Pennine Lines w/c 29 May 2023

PLWeeklyEmail

30 May

|| Dry, breezy, not too hot || Good times ||

The Yorkshireman || Climber: John Coefield

|| Focus On ||

Kyloe

Welcome to a tuesday email this week due to the bank holiday. I also have to be open and upfront about this one; this is pushing the definition of Pennines to breaking point.

Kyloe-In-The-Woods isn't really in the Pennines, it's actually north of the start of the Pennine Way in Kirk Yetholm (which is in Scotland!) and arguably the whole of the Cheviot hills aren't strictly part of the Pennines anyway. That said, the character of the crags up here in Northumberland still feels familiar to most of us climbers from Yorkshire or the Peak somehow. Usually they are a little quieter, but it's easy to feel at home here.

Admittedly none of the above makes Kyloe in the Pennines, however this is my email, I'm in charge, so I can bend the rules a little. Also, the second thing to note is I'm writing this whilst in Northumberland, so not only can I not see past the immediate vicinity, but as most of my archive of images is back home I'm limited to what I have on my laptop. To make up for the paucity of images and the brevity of text befitting a man writing on the move I'm bringing to you a few images of supreme nostalgia value, shot on 35mm film from April 2008. Baggy trousers, blue Five Ten slippers, Metolius pads, the lot. Normal service will be resumed next week......

Kyloe-In is a prime target for nostalgia at the moment since the venue's character has been completely and dramatically altered in recent years due to the felling of all the trees around the crag. Looking at it today it's hard to imagine what it used to be like.

If you want a little fun task, next time you're at a climbing wall or a friend's house with a stack of old climbing mags from the 1990s or early 2000s have a dig though and see if you can find any photos of the crag. Anyone who went there back then will talk of the dense woodland creating an almost magical sort of ambience with the sunlight raking through the trees creating dappled light intercut with deep dense shade. Images you see from this era are dripping in mystery and intrigue. As we see in the above image this creates a nightmare for any photographer shooting slide film and trying to hold detail in the shadows AND highlights, but it undeniably created a tremendous sense of atmosphere.

By the time I made the visit pictured here, I think my third visit, some of the trees closest to the crag had actually already been recently felled, opening up the place a little but retaining most of the old atmosphere. Not quite what it once was, but still a far cry from its denuded look today.

Incidentally, looking at these images it's also a good reminder of the documentary value of photography and why it matters; as it's easy to forget what places and people used to look like, especially places we visit regularly. Small changes often go unnoticed, but add up over time - a harsh fact of life that my hair colour bears witness to.

The Yorkshireman Sit Start || Climber: Dave Parry

This is not to say that what's old was necessarily good, and what is new is necessarily bad though. The atmosphere has definitely changed, but what Kyloe-In lacks in shade now that means it's a lot more open, giving the breeze a bit more chance to penetrate through to the crag, keeping it cleaner and a bit fresher on warm days perhaps. And it should also help the crag to dry out faster after wet weather. Also it will be interesting to see if top-outs come back in fashion again. All the main up problems here were originally done as routes, solos, and they all topped out. With the emergence of pads in the late 90s, and pure bouldering being seen more as a legitimate pastime the top-outs - complete with battling through the vegetation and damp mossy finishes - became largely ignored. But actually today with the trees gone it seems the top-outs have a good chance of being climbed occasionally again. They do look worthwhile and probably only need to feature in an influencer video or two to become wildly popular.

It will be interesting to see if fashions change on this over time, and also what the next ten or fifteen years will bring for the ambience at Kyloe-In. Will young trees start to grow back where the mature trees were felled and make recent felling seem a little less brutal, will the atmosphere of the crag change and evolve again? We'll have to wait and see.

I'll leave you with this shot of the beach and castle at Bamburgh. It took this photo on the same trip as the rest of the images here, and I vividly remember us parking up and heading down to the back with tripods almost as an after-thought at the end of a long day climbing when we probably just wanted a bag of chips and collapse into a local pub. This one was always a favourite shot of mine from back when I was starting to take landscape photography seriously, I'm glad we made the effort and delayed the pint.