Ben Heason (UK)
Ben's been working with Wild Country (and Red Chili) for a number of years and his infectious enthusiasm for the outdoors coupled with his natural ability on rock have made him one of the most popular climbers around.
A regular in both the new routes and repeats column of the magazines Ben certainly has a head for heights and although some of his soloing activities are enough to make you wonder about his sanity he seems to also enjoy plugging in the odd WC unit to keep him safe.
Ben provides great feedback for Wild Country's brand on all aspects of gear and has recently started out as a staff trainer for us across the UK. He also does a pretty inspirational slideshow so catch it if you can...but let him tell you a little more about himself...
In his own words...
I was born amongst the mountains of Snowdonia, so climbing was in my blood from the start.
An early birthday present was a day out climbing, at Tremadog with the legend Eric Jones, climbing Christmas Curry, Striptease, Grim Wall and the Fang. By the age of 13 I had climbed the highest mountains in Wales, Spain, Greece, and Thailand, and trekked to nearly 18,000 feet in the Himalayas. Traveling has always been a very important part of my life, experiencing new people and places.
Although I started climbing at an early age, as a youngster I was utterly obsessed with sport in general, so I didn’t focus my attentions fully onto climbing until my second year at University.
Since then I’ve climbed extensively in Ireland, Mallorca, France, Spain, Canada, USA, Thailand, the Czech Republic, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, Greenland, Venezuela, Sardinia, Switzerland, Jersey & Slovenia.
I’ve climbed more than 6,000 routes over the past 11 years, and I enjoy pushing myself, both mentally and physically. Being a good all-round climber has always been my priority.
My favorite climbing style is Welsh mountain routes, closely followed by sea cliff escapades. The terrain and environment you find yourself in, coupled with the rich history behind many of the routes inspires me. Having moved to Sheffield in 1997 I’ve spent a lot of time climbing on the local gritstone edges, and the experience and confidence I’ve gained from climbing many bold routes has helped me improve in other areas of my climbing.
When it happened, falling from the last move of Narcissus (E6 at Froggatt), and breaking both ankles in an on sight attempt in April ’98 was a major inconvenience, but in the long run it proved to be a significant part of a huge learning curve. As well as recently going on a couple of big wall expeditions, I’ve been swept along on the bouldering wave, as well as the more recent introduction of Deep Water Soloing.
Trad - I’ve on sighted or flashed over a dozen E7’s - the hardest being Monopoly at Millstone, Contra Arms Pump in the Grampians – Australia, and Paralogism at the Roaches. I’ve also headpointed three E9’s, all on gritstone. Ozbound, and Lonely Heart are both at my beloved Froggatt, whilst Knockin on Heaven’s Door is at Curbar.
Sport -
I’ve on sighted several routes graded F8a in both Thailand and Australia. Also in Thailand I soloed F8a (Seafood Monos Fritas) barefoot as well as an F8b (Cara Cangresso), which is also my hardest redpoint grade to date.
Bouldering -
I’ve climbed numerous problems up to V10 in the UK, USA and Switzerland, and have climbed a Font 8a in Fontainebleau. I climbed my hardest problems in Australia, with several V11 first ascents as well as the classic V12 traverse Cave Rave.
New Routes -
I’ve climbed over 30 new routes, including an E8 and two E9’s on gritstone, an E6 in North Wales, two E6's in Pembroke, and E7’s in Cornwall, Greenland and Venezuela – the latter two pointing towards the direction I see my climbing heading in :-
Expeditions
Greenland – July 2003.
New Route - Turning Point – 24 pitch E6 6b. 1st free ascent of the Saft. I climbed the two crux pitches, which were virgin territory, on sight in the dark, after 15 hours continuously on the move.
Venezuela – April 2005.
Rainbow Jambai - 31 pitch E7 6c. 1st free ascent of Angel Falls. I climbed an incredibly bold E7 6a/b pitch entirely on sight, as well as possibly the most physically demanding pitch on the route – a steep F7c+ pitch with poor gear and loose rock.
Plans -
Over the past two years I have started doing performance coaching, mainly for PlanetFear. As I improve as a coach, my enjoyment and satisfaction grows, and I would like to see myself doing more in the future. I still have aspirations for some hard routes on gritstone and other UK trad. After two successful expeditions so far, to Greenland and Venezuela, I’m keen to take my climbing into more virgin territory, in remote places such as Trango and Patagonia.
There are still plenty of cultures I’d like to experience all around the World, as well as endless climbing areas I’m desperate to visit.
Having concentrated for much of the past 10 years on pure rock climbing, I may also be keen to try out some ice climbing antics in order to try to preserve my ailing fingers.
22nd Feb 2012 Wild Country UK Climbing Team 2012 Unveiled
Wild Country are proud to unveil their 2012 UK climbing team - a group of reckless and hardy individuals who help us test and promote our gear whatever the danger and cost to themselves...! Well, it’s not exactly like that, but, led by James 
Pearson, the Wild Country climbing team is peopled with climbers that we feel help represent the values and ideals of Wild Country across the spectrum of the sport.
So, leading the way with a slew of hard ascents in 2011, from almost flashing E10 to multi-pitch monstrosities like Joy Division and flashing 8b+ is James Pearson, now living in France but originally a Buxton lad and working with Wild Country since 2004. There’s a superb video of James in action on his E10 flash attempt here - http://vimeo.com/25140891.
James Pearson seen here on his flash attempt on Muy Caliente E10
Hot on his heels are the incredibly talented ‘Wideboyz’ team of Tom Randall and Pete Whittaker, who as well as tackling the worlds hardest offwidths – and the first ascent of Century Crack E9 (as you may just have heard about) have produced a load of awesome grit routes in the past few years filling some very cool gaps on the Peak District edges – you can see some Century Crack footage here - http://vimeo.com/35270800. Sheffield based there’s also Ben Heason who’s been working with Wild Country for years and is still sending 8b+ and E8, and the enigmatic Miles Gibson – the quiet man of the legendary super-desperates ‘Superstition’ and Superbloc’ on the gritstone. Also Peak based the youthful Hamer brothers have both been performing superbly in 2011: Ed probably outdoing his brother Sam with his fantastic results in the youth world cup climbing comps with a couple of 2nd places – but Sam showing he’s no slouch winding his neck out with few E8’s on the grit to even the scales – see the Hamers’ in action here - http://vimeo.com/26593785.
Last, but not least, long term teamer, Katherine Schirrmacher is hoping to build on her hard trad and grit E7 ascents after a year out to have a baby and build a very successful guiding business and will be starring in and sharing her technical knowledge in Wild Country’s ‘how to’ video series later this year.
Then up in Lancs the super psyched Jordan Buys is joined this year by his wife and partner Naomi to make an all action team. Both are multi discipline masters, mixing bouldering, trad climbing and sports climbing to a very high standard Jordan to 8c and E9 and Naomi to 8a+ and E7. See Jordan in action here: http://vimeo.com/34862987
Over in Yorkshire, Jenny Woodward, has an incredible resume and after a bit of a stop start year last year after having a baby and suffering a few injuries and only sending up to 8A+(!!!) has some even harder projects on the go...watch this space!
Further north, in the Lake District, Dave Birkett and Adam Hocking are both climbing at the highest level and still doing stunning new trad lines and bouldering at the highest level – there’s a great video of Adam on a new E8 here – http://vimeo.com/25808567
New team member Naomi Buys in action on Snap Decision E7 6C Ilkley...
Meanwhile in Scotland the evergreen Malcolm Smith of has been relentless on rock with a recent new 8c+ Blood Diamond, while the fearless Kev Shields simply sets new standards for his bold soloing and some great winter ascents. And across the ‘pond’ in Ireland Andy Marshall has been representing Wild Country and has also sent some pretty rad lines including E8 2nd ascents and plenty more.
Our boulder team (thought that terms a bit restrictive as they’re more than that) is headed up by the amazing Ned Fehally who seems to be taking bouldering up a notch as well as blurring the lines between highball and routes making some very hard ascents in 2011 including Samson E8 7a, and the Prow E9 7a both solo. See Ned in action here: http://vimeo.com/33103583. Nigel Callender also manages to continually impress, sending 8b+ - http://vimeo.com/20435941 - while studying to be a doctor in Newcastle and taking advantage of the awesome sandstone of Northumberland. Then in the south east the strong Ben Read is helping establish a new wave of sandstone desperates as well as writing guidebooks and promoting the excellent climbing around there. Joining these guys this year is year is Stewart Watson, a very strong climber who’s been competing internationally in boulder comps for a number of years and is adding 8c ascents to his pretty awesome bouldering CV.
We also have some young climbers doing well and with Tara Hayes we have one the most up and coming of the UK junior competition climbers who in her first year managed to grab an overall 6th place in the European Youth B standings.
So a big thanks to all those I’ve mentioned and anyone else who’s been flying the Wild Country flag - and you can see more about all Wild Country’s UK team at our website here:
And to get any news from the team first and fastest you can follow Wild Country on:
Twitter - @wildcountryuk
On our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wild-Country/97486098594
Or to watch all our videos our Vimeo page is here: http://vimeo.com/wildcountry/videos
Here's young gun Ed Hamer doing what he does best - climbing very very well on something that's very very steep!!!!!!
7th Nov 2011 Ben Heason and Miles Gibson off to Mali....
"We’re heading to the Hand of Fatima in the region of Hombori, Mali – an area made famous by the film of Catherine Destivelle’s visit in the 1987. The five ‘fingers’ of sandstone rise straight up from the West African Sahara, to a height of up to 600m. We’ll have less than two weeks of actual climbing time so our options are a bit limited. The walls on and around the Hand of Fatima are largely climbed out so we’ll be repeating as many of the obvious classics as we can.
There’s a mixture of trad and sport routes there, with pitches up to F8a. There are some walls, up to around 300m, in the surrounding area with endless new route possibilities so we are hoping to try and make it to one of these to do a new route but in the limited time we’ve got this isn’t going to be our top priority.
By the way, thanks for sorting out some of the new Helium Friends, really appreciate it, they were great to use on Lundy. We’ll try and make sure we get some photos for you out in Mali, and will also try and get enough bits of footage to make a short video."
The Hand Of Fatima, Mali, showing the line of a recent new route....
