Project Time In The Desert

Things have really slowed down in the last week – the frantic pace of trying to tick off all the hard routes has abated to a somewhat normal speed of living. We can actually enjoy a breakfast without the thought of throwing it up 3 hours later in the midst of some kind of “Pirate Topedo” move. As nearly all of the main objectives of the trip have been achieved, we’ve been able to spend a little more time searching for first ascent projects and trying a few things that aren’t necessarily what we came here for (read “pleasant/enjoyable climbing”).

Pete doing some enjoyable climbing on 'Army of Darkness' 5.13d

Indian Creek Projects...
Pete had been told of a couple of offwidth projects near to Price of Evil and so straight after ticking PoE we had a look around. Unfortunately, one was not quite a hard as we were expecting (too much bridging possible) and the other the kind of offwidth you’d find at Nesscliffe – a sandy nightmare?! This isn’t to say Pete and I aren’t into sub-standard lines (you only have to look at our Curbar new routes... urgh) it’s more that if you come to the paradise of Indian Creek then it’s only proper to put up something worthy I think.

The next day we went over to Pamela Pack’s “Event Horizon” – I think it’s either 5.13a/b? The route is a really good looking splitter offwidth through a roof on pitch 3, which apparently has some kind of 3D funkiness to negotiate. The first pitch, hasn’t been climbed yet (finger crack) and the second pitch is 5.9/5.10ish by the looks of it. Not sure of how to approach the roof, we thought we’d have a go at freeing the first pitch. Patrick Kingsbury (a regular partner of Pamela and 5.13 offwidther himself) had previously had a go at freeing this pitch, so we knew it’d be no push over. After an hour or so of mashing my fingers in tiny, tiny tips finger locks I’d done all of the moves through to easier ground but knew to lead it properly it’d take further days of work. Feeling a bit de-psyched (and knackered) that we didn’t have the tools to free climb to the roof, we decided to call it a day. On the way back to the campsite we went and climbed a cool looking wide roof called Brother from Another Planet 5.12a/b. Unique invert torpedo!

Project Time with Teacher Pizem...
After Indian Creek we arranged to meet up with long time climber and desert new-router Rob Pizem. If anyone has met “Piz” they’ll know he’s pretty much a one-man dynamo who jumps around at such a frantic pace it’s hard not to get very tired! When we found out that he’s a school teacher, I think we knew we’d met the teacher we’d all wanted when we were younger.

Teacher Pizem teaching us the way of the desert

Pete getting the psyche? from Piz

Piz, myself, Pete, Peewee (French Canadian crack climbing beast), Alex, Jesse and Brian all headed off to the White Rim for 2 days of project hunting and delving. Peewee was down there to try Piz’s long term project “Necronomicon” (huge thin hands roof crack that features in the First Ascent films) and the rest of us hoped to either find something new or repeat one of Piz’s test pieces.

Peewee on a burn of the thin hands project, 'Necronomincon'

The first day (after receiving teacher’s orders....) me and Pete went to try an unclimbed line that Piz had shown us. Unfortunately, the line was a bit too long and too beta intensive for us to really get stuck into – more of a local’s line in reality, despite its obvious qualities. Instead we got stuck into some kind of squeeze chimney that Pete duly dispatched that afternoon. It wasn’t 100% clear if it had been done by Matt Lazenby before, but in any case it was probably around 5.13a – sort of a harder more sustained Lucille with serious deckout potential!

Pete finds a wide slot on the White Rim. A good dose of 'smoke in the eyes' is useful

Forget the Valley Giant, a tipped out #6 on .13a should do just fine

The second day we spent some time on Piz’s classic roof crack down at the White Rim – Army of Darkness, 5.13d. Brian had already been projecting, so conveniently the gear and beta was well established for Pete and me. With a couple of goes each, we got some good links and hopefully that’ll be in the bag with another trip. What really stands out from that line though, is the quality of the climbing – absolutely brilliant gymnastic roof climbing on fingers, hands, pods, offwidth and a little bit of fists. Reminds me very much of Greenspit in difficulty and quality.


Finally, to finish the day we did a little filming for Wild Country’s “Crack School” and also for the “Wide Boyz” film. As usual, it all got a bit silly and Pete ended up on the floor between my legs..... I’ll let the photos explain all!

Filming the offwidth glossary

Peewee helping demonstrate the offwidth glossary

hmmmmmmm....

Chris using his resources

Century Crack Grade

Ok, so I suppose it’s finally time to lay our nuts on the table and come up with a grade for Century Crack. There have been stories of superlative climbing events over the years that have been surrounded by grading controversies, climbing style arguments and conflicting personalities battling it out for the first ascent. I’m not sure that Century is any different from this; Stevie’s had his say, certain keyboard heroes have mass debated and the 9a grade has been thrown around.

Pete on the business end (c) Alex Ekins

All the while, Pete and I have generally been getting on with enjoying our climbing trip around the US. We’ve repeated 8 x 5.13a or harder offwidths (some flash/onsight) – including repeats of the hardest offwidths in Vedauwoo, Zion and Indian Creek. This has all been in with loads of other routes in the 5.12a-5.12d range and mostly on a 2:1 climbing to rest day ratio. Overall, we finally feel like we’re starting to know where everything lies relative to everything else and feel fairly confident that we are performing to our own expectations. It’s been knackering, but very much worth it!

Right.............. I’ll rant no more on that subject. Grades – let’s talk grades!

For Century Crack, we are proposing 5.14b or French grade 8c.

We’ve spent hours and hours debating this number amongst ourselves and it’s sort of been a tough decision, but also an easy one. Our gut feeling as soon as we’d both topped out was 5.14b, but we thought we’d sleep on it, repeat some more routes and see how we got on. In the end, we’re going with that same grade. It’s not an astronomical grade like 9a/+ and neither is it a trade route 8b. I guess time will only tell...

Below, I’ve put together some of our main trains of thought/rants on the grade matter. Most of it will be pretty boring to people out there, but it’s certainly of interest to some.


The Cellar Effect

As many people know, Pete and I spent 2 years slogging our guts out in a crack cellar underneath my house.
We trained so specifically for Century Crack – we had an almost exact replica of the whole route and we trained....and trained.... and trained.... We did over 17,000ft of Century Crack climbing in 2 years, which equates to having already climbed it 42 times each! It’s this point I really want to hammer home – I know it sounds like a short time to do a major project in 2 days, but in effect, we’d already had countless sessions on it back at home. All of this training was carefully periodised to bring about peak performance for our American trip and to avoid chronic overuse injuries.

Climbing wooden offwidths til it felt like our eyes bled

In Comparison to other US hard offwidths

The two hardest offwidths that we’ve come across in the States so far have been “Gabriel” in Zion and “Price of Evil” in Indian Creek. Gabriel we found to be like a soft 5.13c and Price of Evil a hard 5.13b. Both of these routes were a country mile in difficulty away from Century and if we had these routes back in the UK, we’d happily run laps on them. This is not just to boast, but more to illustrate that once we knew the sequence for a 5.13, then we weren’t taxed to our limit by them. In contrast, Century totally wiped us out in just 1 go and we wouldn’t dream of attempting the route twice in a day.

Warming up and onsighting 5.12b/c

Comparing to another well known crack – Greenspit

Although it’s not really a fair comparison, I thought it was useful when debating the grade with Pete on this route to compare it to another hard crack, Greenspit (8b or 5.13d), that we’d done a couple of years back. If you take Century vs. Greenspit then the former completely trounces the latter. They’re miles apart in difficulty and as Pete pointed out to me this evening he climbed Greenspit with almost no specific training – just a few pull-ups and some core conditioning! Also Stevie Haston flashed Greenspit, yet after a number of sessions could only work Century with 3 hanging rests.

So................. apologies for the rant – I had to get it down on paper. I still don’t exactly know what I think, but above is detailed at least some of mine and Pete’s most common thoughts.

A final word from Pete....

I think any grade for the route, whether its 6c or 8c gives little sense into what it is like to climb the thing. To get a feel of what it’s really all about you need to go down there and actually stand under it and give it ago. This is the only way to feel the real monstrosity of the beast. So get down there, it would be good to get a concensus on this thing!!

 

Loving Lucille

I remember seeing a guidebook topo for Lucille about 2 and a half years ago and I didn’t know what the scale of the route was. I thought it was an upside down shuffle with your feet inverted above you and your bum on the wall below...how wrong I was. The next photo I saw of this big bad offwidth was a picture of Craig Luebben making the second ascent and first onsight of the route. I couldn’t believe how small he looked turning the lip compared to the rest of the route and couldn’t work out how he had got through that massive 40ft roof.

One Scary MoFo - Lucille

It was then 2 and a half years later that I somehow found myself taping up on the slabs below trying to convince myself that the roof wasn’t that big and everything in Britain was way more intimidating. It’s not just the line that is intimidating it is the history behind the route; the tale from the first ascentionist, the onsights that have followed, the stories of failures, epics and puking on route. Everything about this route had built up in my mind and it felt like a big deal to me.

When Tom and I got to the belay I already knew I was up first as we had flipped a coin the night before to see who it would be. Unfortunately I lost out and had to go first.

The rack for Lucille

I was so nervous at the beginning of the route I could barely pull off finger lock moves of about 5.8 difficulty. However I got to a ledge filled with greasy bird poo and it made me feel like I was back in England and I soon realised I was even more at home as my head and upper body were stuck in a massive crack. With all nerves completely settled I found the sequence to conquer the 40ft roof and got myself into a “side winder position”. I got into such a rhythm of advancing chicken wings and armbars that when I started to turn the bulge I forgot to move my last Friend #6 with me and didn’t place my #5. Suddenly I found the chicken wings became a lot less secure and I had to really do some hip scumming to get to the secure knee lock. With a mild amount of swearing, thankfully the knee lock appeared (knee lock and hand stack combined = belay), I then knew I wasn’t falling out of there and punched it out to the top, fortunately without my rope getting stuck behind the lobe of my last Friend miles beneath.

Pete finally reaching easier ground on his onsight

I got back down the belay cave and found Tom shaking away, I told him not to worry and that this puppy would warm him up. He told me he wasn’t cold but nervous. I had actually never seen him this nervous before a route so reassured him that it was his style of climbing, (even though I knew we had done nothing like this before) and that because he looked after chickens he was really good at chicken winging. Tom put in a solid effort on his first go but got stopped by a massive flapper on his palm and the full body exhaustion. However an hour later he sent that wide crack in super style. Quickly, efficiently and without any swearing and made it look about E2. Well good!!!

So what about the grading? There is no trick to this route like many of the other offwidths in Vedauwoo, which is why I believe it has been onsighted a few times and some of the easier graded ones haven’t. To climb the route you’ve got to build a threshold to sickness, seat a chicken wing and get moving. The grade of the route comes through its continuity not the difficultly of a few single moves that are hard to read, like on some of the other wide ones out here. Awesome route Jay.

Pete showing off his chicken wing on 8oz

"For our final blog post before we go away we thought it would be good to see how each person was feeling about the trip. We decided to do this by asking each other some questions – some sensible, others not so!"

QUESTIONS BY PETE
(Q)PETE: Tom, I've heard and witnessed that you travelled back from Ilkley to Sheffield via Birmingham and that when checking weather forecasts on the internet for Yorkshire you used the postcode for Llanberis. How do you actually expect to find any of the crags you want to climb on whilst out in America?

(A)TOM: It is true that I get lost even trying to find the bathroom in my house, but I have a secret weapon up my sleeve; a MAP! Yup, I've heard (from your Dad) that you're a reliable map reader and boy am I going to be using this resource a lot. I'd say that Alex Ekins might help out, but I know he's absolutely diabolical with directions as well, so we might end up waiting in a US airport until Kim arrives!
PETE: If you make it to the crag, you may realize that we've actually climbed very few offwidths on real rock, how do you think the training that we have done will transfer?

TOM: My suspicion is that the training will transfer pretty well on the really steep stuff, but we'll still be pretty rubbish at the vertical stuff. I'd like to say that it's because the American's have so many more vertical offwidths to practice on, but in reality it's the size of their biceps and cowboy boots that really counts....
PETE: What part of the trip are you most looking forward to and what part are you most nervous about?

TOM: I've been told by Kim (my wife) that I have to say it's our daughter coming out to visit, that I'm most looking forward to... I might also add that I'm psyched out of my tree for Belly Full of Bad Berries, The Crack House and more new routing shenanigans with your good self.  The part of the trip I'm most apprehensive about is trying Lucille in Vedauwoo (it's such a hugely significant route) or realising that I've actually booked our flights for the wrong country and we're off to Yemen.

QUESTIONS BY TOM

(Q)TOM: So Pete, we've done loads of training and preparation for this trip now. What shall we do if we start falling off all the 5.9s?!

(A) PETE: I'm actually expecting to fall of all the 5.9s, especially in Vedauwoo where its meant to be sandbag city. However whenever you fall off something easy its best to just get on something much harder and steeper and fail on that instead because it will make you feel better and your mates won't think you're as much of a punter. Failing that i'll send you up everything and say i'm still jet lagged from a month ago.

TOM: What do you reckon of all these American offwidth wads?

PETE: America isn't just known for its offwidths, but like you say, the offwidth wads that it breeds. I have spoken to a few of the wads by email and my assessment is...that they are going to be well hardcore and I might get scared and run away!!! From the stories I've read and pictures I've seen these people feel no pain brother.

I also think they will have really slick technique and I may get to witness something really special, which is the illusion they can create when it looks like they slip up offwidths. I'll be psyched to see this as i've only ever seen you stuck in one...

TOM: What part of the trip are you most looking forward to?

PETE: I think 99.9% of people wouldn't look forward to anything we have planned on this trip, (offwidths, crying babies and no sense of direction...hmmmmmm!) However I couldn't be more excited. There are so many parts I am looking forward to...getting to climb a load of different offwidths; meeting new people; coming away from Vedauwoo with some skin and alive; climbing new routes; getting jet lag (never had it, want to see what all the fuss is about); getting to watch you and others feel pain; Kim, Laura and Hannah coming, man the list is endless.

But really there is one part and route that stands out...I think you know what that is. Should be a good adventure!!

Had a bit of an offer from a friend to go to the Mournes in Ireland at the weekend, so just couldn’t turn that down!! It was kind of risky only going for 3 days as the weather could have just been pants, but in the end it did turn out ok.

Day 1:

The mist was a bit low to go onto the tops so we went to a roadside crag and pottered around on some easy things.Although I did do this E4 6a/b and it was probably the most runout 6a/b move I’ve done on an E4 – ever. The route had never seen E4 in its life!! I’d say it was much closer to E5/6, unless I just miss read it slightly.

Day 2:

We decided to quest on to Binnian. We set off in the rain, but optimistically carried on and it did brighten up to be a really nice day. Unfortunately I couldn’t do the routes I wanted to do up there because of the wind, but it was good to check it out for a future trip and we did get some other nice things done.

Day 3:

We visited the recently developed Lower Cove East Buttress, really amazing place. Steep pumpy routes with good gear and long runouts. After leading a few routes we got abit held up because the army came and had to set off an old World War 1 bomb off just below where we were climbing. Probably the loudest thing I’ve ever heard!!

After that I decided to give a new route a go onsight. I wasn’t sure whether there would be any holds in the middle section but thought it looked easy enough to reverse if not. Anyway it ended up that there were holds, however with a lack of gear I managed to get myself very runout. After a bit of a spicy little mantle I came across a perfect friend 1 slot (good job I hadn’t used it already) and pushed on to the top.

Anyway I found out that the route I had done wasn’t really a new route. Ricky had done it a few years ago and called it ‘Freshly Baked’ and gave it E7 6b. However I did take a slightly different start, so the variation I did was slightly easier. Still good though. Can’t wait to get back for a longer trip and check out some other crags, along with Fairhead. It all looks so good.

Ravenstones:

When I got back from Ireland I had another little project to go and finish before going away to America. It was a new route at Ravenstones. I had tried it briefly previously after completing another project up there a while back but didn’t have the correct gear. Anyway I went back with the correct gear and managed to do the route ground up. It just goes through a seam in the roof right of ‘No Time to Pose’. Probably E6ish or something and I called it ‘Jelly Full of Bad Cherries’ in anticipation for the up and coming America trip!!

So now, I’m sooooooooo pscyhed for America, only a week and a half before me and Tom are shuffling about in some Vedauwoo sandbag 5.9.