Pennine Lines w/c 21 august 2023
‘Stuff’ - each item in of itself relatively benign; each one to solve a problem, to make things easier. To enhance performance. But in another way each one contributes to creating a problem, to changing the experience, diluting it, getting in the way of what’s good about bouldering in the first place - the simplicity. And suddenly five boulderers plus all their gear and pads would no longer fit into a Nissan Micra.
Pennine Lines w/c 14 august 2023
As I mention once or twice in Grit Blocs, in the world of gritstone bouldering we tend to look up to Fontainebleau; we borrow Font grades, and we use ‘Font style’ as the highest accolade we give to a problem. But the weird thing about British climbing’s relationship with Font is our tendency to characterise the climbing there as being exclusively rounded topouts on rippled slopers, reducing it to a stereotype and ignoring the wealth of climbing styles on offer. Font is in fact pretty well equipped with savage crimpy walls, horrendous cracks, tendon-snapping pocket pulling, steep basic pulling, one-movers, long stamina problems, low physical roofs, highballs deserving of route status and just about everything in between.