Pennine Lines w/c 13 May 2024
The short-lived aurora craze does provide a neat segue into a short paragraph about Great Roova up at the north end of the Yorkshire gritstone area. This is the home of the problem Aurora, as featured in Grit Blocs, a book that I wrote and may have mentioned once or twice before. As I am always keen to point out Grit Blocs makes no claim to list the 100 best problems, rather than 100 of the best problems, a rather woolier definition. This is no accident, because it can be leveraged to showcase a few out-of-the-way crags as much as for the problems themselves. Certain crags, certain venues, are more about this-hold-then-this-hold-then-this-hold-then-top. It’s about going somewhere new, putting the extra effort in, and dare I say it, forgetting about the grades and just letting the rock dictate the experience. You’ll note it’s not called Reasonable Roova, or Above Average Roova. Aurora is a great problem worthy of the long walk-in, but having a memorable warm breezy afternoon up at Great Roova, just moving on rock, exploring a bit and getting away from the same old crags is what it’s about really.
Pennine Lines w/c 6 May 2024
I’m sure much will be written about Shauna Coxsey’s ascent of The Boss in due course, but for the minute I’ll just point out that I know Shauna had already climbed Font 8b+ as long ago as ten years since, so it’s easy to forget that the ascent pushes the rarefied heights of female gritstone standards forward several grades. Even if by some clerical error The Boss went into a guide at Font 8a+ instead of 8b+ it’d still be the hardest female ascent on gritstone (if anyone knows of any harder-than-8a female ascents on grit let me know). Such leaps are very uncommon, if not unheard of, as climbing and training for climbing matures and the talent pool expands. It may be that the sit-start to Voyager might well turn out to be 8c after holds have broken - who knows - but since there’s nothing currently harder on grit (at least on paper) it puts the top end of female ascents right up there at the top of male grit standards, and I’m not sure that’s ever been the case before, certainly not in living memory.
Pennine Lines w/c 29 april 2024
Being asked for your favourites is actually a tough choice, because there’s just so much good stuff out there on grit. It’s not like being asked for, say, your favourite Bond films. That’s easy because there’s only twenty five official options, and realistically only half a dozen credible answers, not least because you can disregard all the Roger Moor outings and that final Pierce Brosnan one with the invisible car that everyone hates without a second thought. Basically everyone is going to answer Casino Royale, easy. But gritstone is more expansive than the Bond universe. It’s a bewildering complex and interconnected web of characters, themes, styles, history and mythology. So being asked to pick favourite grit problems is actually like being asked what your favourite Wu-Tang Clan (or Wu-affiliated) albums are.
Pennine Lines w/c 22 april 2024
Cool grit conditions are still around for bouldering, it’s comfortable enough for trad, and even after a dreadful winter the Peak limestone is starting to dry up again, slowly but surely. Humidity is rock bottom, the sun burns through with remarkable heat and clarity, casting cool shadows, overnight temps are still low, the the days are long enough. People are out clipping bolts, placing gear, the flowers and wild garlic are out in the limestone dales, the birds are singing, and you can stride confidently off-piste at grit crags not yet blighted by smothering tick-infested bracken. Disposable BBQ silly season hasn’t yet arrived, and you can finish your evening session sat atop a gritstone edge, unlace your rock shoes with tired fingers and watch the sun’s disc ebb away behind the horizon without fear of being eaten alive by midges. Good times.
Pennine Lines w/c 25 March 2024
The other thing I have to get used to recognising at this time of year is the Pennine Lines birthday, being exactly one year since I launched this whole thing. So firstly a huge thanks to everyone who’s signed up for the weekly email and supported this, everyone who’s bought prints, or ordered Grit Blocs, or just mentioned at the crag that they liked something I’d written or messaged me to that effect. It means a lot to me, and as long as people are supporting this I’ll keep doing it - as anyone who’s climbed with me on Remergence buttress will testify I am nothing if not consistent.
Pennine Lines w/c 18 March 2024
Gorple in particular is somewhere that I don’t really have a specific reason to go back to, other than it just having a lovely feel about it, and I suppose that’s enough. Not everything in climbing needs to be project oriented, it’s good to put some time aside for the experience. Wild yet domesticated, a long but easy walk, quiet but with a reservoir and a huge shooting cabin right in front of the crag, Gorple is one of those greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts places. It also challenges the often-cited Yorkshire grit stereotype of everything being basic on positive holds, a cliche I think that if it does hold true then its only really applicable to the Wharfedale band of grit (Earl, Ilkey, Caley etc). That wisdom is certainly flipped on its head around the Widdop area, with the grit up at the likes of Gorple, Scout Hut and Clattering Stones really being that archetypal moorland grit with more rounded shapes. The Grit Blocs pick from these parts, Chabal, typifies the weird full-bodied sloper wrestling but there’s plenty more where this came from across the grade spread.
Pennine Lines w/c 12 February 2024
Facing away from the afternoon sun, with boulders lurking among the twisted boughs of the trees, slow to dry but offering welcome shelter from strong westerlies in winter, with a few tall crag-based lines looming above the boulders, on the right day it’s a great spot to find a bit of peace. This part of the South Peak didn’t find its way onto the cover of Grit Blocs by accident.
Pennine Lines w/c 5 February 2024
The bouldering is probably due a renaissance that will never happen, as it too is sort of unfashionable by today’s trends. There’s a lot of traverses, and a lot of holds which whilst not being that small per se, or sharp, are somehow just too crimpy or over-positive for comfort. Doing your comp-style problems down the wall isn’t really going to prepare you for this. Neither is all the board sessions on smooth lovingly crafted pinches. You’ve got to get into the pure filth, with a lot holds comprising various fingertip-bruising lumps you have to muller your hands into violently. Kudos wall in particular is one of those places you need to burn two or three sessions here just to deaden your finger pulp before you’re going to get anywhere. I suppose most people aren’t keen to make that sort of investment of time into it. The same goes for the hard routes - Zeke, Caviar, Dangerous Brothers, Tribes, The Sissy, even Salar and To Old To Be Bold can feel like feel like finger ruiners.
Pennine Lines w/c 29 January 2024
The S7 mat covered an area of ground about the size of the phone you’re reading this on, hence the yellow target on the mat was a fortuitous addition. When you stared down between your shaking legs you at least had something to aim for, no matter how statistically slim your odds of hitting it were. You were aiming for the bull but considered yourself a winner if the dart even stuck in that sort of cabinet thing with the doors that you hang a dartboard in. Bounce-outs were common. The set of on-the-fly calculations and seat-of-pants dead reckoning required to land was on a par with the successful return of Apollo 13. Nevertheless, it totally changed the world for us, as it was already starting to change climbing over the next decade.
Pennine Lines w/c 22 January 2024
Some words in the climbing world are so loaded with history and expectations that it’s impossible to actually assess the place objectively. Words that carry a lot of baggage one way or another. Just saying “Plantation” will elicit a response of some sort. It might spark memories of feeling like a hero cruising confidently on some airy line or other above a sea of onlookers, or finally solving the critical position and landing the top hold on your project as the winter sun sneaks out from behind a cloud. Or backing off Crescent Arête with trust in your footwork in tatters. An ankle-wrecking fall from high up on something, feet rapidly peddling an invisible bike down some tall arête, with the rest of your climbing year flashing before your eyes perhaps. Yep, the highs are high, and the lows are low at the Plantation. The soaring bulletproof arêtes, and the sandy battered orange holds and snappy flakes. Or maybe you’ve never been, so it’s a crag of the imagination yet to be experienced, which you’ve avoided because you’ve heard it’s always rammed.
Pennine Lines w/c 15 January 2024
With the Millstone arête, I’ve not been on it, and you probably haven’t either, so we don’t really know. And to be honest, maybe it’s fine that certain things remain unclimbed. Sometimes these lines have as much value in their status as tantalising possibilities than they do as realised routes. They are nobodies route, nobody has their name on it in a guide, but simultaneously they belong to everyone. A great leveller. Maybe it HAS been climbed and whoever it was just didn’t tell anyone, now there’s a thought. Unclimbed lines leave possibilities open in the imagination, and these days climbing is so well documented, classified, instagrammed, videoed and photographed (guilty!) that sometimes there’s little space left for the imagined.
Pennine Lines w/c 8 January 2024
In fact, Rivelin is a classic winter venue, THE January crag. I swear some years have passed where it’s the only place I’ve found dry rock. Low lying and sheltered, yet open enough for that fine grained rock to dry fast; it’s a sun trap too and rarely feels as grim and bleak as other Sheffield local moorland crags. On a dull day it can seem like a brown crag for those brown January days, so it just fits. But it's even better when the low winter sun rakes through the bare trees, the light modelling the crag, shadows are cast and everything pops into relief. BOOM.
Pennine Lines w/c 25 December 2023
There’s a saying or rather a sentiment expressed in climbing which we hear time and time again, offering comfort to anyone who’s just failed on their project, or fallen off something, other otherwise taken an ego-bruising; “Never mind, just come back on another day, it’ll still be here next time”. This works great, until we hit one of the rare instances where something isn’t there next time.
Pennine Lines w/c 11 December 2023
I had been regaled with tales of amazing tors of premium grit dotting the fell, and the brilliant days climbing on them as enjoyed by various friends over the years. I had avoided going up there in summer as I wanted to experience the place in cooler temps and to see it at its best, and I wanted to go with a small team for the ‘crack’ as much as pad/spotter prudence. But being a bit of a longer drive from Sheffield, and a long walk-in, and limited winter daylight, things had never quite lined up before. At some point that December I realised though that it was now or never, there was a book to be written, so I was going to have to just head up there myself.
Pennine Lines w/c 4 December 2023
Nevertheless, even a hint of snow demands some thought when it comes to choosing your venues. Crags at a lower elevation are generally favoured, as they usually get less snow to begin with. If the crags offer some problem-at-the-base-of-a-trad-crag type action, not topping out and protected from above, then all the better when it’s snowy. On this side of the Peak that usually means the lower lying crags around Stanton and Cratcliffe are preferred, similarly the Amber Valley is at a lower elevation, along with Rivelin - often a winter sun trap - and Wharncliffe. Even opting for, say, Curbar over Stanage in heavy snow can be a winner, especially as such classics as Sean’s Arete and Walk On By are, barring dripping from above, completely snow proof.
Pennine Lines w/c 27 November 2023
There’s often a lot said about the ‘perfect gritstone day’, typically implying solid clear blue sky and the sun out. Even better; the crag bathed in the last orange light of day, with someone heroically questing up a highball spine-chiller, as above. Classic gritstone, you can’t knock it.
You’ll see a lot of these on social media, living your best life, inspirational content etc etc. You can’t move for it when it happens. During the long dark drudgery of winter that little window of sunshine can do wonders for the soul, and conversely it’s guaranteed to make the blood boil of anyone unable to get out, stuck at work or whatever. But it’s not all about the perfect. Perfect is the enemy of good.
Pennine Lines w/c 20 November 2023
On occasion the prevailing weather, daylight, time and other circumstances conspire to turn certain crags into a sort of black hole, from which only objects with sufficient kinetic energy in the opposite direction can escape. Without that energy you’re well beyond the event horizon long before you’ve driven past the Norfolk Arms, and regardless of your intentions you’re going to end up there inevitably. Burbage North is one of those places, Almscliff is another. So far this November that gravity field as been well and truly in place. When self-driving cars really become a thing I will put money on most cars just driving to Burbage North automatically in the run up to xmas unless you hack the firmware.
Pennine Lines w/c 6 November 2023
On these Sundays-after-bad-weather a bit of breeze, a bit of sun and a lot of patience usually does the job in terms of providing dry prospects, and can often give some of the best conditions, once a bit of the rain-washed scrittle is brushed off your slopey topout. Not everyone got the memo though and it doesn’t mean you won’t see groups turning up mob-handed on a wet Saturday to Stanage - presumably buoyed on by the knowledge it’s a ‘fast drying crag’ - and just cracking on with climbing on wet problems, as folks were reporting last weekend. ‘Pffftt, it’s only the Plantation’ I hear everyone north of the M62 cry. Well, yes, but next week it could be Caley, or Brimham, or Widdop. First they came for Deliverance, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Peak local. Etc etc.
