French climber Caroline Ciavaldini has completed the four-pitch Twll Mawr classic The Quarryman (E8 7a) E8 7a in the Llanberis slate quarries, North Wales. In April 2016, Caroline completed the renowned 'Groove' pitch and vowed to return to complete the line in its entirety, which breaks down into an E6, E5, the '8a' Groove and a 7c+ slab to finish.
In 2016, Caroline was focused on her 8b project, the Voie Petit on the Grand Capucin, which left little time to dedicate to The Quarryman in full. Speaking to UKC in an interview at the time, Caroline told us:
'If I wanted to do The Quarryman in full, it would take a lot of headspace for me and I want to save that for my project. I'm really glad I did this [Groove] pitch though, because even if I did do it fairly fast I still had time to go through all the "Oh my god, it's really hard - why am I even here?" thought processes, then you move through that; the working process of something that feels too hard.'
Made famous by first ascensionist Johnny Dawes' contorted performance in the film Stone Monkey, The Groove - given a tentative grade of 8a - is a test of flexibility, friction and gutsiness to boot.
Working out a key sequence to the crux of the final slab pitch was Caroline's main aim on returning to the line, since she had only briefly scoped out the moves in 2016 and failed to find a suitable method. Caroline's husband James Pearson had completed the line in the same trip and his beta didn't work for her. Now that both have succeeded on the line, we can confirm that this is a First Husband-and-Wife Ascent of The Quarryman...
Comments
The more the years pass, the more respect I have for the Dawes. How many other climbers of that era climbed a number of routes that still command such respect/awe?
And watching the men at recent World Cup event (see the link below at 1.51) he came to mind again! National treasure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_ce4hCdJS0
Hot news, person climbs 30 year old route!
nice one Johnny!
It's not just any route though. I'd be interested in how many folk have actually freed the whole thing in a single ascent. Have a feeling even Neil Gresham didn't manage the final pitch? And presumably this is the first female ascent(?), which is surely significant.
I agree, it is personally significant and important if you have sponsors to satisfy.
Beyond that, in any other field, being 30+ years behind isn’t really news.
My comment really was to congratulate the folks who were so far out in front in terms of skills and ambition.
I could be wrong, but I'm not sure Dawes did it all in a single push? (Obviously it's different for the FA anyway)