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 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 19 February 2024
So, if everyone’s been climbing here all the time anyway, then it’s just business as usual - why does gaining official access recognition matter, you may well ask? I suppose it matters precisely BECAUSE it’s business as usual; i.e. it demonstrates that it should be an easy sell. For land management bodies it’s then not really a leap into the unknown. It’s been said time and time again by access campaigners that you’re usually better off pushing for official access from a position of sustained and trouble free usage already (railway issue notwithstanding). As the saying goes it's easier to ask for forgiveness then for permission.
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 18 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 16 October 2023
When you first start out in climbing you improve pretty fast. So your available universe of Things To Do expands away from you at an exponential rate. Every time you go climbing you get better and better, and the almost infinite possibilities offered by the world of climbing await you, like one of those big kids’ play mats with all the roads and houses and shops printed onto it being unrolled in front of a toddler with a box full of new toy cars. Every guidebook you open is like unfolding the menu of your local takeaway having just discovered that Indian food exists. A kaleidoscope of possibilities which will take you three lifetimes to devour.
Pennine Lines w/c 9 October 2023
In fact we are part of nature, and hence why being outside, climbing or whatever you do, is so fundamentally important. Even just being at a crag 10 minutes drive from the suburbs, with an ice cream van parked in the layby and tied up bags of dog muck hanging from the gates, it’s still fundamentally a different world. Even if the place has been intensively sheep farmed, or mismanaged for grouse shooting or whatever, it’s still better for us than the urban world. The wind blows, the weather changes. We’re not calling the shots out here.
Pennine Lines w/c 2 October 2023
There’s also something to be said for sensing when the prevailing winds are blowing in your direction and allowing yourself to be carried along on the breeze. This is true of Raven Tor as much as anywhere. Make hay while the sun shines etc etc. When things align and it goes your way, sometimes you’ve got to go with it - and sense when it’s time to move on.
Pennine Lines w/c 11 September 2023
When looking back at previous Septembers in my photo archive it’s clear that this month can be characterised by see-sawing between sub-par attempts at gritstone bouldering while it’s still too warm, and limestone barrel-scraping. Always feeling like it’s the arse-end of the lime season, enthusiasm wearing thin, evening daylight rapidly deserting us, and the anything-is-possible endless summer vibe of late spring a distant memory.
Pennine Lines w/c 10 July 2023
When all anyone was supposed to be interested in was route climbing, Baslow took a back seat to its near neighbours. It lacks the stature and the big routes of Curbar, it’s not equipped with classic after classic for the slab climber like Froggatt, and the rock quality for the most part is nowhere near as good as Gardoms. So Baslow is a really the underdog of the Eastern Edges, but viewed through a pair of bouldering eyes this underdog has a few tricks up its sleeve.
Pennine Lines w/c 19 June 2023
When you've lived in the same place for a long time it's easy to fall into complacency and routine. Now, I'm not saying routine in climbing is necessarily wrong, and in fact I'm a strong believer that building a relationship with a place, with a crag or venue, can be a very a positive thing. Generally speaking it's got a lot going for it instead of the fashionable but consumerist approach of just flitting around picking off low hanging fruit. However, I am as guilty as anyone of falling to the trap of frequenting the same places each year almost by default.
Pennine Lines w/c 12 June 2023
We're only a couple of days in to the genuinely hot weather so at this point I'm reticent to go all-in on the woe-is-me patter about it being too warm in the Peak. Especially because if previous summers are any indicator of what's to come you can guarantee in a few weeks time we'll be looking back on today's weather with a sense of nostalgia for those days when it was comparatively cool.
Pennine Lines w/c 5 June 2023
As I return from a family holiday in Northumberland this weekend to the scene of most of the moor atop Burbage North as far as Lady Canning’s Plantation still being out of bounds due to fires still smouldering, it serves as something of a wakeup call to the world we live in now. Namely; it’s barely June, it’s not even been that hot yet, and we had a very damp winter and spring, and nevertheless we’re already seeing pretty substantial fire risk. This doesn’t bode well if we have another heatwave summer.
Pennine Lines w/c 15 May 2023
Another hotbed of poor mobile coverage is the deep dank dales of the White Peak, so I'm simply offering up here a few images of limestone bouldering to keep the psyche rolling until I get back and normal service is resumed.
Pennine Lines w/c 8 May 2023
You have to wonder that in a media-rich world, ultra-connected, if climbing is now almost too global, to the point where we don’t really value what’s on our doorstep? Are we are all now so accustomed to being fed an eye popping diet of cutting edge boulder problems that the humble glue-covered limestone of Miller’s Dale can’t compete with huge glowing-orange ‘king lines’ in South Africa? Live-streamed history-in-the-making from Finland and massive steep problems - or ‘rigs’ to use the correct terminology - in Switzerland with bottles of champagne being popped upon success are great, but where does this leave the monumentally unsexy shattered grey polished rock of the Tor? Out in the cold it seems (ironic given the crag is a sun trap).
Pennine Lines w/c 1 May 2023
Travelling south through the eastern Peak the gritstone gradually fizzles out, the long snaking crag escarpments giving way to more isolated outcrops. And just as it seems all the rock has turned decidedly pale and chossy, one last big finale remains, one last huge island of dark gritstone in a sea of limestone. Black Rocks; its name enough to scare off many, but it remains something of a hub of the climbing scene in this part of the Peak.