E1: The Hallowed Grade

Climbers are like train-spotters. 

There's an massive amount of list-ticking involved in the sport: First climb on gritstone, first winter route, first lead (ie going ground-up, placing protection as you climb, rather than having a rope safely positioned at the top for you), or even your first fall.

But there's one tick that seduces more than any other: and that's E1.

Take a look at the 'jargon guide' to your right. You'll notice that E1 is the first of the grades labelled 'extreme'. And that's for a reason. E1 seems to separate the wheat from the chaff. Climbers in the E1 club can consider themselves pretty decent. These are sustained, technical climbs where a fall is going to have your sphincter twitching and your belayer wincing. To me, at least, it feels like you have to earn the right to jump on an E1. And if it spits you off you're going to know about it.

I'm not in the E1 club. I've been leading VS confidently for a couple of summers, HVS sporadically. Just when I think I'm making progress I'll have two weeks off for weddings, parties, piss-ups, work, then it'll rain, and when I finally get out of a weekend again I'm crap again. As weak as a kitten.

But that is all going to change this summer, though...........or that's the plan anyway.

Me and JT, my climbing buddy, have made a pact with the devil that we will have both lead an E1 climb, 'on-sight' (which means we don't practise it first, or read lots of instruction on it from guide books) by the end of the summer.

I'm 29. I'm settling down. I'm not the mentalist I once was. Life and work is starting to get in the way of my dreams. I'm 30 next year. I've had a few career set backs this year and I need my E1. If I do it, it'll open a new chapter and make the dirty thirties seem less terrifying. Or so I hope. Either way it'll be fun finding out what happens.

Here's a couple of my early E1 contenders: 

Looning the Tube, E1 5a (Australia quarry, Llanberis, North Wales)

Shivers Arete, E1 5b (Wilton, near Bolton, Lancs)

The Tippler E1, 5b (Stanage, Peak District)