Pennine Lines w/c 15 april 2024
There’s a saying in climbing, attributed to the late Alex Lowe, that the best climber in the world is the one having the most fun. Not to be misconstrued to mean that, at present, Adam Ondra has more fun than the rest of us (could actually be true to be fair…), it sort of distils into a soundbite the idea that the whole point of this bizarre past-time / sport / existential quest [delete as applicable] is to enjoy what you’re doing. Similarly, since the point of being a climber is to go climbing, to climb ideally as much and as often as you can manage, the best crag in the world is the one only ten minutes away.
Pennine Lines w/c 2 October 2023
There’s also something to be said for sensing when the prevailing winds are blowing in your direction and allowing yourself to be carried along on the breeze. This is true of Raven Tor as much as anywhere. Make hay while the sun shines etc etc. When things align and it goes your way, sometimes you’ve got to go with it - and sense when it’s time to move on.
Pennine Lines w/c 28 August 2023
But moving beyond the nuts and bolts of relaying information to you, guidebooks at their best are passports not only to X, Y or Z problems on the ground; long before you even set foot at the crag they are fuel for the fires of the imagination to burn. Although the pages of any guide are crammed full of words and photos they act as a sort of blank canvas to sketch out any one of thousands of possibilities played out in your mind’s eye. We can all be heroes when reading a guidebook. Every day is perfect weather, every hold feels good, every move made with confidence. Anything is possible.
Pennine Lines w/c 29 May 2023
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.
Pennine Lines w/c 8 May 2023
You have to wonder that in a media-rich world, ultra-connected, if climbing is now almost too global, to the point where we don’t really value what’s on our doorstep? Are we are all now so accustomed to being fed an eye popping diet of cutting edge boulder problems that the humble glue-covered limestone of Miller’s Dale can’t compete with huge glowing-orange ‘king lines’ in South Africa? Live-streamed history-in-the-making from Finland and massive steep problems - or ‘rigs’ to use the correct terminology - in Switzerland with bottles of champagne being popped upon success are great, but where does this leave the monumentally unsexy shattered grey polished rock of the Tor? Out in the cold it seems (ironic given the crag is a sun trap).