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 15 april 2024
There’s a saying in climbing, attributed to the late Alex Lowe, that the best climber in the world is the one having the most fun. Not to be misconstrued to mean that, at present, Adam Ondra has more fun than the rest of us (could actually be true to be fair…), it sort of distils into a soundbite the idea that the whole point of this bizarre past-time / sport / existential quest [delete as applicable] is to enjoy what you’re doing. Similarly, since the point of being a climber is to go climbing, to climb ideally as much and as often as you can manage, the best crag in the world is the one only ten minutes away.
Pennine Lines w/c 8 april 2024
Now of course pads are the norm and guidebooks/grades have caught up, so heel-hooks don’t really make headlines these days; even Will Bosi’s live-streamed dalliance with a heel on Burden Of Dreams barely made a ripple. Limited heel-hook skirmishes are still being fought by hardliners on certain problems of course, typically ones that straddled the eras. It’s given rise to phenomena of “crap classics”, like The Green Traverse at Stanage for example. Basically there’s a few old problems out there who’s status - and often grade - is derived from the way they were always climbed in the pre-heel pre-pads days, but aren’t actually that good or even make that much sense when done the easiest way with heels, and it makes little financial sense for any guidebook writer to deprive 1000s of Londoners of their only 7a tick. The Green Traverse, (ignoring the lowball Full Green start) is a lovely flowing set of moves where good clean footwork is essential to keep pressure on the marginal footholds all the way, but if you heel-hook it’s just a sort of awkward inelegant drape. Easiest isn’t necessarily better. Once you’ve done it the old school way you won’t go back. Hand on heart, it’s a nicer sequence without, trust me.
Pennine Lines w/c 1 april 2024
I’m happy to avoid busy places like the plague; it’s quite simply not what I got into climbing for. I stumbled into a busy bookshop in a very rainy Alnwick today and it was so packed I turned around and stood outside in the rain instead, so the thought of turning up to a rammed Isatis or Cuvier makes my stomach turn. In fact it was only by accident I ended up in Llanberis Pass this weekend (long story…) - thankfully to find a good climbing scene despite the constant traffic chaos. But it’s easy for me to say “just don’t go there” having already been to some of these places decades ago. If you’re new to climbing and you’ve read all the guides and the articles and seen all the videos then naturally you’re going to want to go to Sabots, to Raven Tor, or Stanage Plantation, and Easter weekend is the only time you can your mates have got the time off work to go, then that’s when you’re going to have to go.
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 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 28 August 2023
But moving beyond the nuts and bolts of relaying information to you, guidebooks at their best are passports not only to X, Y or Z problems on the ground; long before you even set foot at the crag they are fuel for the fires of the imagination to burn. Although the pages of any guide are crammed full of words and photos they act as a sort of blank canvas to sketch out any one of thousands of possibilities played out in your mind’s eye. We can all be heroes when reading a guidebook. Every day is perfect weather, every hold feels good, every move made with confidence. Anything is possible.
Pennine Lines w/c 21 august 2023
‘Stuff’ - each item in of itself relatively benign; each one to solve a problem, to make things easier. To enhance performance. But in another way each one contributes to creating a problem, to changing the experience, diluting it, getting in the way of what’s good about bouldering in the first place - the simplicity. And suddenly five boulderers plus all their gear and pads would no longer fit into a Nissan Micra.
Pennine Lines w/c 14 august 2023
As I mention once or twice in Grit Blocs, in the world of gritstone bouldering we tend to look up to Fontainebleau; we borrow Font grades, and we use ‘Font style’ as the highest accolade we give to a problem. But the weird thing about British climbing’s relationship with Font is our tendency to characterise the climbing there as being exclusively rounded topouts on rippled slopers, reducing it to a stereotype and ignoring the wealth of climbing styles on offer. Font is in fact pretty well equipped with savage crimpy walls, horrendous cracks, tendon-snapping pocket pulling, steep basic pulling, one-movers, long stamina problems, low physical roofs, highballs deserving of route status and just about everything in between.
Pennine Lines w/c 7 August 2023
Fallen Slab Lip is a traditional problem, done regularly before any of the modern-era guide or apps existed, before anyone had pads, and before it had a name. The meat of the problem, the original thing, starts by hanging the big hold/ledge on the nose then hand traverses the lip up rightwards through a tricky sequence, a few really good sloper moves, until reaching an obvious good hold where you sort of run out of rock and are forced to roll over and top out.
Pennine Lines w/c 31 July 2023
We talk a lot about friction when discussing gritstone climbing, and it’s never better than when dry grit takes a hit from a passing shower, then dries off in a keen breeze. Something happens there; the friction goes sky high, even in summer. Maybe it’s just the fact that it cleans off the surface chalk and debris and just refreshes the holds. Maybe the water evaporating off actually cools the surface a little. But whatever it is it’s real and you know it when you find it. And find it you certainly can at this time of year in this sort of weather.
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 3 July 2023
In climbing circles we talk a lot about the rock, understandably, but at this time of year it’s really two types of vegetation which are dominating the scenery of the moorland grit crags. Firstly, my least favourite aspect of the Pennines: bracken.
Pennine Lines w/c 26 June 2023
This was one I actually had lined up to feature in Grit Blocs once I’d got some shots of Ned attempting this at the end of a long day mopping up some other photos for the book. It would have at the very least got a mention in the Swivel Finger section, or there was a chance it could have bumped that problem out entirely, as it looked superb, and as a long-standing project carried a bit of gravitas. In the end I visited once more with Ned but again we left empty handed, and in fact it took Ned until this April to seal the deal.
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.