UKC

Well done Neil.

Lines still to do on Dove.

Just needs someone with the technical ability, strength and nerve to climb them.

Good stuff, Neil.

A question about the grades here. Is Fear of Failure safe? If it's 7c+, that normally wouldn't be enough to qualify it for E8 would it? A lot of the E6s which have been retrobolted on Yorkshire limestone have become sport 7c.

Fear of Failure is the first pitch of Broken Arrow climbed free plus a more direct finish.

It was safe enough on 1980 gear, 1 2 + 3 rigid Friends and Chouinard stoppers, so better now if you can hang on to place it.

Whilst aiding the crux , on second, I ghosted the free moves, but Bill and I concurred that no one would be strong enough to do it!  Well done Caff.

And Dave Birkett climbed it onsight, I believe? 

I don’t think there is a well protected route on Dove Crag, North Buttress. They are all bold, some are bolder.

We climbed all the routes on the North Buttress during the Summer of Dove in 2003. They were all climbed placing the gear on lead and we found although the usual E grades expressed the seriousness of the routes they didn’t reflect the effort required to climb the routes. The FRCC were keen for us to include sport grades but this doesn’t mean that they were climbed on pre placed gear, it just shows the physical difficulty. So Fear of Failure is an E8 with physical climbing equivalent to 7c+.

I would think routes in Yorkshire that you are probably thinking of were reasonably well protected with lots of pegs and threads.

A bit harsh, Steve.

Because its steep you can afford to fall a way.

Of all the easier routes ( to E5 ) I would not state any are badly protected.  Adequate to good being a better description.

Edit. I thought the "bold " bit in the guidebooks was a bit ott, especially compared to some of the Whillance, Botterill and Cleasby/ Matheson contributions in the Lakes.

Perhaps I exaggerated a little however

”...two spectacular falls in 2003 – the second, from the top of the route ended 60ft down and only 4ft from the ground with five pieces of gear sliding down the rope to thwack the unfortunate flying machine, Chris Hope as he swung silently to a rest!”

http://www.climbonline.co.uk/summer_of_dove.htm

Nice read that, thanks for posting, keen to get to dove this year