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.