Cold Wind Heats Up Action On God´s Own Rock

by Mick Ryan James Pearson on Promise Sunday was almost a perfect Gritstone day, the showers retreated, the sky was blue and the temperatures were low. Stanage was packed with punters like myself cruising Diffs and VS´s and having a whale of a time. Conditions were also perfect for those operating a little higher up our unique British grading scale. James Pearson, (bio at Wild Country website) who has repeated Neil Bentley´s masterpiece at Burbage South, Equilibrium, the UK´s first E10, has added his own testpiece at Burbage North. He climbed the short arete right of Superstition (E8) on the Living In Oxford block to give Promise, offering a grade of E10 7a (or Font 8a climbing), headpointed, spotted and protected by a small slider of dubious worth (photo-topo here). Meanwhile at Burbage South, Australian brothers, Ben and Lee Cossey after a shift behind the counter at the busy Hathersage emporium of Outside, decided on a spot of night climbing. Ben climbed Parthian Shot, John Dunne´s famous E9 6c, by head torch, but by the E7 6c direct start of Child´s Play. All gear was placed on lead except the gear in the flake. His brother Lee was thwarted on his attempt by head torch reflections from the shiny carabiners. (photo-topo here). Meanwhile at Cratcliffe Ben Bransby soloed the Cratcliffe Prow after top rope practice. Short but with a bad landing he did it twice, thinks it maybe Font 7c, and was originally going to have his Mum and dog spotting but luckily roped in a couple of´boulderers´ to do the job. You can read a first person account of his ascent at the ukbouldering.com forum, he posts under the name of ´El Mocho”.

QuelleUKClimbing