Thursday 28 May 2009

technical crap - just ignore this!

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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)








The view from the top......and the road to my first E1 graded climb!


As I write this I'm sitting in my office nursing a hangover, drinking coffee and thinking about going for a climb as it's my day off. This is pretty much how most days off begin for me.

I. Love. Climbing. 

It's an addiction worse than smack. Once you've caught the bug it'll never loosen it's grip. It drives my ladyfriend bonkers. 'Quality time together' for me is down the crag with JT, my climbing buddy. And that creates some problems....

I'm not a particularly good climber. In fact, considering how long I've been doing it I'm a bit bobbins. But show me someone more passionate about the sport and I'll show you pig with wings. 

This blog isn't designed to educate, or inform. It's not a training guide, a crag database, or hint sheet - it's for the sheer hell of it. If one person reads this and thinks, 'f**k yeah, I'll give that a go!' then that's one more person to hold the end of the rope for me.

This blog is for all those climbers who, like me, have conceded they'll never be a rock star. And it's for everyone who uses climbing as a tool - a gateway - into the most beautiful places, not just in Britain, but all over the world.