Steve Crowe of Climbonline.co.uk accompanied Dave Birkett to Ireland recently where he belayed and photographed Dave on his repeat of Divided Years. Steve has a short personal account of the climbing on Divided Years and some photos at Climbonline. More of Steve's photos will be published in the October issue of Climber Magazine out early September.
Congratulations Mr. Birkett. He'll still have to climb Equilibrium to be accepted by the Sheffield mafia though! Interestingly Birkett rated Breathless on Great Gable as F8a+ and made no change in the grade, but his own Welcome to the cruel World on Scafell is said to be F8b+ and 'only' E9 7a. Obvioulsy WTTCW is better protected, but by the sounds of things, so is Divided Years. However, grading isn't an exact science and we'd all do well to remember that John Dunne climbed Divided years 10yrs (?) ago and it was as awesome achievement then as it is for Dave Birkett to repeat it recently.
I met one 'top name' once who was reported widely to have been on it. He told me he went over for a long weekend climbing with his girlfriend, talked about abbing down DY for a look, it rained all weekend and he never got anywhere nearer the route than a pub in Dublin. I rather suspect other 'attempts' were more of the same. Dear Anonymous I went down to have a look at Indian Face, but never left the pub. Will I be a "top name" as well? Norrie PS John done well, I wonder how long it will take for the 3rd ascent?
To be fair to Dunney...he has a mega high first ascent list that has outlasted his peers...including Moffat, Moon, Redhead and I would also include the venerable Dawes... He has climbed most types of rock eg, sports at Malham, Trad in the Lakes and death routes on grit.. And we're now talking about 2nd ascents of John's route's 10 years on..... Total respect to JD....Just try repeating his list of top end climbs.....Phew..
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