Pennine Lines w/c 20 january 2025
But, we’re back regardless, nose to the grindstone…..a grindstone made out of grit - what else? So what’s been going down? The big news of the new year period was that Smiling Buttress received its long-awaited second ascent from Alex Moore. It looks like the new beta and padding setup makes it less of a logistical headache, and crucially less deathly, so maybe this will open the floodgates to more repeats? Even if not, it’s great to see the line get the attention it deserves, because it is a mega piece of rock. The arête immediately to the right just needs climbing now - from what I hear it’s almost all ’there’.
Pennine Lines w/c 16 December 2024
Alright folks I'm going to keep this short; I've got presents to go out and buy, I need to source a replacement dipped headlamp bulb, and the weather is terrible etc etc. But as Christmas falls on the 25th this year, meaning it all kicks off next week, we'll be taking a hard-earned break from Pennine Lines over what Americans excruciatingly refer to as the "holiday period". Instead of writing these emails I am putting the time saved into leaning heavily into consuming dried-fruit-based foodstuffs, marzipan, and beer. However, Pennine Lines is never far from my mind, so as I did last year I'm going to be asking you to do something for me for once, namely click here and give us your thoughts on what you want to see in these emails in 2025.
Pennine Lines w/c 9 December 2024
It’s cold, maybe too cold? Turn a cheek to the wind and glance - well, squint - across the moor to the jumble of gritstone boulders silhouetted on the horizon. Gonna be even colder up there. Is the cloud level going to play ball? The hours spent checking and re-checking weather forecasts at least confirms that this is exactly as anticipated. Should be the right conditions for it, on paper at least. That bodes well, perhaps this is the day after all. Could do without leaving empty handed this time, it’s a bit soul destroying. You wonder if you’d have been better off going elsewhere. Cue frantic waving of arms in an effort to pump blood into the fingers, the first of many such episodes.
Pennine Lines w/c 2 December 2024
So having witnessed this bewildering rise in standards over the last twenty years or so (much of it actually occurring in the last five-to-ten years) it’s therefore reassuring to find that some things are still the same; The Ace is still quite hard. The holds might have improved, the top jug might have snapped off and been glued back on, the landing might have been extended and improved, the rock in front of it might have been toppled and then put back, pads might be twice as thick now and sequences might have changed, everyone might have been training specifically for it on replica holds now, and it might even have been flashed a few times, but despite all that it’s still quite hard. The baggy S7 strides might be gone (sadly), and Anasazis no longer rule the roost (again, sadly), but one remaining sliver of former certainties still remains; The Ace is still quite hard. It still gives the best a rough ride. No wonder Jim was so pleased.
Pennine Lines w/c 25 November 2024
It wasn’t by accident that I pretty much skipped over the Plantation in Grit Blocs; I hate that it gets busy, and can’t stand to see the trashing it gets when people climb when it hasn’t fully dried, and the way the rock quality often isn’t as strong as the lines. Never really been comfortable with the proliferation of fairly poor landings, and hate how the few flat areas beneath classics are eroding away once again, with the BMC-coordinated ground work seeming like a distant memory (checks notes - it was 2005/6, which explains why it feels a long time ago). I hate the way the rock has an especially nasty habit of tearing fast-moving fingertips to shreds in slightly-too-warm weather. The way you’ve basically always got to be on your game is brutal and uncompromising, unreasonable. And when the smothering bracken is up in summer, and the wind drops? Hate that.
Pennine Lines w/c 18 November 2024
Last night’s snow fell on gritted dry roads, with recent high ground temps, and hence there shouldn’t be be much problem getting out today. However, it’s always worth remembering that the main roads and the bus routes are your safest bets. So from Sheffield the A57 out of Crosspool towards Rivelin is a reliable route, as is the main A6187 Hathersage Road out to the Peak via Fox House - this is a busy wide road with regular buses so is always well gritted and it takes a lot of snow to make this one impassable, meaning you can often access crags like Burbage South, Millstone, Lawrencefield, Mother Cap and Secret Garden OK, and with a bit of a walk the rest of the Burbage Valley too.
Pennine Lines w/c 11 November 2024
One thing I’ve been pondering whilst eating up the motorway miles is the sometimes rather uncomfortable status which eliminate problems occupy in British climbing. This has been brought into focus during visits to some of these iconic old-school venues like The Bowderstone and Dumbarton, not to mention Peak Limestone. Talking to people at various crags it’s clear everyone has a different take on eliminates, ranging from leaning very heavily into them, to completely denouncing them. Climbing is supposed to be about taking the line of least resistance to the top, anything else is just stupid, right? While I recognise this is a topic which warrants a more detailed dive than I will offer up here today, I’ll offer up a few points for consideration.
Pennine Lines w/c 4 November 2024
It doesn’t matter if you’ve done everything before, there’s always sport to be had, always a traverse or a variation to be enjoyed, the almost-lost-art of playfulness and creativity still rules here. On a quick hit on a marginal day everything is a bonus, there’s no such thing as wasted time. Everything is a win - at least you didn’t give up and go indoors.
Pennine Lines w/c 21 October 2024
The quarries at Rivelin particular are one of those venues where nobody can ever come up with a good reason why the place is never that popular, unjustifiably so, given it’s potentially a reliable winter option when stuff is clean. Hence it tends to get periodically rediscovered by a new generation every few years. Those around in the 2000s will fondly remember a few routes appearing in Dan Honeyman’s films, and it’s been the scene of several brief but frenzied renaissances since then. At some point a critical mass must be reached and it obtains sustained traffic, surely? It can’t be far off. Right now there’s lot of brambles and undergrowth to negotiate but also some outstanding rock architecture. For the bold trad devotees there’s plenty to go at, but even if you’re ‘only’ bouldering there’s a few classics to check out - most obviously the problems around Happy Campus / No Class, the ‘popular end’ of the crag. But it’s worth picking your left leftwards along through the various quarried bays and eyeballing some of the blank slabs and walls.
Pennine Lines w/c 14 October 2024
As I have mentioned in previous emails and on Instagram, I am excited to be able to unveil this one to you, the loyal subscribers to my weekly email. This is a calendar of my Peak landscape images from what I think of as my neck of the woods - the eastern gritstone edges and the central limestone. It's an area close to my heart and I know it’s a special place for a lot of you too, so I hope this collection of images does the place justice but also drops in a few surprises for you. The final selection of images will stay under wraps until the calendars ship, but what I can say is none of these images have been available for sale before in any form, and all twelve images for this are shot on 5x4” transparency film. This is something I mention a lot, so for the non-photographers out there who might not be down with the terminology, what exactly does this exactly mean?
Pennine Lines w/c 25 September 2023
Hawkcliffe was a bit of a surprise really for more than one reason - I was not expecting such an impressive crag, for such a relatively obscure venue. The rock architecture is formidable; there’s some HUGE buttresses and big bold looking routes with the odd peg (pegs that I assume whoever placed them wouldn’t have gotten away with at a more popular grit crag). The ramparts of fine-grained rock emerge from a steep tangle of rhododendrons, moss covered bushes, slippy travelator-like mud and abandoned conference-venue chairs. It’s like Wharnecliffe meets Gladiators in a crack lounge.