Greg Boswell has just added a hard new drytooling route to the Lake District dry tooling venue, the Works. Greg named the route Powerdab, grading it D13, making it only the second route of its grade in the country. 

Greg was prompted to head down to the Works, as Andy Turner had organised a meet at the venue with the country's top mixed and winter climbers to discuss who would be interested in joining him at the Ice World Cup. Although not something he had ever considered before, Greg decided to head down for a fun weekend of climbing with a group of psyched climbers if nothing else. 

Greg first bolted the line last autumn with Paddy Cave but only briefly tried it. Greg talked about the route in more detail on his blog:

"It is a 20 meter route that follows a very steep roof line. The moves are big and powerful, and if you mess up the crux sequence, you fall worryingly close to the ground (potentially hit it on rope stretch)."

Incredibly, Greg climbed the route on his second try of his first session this year, having fallen off the crux on his warm-up go of the day. Greg commented on the grading of the line, which at D13 is one of two at this grade in the country:

"Having only ever climbed one other D13 before, and it was my own route “Frankenstein” in Newtyle, it was hard to grade “Powerdab”, especially when they are both so different in character. But I settled on D13 (knowing it was much harder than “DTS Spirit”) and that makes this route the second D13 in the UK and potentially one of the hardest tooling routes in the country."

Here is a video by James Dunn of Greg on Powerdab:

Greg Boswell is sponsored by: deuter, Grivel, Lorpen, Outdoor Research, Scarpa and Ski Trab