Yes yes, greatest thread of the year. Looking forward to reading through everyone’s posts later- never fails to get the psyche flowing!
Best trad routes
Jackabu, Brimham
“You should lead that Mike” yells Deacon over the edge. “The gear’s good and the top’s absolutely
piss”. The sum total of this good gear is a cam just below the mantle he said he might fall off and, in the break above that, a sideways #1 Wallnut with a massive green Dragon that I sent him up on the rope a good few metres across from it. They’re even further from the very round-looking top. I know full well that Deacon always overestimates my performance on routes he found easy but it’s mid-November and probably the last chance I’ll have to salvage an E-graded route from my Covid-recovery and work-exhaustion ravaged autumn.
Minutes later I’m pumping and numbing out on finger jugs below the very round top. I’ve stood up on the smear about five times, groping tensely and fruitlessly for the giant jug Deacon assures me is over there. I’m going to have to make a terrifying, cack-handed slither down onto the gear in the break below my feet any second. It’ll be horrible and demoralising.
The heads of two inquisitive walkers appear over the top. They’re in their early 20s and sound like they’re from Wolverhampton. On request they tell me just how far back the deep water-runnel is. “Om not a rock cloimber but I down’t think yow’ll ivver reach it”. I am though and I think I will. I just have to go
now. “Guide me to it!” I grunt as I lunge over the top. Chaos ensues as one of the lads thinks I want him to
pull me over the top by my hand and both Deacon and I yell at him not to. I’ve got the hold but all ideas of technique and forward planning have been abandoned in the madness and I’m in full beached-whale commitment, gasping and scraping my body over the top. Suddenly I’m stood there with the stunned lads, blood on the cuffs of my hoody, yelling in pain at the hot aches and pump, plus delight and relief at pulling victory from the jaws of defeat. What a shitshow. I love climbing.
Bela Lugosi is Dead, Dinorwig Quarries
We left one car in Ringinglow at 6AM and shouldered our rucksacks at 9:30, before the van campers at the bus stop were even out of bed. Second time this year. I’d been terrified of climbing on slate ever since my accident as it requires barely any skills but the ones I’d left far behind after I’d decked. High steps. Meaty rockovers. Runouts. Runouts above microwires. Rockovers above runouts above microwires. Just turning your head off.
Bela Lugosi used to be one of the routes I’d do when I found myself underneath it. No rush. All of a sudden it was unthinkable. Then it became an ambition. When we got there the couple we’d abbed down the Rainbow Slab with went straight to it so I got on the bolted route to the right and bailed, partly because I didn’t care about that route. Once Bela Lugosi was free I got straight on it and did it. Two or three tiny wires in a row but I felt fine, exhilarated. A thin jam in the top crack and I was in.
Nine Lives Wall, Wildcat
One evening in the summer Gaz and I decided to have a look at Wildcat and see what it’s like now that you have to ab in. Turns out it’s better as there are more ab points, the good routes have been cleaned up and you know exactly where you are once you get down there. We went there every week after that, me always persuading him we had time for a third route even though it goes dark early in the tree cover.
Nine Lives wall is a route you can’t really fall off, in both senses. There’s a ledge and a peg, then you go up and up on finger jugs you can’t see before you’re on them until you get to a groove with gear, only a little way from the top. The runout’s not as long as it feels, the rock’s good and the holds are all there but I couldn’t do these for years. The view from those Wildcat belays is great.
High Neb Buttress, Stanage
In April 2015 Tom and I attempted the Stanage VS challenge for his birthday on a whim. We started at about 9AM and bailed to go bouldering a few hours later as the wind was cold and it was obvious that we weren’t going to get 26 routes done. I’ve wanted to do it ever since but all my partners are either in the “I’ll never be fit enough for a day like that” camp or the “yeah I did that solo years ago, went down to Outside for lunch in the middle while it rained” one.
With Tom back in the UK we did it on the longest day of 2024 which was a dream come true for me. We made a few tactical errors but still basically pissed it. Doing this at 6AM in the blazing sunshine, no one else around and hours of great climbing still to go was the highlight.
Best Sport Routes
Cilber, Sierra de Toix
This was, believe it or not, my first multipitch sport route. We did some “trad” multipitch in Spain too but it just reinforced my belief that while proper trad and proper sport routes are great, trad routes with fixed gear next to the cruxes (and sport routes where you have to “take a light rack for some sections” for that matter) are pretty lame- like true British punters we’d set off with our cams and nuts only to find fixed wire threads and pegs every time the climbing became harder than Severe.
This route was a blast though, with lots of bolts so you can just run up it. I could see myself doing both much harder (this route is like 4+ or something) and much longer sport multipitches in future which is surprising as I’d never been interested in climbing in this style at all before.
El Pilar, Vall de Guadar
Burnt my mates off this. They all needed at least two goes because they hated the sharp crimps on the crux. So long since I burnt anyone off a sport route!
Cartujal, Sella
Seems everyone hates Sella but I thought it was really cool. This is probably the best route of its grade (5+) I’ve done anywhere- big reaches to find even bigger slot jugs and a “keep on trucking” feel.
Spankings
Kilkenny Rib, Kinder Mill Hill
A three-star Peak HVS with
only one log on UKC
. My mate Graeme, the guy whose log it was, told me it was “pretty hard” years ago but it’s HVS. I was sure that the crux would be getting someone to go up to that bit of Kinder with and do it with.
It’s a bouldery arête with a ledge midway up. I slithered off and skinned my shins on my first attempt before bailing again and handing the lead over. Turns out the gear at the ledge is a microcam and the real crux, with it below your feet, is nails- I couldn’t do it on second. Why it was kept at HVS and given so many stars is presumably some sort of guidebook writers joke.
Cleft Wing, Stanage
A few paragraphs ago I put that we basically pissed the Stanage VS Challenge. I added “basically” because of this route.
For those not aware, on Cleft Wing you go up a fairly bold slab until you’re at the top of a cave then you turn round, bridge across to the overhanging side facing you, cut loose and skidaddle out sideways to Mod-standard climbing on the front face.
That makes it sound both easy and fun but for those with neither height or hip flexibility on their side it’s a bloody nightmare- dangerous on lead and humiliating on second. I speak from experience of failing of both. On the day of the challenge Tom (6’2”) led it fine and set up a belay well back.
I reached the step across with faith in my newly-mobile hips, determined to do it. I
just got my toe on the right wall and committed my weight across to it. I was stuck. I couldn’t quite touch the jug, Evan after letting my other hand go. The rope had come tight. Tom couldn’t hear me. Something felt bad in my groin. Minutes passed, the threaded #11 wire staring at me. “Grab me Mike, I’m your only hope”. Fuck’s sake.
Brillo, Higgar Tor
This is a Chris Craggs filler-in on that wall at Higgar that you don’t realise is steep because it’s next to the much steeper wall. Like a lot of short, technical grit routes with good gear it has a grade that makes sense if you have a few grades in hand but you’ll never get up it first go if that grade’s your limit.
When Tom and I went to do the Rasp in May I got us embroiled with this first and we spent the entire session on it. I had literally 12 ground-up attempts, getting roughly .75 of a move higher each time but, unlike Tom, not ticking the route.
A month later I had a short, hot, evening window with my other half belaying and decided that top-roping this would be the best use of it. Unsurprisingly it felt much easier with the rope above me and the ability to hang anywhere. I quickly got a shorty sequence going, helped by uncovering a flat bit of a slopey break by removing a heather root. Led it clean first go after that.
I’m putting this down as a spanking not just because we all know deep down inside that headpointing is for punters but because this one stupid session made a huge negative impact on my onsighting head for weeks. When will I learn?!
Happy new year all!
Nearly 20 years ago, I took a nasty fall from it and totalled my ankle. I had been climbing on my own and the crag was deserted, so I shouldered my useless pad, crawled back to the car and drove one-footed back to the UK and hospital. The soft tissue damage refused to heal and I must have had the best part of two years out from climbing as a result. Consequently I wrote the problem off, but returning this year with a sacrilegious kneepad and a bit of beta from an in-situ Bleausard, I quickly found myself looking down from the last hard move. From up there, the pads seemed a lot smaller but the rocks below sure seemed a lot bigger. “One move and that’s it”, as they say. Great to slay a nemesis.
Great route though!
