James 'Caff' Mchaffie has been busy establishing two new E7 trad lines on Lundy and five new routes in the Dinorwic slate quarries in Llanberis, while using one of his ascents to campaign for action against climate change.
© Franco Cookson
On Lundy, Caff completed his remaining Extreme Rock routes on the first day, including Controlled Burning (E4 5c), which was originally graded E3 5c but is now E6/7 with a tricky start due to rockfall over the years. Caff then turned his attention to new lines. He told UKC:
'The day after, I abseiled the underside of the arch right of The Cullinan (E5 6a) hoping for a quickish new route, but it was going to be 8c+/9a. However, looking opposite to an E6 called Brinkman's Ship (E6 6b) I wondered if you could do a direct finish. I abbed the top of it and it was a goer with a brilliant boulder problem and heel hook at the top to flip the lip. I onsighted a new start into the crack on Brinkman's Ship and did the new direct.'
Caff reckons this new line, which he named Ulterior, adds up to E7 6c.
The following day, Caff abbed down the crack system right of The Flying Dutchman (E7 6c). He told UKC:
'The start was damp but I could see it was on, and I could see it was going to be brilliant. I picked up more kit and abbed it again to check the gear. I led it (just) and was blown away how good it was - really brilliant sustained face/crack climbing on granite, probably 7c+, might feel 8a putting kit in. It felt harder than Flying Dutchman.'
Caff named the line Spirit Guide, which weighs in at E7 6c. 'It's the best new route I've done for a long time, really sustained, high quality climbing for 25 metres to where it eases off and in a brilliant setting,' he added.
Read a DMM report on Caff's Lundy trip.
In the slate quarries closer to home, Caff has been prolific in spotting hard new arête lines and dispatching them quickly with an environmental naming theme: Greta Thunberg 7c/E6 and the Invisible Girl 8a - both named after the influential 16 year-old Swedish climate change activist - and Extinction Rebellion E6 6b/c. Caff wrote a blog about this route and his support for Greta. He told UKC:
'The new slate ones, Greta Thunberg and the Invisible Girl are good. I've got a perler, a new E6 I climbed for the environmental campaigning group, Extinction Rebellion, which is like a Master's Edge but on slate. I've got three other good ones to do in there.'
Extinction Rebellion was a particularly significant ascent for Caff. He told us:
'It's a cool trad arête which went at E6 6b/c in the end, as a block came off near the top, making a 6c move into a 5c move. It involves stunning and quite wild climbing up the arête and crack left of Dinorwic Unconquerable, climbed with Mikey Goldthorpe. The Extinction Rebellion group contacted me to do something and it was in-keeping with the new sport routes I did called Greta Thunberg and the Invisible Girl nearby, as both Greta and XR (Extinction Rebellion) are the largest scale environmental movements I've seen.'
The arête to the right of XR and Dinorwic Unconquerable went as a neat 7c, giving a precarious crux. Caff told UKC:
'I did this with Ferdia Earle and Alex Mason. We called it The Subtle Knife, from Phillip Pullman's second book in the Spyglass series. Arêtes have always been a favourite for me in terms of features to climb and these two are in a great setting.'
Earlier, Caff established Suck My Karma (E4 on bolts) with Duncan Cunningham. Writing in his blog, Caff commented: 'It isn't the best new route I've ever done but if you look at it in the morning light I think the pillar of rock looks a lot like a huge version of my middle finger which I like to think is aimed towards much of the Tory party and any other spoiled chodes.'
McHaffie's mission to climb every route in Ken Wilson and Bernard Newman's book Extreme Rock is almost complete. He only has five of the 180 routes featured remaining before he will become the first climber to tick every one of them.
Watch a film of Caff climbing Extinction Rebellion below:
Comments
He does come off as a bit of a tw*t in the comments section. If everyone on the planet had the same average carbon footprint as professional climbers we would massively accelerate climate change. Yes, the hypocrisy is rife.
I'm injured and ill at the moment but it's still nice to cycle round to my local crag for a couple of hours.
Not that I don't drive a bit at weekends or go abroad but then again if challenged I probably wouldn't start lashing out and calling people punters because they don't live the extreme helicopter lifestyle James Mchaffie does.
Imagine if everyone tried jetting around like their climbing and mountaineering heroes on instagram. This forum has given a lot of flak to the three peaks challenge but lots of sponsored climbers have carbon footprints bigger than any coachload of people driving up to Ben Nevis (and at least they are sharing transport).
I thought so too ;)
I was quite disappointed that he refused to answer questions such as if it would be ok by him if everyone seeking to complete a tick list got a chopper ride to help them out? Clearly he couldn’t be seen to be saying yes, as that flies in the face of what he’s trying to promote and make himself look caring with but alternatively if he said no then he comes across as more deserving when really, he’s not.
I'd be careful with your kabal of smug conclusions here. The 5 minute chopper ride to Lundy I'm sure made you feel very jealous. But the majority of climbing I do is in the UK and extreme rock is a UK ticklist. I choose to principally climb in the UK because I know it is more environmentally friendly, although every month if i wished i could fly to anywhere and enjoy the delights of world climbing. I'v never said I'm a great environmentalist but I've taken time off work to go to the youth climate strikes and write any climate change articles in my own time, trying to point people to good, factual information. The XR group and the youth climate strikes are very much worth supporting and are raising awareness of climate change at the government level. Although you all have very admirable low carbon footprints (much more so than those horrible professional climbers) things definitely have to change and leadership needs to be taken at a government level. I'll be trying to get down Thursday to the protest in London and would urge anyone who can to do so. XR are doing a great job and I generally would n't say that as usually hate hippy types. And a final point is that a general tactic by climate change deniers or their affiliates is to point out the carbon footprint of environmental activists. Now although I'm not an activist, some of your comments smell fishy, especially Phils. But I always need inspiration for route names so thanks you.
To be honest James, it hasn't escaped me that the vast majority of your climbing is UK based. You definitely have a relatively small footprint compared to most other sponsored climbers, though to hazard a guess it's probably larger than the general UK public and much larger than the average person living on the planet.
This isn't a crime, and lots of people on the forum are in the same slightly hypocritical boat, but a little bit of honesty and self-reflection does wonders here. Lots of 'ordinary people' on here have wrung their hands, talked about their lifestyle and made changes. There's a great thread on the forum about this very issue which is very good natured.
I'm sure you're well aware of the extensive travelling lots of professional climbers do, and the massive amounts of air miles this entails. We know this because they are not shy of publicising all of this while giving off the impression that such a nomadic jetset lifestyle makes them closer to nature or something...
Naturally the sponsors of these trips will either be selling redbull or the latest season of new, improved, lightweight, and disposable gear shipped in from China. Nevermind, did you really want to be seen in last years colours anyway?
Ultimately, if everyone led the life of the average sponsored climber the planet would deteriorate even more quickly than it already is. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure if an article written to claim some of those sweet sponsor-friendly green credentials is going to offset all those people excitedly jetting off to Yosemite or travelling out of season by helicopter because they want to be as cool as the sponsored athletes seen on instagram.
Well Roxo. Luckily for you there are few 'professional climbers' from the UK. And they are all really nice people, very much unlike me. The size of someones carbon footprints generally correlates to someones affluence, more money, more footprint, flights, extravagant holidays, coke etc etc. Again this is why your argument, and the smug kabal is weak because most professional climbers earn very little, they fly around yeah, but I know some of them live on bugger all. Most people reading this who own a home will probably have much vaster energy usage than these climbers. So the argument there is poor and comes across as general jealousy. If your kabal is really made of stern environmental stuff join me, come down to london and get arrested. Join me