Pete Hurley has made the 4th ascent of John Dunne's masterpiece, New Statesman at Ilkley, Yorkshire. Hurley, one of the new generation tipped to take gritstone to the next level, was reported to have spent a considerable amount of time in completing the route. It is now considered that New Statesman is in fact E9, making it the first route of it's grade in the UK when it was climbed by Dunne in 1988. In 15 years, the route has only seen two other repeats, from Seb Grieve and Neil Bentley.
Congrats on the ascent to young Pete, sounds utterly awesome. Look forward to see how many spotters he had after Bentley's Barmy Army! It's arguably a better line given how easy it is to get lost on Indian Face too, but I believe there's a slight error on the news page crediting NS as first E9 rather than IF from 1986. First grit E9 maybe?
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