the nostalgia project: Standing Rock, USA (2000)

The route

Standing Rock is a desert tower in South-West Utah, located in Monument Basin within the Island in the Sky area of the Canyonlands national park. More than any other in the US (except perhaps the restricted-to-climbers Totem Pole), Standing Rock exemplifies the classic desert tower shape: an implausibly-tall and slender 130m column.

The Regular Route was first climbed by the legendary team, Layton Kor and Huntley Ingalls, in the 1960s. It is de rigeur to repeat Layton's quote about Standing Rock in any account of climbing the tower: "We climb it not because it’s there, but because it won’t be there much longer.” Ironically it is still there, 50+ years later.

Standing Rock from Monument Basin rim

Standing Rock middle distance

Standing Rock - close-up

The context

In autumn 2000, Dan Donovan and I travelled to the US for a two week "holiday" attempting desert towers. Remarkably, nine were summited (full list below) and we managed cragging days in Eldorado Canyon, Maple Canyon and Indian Creek. Most of the credit belongs to Dan who was in excellent shape. In contrast, my trad skills were rusty and in the twelve months leading up to the trip had barely climbed at all (Leo was born in February 2000). We were lucky with conditions, experiencing mostly dry mild days. The word "desert" in desert towers suggests somewhere reliably arid but on a subsequent visit to the area in the same autumn season it was cold, windy and rained quite frequently.

We flew in and out of Denver, renting a vehicle at the airport. We lucked out by scoring an SUV - Ford Explorer - for a small supplement to the basic rate we had booked. In fact, having a vehicle with reasonable clearance proved essential for some of our objectives. We also discovered that it was roomy enough to sleep in the back and and took advantage of this on several nights.

Dan getting beta from Andy Donson in Boulder before we drove west

My diary notes from the trip describe Standing Rock as "probably the most exciting climb I have ever done". I am not sure if that is still true, but it was certainly the highlight of the trip, and the most committing of the towers we attempted. Even getting close to Standing Rock is an adventure. The Island in the Sky national park is a curious upside-down place, a large mesa surrounded by multiple tiers of eroded sandstone of different varieties delimited by the Green and Colorado rivers. The top layer is Wingate sandstone, forming fairly solid cliffs, in places eroded into towers like the Monster, Washer Woman or Moses. Below this is a terraced flat area of white rock - the White Rim - encircling the whole mesa. Below this again is a layer of the much chossier Cutler sandstone, which in one location is eroded into the Monument Basin, containing Standing Rock and other surreal features. Even the base of the Monument Basin is still well above the level of the nearby Colorado River, with yet another cliff tier in between.

In 2000 access to the White Rim required a mandatory ranger briefing at the Island in the Sky park office, and as far as I recall, some kind of permit application. Then we drove down to the White Rim trail and tortured the Explorer's suspension along fifty kilometres of stone-and-dirt track to our destination. Looking into the Basin from the rim that evening intimidated me. Standing Rock appeared dauntingly tall and slender and getting in and out of the basin clearly added to the challenge. I guess that anyone venturing that way now for the first time will come pre-armed with numerous trip reports from the web, but we just had a basic guidebook description. If we were to have an accident on the tower, getting any assistance appeared impossible. We had barely seen anyone else on the road. I was a new father with responsibilities; what the hell was I doing? I slept poorly that night.

Looking into Monument Basin
Standing Rock is not the prominent tower just left of centre - it is more distant and further left

Monument Basin rim rock weirdness

Camping in the Explorer near the White Rim trail

In the morning we made the discouraging discovery that we had left a light switched on in the car and drained the battery, raising the risk that we might be stuck in that remote spot for several days at least. However, about a mile away we could just see another group - mountain bikers with a support vehicle - starting to pack up their camp. After weighing our various unsatisfactory options, we decided to run in their direction in the hope of intercepting them before they left. Thankfully this worked and they had jump-leads. More of the day was then lost to idling the engine to recharge the battery.

Descending into the basin required a short steep rappel. We left the rope in place with stashed ascenders, stumbled down some talus then then set off across the silent basin toward our tower. The floor of Monument Basin is almost wholly cryptobiotic soil: a living though dormant crust of lichen, moss and bacteria structured like a tiny fractal version of the towers and cliff rim around us. The ranger had spoken sternly about not disturbing the crust, without which the basin would be a dust bowl. We did our best.

Cryptobiotic soil, Monument Basin

Dan chilling in Monument Basin

The ascent

At the base of the tower, we took a break for a while. Dan happily puttered off somewhere to explore. My anxiety had escalated into an irrational certainty that I was going to die, not least as I had committed to leading the unstable-looking 5.10 first pitch. While sure that Dan wasn't watching, I recorded a short video message to Leo on my new digital camera apologising for dying plus some other platitudes that I no longer recall. (That the camera would somehow make it back home from Utah in the event of my death seems a major assumption in hindsight.)

As often happens in rock climbing, once engaged in leading the opening pitch, up a corner system, I felt much better. The rock was more stable than it looked and protection acceptable. The style felt recognisably similar to choss I had negotiated in the UK. At the end of the pitch there is a cruxy and exposed traverse rightwards out of the corner to a belay stance. Very exciting but still fine.

Dan then romped up a long 5.10+ crack pitch above. I followed this OK though it was strenuous. Pitch three is weird, and judging from more recent trip reports, may have got weirder. Dan led again. I remember a hard crux move (5.11?) and a very hollow flake on a steep bulge. I believe I managed it free but won't swear to that. The diary is silent on this detail. I led again on the top pitch, which spirals around the tower some more, out of sight from the belayer. Though easy (5.8 or 5.9?), it was runout, lonely and exposed enough to be intensely memorable.

On the summit we found an ascent register. Satisfactorily, it appeared from the spaced ascent dates that the tower was still rarely climbed. Then we rappelled, tiptoed back through the cryptobiotic crust and re-ascended our fixed rope to the rim. Dan, at that time a qualified vertical access worker, howled with laughter at my incompetent technique, especially when I got significantly stuck trying to pass a bulge.

The next day I assumed we would rest. Dan instead pointed out the relative proximity of the Washer Woman, and insisted that we thrashed six pitches up that - the diary records that I led nothing - and back down its somewhat notorious "arch" rappel. Washer Woman shares a col with the self-descriptive Monster Tower. Inevitably Dan then suggested that we bagged that too; I rebelled and we retreated to Moab for showers and beer.

Subsequent ascents

I have not been back to Monument Basin.

The tower ticklist

• Fine Jade, The Rectory
• Kor/ Ingalls, Castleton Tower
• Stolen Chimney, Ancient Art
• The Cobra (RIP)
• West Crack, Owl Rock [Dan only: he soloed while I took photos]
• Regular Route, Standing Rock
• In Search of Suds, Washerwoman
• Primrose Dihedrals, Moses
• Learning to Crawl, Thumbelina

Me on the Cobra

Dan on Owl Rock

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: Lai Bab, Thailand (1998)

The route

Lai Bab is an overhanging 7a+ (YDS 5.12a) sport route on the Tonsai Beach cliff at the karst limestone peninsula variously known as Tonsai, Railay, Phra Nang, Laem Phra Nang, Krabi or "that place in Thailand". I believe Laem Phra Nang is the accurate name but TripAdvisor and Lonely Planet use Railay, so I will too. Quicker to type, anyway.

Tonsai beach (left) and Railay West beach (right) in 1998 

Railay East beach in 1998

The growth of sport climbing in the 1980s and 1990s, especially at sunny venues in southern Europe, helped redefine the "climbing holiday" from a typically uncomfortable experience, unsuitable for family or less-committed climbers, to something more hedonistic. The final evolution of this concept would be one-stop climbing "resorts" like JoSiTo in Turkey but an important milestone along that road was the development of sport climbing in genuinely glamourous locations that almost no-one would need persuasion to visit. Railay, with its four white sand beaches, mandatory boat access, jungle backdrop, monkeys and giant surreal rock architecture, was the original, and perhaps still the best, example.

I first became aware of the place in the early-90s, possibly from magazine articles but also possibly from the eccentric 1994 book "Exotic Rock". Though effectively a humble-brag by the author, Sam Lightner, showing off just how extensively he had travelled, it was also quite inspiring.

Exotic Rock's world map. I have still only visited four of these areas.

The context

In January 1998, Shoko relocated from Tokyo to London to live with me. Before her arrival I had suggested that it might be best if she started rock climbing, as I was unlikely to be giving the sport up. With that in mind, I organised a series of trips to aesthetic overseas climbing venues that I hoped would sell the sport better than grotty British cliffs. Over the next two years we sport climbed in Tenerife, Mallorca, Railay, Smith Rock, Red Rocks, Siurana and Buoux, bouldered in the Seychelles and put up new trad routes on Inishturk island in Ireland. It helped that my career trajectory was in good shape at that time and money not a major constraint. There was no camping or similar hardship involved in any of these trips.

That said, when researching a one week visit to Railay for March 1998 I did have a brief dilemma. The area had a luxury hotel (then part of the Dusit group, now The Rayavadee). I guessed Shoko would feel cheated not to stay there but the price was outrageous. We compromised by booking a standard backpacker hotel for the first few nights then the Dusit for the remainder.

This worked out well, though it quickly became obvious that the Dusit was not used to hosting climbers. Right from our arrival we confused them by marching into reception with our bags rather than being dropped off on their boat shuttle from Krabi. Then we raised their eyebrows further by setting off out of their compound with backpacks and a rope to re-join the proletariat and climb.

The accommodation itself was quite fabulous. We had our own two storey villa with a little private plunge pool outside. Phra-nang beach, the prettiest of the four beaches, was a short stroll away on manicured lawns through palm trees.

Whether the Dusit was worth the price I was less sure. We had also enjoyed staying in our OK hotel room with its quasi-functional plumbing and noisy ceiling fan on the previous nights. I have been lucky to stay in quite a few fancy hotels over the years, also flown first class several times and eaten in some famous restaurants (Le Manoir, four different Nobu's, etc). These experiences have left me undecided as to the actual value of luxury. I have noticed that there are several ways in it can disappoint. An obvious one is if expectations are set unrealistic high. Then there is the anxiety brought on by the excessive choice which is often a feature of high-end travel; pillow menus, for example. Arguably, luxury only becomes truly luxurious once it becomes routine, and you are able to, say, sleep all the way through your first class flight and not over-order champagne and fiddle with the movie channels. Overall, I think it is good to sample this kind of thing a few times in your life then convince yourself you don't need it.

Queen Shoko in our private pool at the Dusit

And slumming it on the backpacker beach

On that theme, I had a bizarre encounter during our Dusit stay. We were walking back along Phra-nang beach in the early evening after climbing at some cliff at its far end. A european guy in a Dusit uniform yelled at me to ask - not very politely - for help. It turned out that he needed to move the Dusit's wooden shuttle pier higher up on the beach away from the tide line. It was a four person job and he was one short. For some reason, I agreed. It was a brief task - we only had to stumble a few metres - but the pier was brutally heavy and, sans warm-up, felt like a back-strain risk. When the job was done, Shoko and I stepped off the beach into the Dusit's compound. Uniform-guy started yelling again, this time warning that we were on private property. "I know", I replied, waving our room key, "We are guests". His face fell satisfactorily but we didn't hang around to see what he would say next. It dawned on me that he had only targeted me for help because he had assumed from my climber clothes that I couldn't be staying in the hotel.

The next evening we were eating in the Dusit's main dining room when uniform-guy came over to apologise. With hindsight I realise that this would have been an excellent opportunity to fake great outrage and a stiff back, and insist on compensation, or, at least, many free drinks. Instead I made a pious little speech about stereotyping, and suggested he treat climbers with more respect going forward.

The climbing, of course, was pretty good. Diary notes aren't very detailed, but I remember that Shoko had fun and was solid on the routes we tried up to ~6a (YDS 5.10b), including Massage Secrets, a cool three pitch route with amazing tufa stalactites. This was so good that we did it again on our departure day to get more photos.

Shoko following Massage Secrets

... and at one of the belays

The ascent

We did not venture over to the Tonsai beach cliff until late in our stay. The hike from the Railay West beach passed over an area of low-angle rock which I remember being sharp and awkward. At that time, there was just one beach bar and some very rudimentary huts at Tonsai. In my memory, it is populated by the sort of hairy German stoners who were a fixture at cliffs like Siurana in the 1990s, but that's probably totally inaccurate and unfair. I didn't intend to try anything "hard" but ended up watching someone on Lai Bab and thinking "I could do that". To my surprise, I flashed it. Not an onsight as I had observed the previous climber use a non-obvious undercut which proved to be essential beta. I was reasonably accustomed to flashing routes at that grade but not so often that I wasn't really pleased. It was very cool to climb smoothly on something so steep. The wall was around 45 degrees overhanging.

On the way back to the Dusit we got waylaid at a beach bar, first watching the sunset and then sitting on the sand while hippy firedancers performed to Leftism - that ubiquitous soundtrack to the mid-90s. A very clichéed experience but great. If someone entrusted me with a time machine to revisit moments from my life, I'd probably set the dial to that day in 1998 first.

My flash ascent of Lai Bab

Subsequent ascents

I have not climbed in Thailand subsequently. Shoko, Leo and I did spend about a week in Ao Nang, a few kilometres west of Railay, in January 2007. Though it was a strict "non-climbing" holiday, we did day-trip in a boat over to Railay. One change was immediately evident: the whole Tonsai beach area had been developed. Presumably as a consequence, what had been an empty crescent of white sand and blue sea was full of moored boats and the water had become brackish and unappealing. I made a mental note that the place was now "spoiled". But then I remembered that before we visited in 1998, some friends, who had been there a few years earlier, had warned that the place was too popular and "ruined" - which had not been our experience at all. In the same vein, while researching this blog post, I noticed a commentator on Mountain Project complaining that the place had been "discovered" since his first visit - which had been in 2009! It is all relative.

Leo on Railay West beach in 2007

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: Pumpido, Italy (1996)

The route

Bassiano © unknown

Bassiano is a limestone cliff about 60 km south-east of Rome, with a nice selection of single-pitch sport routes on pockets and tufa. Not world-class but definitely worthy. The sort of cliff residents in limestone-deprived areas would kill to have on their doorstep but locals take for granted. Pumpido is one of the more obvious lines. Once graded 7b+ (YDS 5.12c) it seems to have settled at 7b.

The context

In November 1996, I flew out to Rome to climb for three days. My frequent climbing partner, John Zangwill, had recently relocated there from London with his girlfriend - now wife - Pina. John (or "Z" as he was generally known) was the most enthusiastic of a group of north Londoners who I climbed with in the mid-90s. They were an older and more affluent crew then the climbers I had hung out with previously. They owned property, ate in proper restaurants during climbing weekends and had opinions on things like dishwashers. Despite these peculiar traits, they were strong climbers. Z, in particular, always out-climbed me.

Over the three days in Italy we climbed at three different cliffs. On the first day, Grotti, about 100km north of Rome. The rock was a weird conglomerate-limestone hybrid, similar to Margalef in Spain, with many small painful pockets. Grades appeared to start at 7b which made for a harsh warm-up. I achieved very little but recall Z coming close on a 7c.

The next day we visited Sperlonga by the sea about 100km south-west of Rome. Only 6's were climbed. The diary notes "v hot, topless girls sunbathing" - obviously challenging conditions.

Z, lunch stop somewhere near Rome

Climbing above the beach at Sperlonga

The ascent

On the third day we went to Bassiano. I liked the cliff immediately. Friendly red-hued rock with obvious holds. I did some warm-ups then tried Pumpido, which looked like the best line on the cliff and at that time still held the (for me) magic 7b+ (5.12c) grade. I had come very close to sending two routes at that grade at Rifle in Colorado earlier that year so motivation was very high. I was able to reach the chains with a few hangs on my first try. The diary mentions "superb pumpy sequence of deadpoint crux between pockets, steep pockets to tufa, then very crimpy finishing moves". I managed the redpoint on my next attempt. I was quite pleased with myself, and managed not to draw the obvious conclusion: that the route was over-graded.

My ascent of Pumpido

Subsequent ascents

I have not been back to Bassiano.

As a temporary local, John did of course return often. I recall that he was trying an 8a there and eventually succeeded. At that time, almost no-one I knew had climbed in the 8's. Furthermore, Z was well into his 40's. This made his achievement really inspiring. Then in my early 30s, I pessimistically believed that my best climbing years were already past. I filed Z's 8a send in my brain as an important reference and reason not to give up hope. In fact, it has stayed in my mind ever since, especially when I quit work to climb "full-time" six years ago.

Ironically a mutual friend recently told me that he did not think Z had ever climbed 8a. I was reluctant to believe this but in a way it no longer matters; whether myth or reality the idea has served its purpose.

And another thing ...

As I have got older, I have become increasingly impressed by people who have managed to combine climbing hard with high achievement in an unrelated area. To my mind, the outstanding example is Jim Collins. In the late 1970s he was one of the best climbers in the US, pushing standards with routes like Genesis and Psycho Roof in Eldorado canyon, and making the first solo of the Naked Edge. Mountain magazine published a sensational article about him around that time. These days he is better known as a pre-eminent management researcher and author, responsible for classic airport-bookshop titles like "Good to Great". However he has never stepped away from climbing and often references the sport in his writing. He even has a significant cameo role in Tommy Caldwell's autobiography The Push.

Amongst climbers I actually know, Z comes closest to Jim Collins status. I probably don't have the facts absolutely correct, but I believe his story runs something like this: studied maths to doctorate level at Cambridge and Bristol universities; shared a rope with some of the best British climbers of the 1970s and even had a route in Llanberis Pass named after him;  briefly worked for BP where he spotted a niche opportunity in software for oil exploration; quit to found a start-up with one partner; twenty years later their firm's database product had become the global standard for well logging data (in other words, most of the oil industry depended on it); sold out to a much bigger firm in the late 1990s but remained engaged with his product rather than retiring. I am in awe of all of this. 

the nostalgia project: Kumo no Ito, Japan (1995)

The route

Kumo no Ito at Ogawayama © unknown

And the line from below

Kumo no Ito ("The Spider's Thread") is a classic 5.11b crack route on the Yane Nihou formation at Ogawayama. One of Japan's longest-established rock climbing areas, Ogawayama is a cluster of granite towers and domes deep in the mountainous interior of central Honshu. It has also become very popular for bouldering.

The context

Japan has played a large role in my adult life, from both career and personal perspectives. Initially my relationship with Japan was a straightforward infatuation.  After spending about two cumulative years in the country, spread over a quarter-century, I have a more nuanced opinion. Regardless, in my view, everyone should visit Japan at least once.

The origins of my interest in Japan probably date back to my brief hippie phase at university, when I read books like The Way of the Zen and imagined Japan as a land of ascetic minimalists alternating meditation on tatami mats with raking abstract shapes into gravel. Then there was the movie Tampopo in 1985, which made Japan look sexy and fun, and the massive Japan Festival in London in 1991, which made Japan look cool and technologically-advanced.

My first actual visit to Japan was in April 1992, for a week-long MBA elective in Tokyo, studying Japanese business culture. I extended my departure so I could explore the country for an additional two weeks. Before the trip I wrote to Hiro, who I had met in Australia in 1986, asking whether he could climb with me. He couldn't but instead put me in contact with a younger friend, Katsu, who had just quit his job to climb full-time. Katsu and I spent a fun week climbing in Shosenkyo (old-school granite) and Hourai (bolted pockety tuff). At Hourai, we got caught in a rainstorm and had to make a tenuous crossing of a swollen creek to regain the trail head, making ninja-leaps between wet boulders with appalling potential consequences from any slip. The diary notes the jumping as "Czech grade 4" and that we then recovered in a nearby onsen. Quite the bonding experience.

Coincidentally Katsu and his friend Yasu had a european trip booked the same year, so I had the chance to return the favour (with less drama), teaming up with Dan to take them on a one week tour of UK climbing spots.

Yasu and Katsu (climbing) watched by Dan's penguins at Malham Cove, UK

Three years later I was making regular business trips to Japan and spotted an opportunity to carve out some time to climb in August. Katsu and Yasu made themselves available. The diary is not specific on the number of climbing days but I believe it was three or four. I took a train out of Tokyo to Kofu city, Katsu's home. We climbed some sport routes at a minor volcanic cliff, Tachioka, for one day, then drove further into the mountains, tailed by Yasu on a motorbike, to set up camp at Ogawayama.

Ogawayama campground, 1995

Katsu and Yasu at Ogawayama

Katsu bouldering (pre-pads) at Ogawayama - possibly on Pocket Boss V8?

I forget what expectation of Ogawayama I had before our arrival. Probably something grander than the reality. Compared to other classic granite areas, it is certainly not a Yosemite or a Squamish. None of the routes are longer than three pitches and most are single-pitch. However it is quite extensive, with granite blobs poking out of the forest in all directions from the campground. And the rock quality is excellent.

Spider's Thread seemed to be the route they primarily wanted me to try but the warmups included a route on the Mara Iwa formation (translates as Penis Rock, I believe), which involved some chasm-crossing trickery to get started. Katsu demonstrated the craziest of these, a hanging arete called Blues Power.

Katsu contemplating then executing the start of Blues Power at Mara Iwa

The ascent

According to the online English language guidebook (an amazing resource), Spider's Thread has a 5.8 approach pitch, but I have no memory of it. I do remember the big pitch. A shallow groove in slick polished rock leads to an impasse where you must stem delicately past a bolt into a thin finger crack. I think I botched the move initially then lowered off and tried again. Above is a very long pure finger crack which eventually twins with a wider crack to the left. Not knowing the "rules", I used both cracks. Years later I would learn that the grade drops to 5.11a if you do that, but Katsu and Yasu were too polite to spell that out at the time. Anyway, a fabulous pitch.

Subsequent ascents

In 2006, my friend Andy Donson in Denver emailed me in Abu Dhabi noting that he would be attending an oncology conference in Tokyo in June. He asked whether I could contrive a business trip there at the same time, so that we could climb. I could. We planned on a three day visit to Ogawayama. Shoko helped me rent a car to get there - a small but funky Nissan Cube.

An obvious challenge was that the 4 hour drive to Ogawayama would have to be self-navigated. Anyone who has spent time in central Tokyo will know that the city is very easy to get around by train or foot, because most signage is bilingual Japanese-English. However, outside central Tokyo the situation is very different. Signs have Japanese kanji only, even on the thundering freeways that snake out of Tokyo toward the mountains. The only English language description of the route to Ogawayama mentioned numerous junctions on ever-smaller country roads, once the freeways were left. Stir in the fact that we would be trying to leave the world's largest conurbation during Friday rush-hour, from the very centre of the city, and some kind of adventure or even outright failure seemed very likely.

Remarkably, despite these concerns, we onsighted the drive. A fine piece of teamwork. Admittedly  the Cube came with satnav but all of its controls were in Japanese also. I recall that I just about figured out how to keep it in basic map mode and operate the zoom in/ zoom out. These days, an app like Google Maps on a smart phone would do the same job, but that was not an option in 2006. (In fact, few overseas phones could roam in Japan at all until quite recently because of their stubbornly-different network technology.)

Andy with the Cube

Back in Ogawayama, 2006

We spent the first night in a small tent of Andy's. June is early season for Ogawayama and it was very cold. After one day of climbing, Shoko's sister Tomoko and her husband Atsushi appeared from Yokohama. They had arranged a cabin for the four of us. We were plied with hot shochu, fed endless barbeque and challenged to jenga. Very kind of them.

Serious Jenga action

The next day we checked out the classic Imjin River 5.11d, whose direct finish Super Imjin 5.12c, was the sought-after testpiece in Japan in the early 1980s, much featured in magazines at the time. Andy flashed Imjin River and had a tentative look at the direct. I just managed the River with some rests. A beautiful route, which I would like to try again one day.

Andy on Imjun River

On day three Atsushi and Tomoko joined us at the Yane Nihou formation to watch us. We climbed a stunning 5.10 dike traverse,  Jetstream, that conveniently ends above Spider's Thread. This gave us a chance to rappel down and then run a roprope on the crack. This time I tried to climb the 11b version properly. The diary suggests that I succeeded but my memory is otherwise. Hmmm. Anyway it needs to be lead. More unfinished business.

Tomoko and Atsushi up at the Yane Nihou base

Andy on Jetstream

Me on Jetstream

Andy TR'ing Spider's Thread - just past the crux

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.