Jacob Cook has added a new linking line to the Cow at Ilkley, Yorkshire.
Jacob explained: "It does the crux of New Statesman and then swings left via some new climbing to join Gerty and then finishes out left.
"On the topo my route is in red with New Statesman in blue and Gerty Berwick in Green."
Jacob has written a blog post about climbing the route in which he says:
"I first tried it 4 months ago, a few days after doing the New Statesman. Basically I got on it because I'm not strong enough to do the crux of Gerty Berwick and wanted to find another way up the wall!
You do the crux of the New Statesman to a shake, then swing left and do a crazy rock-over move to reach a pod in the wall halfway up Gerty Berwick. You follow this route for a couple of moves before going left again with a cool cross over sequence on pockets, this part is a bit easier than the start but the gear isn't great and you're really high at this point.
By far the crux for me was the rock-over in the middle. It took me around 8 sessions to figure out, and even once I could do it consistently it still felt absolutely terrifying. The move involves getting fully rocked over on a heel and then just falling sideways and grabbing the next hold on the way past. I'm pretty sure this is the kind of move Dave Graham describes as a "drive-by"... Also you don't have any gear at this point and it's getting close to the limit of what could be called "highball".
It's for sure the hardest thing I've done on trad and I think it comes in at about f8a+ but it's always hard to tell with these things. I've given it E9 7a and it's called the Lizard King. Partly as a Jim Morrison tribute and partly to draw attention to the fact that many of the current world leaders are actually Lizards. (Although the name "State Pension" was a clear front runner for a while.)"
The three action photos are screengrabs from a film by Abstract Normality Media which will be out soon - watch this space!
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