Dan gives us the beta:

"You basically leg it down the hill, jump on top of the two boulders in the picture on the right, then kick up the lower smear in the pic and onto the higher one - then double dyno sideways about two metres and catch opposing sidepulls."

Sounds easy to us. But did Dan think it was solid at E2?

"Nah. Soft for the grade, more like HVS 7b."

Taking a break from flying sideways through the air like Hong Kong Phooey, Varian also squeezed in some more normal climbing with a stunner of a new problem called Ivan Dobsky, pictured above. Of this new problem he said:

"I reckon the problem comes in at soft 8a+ish as an initial guestimate, and it is utterly enjoyable. In a time when more boulderers are beginning to settle for doing new link ups at old crags I cannot recommend enough going to that bit more effort to find proud independent new lines."

More ramblings from Dan Varian on this topic on the Beastmaker Blog.

Mark Savage was on hand to take some superb shots and he has been hard at work compiling photographs for a forthcoming photobook on Northumberland climbing. If this is of interest to you or you are willing to be photographed you can drop Mark a line via his UKC Profile.

To find a piece of wood that you can hang off - check out Beastmaker.

Dan Varian is supported by Big Stone