Pennine Lines w/c 22 July 2024
|| Warmer but drier || Take it and run ||
Kindred || Climber: Jim Pope
|| Kinder ||
Jim Pope's Hard New Problem
A ramshackle discontinuous edge line of buttresses and perched blocks sits atop a rolling slope, threatening to depart company and meet their ultimate fate in the stream below at any moment. But for the time being they are content to survey the scene - a relatively wild spot for the Peak, and a fair investment of legwork for anyone to get there, remote, yet with passenger jets regularly passing over, and the huge urban sprawl of Manchester dominating the far view to the west. To the north the constant traffic of the Snake Pass road is visible, shuttling the thrifty parents of Sheffield off to a marginally cheaper family holidays on this term-time July Monday. Even all the way up here that juxtaposition of the urban and the wild is felt as keenly as anywhere in the Peak.
And whilst excited kids in the back seat reach the summit of the pass, see the western horizon for the first time and eagerly await being stuck in traffic in Mottram, one slightly bigger kid excitedly prepares for what’s to come, but this one’s very much in the driving seat. Warming up, brushing the scrittle off the topout, sorting out the pads, doing a few of the moves, making sure the droppable top section is dialled in, getting the spotters in the right place, and wafting away the final few midges. A quick chalk-up, the crag chatter pauses for 20-odd moves, and it’s done. A short distance above, walkers and runners circuit the rim of the Kinder plateau, oblivious to the tiny bit of Peak climbing’s continuing and ever-evolving history being written just below.
There’s not many things that I think we Brits do better than other nations, with the exception of regionally-specific chip-shop delicacies, queueing, and the 3-pin mains sockets (honestly those shonky ones they have in Europe give me the fear, and the less said about the North American ones the better). But I would perhaps add understated crag celebrations onto that list. I’ve been fortunate enough to witness a few of the top bouldering ascents in the Peak of recent times (including the hardest male ascent on grit, hardest female ascent on grit, hardest problem at Raven Tor etc etc) and refreshingly it’s a similar scene each time. No whooping entourage being sprayed with champagne, no medals and no ticker tape parades. Just a few fist bumps, the odd brief cheer and a “good effort” exchanged.
If a passing walker had been watching from afar - which they may well have been - they wouldn’t be expected to appreciate what just happened. The meaning of such moments is really defined by what we value, and are not dependent on an audience. It has no meaning outside our context. So nobody else really gives a toss about this stuff. Inconsequential. There’s no commentary telling you what the score is here. Which is fine; climbing is about the doing and the experiencing, not the watching. It’s not a competition. Jim might not be off to the Olympics this time, but Paris’ loss is Kinder’s gain.
Celebrations || Ashop Edge, Kinder
You might already have read the Q&A with Jim about this new problem Kindred, but I’ll end this with some additional brass-tacks context from my semi-armchair position as mainly an observer (I’m blaming a dodgy elbow and warm temps for lack of any progress even on the “easy” finish) in the hope that it lights a fire under someone. At this point potential 8b/+ suitors are chomping at the bit, wanting to know what the logistics are like, how repeatable it is in real terms? As we all know, there’s Font 8b/+ and there’s font 8b/+…. Where does this sit on the Boss-To-Smiling-Buttress continuum? Somewhere in the middle I guess.
Yes it’s a long way to walk, but it is only an hour, it’s not highball, the holds are pretty good by grit standards, it doesn’t need to be freezing cold, and there’s no gritstone weirdness trick moves or any single outright ridiculous crux. It’s also not hugely morpho or requiring any total commitment death dynos, and it’s very workable. The starting handhold ledge and the foot plinth below have the structural integrity of cottage cheese and will probably need a proper heavy duty glue job doing on them to have any longevity. But the rest of the rock on this outstanding line, whilst not being up to the premium calibre of some other high crags like Grinnah Stones or Howshaw Tor, is otherwise pretty good.
In short; it’s all there for the taking. I dare say it’s even flashable; I think the talent is already out there for this - especially if it gets a few early repeats and the spell is broken - morphic resonance and all that. Time will tell.
|| Recently Through The Lens ||
More July contrasts - the rich bracken and sunset-drenched grit of Higgar Tor, and the bleached-dry midday pastel shades of the Stanage heather and cottongrass.
|| Fresh Prints ||
One of Jim's other major offerings on gritstone, this time from the south Peak - Applied Imagination from the Print Shop.
