no juggy pockets, only some small spaced calcite crimps which Neil informed me was the easy part of the climb! Higher I could see it looked very hard with a dynamic crux move at the end of a lot of hard, bold climbing. It was obvious looking up at it that only a meticulous climbing performance would get up the devil.

Behind me I heard Ryan cracking open one of the cans of Guinness, we’d brought 4 down to the beach with us thinking to share a celebration with Neil and his partner Nathan. It was the end of mine and Ryans road trip and having done a lot of climbs from E5-7 in the Lakes and Pembroke we were both toasted and enjoyed going to lend moral support to Neil and watch the show.

   I knew Neil had put a fair amount of effort into it but Ryan brought it home mentioning Neil had often driven the 5 hrs to Sheffield and camped on his own to go and work this project. On many of his efforts over the years the conditions have been too gop to attempt it. On hearing about Neils efforts against shite conditions I thought having a project like it an extremely poor idea as I couldn’t be arsed having sport projects on the Diamond in N.wales due to the gop, let alone a venue 5 hrs drive away.

Neil abseiling in from the top

Neil warming up

After a quick look and warm up into the moves on a rope he says he’s going to have a go. After putting in the first runners and reversing for a ten minute breather Neil starts the lead. He climbs the crimpy calcite wall like a smooth robot and at about 10m entered the no-fall zone to eventually arrive at the flake where a poor shakeout can be had and thankfully the nest of gear. To this point would be E8/9 for sure looking to be a considerably bigger lead than Gribin Wall climb. After the gear is in and a 5 minute shake the Mawson machine continues, climbing fast he is suddenly a fair way above his tricam and cluster of shite and is eyeballing the jug.

His body sags a tiny bit and he falls outwards as his fingertips tickle the jug. A big fall brings him downwards and Nathan his belayer upwards till they are level. The cluster held, obviously. After stripping the gear Neil gave it one more go. Climbing smoothly again past the first runout to the nest of gear. Unfortunately seepage had set in and a wet hold chucked him off a little after. Even though Neil didn’t have glory that day his performance was a very inspiring one.

Neil high on his first lead attempt

Neil on his way down from his first attempt

Actual steepness of face

   Driving back with Ryan I was still trying to take in what Neil had put into that bit of rock and was pondering wether it was a worthwhile venture, after all, in that time you can do a hell of a lot of other things. He certainly wasn’t doing it for any financial gain, as one of Britain’s top climbers he’d get a load of free gear being a hero near his home, he has a full time job and didn’t need to risk life and limb on a project. No, this was a very personal endeavour, a mission to try and climb quite a futuristic, overhanging wall, certainly in terms of trad.

   What if it got wet and he didn’t get it this year? The thought disturbed me on Neils behalf, having to start again next year, getting fit enough to do 3 laps on an 8b+/c, re-working the moves, psyching up again.

I’d asked Neil to message me when he had success and to give me the name. I was on the way back from the Lakes having caught up with family and climbed a few classics on Pavey Ark and Goat crag, the opposite end of the scale from what Neil was doing.

“Hi Caff. Did it today! Amazing conditions. E10 8b+, name Choronzon. It’s a mythical demon that lives in the abyss of one’s mind. It tries to reinforce the negative thoughts going through ones mind”

   An appropriate name although I’ve never required a demon to supply me with negative thoughts. I’ve climbed a few routes graded E9 in a session or 2 with speed of ascent and minimal inspection being one of my main aims on routes I couldn’t onsight, hence the odd failure due to lack of preparation. It was obvious this was a different proposition to those climbs requiring a whole lot ‘more’.

   I think it’s probably the hardest trad style climb in Wales and England with routes like Equilibrium deserving a grade of E9 7b perhaps, being hard but not as big a lead. I know Neil would have voted yes if given the chance as if Scotland became independent Choronzon would be the hardest in the Unitedish Kingdom. As it stands it will be one of the hardest 3 in the UK; Rhapsody, Echo Wall and Choronzon. All very different routes in different venues but they’ve one thing in common, it took 2 great climbers a great deal of effort and dedication to climb them.

  Nice one Neil.

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Endless Summer

9/19/2014

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This summer has involved 3 trips and some excellent work ranging from MLTs to guiding with Stan, Cian, Catrin, Cameron, Dan, Khalid and Russel. The endless summer has meant a healthy scene in North Wales with trains of people going up routes like Lord of the Flies and the JubJub Bird. Alex Mason has been climbing well dispatching some cool new routes on Gogarth. Pete Robins gave the pass one of its hardest boulder problems and the Diamond one of its hardest routes as did Chris Doyle in Llandulas cave. Pete Harrisons limestone guidebook has arrived so next year should be a big year for North Wales Limestone.

Stan and Cian on the belay of Big Groove direct, E4. Gogarth Main cliff

Catrin and Cameron climbing Hardd, staying dry in the heavy rain

   The first trip was to the Lakes for 4 days and involved climbing Bucket Dynasty (which having a fairly reachy and bold crux received a good flash by Emma Twyford), Dusk Till Dawn, Borderline and repeating some old classics. Dusk Till Dawn particularly deserves attention, Al Wilsons vision. I climbed with Al Wilson a great deal from onwards and when Al spoke of this it was with a bit of awe. After doing the crux on Bucket Dynasty a traverse right leads to 10m of jug pulling and a good cam1 (I’d left mine lower down) where wild moves lead up left from a peg to a sinker and still testing finish. Steep single pitch routes don’t get much better than this.

   Clare Carter organised a ‘Ravens Pit’ evening in the field outside the Sticklebarn pub in Langdale with Dave Birkett giving a great insight into how tourists are lucky not to be shot or run over on motorbikes nowadays as that used to be the usual Cumbrian welcome. It was a good final night to the trip.

   Having just read Pete Liveseys brilliant biography I’d like to recommend it. His routes in the Lakes were very futuristic when they were put up, a precursor to Pete Whillances and Dave Birketts; Footless Crow, Dry Grasp, Nagasaki Grooves, Bitter Oasis amongst many other greats which were and still are testpieces shutting down Lancashire’s finest. Loved Liveseys thoughts on Statement “What do you reckon about this route in Wales? 7 bolts in 70 feet?, how can that be E7?”Good effort to Mark Radtke and John Sheard for slotting it all together.

Looking down The West Face, Great Zawn, Bosigran

The second trip was to Devon and Cornwall and involved ticking the final few extreme rock ticks in the vicinity apart from America and Guernica. I’m giving myself 2 years to finish the book so I’m giving Neil Foster some time to do it first. Highlight climbs were The West Face, Morgawr, The Marksman, Astral Stroll and Il Duce. One of the best parts of the trip came in seeing the ‘spirit of adventure’ in some other climbers though. Worried about some friends who had set off late on Dream Liberator I eventually grabbed a headtorch and went exploring to the top of the zawn about half ten, I could hear voices now and again but couldn’t get a visual. I scrambled to the top of Xanadu to get a better picture to see Gwen topping out on the final 5c pitch by headtorch, with James and Mark still on the belay with no torches. It looked awfully dark down there so I lit the wall up with my headtorch as James and Mark climbed it. I was well impressed with their adventurous attitude although not with James and Marks preparation. Mention should be made of Sophie Evitts efforts this trip as not having climbed for a year doing routes like Il Duce is no mean feat and there were a few ‘eyes on stalks’ moments. I thought Guernica might have been a tad cruel to get back into things.

Sophie enjoying the easier angled pitch on the superb, Il Duce

The final trip of the summer was with Ryan Pasquill. I’d not taken 9 days of ML work to have this trip, probably equivalent to £1500 and I was interested to see if it was worth the cost of not doing the work. Original plans were to go up to look at Echo Wall on Ben Nevis. Having not sport climbed since May and having found a project back in Wales I managed to talk Ryan into a different type of trip.

We set off in the afternoon from Sheffield and arrived in Dovedale with climbing gear and sleeping bags at the ready. Walking into the campsite shop we had difficulty deciding on wether to carry a bottle of wine or some beers. It was a tough decision and in the end we took both. We hiked up to Dove and after a warm up on the Flying fissure finish I send Ryan up Dusk Till Dawn. A flash pump kills him high up on the pillar and he says he’d wished he’d done Dynasty first. I mentioned I’d only done that one first because the description was wrong and I’d gone 3m higher than the traverse right and was too pumped to downclimb.

We leave the kit at the crag base and go up to the brilliant bivvy cave the Priests Hole where we played cards and cooked up a feast (of couscous and rice). The morning after the sun shone straight into the cave and there was a layer of mist in the valley bottom, I can see why Millican Dalton spent his summers living in his cave in Borrowdale.

Morning views from the Priests Hole

The Priests Hole

The Commital Chamber, Iron Crag, Thirlmere

After warming up Ryan did Dusk Till Dawn and Bucket Dynasty and I did Vlad the Impailer and Beyond the Pail (which is still E6 rather than 7). Climbing on Dove we were both in a perpetual pumped state and I knew my fitness had deteriorated considerably since May when I’d onsighted 3 E7s in a day in Pembroke. The day after we went to Iron crag to climb Commital Chamber and Al Wilsons excellent link-up from Western Union into Pumping Iron, Iron Man which deserves attention.

Heading back to North Wales we both felt cooked and there was no opportunity to get Ryan on the Promontory Slab project and the Meltdown which had been part of the plan. Having pretty good gear but a ludicrously hard start I spoke to Dawes who said he’d done the moves on the middle bit but didn’t think the start would go. I think it’ll be V11ish starting 8m being considerably harder than Stone Temple Pilots or Diesel Power but on a steep slab! The only way I can see of anyone doing this is what me and pete used to take the piss out of Jack for, being a ‘**** on the shunt’. I suppose that was me on meltdown as well though.

The Promontory Slab project

We head down to Pembroke in the late afternoon and do Another Day, Another Dog, The Barbarians are Coming, Ships that Pass in the Night and Dogs of Hoare which I’d not done since the late 90s. Climbing with Ryan necessitates sponsoring St Govans Inn each night! I’ve been to Pembroke many times over the years and think the drive down from North Wales is one of the most picturesque drives you can do. The quantity of great climbs there is near limitless and I’m sorry Gogarth but Pembrokes certainly offers the best sea cliffs in Britain.

Pembroke was fairly quiet, which is unusual for such a nice weekend. We headed straight to Huntsman’s Leap where Ryan gets going on the technical E5, Magazine people with myself and Mawson offering some heckling as Ry doesn’t feel himself and seems to climb left, right and centre all the way up, never finding the easiest path. I do Black Lagoon which with the some of the pegs missing felt quite committing and should be regarded as considerably harder than Souls, the classic, ok E6 of the Leap and bloody hell it’s got a tough move after the first thread. There is only Nothing to Fear I really want to do in there now. After another Leap E5 we finish on Trevallen on Smash the Bass (which has 2 extremely dangerous blocks right beneath the roof now-don’t do it, I started to lever it off but was worried of chopping my ropes) and the Hole.

Lee Roberts and Joe Betalot on Darkness at Noon. The chalk marks on the right shows Black Lagoon

Free Masonry traverses the lip of the arch to gain the small round cave. Then goes straight up

That night Mawson divulges the delights of Free Masonry, a 4 pitch E6 on the outside of the Cauldron. Taking Crispin Waddy a few efforts over 2 years the ascent required procuring George Smith and involved the odd retreat into the Sea from the final pitch. Neil had said himself and Charlie Woodburn had done some epic sideways abseiling/traversing to retreat from the final crux pitch.

We woke up groggily and set off with intent. We racked up at the summit of the impressive Cauldron Hole and walked down the ridge. A sea level traverse leads to 20 metres of commando style caving to eventually pop out before the Stone Bridge which gives Free Masonry its first pitch. Now, talking about 4 pitch sea arch E6s in the pub doesn’t quite give you a good impression of what they actually look like close up. On the apex of the Arch was a small cave at the end of the 3rd Pitch, the top of this had a 1m horizontal roof above it leading to severely overhanging ground and eventually to an extremely blank looking groove nr the top of the cliff. Although E6 isn’t that big a grade many people who have climbed routes graded E9/10 won’t have onsighted 10 routes of E6. Basically some of them can be really hard and because the more esoteric ones get done little or not at all when compared with many easier climbs the grade is more likely to be off the mark.
We both went quiet for a minute before some awfully soft, almost unconscious excuses started coming out of our mouths.

“What do you think?”

“We’re pretty tired”

“The start looks quite wet”

“The seas too rough to abseil into and besides which, how the **** do you swim with a rack on?”

We looked back at the caves, our still easy line of retreat.

Our excuses sickened me somewhat, although it may have been the Broadside. We decided to have a look as it was only the first 5 metres looked wet. The first pitch of the Stone Bridge, a 1980s Mick Fowler E5 6b provides a suitable start having a pumpy groove leading to airy moves round an arête and a good thread belay. Ryan leads through across more exciting terrain, a horizontal traverse leading to a 7m downclimb down a groove and a hanging belay right on the lip of the arch. The 3rd pitch involved wild climbing, jumping feet across the other side of grooves to get bridged and piling around a wild arête where you could climb it several different ways but all around 6a/b. Pulling into the cave is just the best belay. Its 5m deep and the birds who once inhabited it must have thought they had the best, least likely to be interrupted home until Crispin and George poked their heads in. In the guidebook it had mentioned that the climb was generally well protected. I now knew that it was a George/Crispin sandbag as the pitch before had been E6 and with slightly more small and fiddly gear than you’d like for the style of moves you do away from it.

The lip belay with the cave not far beyond

The inside of the cave

Ryan, not wanting to leave the cave

Ryan arrived in the mega cave and we were both feeling a bit tired, the route finding had been tricky even to here which is what had helped stop Neil and Charlie on the final pitch. I won’t spoil the surprise of the finale but crux moves just above the cave lead to big moves on big holds to a still 6bish groove nr the top. I was totally blown away (as was Ryan).

   I’ve done Conan the Librarian 3 times and think it’s an amazing climb but this was well beyond that for both brilliant climbing and ludicrous terrain it follows. The pictures just can’t do it justice. We went to Govans East and finished on Psyce n Gurn which although it gets the same grade is thankfully about E4 6b. The following day we were battered, Ryan did Yellow Pearls and I did Fabulous Fishing but both our elbows were out by this point. The afternoon was spent watching a remarkable effort by a friend of ours but I’m sworn to secrecy.

   I look back on the trip and the £1500 in work I’d not taken. I can roughly attach a price to many of the climbs for what they are worth to me (economists and insurance companies love this kind of thing). Vlad, Iron Man, Black lagoon are each worth ~£200 being great routes I’ve thought about doing for years. The ascent of Free Masonry with Ryan though, that’s trickier, it was absolutely priceless and will keep me chuckling for years. Free Masonry.

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Choronzon E10 7a(8b+)

Endless Summer

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