Shock of the new.

I climbed a new route on gritstone the other week.

Hmmmm. That doesn’t sound right.

I climbed a two star mid-grade new route on Peak District gritstone, up a completely obvious pure line, on a bit of rock that’s five minutes walk from the road.

There, that sounds better. The honest truth, guv. Well, the churlish might say only one star, but the line is good, the sequence is very good, and the genre - bouldery moves just above bomber gear - is also good.

Two things stick in my mind about this personal event:

Firstly, it’s rather exciting discovering something like this in such a popular area of the country. The Peak is so well-developed and so heavily scoured by prowling, rock-hungry teams, that for a mere mortal to find anything worthwhile seems quite unfeasible. Nevertheless, I went for a walk to this particular venue, and after a bit of scouting around, was shocked at what I found: A clear, independent new line, accessible and logistically simple, on good rock with only a good brush required to clean. This came at a time where a lull in my interest in local grit and my elbow injury had dulled my enthusiasm a bit….and it was instantly rekindled. I’m not a particular new route whore but I was distinctly excited!!

Secondly, I headpointed this route. I cleaned it on abseil - absolutely essential. Then I worked the moves from the top down on abseil. A couple of moves took several goes to work out what to do. Then I attempted it on lead but bailed out due to nerves, darkness, and poor skin. A couple of days later I worked the moves on abseil again, then led it easily. A true worked, pre-practised, headpoint ascent.

[Ethically, of course, there is nothing of interest here. New routes have always been an entirely different genre to repeating existing routes. Without a grade, description, guidebook hints, knowledge that it’s been climbed successfully etc etc, a new route justifies different tactics (even aside from the the necessary cleaning). The sequence on this route is tricky to work out and if I’d attempted this ground up, it could have taken me a dozen or more goes and nearly as many falls, trashing gear, ropes, and my pelvis. Now it’s done, described, and fairly graded, it’s up to others to climb it in the normal style.]

What IS of interest is my experience and what pleasure I gained from this. When I finally led it clean, I felt a little bit of satisfaction from having done it, and I enjoyed the quality of climbing (indeed, repeating it immediately to get a video, I enjoyed the climbing just as much). But I didn’t get the deep, involving thrill that I usually get from good climbing. Having practised it, actually leading it almost felt like a formality. I realised quickly that the most exciting part of the process was first abseiling down, trying the moves, and discovering they were possible, they were good, and I could do them. The joy of discovery - this is what I usually get en-route, on the lead, on normal trad climbing. Here I got it on an abseil inspection, and once it was discovered, actually leading it was rather diluted. No regrets though, just an interesting feeling.

Details “soon”.