UKC

Christmas is a time for reflection, so please beat the following..

I think now that my best ever lead was in 1978, of Hargreaves Original Route at Stanage. It was my first Severe lead, I was wearing CCF boots, had 3 large cogs for protection, a JB helmet and it was raining. I am suprised I lived through it.

In reply to robate:

I'm amazed you lived through it too! It's my favourite route. I must have done it more than 50 times. I can't imagine the horror of doing it in the rain. Can't remember CCF boots (I hope they weren't big boots!) but, by modern standards, everything was crap in 1978. If you managed to get a cog to stay in, you're a better man than me - and in those flared breaks! It may have been your first Severe lead but it's now deservedly VS. It was a chop route then and, without lots of cams, it's a chop route now.

All in all, I'd say you did pretty well.

Mick

In reply to robate:

CCF boots. Army boots?

In reply to robate:
My first ever Severe was Stonnis Crack at Black Rocks. In hindsight it was a bad choice of route The guidebook described it as once being the hardest route in Derbyshire, and it had technical grade (it was graded S 4a) - subtle signs that an inexperienced climber might miss.

I got three quarters of the way up it before realising it was beyond my ability. I shouted down to my belayer that I was coming down and started down climbing. After a few moves someone unknown to me shouted: "you've done the hard part, the rest is easy". So... I changed direction again and went back up. I made it to the jug with my arms almost falling off. I whipped a sling around it, clipped it into my belay loop and thanked god I was still alive.

Once I got back down I was on such a high. I just stood at the bottom of the route wallowing in the glory of my first Severe... until a rock jock turned up, put his pack down, did a few stretches and soloed it in his trainers.

AARRRRGGGGHHHH.

I had only lead VD before this and it's now graded HS 4b (bordering on VS according to the UKC voting). I've only ever jumped a leading grade twice - this time and when I did my first E3 (I had never lead an E2). This one felt way harder than that E3.

In reply to gdnknf:


CCF = Combined Cadet Force. Boots were, indeed, Army boots. Huge, ill-fitting, uncomfortable, very poor for climbing.

In reply to tri-nitro-toulumne:


I remember a mate leading Stonnis Arête as one of his first leads... sitting à cheval and inching his way upwards, he shouted down...

'The only protection on this route is a cricket box!'

In reply to Mick Ward:

CCF boots stood for Combined Cadet Force, and were terrible to climb in, I soon moved on to Blue Flash trainers, which were pretty poor as well. My abiding memory is stretching for a rounded break close to the top wondering what a ground fall would feel like. I've lead it several times with Friends and it is ace, and soloed it as well, and the memories came flooding back. Great route though.

In reply to tri-nitro-toulumne:

Thanks, great account. If ascents of this calibre were on YouTube the world would be a better place.

In reply to robate:

Wow that sounds pretty mental! They clearly made 'em better back then

My best lead was probably my first trad/outdoor climb ever. Had only been climbing indoor a month or two and went to Pembroke on a trip. Seconded up a slabby HS before leading it straight after. Took me 6 months before I climbed an HS grade again!

In reply to robate:

My best lead was possibly a route called "The Klepht" on Arran. After a discussion with Al Rouse some years ago he acknowledged that me and my mate had done it before himself and Rab Carrington, who were credited with the first ascent. We did it in about 1973/74 I think. 2 pitches. The first one was top end 5c with only a peg for protection/aid but safe at the crux. The second was a 60 metre off-width crack with not one piece of protection which felt a lot harder but probably only 5b. I believe it gets E3, 5c these days. The only reason I completed the route was because I couldn't reverse any of the moves on the top pitch once I was a few feet up it and a niche at 3/4 height fooled me into thinking there was a little respite.

In reply to robate:

Aye, well, not the hardest but certainly the most satisfying was Pincushion at Tremadoc (in the days when it had aid on the roof and was HVS - a peg below the roof and a nut in the crack above). The climbing just seemed to keep unwinding in what was for us, at the time, quite unbelievable territory. Best of all, right at the top I found a boiled sweetie, still in its wrapper, perched on the rock. I fear that without any thought I ate it to ease the dry mouth and started bringing my mate Al up. A few minutes later a guy appeared from below and said, 'Have you seen a sweetie? My mate said he would leave one for me'. To my shame I said, 'no', and just kept sucking - so if it was your sweetie, I'm sorry and herewith my confession.

In reply to robate:

Dover's route 1, guide says a S, but ukc has it at HS very satisfying all the same.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Very poor for anything, as I dimly recall. Except perhaps standing still doing nothing, where they were adequate

but - on topic - my best lead was likely White Slab, Cloggy. Originally couldn't even get established on it. Spent a year thinking about it. Did the move and it was wonderful thereafter.

In reply to robate:

My best lead was probably Ghost at Bosigran when I was 17...and maybe Central Wall at Avon when 21...sadly, I never got much better !...

In reply to robate:

I think mine was probably a little rascal called Odin's Beer Barrel Ramble at Llanymnech in, I think, 1973, given the interesting grade of HVS 5c in West Midlands Rock, saying there were no signs of peg runners and therefore not described. Well there weren't any when I did it either.

I can remember my then girlfriend in her duffle coat at the bottom of the route watching me and saying 'You're scaring me.' I was moving up 5c ground with no real gear at the time and I was thinking, really you don't have any idea what being scared means...

In reply to robate:

Hmm - Grand Alliance after deciding, at first, to reverse a few moves and bale out - then getting it together and doing it....very satisfying

And - from the sublime to the sort of ridiculous - a 6a+ on on Robin Proctor's after almost deciding to give up climbing. Just about to bale out and, once again, pulled it together an`d rediscovered my interest in climbing - 5 years ago now

There's a pattern here it seems!

In reply to robate:


Most impressive, especially since you were only 11 at the time, or is your profile out of date?
Seriously, I can see why you went on to climb E6.
My first lead was also a VS and I only had 3 runners, 2 rocks and a MOAC wedge. I placed all 3 but don't suppose any of them would have held, but I did have proper rock shoes on, even if they were only EB's and the route was only 30 feet high. Oh, and it wasn't raining either.

In reply to robate:

Sloth on the Roaches in 1977. I climbed with Roger Mear (He did most of the leading)in the Lakes and we had a great w/e Deer Bield Crack & Buttress, Overhanging Bastion & North Crag Eliminate, Praying Mantis, Dedication then soloed Little Chamonix. Headed off back to Norwich but the car faltered and we ended up in Macclesfield where my Mum lived. RM pointed out that it would be a slow journey home so why not take in Sloth on the way. He led to the pedestal and I tettered up to the overhang and got a runner on then launched out in the flake to the edge of the O/H. Got a huge Hex in and jibbered for a few minutes before jamming legless up the top crack. We reground the valves on his mini the following day.

In reply to robate:

Ah, good question robate,
it could be midnight cowboy which has a scary traverse across a steep slab with not much gear. For my level of experience it felt very thin and exposed.
Or, Ffoeg's Folly if you don't count the three points of aid! Or Dinner Date
on Cheddar for again the exposure and being hard for me at the grade I was and am still climbing at. I felt very good about Suspension Bridge arete as my first lead on the buttress. Stunning location! Or perhaps any of the HVS at Swanage I struggled up, like Lightning Wall. But going back a bit it could be soloing easy routes in Skye in 1978 then running the scree in the Black Cuillin.

In reply to robate:

Bowfell Buttress in Army boots in the 1960s and with no protection other than a few slings draped over rock spikes. Then graded Diff (now graded Hard Severe)

In reply to pec:

hey, no, my profile is out of date, I was 16 then; still think it was my best lead though

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

nice poetic metaphor there with the valves getting reground...

Sloth is definitely best enjoyed when you are just coming onto those full on HVS's, which was the case for me; in fact some routes should be picked out for exactly that reason, and this may be the best example

In reply to pec:

the moac wedge, the best runner before friends?

I went on to be the first of my friends to buy EBs and they slagged me off for quite a while as a cheat, but I loved them because you could stand on skirting boards all day

In reply to Trangia:

now we are talking..

At around that time I also held a teacher on quite a big leader fall from a Severe with a waist belay, and still can see a scar on my left arm when the weather is cold, but that is another story. Back at school everyone said I should have let him crater, but I didn't get the time to think, and anyway he was an Ok bloke

In reply to HappyTrundler:

both very respectable routes tho'

In reply to robate:
Anything I got up with enough in the tank to enjoy it.

Maybe The Spider at Chudleigh, twelve months after I'd dogged it. Flew up. Less said about my second's pendulum the better. It pulled me off the cliff edge, and he soloed down something unpleasant.

In reply to robate:


Funnily enough, when I got my EB's for Christmas I spent the day going round the house edging on the skirting boards and crimping on the door architraves to test them out.