Elder Statesman HXS 7a for James Pearson

20th February, 2013

This has been read 14,710 times

James Pearson has made what is likely the third ascent of The Elder Statesman (HXS 7a) at Curbar, Peak District.

James Pearson on Elder Statesman
© Sidekick, Feb 2013

The route tackles the famous arete to the side of Elder Crack and was first climbed by Steve McClure back in 2004, and repeated not long after by Steve Dunning. The grade HXS is due to the route being relatively safe (unless the arete cuts your rope!), but very very hard, therefore difficult to assign an E Grade to.

There's more photos and a video of James to come, but whilst we wait for those, check out...

VIDEO: Steve McClure on the first ascent of Elder Statesman HXS 7a

James Pearson is sponsored by Wild Country , La Sportiva , The North Face , Adidas Eyewear

This post has been read 14,710 times

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Comments

JimboWizbo

20 Feb, 2013

Really interesting grade, looking forward to the video. I wonder if anybody has looked at going direct up the arete, avoiding the rest

remus

20 Feb, 2013

Presumably that was the original idea so I guess it was deemed too hard.

Keendan

20 Feb, 2013

Great effort from James

Alex Thompson

20 Feb, 2013

Presume Dunning's repeat is captured here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjURGAfd4hs "It took Steve three days but he managed to top rope it clean on his second go. Unfortunately he didn't have any large cams so he couldn't go for the lead on his first day. Day two was too warm and on Day three Dave Buchanan lent his dad's large friend and Steve climbed it on his first headpoint attempt." http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=10634 Interesting what Pearson says here: "This time I was very surprised to find some moves a lot harder than I had remembered. It soon turned out that a crucial pebble foothold had broken and nobody had climbed it since. The weather was good so I had a few attempts on the abseil rope last Thursday, figured out a method, and then climbed it on Friday. Super cool, crazy double sideways slap... very fun!" http://www.planetmountain.com/english/News/shownews1.lasso?l=2&keyid=40651

Jimbo C

20 Feb, 2013

Cheers for that. The clip only has 31 views, including me. That went under the radar. Interesting how the style of movement differs between McClure and Dunning, will be interssing to see the clip of James.

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