the nostalgia project: Freeborn Man, UK (2004)

The route

The limestone sea cliffs at Swanage are located on the UK's south coast, near to Portland, but otherwise very distant from other mainstream climbing areas.

Freeborn Man may be Swanage's best known route; certainly it has the most YouTube videos. The route tackles a 15m overhanging face directly above the sea, topped by a short slab. Nick Buckley led the first ascent in the late 1970s (graded E4) but most ascents are now in Deep Water Soloing style ("DWS") and the route is graded like a sport climb at ~6c (5.11b).

The 1990s Swanage DWS guidebook "Into the Blue" suggests that soloing Freeborn Man for the first time is "a major life event comparable to driving your first car or burning down your first public building"!

Climber on the crux of Freeborn Man. The Conger is under the spectators. © unknown

Starting a few metres left of Freeborn Man is The Conger, also first led by Nick Buckley and also now a popular DWS challenge. The Conger has a very different character; the wandering line takes the climber into, then out of, a hanging chimney at the lip of a deep sea cave.

The context

In 2007 UKClimbing.com invited me to review Mike Robertson's extraordinary guidebook to world DWS : "Deep Water".  Aside from a free copy of the book there was no payment or obligation, so I cheekily started the review with a self-indulgent autobiographical fragment. In some ways, the exercise of writing those four paragraphs (below) was the original inspiration for my "Nostalgia Project":

"For a couple of years in the mid-1980s, I toyed ineffectually with being a 'full-time climber'. After a promising start in Nepal, Australia and one or two other exotic places, this lifestyle choice gradually lapsed into an extended stagnation in Bristol, interspersing long periods of doing not much with poorly-funded trips to nowhere in particular. A few other climbers in Bristol shared this life, one of whom, Crispin Waddy, would carve a successful trajectory from it into the future, whilst the rest of us eventually slid into office enslavement or other variants of normality.

Sometime in late summer 1986, Crispin, already revealing glimpses of higher ambition, encouraged three of us - Phil Windall, Jamie Ayres and I - to join him in Swanage, where he'd set up home in the Tilly Whim caves. I have various fragments of memory from the week or two we spent there: evenings nursing a single pint for hours in the gloomy Durlston Castle; stumbling later down the long dark cave-access tunnel, within which our host banned use of a torch; sleeping fitfully after failing to find a flat place to sleep; waking up to diffused but dazzling sunlight burning through the sea fog each morning. We climbed for few days in the Boulder Ruckle then were led by Crispin over to Connor Cove. At that time, there were almost no routes recorded there, probably because of the low height of the cliffs and limited number of belay ledges. Crispin rigged abseils optimistically in a couple of spots, and I held his ropes on some first ascents around E3/4 on what was later named the Funky Wall.

One day I was down on a ledge sorting ropes whilst Crispin eyed possible lines around us. Then I noticed he was gone and - more puzzlingly - was not tied in. He traversed a long way leftwards above overhangs, vanished around a corner and eventually reappeared on the cliff top. Reunited later he talked through the physics of what he'd done: the cliff was steep and not that tall, the water was deep and there'd been no real danger. I listened but didn't comprehend. The route was Fathoms; years later I realised it was probably the earliest first ascent in Britain made intentionally in DWS style.

A day later we were below the Conger and made a convoy solo. Crispin insisted that this was the normal way to do the climb; a statement that would only cease to be an exaggeration a decade later (though it was true that the route, originally led on gear, had been soloed by Nick Buckley in 1983). Most people are elated after their first deep water solo. Lacking any peer group endorsement that it wasn't madness, I set off scared, had a moment of relief after sketching across the hanging chimney crux, then reverted to terror, not helped by Crispin and Phil's laughter, as I topped out on friable shards of crud. As I get older, I notice that the world is split into people who grasp opportunity whenever it appears in front of them whilst others examine opportunity, succumb to caution and say "no thanks". Handed a privileged chance to get involved in British DWS pioneering from its inception, I turned my back and didn't solo above water again until 2002!"

My ascent of the Conger in 1986. Note the first gen Boreal Fires and the redundant harness!
© Jamie Ayres

DWS did not take off in Britain until the mid-1990s but then became fashionable very quickly. Notably in the late 1990s/ early 2000s it was popularised through a series of DWS "festivals", mostly held at Swanage, which combined crowds of swimwear-clad climbers attempting DWS routes with rave-style after-parties - a conceptually-radical evolution for British climbing at the time.

Freeborn Man climbed by Leah Crane during a DWS festival

© Mike Robertson, used with permission

I attended precisely none of these events, considering myself even then to be too old and boring. However I eventually became afflicted with a degree of FOMO, not helped by the irony (see above) that I had tasted DWSing a decade before most of the organisers of these events, let alone the paying punters. In August 2003 Dan and I paid a visit to Berry Head in Devon, also on Britain's south coast but 150km west of Swanage, to climb two famous DWS traverses there: Rainbow Bridge and Magical Mystery Tour.

Of these, Rainbow Bridge was considered quite hard at the time and had not been documented in a guidebook as a DWS. We had some beta from the web forums but little else. The early parts of the route were just above the sea but the "Crystal Cave" crux takes you high above the waves in a pumpy technical groove. I was absolutely blown away by the intensity of the experience. Being with Dan, there was an inevitable "safety-third" aspect to the day, resulting in us soloing two sections of the route that have boulders, rather than deep water, underneath and are usually bypassed.

At the end of the route, after about 300m of climbing, there is a giant wedge-shaped ramp rising out of the sea on which to recover and sun-bathe. Somehow I had not fallen anywhere on the route, and as it was a very hot day, I felt perversely cheated. Already awash with adrenaline, it seemed absolutely appropriate to hike to the very top of the ramp and take a blind running jump off the cliff beside the ramp without any thought to fall-distance or the adequacy of the landing. Thankfully it was "only" 15m or so to the water and the waves were soft.

In 2004, I was still living in Oxford, renting a small house by the Thames close to the centre of town. My "employment" that year was acting as finance director / cat-herder to an ill-disciplined software startup attempting to exploit a clever idea in financial econometrics from a local academic. This sucked up my time to a greater extent than I anticipated without generating any income. Meanwhile Leo was getting older and deserved more attention. Consequently I was not climbing as often as I would have liked.

Furthermore, Oxford is about as far from decent outdoor climbing as it possible to achieve in the UK. Swanage was one of the least-distant options, well connected by fast roads for most of the 180km drive from Oxford, so I made several day trips there. By then Freeborn Man was on my radar as a route I should try. The problem was that conditions there were hard to get right. It needed sunshine to be dry but also a calm'ish sea to be able to access the bottom of the route safely. In June a friend, Roger, and I hiked to Connor Cove for a "look".  We soloed the easier Troubled Waters next to Freeborn Man but contrived various excuses not to try its harder neighbour.

Throughout the summer the route stayed front of mind for me but opportunities to try did not arise.On the last day of July I was scheduled to spend the weekend at home, as we were setting off for a long family holiday in Ireland a few days later. However I could not help checking the south coast forecast: it was perfect. Frustrated, a mad plan popped into my head. Central to my reasoning was the rationale that everyone, even a non-bread-winner at the weekend, is entitled to a "lunch break" ...

The ascent

After yelling a "back soon" lie through the front door, I jumped into my car with climbing shoes and chalk bag. The diary does not document my start time but I recall it was "mid-morning": 10:30 - 11:00am? Average speeds in the "fast lane" of British motorways are 130-140 kmh, so a 90 minute drive time was just about feasible and I believe achieved. Unfortunately the approach hike to Connor Cove is a further 3km or so. Somehow, I found the energy to run most of this.

At the cliff-top I decided I had about an hour available to climb, at the very most. However the diary records that I allowed myself a "few zen moments" before warm-up laps on Troubled Waters then another pause "taking everything in" before scrambling back down to the shoreline. An absolute cardinal rule of DWS is to never do it alone, in case you fall awkwardly into the water and are unable to swim (collapsed lungs and broken backs have occurred from DWS falls), or get hit on the head by loose rock. Unfortunately, though it was the weekend and conditions ideal, there was no-one else in the area. I put that detail out of my mind.

As I remember it, the first few metres of Freeborn Man are steep but fairly straightforward up to a committing traverse on small pockets and undercuts into the crux bulge. There is a strong sense of summit-or-fly at this point as the prior moves feel irreversible The exit onto the slab is where most people fall off. I remember rocking-up optimistically and finding a small crimp that I knew I was definitely strong enough to hold. Then pulling into balance on the slab with a huge release of tension.

For an encore, I decided to climb The Conger as well, touching those holds again for the first time in eighteen years. The diary records that it was a "long expedition and not trivial". But with all the traffic on the route since 1986 it definitely felt more solid.

After that I just had to reverse the run and the drive. The diary claims that I arrived back at the Oxford house at 3:30pm. It does not record whether anyone had noticed that I had gone out!

Subsequent ascents

I have not been back to Connor Cove. In fact, 2004 was my last full year living in the UK and I have only climbed British rock on a handful of occasions since.

Some years later I met Mike Robertson, and some of the other larger-than-life personalities who pioneered the British DWS scene. But that story must wait until the 2012 instalment.

the nostalgia project: Right-Hand Crack, UK (1999)

The route

Right-Hand Crack at Brimham Rocks in Yorkshire is a short unexceptional crack climb graded VS (~YDS 5.7 or 5.8). It is the second-from-the-right of a quartet of crack routes on the buttress. The route to its left is called Central Crack and is a tad harder. The route to its right is not called Even-Further-Right-Hand Crack. Guidebook length for these routes is forty feet or about thirteen metres, but I suspect that is slightly exaggerated. Brimham is a pleasant area of moorland, trees and eroded gritstone blobs, popular with tourists as well as climbers.

unknown climbers on Right-Hand Crack, Brimham © unknown
The fall described was from the wide section of the crack to the left

The context

In August 1998 Shoko and I spent a long weekend in Yorkshire intermingling gritstone climbing and sight-seeing (primarily the spooky ruins at Fountains Abbey). Shoko was pregnant with Leo but not yet showing it. The diary records that we stayed in a "nice" B&B in Grassington. We visited Ilkley on Saturday then Brimham on Sunday.

The ascent

I don't remember why we picked Right-Hand Crack as an objective. Perhaps I wanted to introduce Shoko to hand jamming - often a fraught exercise with new climbers. I also don't remember anything about climbing the route. I do know that I belayed from the top, despite the route's modest height, as is normal for trad pitches in the UK.

As Shoko began following the route, I noticed a middle-aged male climber advancing up Central Crack, just to her left. He had all the characteristics of what the Brits unkindly call a "bumbly": mildly-overweight, uncertain in his movements and possessing a rack of gear apparently chosen with little forethought. He was belayed by a younger man that I guessed was his son, who was standing too far back from the base of the cliff. It may have passed my mind to say something about this, but there were other climbers at the cliff-base and I probably felt that it was their responsibility.

Near the top of his route, the leader paused below an awkward-looking wide crack section, which I guessed was the crux. I watched him place a classic bumbly protection piece: an ancient hexentric nut threaded with an absurdly-long rope sling. Even before he attempted the hard moves, the carabiner on the sling was level with his ankles. I began paying more attention to him than Shoko, who was roughly level with him. They were both just three or four metres below me. It was soon clear that the guy was having trouble. He tried to reverse his last move but slipped. I had a bird-eye view of the arc of his fall. First the long hex sling snagged one of his feet and tipped him out horizontally. Then his belayer was catapulted forward, creating enough slack for a possible ground impact. The rope went tight as the guy hit a slab at the base and inverted completely. His head, thankfully in a helmet, hit a boulder with a loud bang.

The next few moments were very ugly. Shoko was in shock at what had happened and was almost unable to finish the last easy moves of our climb. The victim began making animal-like groaning noises. People rushed over but could do little as it was obviously unwise to risk moving him. The son was understandably distressed. It passed my mind that his father might die in front of us. Rescue services were called. The victim went quiet.

Wanting to help, but lacking any better role, I rappelled their route, cleaned the gear and coiled their rope. It seemed pointless but somehow respectful - signifying unrealistically that all might be well and that they could soon be climbing together again. The rescue team came quickly and thankfully confirmed that the otherwise-unresponsive victim was still alive. For reasons that were not explained - proximity, I assume - the stretcher was carried to an ambulance pick-up location different to the regular car park. However the son felt that he needed to retrieve the family car, which was parked there. Shoko and I walked him to the car park. I want to believe that we then offered to help him find the hospital where his father had been taken but that he declined - but I am not sure if that is actually true. For some reason, whenever I think about the incident, this detail troubles me. Could we have helped more? Was the boy safe to drive himself in his shocked state?

We never learned what transpired next, how serious was the victim's injury or whether he made a full recovery. 1999 was still a year or two before it would be normal for climbing accidents to be discussed on internet forums. The incident remains the worst climbing accident that I have witnessed. As my description demonstrates, I can rationalise it as a combination of avoidable errors - the poor belaying and the outdated poorly-placed protection - and so have shrugged it off. I even climbed the next day. For Shoko, the effect was more disturbing. She has only climbed a few times in the nineteen years since.

Subsequent ascents

I have been back to Brimham once, in 2003. I did not climb Right-Hand Crack.

And another thing ...

My impression is that this kind of climbing accident, a bad fall while climbing, is fairly rare these days; in Squamish, anyway. Protection and belay devices have improved and knowledge of how and where to use them seems to be better disseminated too. Anecdotally, the most popular way to kill yourself climbing now is to lead sport routes with a newbie or - less forgivably - a set-in-their-ways ageing traddie, especially an american. They will take you off belay when you reach the anchors, making the assumption that you are planning to rappel rather than lower, guaranteeing a ground fall unless you spot their error. (Famous example.) I try to make a habit of always checking tension in the rope before committing to being lowered. This actually saved my life about three years ago.

the nostalgia project: Twinkler, UK (1997)

The route

Trwyn Llwyd is a vowel-free gabbro  sea cliff in the esoteric Welsh climbing area of North Pembroke. Twinkler is a two pitch HVS (~YDS 5.9) that wanders across the cliff finding the easiest line between much harder routes. In the 1990s it was graded VS.

The context

For all sorts of reasons best left undocumented, 1997 was a chaotic year for me. The frequency of my weekend climbing was about the same as usual but I was very distracted and did little of note.  In grade terms, the highlight was a trip to El Chorro in Spain in January where I redpointed a 7b fairly easily. One unusual feature of the year was that Dan (mentioned twice before in this blog and likely to recurr again) rented a room from me in the north London flat that I had just bought. Inevitably this meant that we climbed together more often.

In May we spent a long weekend in the North Pembroke. I believe the  motivation was that a new guidebook had just come out. Photos show that we dossed two nights in a pub car park; a typical strategy in those days. On Saturday and Sunday we visited four cliffs, roping up for several routes in the E1-E3 range, most of which seemed somewhat less worthwhile than the guidebook promised.

(fresh) Airbnb - 90's style

The Economist and the Financial Times - essential accessories for the travelling Londoner

The ascent

On Monday, the diary notes that it was "scorchingly hot" and that we climbed unroped most of the day, mostly on very easy short pitches. To end the day Dan suggested a "convoy solo" of Twinkler. It had been several years since I had last soloed a multi-pitch and I remember feeling some concern. However VS was comfortably within my limit so objectively the risk was low. Dan soloed often at that time. I acquiesced.

Convoy soloing - two or more people climbing unroped on the same route at the same time - was something I had done a few times prior to this. Especially ten years before at Arapiles, when I and most of my regular partners were very young and foolish. Aside from moonlight idiocy on D Minor, mentioned here, I got notably scared onsighting the 100m slab classic Brolga unroped. Both I and my friend Pete found it much more delicate, insecure and irreversible than we had anticipated. A unique aspect of this dumb activity is the potential opportunity to be private witness to your partner's death (or vice-versa) as a section is tackled which the other has already completed. I still remember Pete and I's nervous banter, wide-eyes and various "what the fuck are we doing" philosophising on that ascent.

Dan starting Twinkler

Twinkler lured us in gently with a traverse above the sea that was easy and unexposed. In fact, I recall absolute no issues with the route until the very end where a short overhanging crack connected a small ledge with the top of the cliff. Dan did this quickly as I waited on the ledge. As I followed, it dawned on me that the crack was awkward and would be a challenging down-climb. The final move was a pull over a bulge on to gently-sloping terrain. I recall some dependence on a shallow unsatisfactory hand jam. I paused and looked at Dan who I think mumbled something like "it is OK" but looked worried. I paused a while longer. It was a bad place to stop; fatiguing eventually. The fall would have been 30m or more toward the sea, possibly into water of uncertain depth, possibly on to boulders. I doubt more than a few seconds passed in total, but as the cliche goes: they were "long" seconds. Finally I pulled the move, there being no other options and of course it was fine.

Researching this blog post, I stumbled over notes on a 2017 ascent of Twinkler that may shed some light on why the route felt so marginal: "[pitch] 2 felt hard even for HVS 5a as per the 2013 guide to finish up the steep final crack though i might have done the finish to "Better Led than Dead" climbing up a steep crack above a small step down in the ramp, either way this was excellent and well protected but felt E1 5b."

Subsequent ascents

I have not been back to North Pembroke.

I have also not soloed anything substantial since 1997. Where we live now in Squamish, there is an abundance of solid moderate climbing, moments from our front door, that is very well-suited for unroped climbing. But I don't do it. I believe I could run many laps with the required focus but in time complacency would be inevitable. Best not to start.

A case in point: in September this year I slipped off the final 5.4 pitch of a ten pitch new route that I had helped establish a few months earlier and had already climbed five times. I was seconding with far too much slack in the system, so fell the length of the pitch to ledges, bruising a few ribs and opening a spectacular though unserious scalp wound. No big deal but it could have been much worse. If anyone had asked me in advance how many times I could climb that pitch without falling I would have estimated thousands, not five ...

the nostalgia project: Mean Mother, UK (1993) and England's Dreaming, UK (1994)

The routes

My redpoint of England's Dreaming at Blacknor North, 1994

Throughout the 1980s and the 1990s (and, for all I know, right up until yesterday) British climbers have been tearing each other apart over the right places to allow sport climbing. Once, trying to make a semi-serious point in a climbers' web forum, I tried to detail the "rules" as I understood them:

"Bolts are absolutely not allowed on mountain crags, except at Tunnel Wall, and in the slate quarries, because they are quarries ... bolts are absolutely not allowed on sea cliffs, unless they are limestone, though not at Pembroke or at the parts of Brean Down that can be seen from the car park, or at some parts of Swanage ... bolts are allowed in quarries but not gritstone or sandstone quarries, unless they have been there for a very long time ... bolts are allowed on inland limestone, except at parts of High Tor and parts of Cheedale and at Blue Scar and parts of Cheddar and a whole lot of other places which are differentiated from the cliffs, where bolts are allowed, by ... fuck knows ..."

Part of the problem is that Britain does not have that much rock. And British climbing has a long history. The first E1, Javelin Blade, (low 5.10?) was led in 1930. By the time the dastardly idea of establishing fully-bolted climbs migrated up from France in the early 1980s, almost every notable rock face climbable up to ~7b had already been climbed, or at least honourably attempted on natural gear (or in its absence). The first "sport" routes were typically free version of aided climbs on which the bolting could be blamed on someone else. When people dared to begin adding bolts to wholly new lines, there was all kinds of push back. In the worst cases, routes suffered a decade or more of bad-tempered bolt placement, removal, replacement, removal ... ad nauseum. Another legacy is a significant collection of terrible "mixed" routes protected by cruddy decaying aid-climbing remnants, suspicious threads or allegedly-natural-but-probably-drilled pitons.

Amidst this chaos, a couple of areas have managed to acquire a large stock of bolted climbs without much controversy: Portland in southern England and the Great Orme in North Wales. Though a long distance apart, they share a few similar characteristics. They are adjacent to grim Victorian seaside towns; they are limestone peninsulas with limited connection to mainland Britain; the rock rarely takes natural protection; very few routes had been established before the sport climbers arrived, so there was less reason for traditionalists to complain.

Development at Great Orme led Portland by about a decade. For a brief period in the early 1980s, many of the strongest climbers in the UK made the area their temporary dirtbag home. There are good accounts in all three of the major climbing autobiographies from that era: Jerry Moffat's Revelations, Ron Fawcett's Rock Athlete and Ben Moon's Statement. The signature event was Ben Moon's bolting of Statement of Youth in 1984. With seven bolts on previously virgin rock it was effectively Britain's first pure sport climb. (Below is a great ~10 minute video of Ben attempting to reclimb Statement thirty years later, while talking about its history.)

The crew who developed Portland were less well known and more local to the Dorset area, but arguably their development philosophy was more radical. Their greatest gift to British climbing may have been cheekily bolting routes right down to the lowest grades, creating a climbing venue with something for everyone. There is even a route at Portland provocatively named Trad Free World.

This blog post focuses on two routes, one each from the two areas.

Mean Mother is a 7b (5.12b) overhanging face route on the tidal cliff, Lower Pen Trwyn ("LPT"), on the Great Orme. In the 1980s and early 1990s it had a mandatory gear placement above the crux: a wired nut in a flake. It seems to be fully-bolted these days.

England's Dreaming 7a+ (5.12a) at Blacknor North is one of Portland's most classic routes, being longer and more sustained than is typical for the area, having interesting tufa features and being situated in the most dramatic location on the island, with a long view over Chesil Beach. It is close to the sea but non-tidal, raised above the shore line by a grass and scree slope.

The context

MBA graduation event, 1993

After completing my MBA in February 1993, doors started opening to me and I became a proper London yuppie, accessorised with the Modern Review, a job in the City and Timothy Everest suit. This phase of my life lasted almost ten years. Though I never took a break from climbing, it became harder to integrate with my life. Weekend trips away diminished in favour of single day-trips, as did trad climbing vs sport.

I had visited LPT for the first time in August 1992. I had found the cliff really inspiring and so took every opportunity I could to visit in 1993. However, from 1994 the five hour drive to North Wales began to feel daunting and I focused attention on the more accessible Portland, which could be reached in a couple of hours with an early start. My main partners during this period were Steve Moore, a long-haired Kiwi eco-warrior who was excellent company but never seemed to wholly approve of me, and the extraordinary John Zangwill, about whom I intend to write more in the 1996 installment.

Steve, party in Camberwell, ~2014

The ascents

According to the diary, I top roped Mean Mother in June 1993 and found it "OK". A month later I was back with Steve and managed the lead. It was my first 7b. From the diary: "Got very frightened on Mean Mother as critical Rock 4 placement seemed wobbly and I was very, very pumped." The next day I also redpointed the excellent Night Glue, 7a+, a crag classic and more conventional fully-bolted climb.

In August 1993 I redpointed my second 7b, War Games at Chapel Head Scar in the Lake District. Both 7b's went down on my first redpoint try, implying, I now realise, that I could have climbed much harder if I had focused on specific objectives and invested more time in them. Instead I remained plateau'd at that grade for about fifteen years.

At Portland, England's Dreaming succumbed in a similar style to the LPT routes in May 1994. A few tries one weekend then success the next. I did another 7a+, Wurlitzer Jukebox, on the same day, first redpoint try. More evidence that I really should have been trying harder stuff.

Another scan of an old photo - higher on my redpoint of England's Dreaming

Steve on Wurlitzer Jukebox, 1994

Subsequent ascents

I continued visiting Portland regularly for the next six years but never went back on England's Dreaming. I tried a few 7b's there but only sent one of them.

Dave Macleod's excellent book "Nine out of Ten Climbers Make the Same Mistakes" has a long section devoted to big picture "lifestyle" obstacles to climbing success. I tend to blame my lacklustre 1990s climbing trajectory on living in London, but in hindsight there were changes that I could have made. Buying a van would have been one, to make weekend trips less irksome. Or living close to one of London's better climbing gyms, so I could visit more often. It pains me in retrospect that I instead led such an indeterminate life.

the nostalgia project: Black Magic, UK (1992)

The route

Climber about halfway up the big pitch of Black Magic, which ends below the obvious skyline corners
© Grant Farquhar

Few hikers on Cornwall's Pentire Point coast path, gazing out across the Atlantic, are aware of the Great Wall beneath their feet. The cliff's summit is an unexceptional grassy bump, a few metres below the path. You have to scramble steeply down to the shoreline to appreciate the cliff, which abruptly reveals itself as a huge sweep of near-vertical blank rock crowned by steep angular corners, about 100m high in total.

For me, the Great Wall, generally just referred to as "Pentire" by climbers, may be the best cliff in the UK, in the sense of distilling all the unique aspects of British climbing into a single compact package:

• By the sea.
• Melancholic celtic vibe. 
• Lonely runout face climbing. 
• Decent pubs and cream tea shops nearby. 

Some British climbers will scowl and mutter "Gogarth" in response to this, but when I was last there - admittedly a very long time ago - that sprawling Welsh seacliff was a clear fail on the fourth criteria.

Pentire's main limitation is that there are not many routes. When I first visited in the mid-1980s there were only two, both established in the 1970s by Pat Littlejohn, the great pioneer of South-West English climbing. Eroica follows the only continuous crack line on the cliff while the brilliant Darkinbad the Brightdayler wanders across the huge blank face to the right, finding subtle areas of weakness. In 1987, Bristol climber Steve Monks added Black Magic, taking a more direct up the tallest part of the blank face via a 50m long first pitch. Black Magic is rated E5, with consensus at the high end of the grade and some thinking it deserves E6. In YDS, maybe 5.11d X?

The context

In the spring of 1992 I resolved to give up computer programming work, focus on my (part-time) MBA course and not work again until I could score a finance job. The actual effect of this was unemployment for most of the year, as the banks and investment firms that I pestered with job applications universally spurned me. On the positive side, this meant great swathes of climbing time. Additionally I was single so not subject to many constraints at all. Except lack of money which became more of a concern as the rejection letters piled up.

My most frequent climbing partner at that time was Dan Donovan, also London-based and also under-employed. Dan would go on to greatly surpass me as a climber, notably in the boldness/ adventure dimension, but in 1992 we were still at a similar level and shared many climbing objectives. We were especially keen on climbing in the South West, possibly because of new guidebooks to the area but possibly also because it was the one place in the UK that London climbers weren't disadvantaged in reaching, relative to climbers from further north; in other words, it was a long drive for everyone.

Dan climbing Fay at Lower Sharpnose, North Cornwall in 1992

Dan on the Moon at Gogarth in 1992

Dan owned three puffin stuffies (intended for juggling?) that accompanied him everywhere. I had recently acquired a camera, after many years of mostly-undocumented climbing, but regrettably in 1992 took few pictures of people on rocks and rather too many of his puffins in staged poses - a sort of proto-meme that seemed funny at the time.

Dan's puffins at Pentire

The puffins enjoying a celebratory cream tea, probably on the weekend in question, very likely here

In May we spent a three day weekend in the South-West, moving between three different venues from the western tip of Cornwall to the North Devon coast. The diary records proudly that the trip was "Totally awesome" and that we accumulated "36 E points !!!". E points being a bragging system based on notional points awarded for the grade of the routes climbed, one for E1, two for E2, etc.

On the Saturday we had climbed the West Face, Dream/ Liberator and Desolation Row in Bosigran's atmospheric Great Zawn, then the more obscure Burning Gold at Carn Les Boel. I had never done so many "hard" pitches in a day. Confidence levels were high.

On Sunday we were at Pentire. There were no other climbers. I had led Darkinbad before, with Noel the previous year, so it was Dan's turn to try it. To my quiet satisfaction he fell once - from the only safe part of the route, a short finger-crack. This raised the question of what to do next. We had a new guidebook that listed Black Magic, but had little information except that many "RP"s (small wired brass nuts) were needed. Moreover we had not heard of an ascent by anyone we knew. On the blunt end of the rope my second time up Darkinbad had felt easy and the little crimp edges that littered the face welcoming. Black Magic crossed the same kind of terrain. It seemed reasonable to have a go.

The ascent

I don't remember much about climbing Black Magic. The diary states "a real E5 ... lots harder than Darkinbad" and "ultra-scary" but I don't recall overwhelming fear at the time, more a constant unease. I do remember that the pitch felt very long and that I placed many RP's, but that most of them seemed cosmetic. I also remember pausing at a tenuous rock-up on a small lichenous edge near the end of the pitch and thinking "must absolutely not fall here".

The significance of leading Black Magic became more apparent a few years later. Some time in the mid-1990s my friend Duncan Critchley belayed a rising star amongst London climbers, Alison (by coincidence, the only person I know to have been born on the same day as me) on the first pitch of Black Magic. She slipped near the top, ripping out most of her gear in the fall and ending up close to the giant boulders at the base of the wall. Impacts during her fall badly damaged her ankle, which eventually had to be fused. There is no doubt that I would not have gone near the route had this happened before my ascent.

Even without that future insight, 1992 marked the peak of my not-very-ambitious onsight trad career and I have never again (intentionally) climbed anything as serious as Black Magic. I don't think that was an especially conscious decision, more that my interest in sport climbing began to crowd out everything else and I got out of the habit of bold climbing, which - like most things - benefits from practise.

Subsequent ascents

I have not been back to Pentire but I have spent significantly more time on the Atlantic coast of Devon and Cornwall, sometimes just in tourist mode. I took Shoko to Bosigran, St Ives and Tintagel, a few km north-east of Pentire, on her first visit to the UK in September 1992, and we got married in Crackington Haven, a little further up the coast in 1998.

Shoko at Bosigran, Cornwall, 1992

the nostalgia project: Right Wall, UK (1990)

The route

Dinas Cromlech © Mountain Project. No prizes for identifying Right Wall.

About ten years ago, when I lived in the UAE, I shared a long morning drive out to a climbing area with my friend Nick. His conversation topic, for at least an hour or more, was the word "iconic". He thought it had become massively over-used. As he worked in advertising, a business where adjectives matter, I paid some attention. At the time "iconic" was not a word that I used much, but, perhaps as an unintentional consequence of his rant, it has crept into my vocabulary.

Avoiding "iconic" or other cliched language is especially difficult when writing about Right Wall, not only as the route itself is iconic, but so are many of its neighbouring climbs and, indeed, the entire cliff: Dinas Cromlech in Llanberis Pass in North Wales. The Cromlech looms above "The Pass" like a medieval castle re-imagined by Frank Gehry, with big planar features rendered at intriguing angles.



At its centre is the Cenotaph Corner, E1, obviously sustained for most of its forty metre length. The legendary Joe Brown made the first ascent in the 1950s, notoriously using a few pitons despite his peer group, and preceding generations, considering that unfair. Focus then shifted to the two huge adjoining flat walls. Left Wall, E2, which is a few degrees less steep than the right, was climbed as an aid route in the same decade then free climbed in 1970. For modern climbers with strong fingers it is probably easier than the corner.

Right Wall was regarded as one of Britain last great climbing challenges in the early 1970s. It fell to a top British climber of that era, Pete Livesey, in 1974. Like Joe Brown, he used questionable tactics for the time. In this case, starting out onsight but tying off his lead rope at a ledge at two-thirds height, then soloing off sideways to arrange a rappel inspection of the final moves, before returning to the sharp end. Livesey would have graded Right Wall something like "Hard Extremely Severe" but once Britain's E-grade became generally adopted in the late 1970s the route was recognised as a benchmark at the then-highest grade: E5. In YDS grades it would probably rate as low/ mid 5.11 for difficulty but R or possibly X for seriousness. Most of the climbing is very runout.

The context

1990 was a tough year for me. Overshadowing everything else, my father died in April, from myeloma originally diagnosed in 1986, after a remission period of about three years.

During the 1989/90 winter I had earned some reasonable money from a programming contract but the commute to the client's office was long and the work tedious. I opted not to renew the contract. (The client was actually a subsidiary of a US investment bank, originating mortgages in Britain that could be securitised by the parent firm. Had I know that two decades later this type of activity would grow in size and complexity to a level that would almost crash the world financial system, I might have taken more interest.)

Gentrifying 150 year old floorboards

Meanwhile Catherine and I unwisely bought a small terraced house together in a sorta-bohemian but mostly-shit corner of east London. The house needed a lot of immediate renovation work to be liveable, for which we had limited money and no useful skills of our own. At an early stage there was a cartoonish, but not actually funny, moment when the ancient horsehair-and-plaster ceiling of a ground floor room collapsed while we were sanding floorboards above. We were storing all of our stuff, including clothes, in the fall zone. On another occasion, I ventured into the dusty roof void and discovered a crack in the side wall wide enough to reach right through into the neighbour's property: unrepaired bomb damage from the Blitz.

However I was in reasonable climbing shape. One reason was the Mile End climbing wall, which was only a few minutes drive from the house. This facility in abandoned industrial space near a canal was originally the headquarters of the "North London Rescue Commando", a sort of urban sea scouts group run by one of those elderly batchelor eccentrics who stereotypically involve themselves with such things. Somehow it had been infiltrated by climbers who had installed steep bouldering panels that were cutting edge technology for their time. It was by far the best indoor climbing available in London for several years.

Mile End was also a good place to meet other London climbers. Previously I had been feeling pressure to join one of the London climbing clubs, which seemed to involve a lot of forced socialising and other BS. A loose group of Mile End regulars were climbing regularly together from 1989 onwards. Most Fridays we would set off from central London for weekend trips to areas like the gritstone (2-3 hours), Pembroke (3-4 hours), North Devon/ Cornwall or North Wales (both 4-5 hours). We were starting to learn how to go sport climbing around Europe more frequently too, though that became exponentially more easy from the mid-1990s onward when low-cost airlines like Ryan Air and Easyjet began expanding. Sport climbing was good for stamina, which in turn made British trad climbing easier: fewer moments of pumped terror and more time to fiddle in decent protection.

Thanks to these factors, I was gradually progressing into higher trad grades, notably the "magic" E5. I had climbed my first E5 in 1988: Track of the Cat on gritstone, though as a solo after top-roping. In October 1989 I had managed another, Just Another Day, in Pembroke (since downgraded). This raised the question of trying Right Wall. There were rumours that it was "soft" for E5, though still serious. It was hard to get reliable information, as no-one in my immediate climbing circle had done it. (Being able to research routes online still lay a decade or more into the future.)

The ascent

A small group of us went up to Wales for the May holiday weekend. One guy belonged to a  Manchester-based group which the diary refers to "the misogynist Rucksack Club". I believe that referred to their then policy of not allowing women in their Llanberis Pass hut (yes, really, in 1990!) where we intended to stay. Unfortunately I don't remember whether Catherine and I camped outside or raised a finger to the rule entirely. I hope the latter.

On Saturday the weather was perfect. We headed straight up to the Cromlech. I remember a few things from that day. I had planned to warm up on an easier route but all the available options were already taken. So I started up Right Wall. The first few metres are unprotected and quite thin, but I almost immediately realised that the style of climbing suited me and that I wouldn't be falling off. The holds were all positive, either incut or well-textured flatties. I don't remember the middle section of the route at all. At about two-third height, a ledge runs across the face wide enough to allow a full no-hands rest.

About seven metres above is the final crux at the "porthole"; a recessed circular feature. I had heard of people taking long falls from there. For me there was no drama there either. I have a vague memory of rocking up into the porthole using an undercut, but I may have invented that retrospectively. Similarly placing some small RP nuts close to the porthole and wondering how people managed to take long falls there. At the top, I yelled down "E3!" to Catherine, no doubt to the irritation of other people at the cliff. But the climb had felt straightforward.

climber on the middle section of Right Wall © unknown

On the rappel descent I swung over to inspect the top part of Lord of the Flies, E6, the direct line left of Right Wall, next on the list of Cromlech classics and immortalised for my generation by a TV program (below) about Ron Fawcett's first ascent (25:08: "Come on arms, do yer stuff"). "Lord" was damp at the top so my massive overconfidence did not flow into making an attempt; almost certainly a good thing. Catherine led Left Wall cleanly, which was a new tick at her highest grade.



Subsequent attempts

I never climbed Right Wall again but did revisit the Cromlech a few times. In 1993 I hiked up there twice and climbed three more routes left of the corner: Resurrection, E4, the slightly-contrived True Grip, E5 and the dangerous Memory Lane, E3. I also have vague memory of climbing Foil, E3, left of Memory Lane, but can find no record in the diary.

Lord of the Flies is high on the list of British routes that I wish I had done. 1990 could have been my moment, when I was still young enough to summon the boldness/ stupidity. In those days the route was also better protected. (Subsequent years have seen Fawcett's original pitons rust away and break, then some critical nut placements disappear also. These days people are using skyhooks and even foot-placed slings for protection!) Unfortunately, about a month after climbing Right Wall I fell awkwardly at the start of a limestone climb in Derbyshire, landing on a boulder at ground level with an outstretched arm. I broke the ulna on that arm completely so it had to be set under anaesthetic. Though it eventually healed up fine, I was out of climbing for most of the rest of the year.

the nostalgia project - Limbo, UK (1983)

The route

Limbo follows a shallow groove on the left side of the Suspension Bridge Buttress, a limestone cliff in the Avon Gorge. In the British grading system the route rates as "Extremely Severe", or, less dramatically: E1.

As the name suggest, the buttress forms one end of the dramatic Clifton Suspension Bridge; a masterpiece of 19th century engineering and one of Britain's most easily recognisable landmarks. The river Avon, which runs through the gorge for several kilometres, connects the old Bristol city docks with the Atlantic-facing port of Avonmouth. There are cliffs all along the east-side of the gorge, up to about 100m high. Unfortunately, most have been quarried in the past. The Suspension Bridge Buttress is an exception: natural limestone well supplied with pockets and natural threads.

Clifton Suspension Bridge from the south

Climber on the second pitch of Hell Gates, directly under the bridge, mid-1980s © James Ayres

Last few moves to the bridge parapet, mid-1980s © James Ayres

Climber topping out on the bridge parapet (no longer allowed!), mid-1980s © James Ayres

The context

I attended Bristol University between October 1982 and June 1985. In theory, to study Biochemistry. In practice, like many undergraduates, my attention was primarily focused on the awkward larval transition to adulthood. I chose Bristol because it was the only occupant of the intersection of two sets: universities regarded as a respectable backup choice for "Oxbridge rejects"; universities with local climbing. The Avon Gorge was genuinely close. From the medical school, where lectures and lab work took place, I could bike to its base in 15 minutes. The university climbing club was well-established and quite popular, so there was no shortage of partners. Bristol's climate was also mild. Rain fell often but temperatures rarely got prohibitively cold. It was just about possible to climb all year around.

On the negative side, most of the climbing in the Gorge was on the old quarried faces; very unusual in character and needing specific technique that was not obviously transferable to other climbing areas. Main Wall, the largest expanse of rock, was all about crab-like shuffling with weight mostly on the feet. The Sea Walls, further north, were more sculpted, with blank corner and arete features, requiring tenuous low-friction moves. Aside from the Suspension Bridge Buttress, the only recognisably "modern" and steep'ish cliff was the Upper Wall, but the routes there were all hard.

Protection was also typically poor: rusty pitons in horizontal breaks backed up by cams or sketchy horizontal wired nuts. Adding to the challenge, the prevailing UK ethic in the early 80s was to climb ground-up, and never top-rope or "work" routes. Attempting to climb harder always seemed to go hand in hand with taking more risk. Consequently we failed on routes often, and rarely by taking falls - far more common was a tactical retreat ("wimping out" was the usual expression).

The lineless intracy of Avon's Main Wall, mid-1980s © James Ayres 

As mentioned before, useful climbing gyms were still well in the future. The only training I recall anyone doing was traversing on any accessible bit of architecture made from stone blocks. The gorge itself had the "Bog Wall", a circular toilet block directly under the Main Wall. Later a similar but steeper wall, closer to town, The Hotwalls, became fashionable. Some people say that I have reasonable crimp strength and finger stamina. Conversely I don't feel that I have ever had much power for big upwards moves. If that's accurate, I probably have the 1980s traversing fad to thank/ blame.

The Bog Wall, mid-1980s © James Ayres

Me at Hotwalls, mid-1980s. © Owain Jones
Bizarrely the photographer made this into a commercial postcard,
sold for several years in gift shops around Bristol! 

In the British grading system, there is an obvious discontinuity from the adjectival grades ("Hard Very Severe", etc) to letters and numbers (E1, E2, etc). I believe the history runs something like this. In the 1960s the top grade was "Extremely Severe", but, inconveniently, standards continued to rise and climbers scratched their heads for grander superlatives. In the 1970s, "Exceptionally Severe" was toyed with, also prefixing "Extremely Severe" with "Mild-" and "Hard-" qualifiers, but neither stuck. Eventually, the E-grade appeared: an open-ended system of "E" plus a number, to be applied to all "Extremes". This system was in widespread use by the early 1980s. Inevitably, E1, the first rung on the Extreme ladder, became seen as a "magic grade" and rite of passage. For most of my first year at university it mattered hugely that I should do one.

In 1983, standards in the university club were fairly low. The best of the students were managing E1 and perhaps an occasional E2, and were quite proud of this. Standards were higher amongst the older "town" climbers. Most Bristol climbers gathered at a pub, The Port of Call, on Thursday evening every week. Some mythical heroes, who were climbing E5 and even E6, could be seen there - but they never spoke to us. (Amongst them a fierce-looking guy called Steve Findlay, these days famous as "Hazel's dad".)

In my first few months at Bristol I climbed several "HVS" routes and seemed poised for the E1 breakthrough. The diary records that I tried one: Catholics in late November 1982 but "wimped out ... abbed off a minute thread". Then there was a hiatus for several months. Miraculously, I had found a girlfriend: Kathleen, an elfin half-french girl, approximately as shy and peculiar as me. Fortunately (not really ...) by June 1983 she had dumped me and the E1 quest was back on.

Half-french elf-woman. The climb is Terriers Tooth in Cornwall

The ascent

I don't remember much about climbing Limbo or why I chose it. There is no earlier mention in the diary so it must have been an onsight ascent. I recall one or two abrupt pulls on pockets and a strenuous effort to pass a sling through a natural thread in a hole for protection. I imagine it would now feel like a warm-up route (6a'ish?) at a european limestone sport climbing venue, but without the bolts. The diary is silent on the actual climbing, devoting more text to the girlfriend crisis and that before the climb we had visited the Avon Gorge Hotel, a posh pub near the bridge, where we had "Nicked one of their umbrellas".

Leading Limbo, possibly in 1983 (or a later ascent?)

No more E1's were climbed until October, after which they started to become fairly routine. Notably, in early-November, I led all the hard pitches on the 130m Coronation Street in Somerset's Cheddar Gorge, "probably the best limestone E1 in the country".

Subsequent ascents

I climbed Limbo several more times while at university and during the next few years when I was still loosely in orbit around Bristol. It eventually became very familiar; the diary records that in June 1987 I seconded it "in bare feet".

My next two or three E-grade progressions were also at Avon. In April 1984 my first E2: The Preter, a multi-pitch on Main Wall. Later in the same month I then (unknowingly) notched up an E3: the runout Krapp's Last Tape, also on Main Wall, then only graded E2. In July 1986 I led Them, on the steep Upper Wall, in my opinion the best route at Avon, sometimes considered E4. However, by then, I had climbed two or three routes in Australia that were probably at least as hard, so quantifying the progression becomes more blurry. (Them was also the last route I climbed in the Gorge, on a fleeting and chilly visit to Bristol in January 1989.)

It would have been nicely ego-stroking had these higher grades been achieved in isolation. However, from 1984 onwards there was a sharp increase in competiveness amongst the younger Avon climbers and less complacency about the standards being achieved. I felt more that I was falling behind than getting ahead.

Amongst the newer university intake, the previously-mentioned Crispin Waddy was climbing E4's and E5's soon after his arrival. Similarly, several strong student climbers appeared in the Gorge from Bristol Polytechnic, an institution I had not known existed. Amongst them, I climbed a little with Guy Percival and Phil Windall, who were both keeping pace with Crispin. Another local student, Jamie Ayres, was diligently documenting the scene with his camera. He maintains a great album of 1980s Avon climbing on Flickr (and kindly gave me permission to use a few for this post).

Snarly young punks at the Bog Wall, Crispin second from the left, mid-1980s © James Ayres

And another thing ...

It used to be traditional that students performed annoying stunts and pranks from time to time (presumably that is still true, or are the current generation too busy waxing their moustaches?). In the 1980s, the surreal redeployment of common objects was especially popular. A 19th century civic statute modified with a traffic cone on its head, or condom on an appendage, would be a lame, entry-level undertaking. Or planting a pub umbrella in a grass-topped platform above a road tunnel entrance; as we did with the one we had stolen before climbing Limbo in 1983.

My only really significant contribution to this genre occurred in February 1984. One evening I walked past a builders' refuse skip, near where I lived, which contained an undamaged and apparently-clean toilet. On a whim, I contacted my friend John to suggest that we install it somewhere in the Gorge that night. We spent several hours messing around dangerously with headtorches on rappel ropes in order to secure the toilet to the hanging belay at the end of the first pitch of Malbogies, Main Wall's most classic route.

I suppose it could have been construed that we were making some sort of scatological comment on the route (personally I did think it was over-rated) but, frankly, it was just spontaneous silliness. For good measure, I did the first Malbogies-plus-toilet ascent the next day. Weirdly it then stayed there for at least a decade; either local climbers must have decided that they liked it or - more likely - no-one could be arsed (pun unintended) to take it down. Even more strangely we never received any flack for it, though our involvement was an open secret.

Phil Windall with the Malbogies belay toilet, mid-1980s © James Ayres

the nostalgia project - Snitch, UK (1981)

The route

Snitch lives at Symonds Yat, a limestone cliff in the Wye Valley, about 30 km upstream from Wintours Leap. Located on one of this far-from-world-class cliff's less impressive sectors, Snitch is so unremarkable that even a search on the voluminous UKClimbing website brings up no photos or forum discussion. Just a terse database entry suggesting an overall grade of "Hard Very Severe" or HVS and a relatively low technical grade of 4c. In the opaque world of Brit grading this suggests a route whose main characteristic is pump rather than difficulty. Or boldness rather than difficulty (you are supposed to make this important distinction from examining the route visually or finding other clues within the guidebook description). Maybe YDS 5.8? I am grateful to my friend Toby Archer (destined for a starring role in the 2002 and 2003 episodes - if I get that far) for tracking down these photos of his ascent of Snitch in 2010.

all photos © Toby Archer

The context

1981 was my final school year. I was sixteen years old and had become quite competitive about rock climbing, at least within my extremely limited peer group; essentially the handful of boys (there were no girls) at my school who climbed. At the time, the magic grade for us was VS or "Very Severe". No-one at the school had ever led one. Having bumbled up a few "Severes" I fancied my chances.

It seems quaint now that such a low grade could be a goal. One explanation is that we were all based in the south-east of England, an area generally devoid of rock, so none of us knew other climbers who could give us perspective on what was and wasn't attainable. And, of course, there were no web forums or Facebook groups where we could find advice or support, nor any climbing gyms where we could benchmark ourselves against others.

What we did have were climbing magazines, but they portrayed an apparent fantasy world of mythical beings doing extraordinary things. Training or coaching articles, endorsing the possibility of progression for normal people, are now a standard space-filler in climbing magazines, but did not start to appear until the late 1980s. I still have a few British magazines from the early 1980s, all editions of the vaguely punk "Crags", which was favoured over the more establishment "Climber and Rambler". Leafing through them now I would classify all the content in just three categories: destination articles about British or foreign cliffs, listings of new routes and cliquey in-jokes. Nothing for the clueless beginner.

The ascent

Again, more accurately: the attempt. In March 1981 a Duke of Edinburgh Award linked school trip, similar to the one that took me to Wintours Leap in 1979, gave us an opportunity to climb at Symonds Yat. The diary notes "Hideous two days. Snow and mud". The two teachers climbed with less experienced kids and let the rest of us do our own thing. As far as I recall, they did not even require that we stay within sight. I led a couple of "Very Difficult" routes and a "Hard Severe" - one notch below "Very Severe". Then I tried Snitch, which at the time was listed in the guidebook at VS.

I still remember some detail about this attempt and why it ended badly. First of all, the cliff base was very muddy so it was hard to leave the ground with clean boots. Also that protecting the route required fairly small pieces, and, although I had approximately the right sized nuts, they were all threaded with stupidly-long and worryingly-skinny cord. Furthermore, I was using Clog Cogs, an over-designed nut style (long since discontinued) that required a lot of effort to place correctly. After hanging around for too long attempting to set the third or fourth piece, I pumped out and fell off. My belayer held the fall, though I was shocked how near to the ground I came. This was the first lead fall ever taken by someone at my school, so, although not the prize I sought, it was sort of cool.

The main result of this event was that I got more serious about my climbing goals. I decided that I needed both better gear and to be a whole lot "stronger" (it would be years before the average climber differentiated strength from power or stamina). For the former, I got hold of some wired nuts, probably Chouinard Stoppers, though I am not certain, and, definitely, a couple of Wild Country Friends, the first cams on the market. For the latter, I started doing pull-ups. I guess that period was the sweet spot for me in terms of growth hormones and muscle development, as I went from managing two pull-ups to about twenty in just a few months; a scale of progression that I have never subsequently achieved in anything. (If only a time-machine could have visited me from the noughties's with a Beastmaker.)

In June, after finishing my A-Levels, I did at last lead a route graded VS: Mutiny Crack at Burbage in the Peak District. A month later, during the summer holidays, I visited the sandstone cliff Simonside in Northumberland and was inspired by a fun-looking HVS finger crack, Nee Perchass. It proved fairly straightforward. Ironically, none of these routes hold the same grades now! Snitch has been upgraded to HVS, Mutiny Crack downgraded to HS and Nee Perchass to VS.

Subsequent ascents

In October 1982,  just after starting three years at Bristol University, I visited Symonds Yat with the university mountaineering club in a convoy of erratically-piloted minibuses. As a relatively-experienced climber (ha ha ...) I was supposed to be there to top-rope "freshers", but obviously also had some personal business. From the diary: "Then in gathering gloom, I revenged myself on Snitch. Runners all "pinged" before I reached the top - quite exciting really".

And another thing ...

While writing this blog post I googled "Clog Cogs" and stumbled over this astonishing historical artifact (below). Apparently a genuine 1977 magazine ad. The 1970s owner of Clog went on to found the eponymous "Denny Moorhouse Mountaineering", better known as DMM.

What was Denny thinking!
photo © The Scottish Mountain Heritage Collection