Neil Gresham Makes First E10 Repeat

Neil Gresham, has just made the second ascent of Equilibrium, Neil Bentley´s gritstone E10 7a at Burbage South. After taking a number of ground sweeping falls from the crux, over several days of effort, and reaching ´project despair´, Neil found a subtly different foot position, which made the low rock over move more secure. After yet another fall from the end of the crux sequence that was too close for comfort, Neil made a second attempt, passed the crux, and committed himself to a series of 6c moves and a potential a ground-fall situation. Fortunately he cruised past the relatively easy 6c terrain, and topped out. This is the first ever repeat of a route graded E10. Neil commented that he felt the route was a full grade harder than the previous E9 6c routes he has done, and so approved of the E10 grade. He considered the bouldering grade of the route to be V10, and f8b in its entirety. The photo (left) shows Neil on an attempt early in 2002. Matching a hold in the obvious horizontal break is the crux, and is the end of the ´safe´ section of the route. The only other gritstone route to be given the grade of E10 is John Arran´s Dr. Dolittle, which still awaits a repeat.

QuellePlanetFear