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Grit Rash.
Copious quantities of the grit exist on the moors around the Pennines. The crags are scattered from Brimham Rocks in the north-east, to the Lower Churnet Valley in the south; a lump of grit, it seems, is lurking around (nearly) every corner. ‘Hot Henry’ Barber, during a visit to the area in the Seventies, likened the routes to "inlaid jewels". Since then grit seems to attract more and more visitors from overseas. They, like the indigenous climbers, are mainly attracted to the striking lines on the natural grit but they, like the locals, forget the quality routes in the quarries at their peril.
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Chances
are that when most people think of gritstone climbing, images of
dark satanic crags in the heart of the Pennines spring to mind covered
in Manchurian plumbers doing daring deeds. That is until Slackjaw
Films released ‘Hard Grit’ in 1998. At the risk of overstating what
we now almost regarded as fact, Hard Grit immediately become the
quintessential film of hard gritstone climbing. Arguable it changed
the image of grit climbing for ever. Hard Grit became hard grit!
You’ll not find a climber alive whose stomach doesn’t turn when
watching Jean Ming’s take his thigh-crunching fall off Gaia,
(E8 6c), Johnny Dawes’ Black Rocks classic frightener, during
the opening sequence of the film. Similarly, Seb Grieve’s ascent
of, or rather falls off, Parthian Shot (E9 7a) does
nothing to settle the viewer’s frayed nerves. "Until now",
we are told, "failure was not an option". Those in the
know, have long understood this sentiment, climbers who indulge
regularly in hard grit develop a sixth sense on ‘how to stay alive
and be a successful gritstoner’. Paradoxically, Hard Grit treats
the viewer to loads of monster lobs and dobs. However, you’re left
on your own to square the circle, but square it you must if you
develop a penchant for hard grit.
So
whilst Hard Grit might well be ‘modern’ hard gritstone, perhaps
we’d better take five and have a look at when the tough routes started
appearing. Going right back to the very start of the last century,
the grit, being easily accessible from the Pennine towns, saw plenty
of action from early developers. Hard, and often bold, routes began
to appear right away, Hermitage Crack (VS 4c), was
James W Puttrell’s 1901 test-piece at Cratcliffe Tor. A quarter
of a century later Morley Wood did Kelly’s Overhang (HVS
5b) in 1926 at High Neb, Stanage. The next big jump came in 1945
when Peter Harding ‘roped-in’ Promontory Traverse
(E2 5b) at Black Rocks. Four years later and Harding was back at
Black Rocks for his 1949 ascent of Demon Rib (E4 5c)
which, without a doubt, represented a real leap into the unknown
with proper hard, bold climbing. The aforementioned Manchurian plumbers
started to make their presence felt around this time but it wasn’t
until 1958 that Don Whillians, half of that famous Manchester duo,
cranked up the handle further with Goliath (E5 6a)
at Burbage South. It was nearly another twenty years before the
next grade was to come into being when Steve Bancroft went ahead
of the opposition in 1976 with his ascent of Narcissus
(E6 6b) at Froggatt. Bancroft’s ascent of Narcissus
was a little unusual in that whereas most of the ascents he and
John Allen, his partner in crime, were usually done quickly and
with limited practice, Narcissus was ‘sorted’ by self
roping using jumars. Maybe Bancroft unwittingly created headpointing
with his ascent of Narcissus, as well as kicking the
ass of the competition?
Of
necessity, this is a quick overview of the development of grit grades
up to and including the start of ‘modern’ times. Make no mistake,
some of these routes are tough and even today some of them demand
full-on respect. However, the cognoscenti consider that hard grit
today starts at E7. So when, then did the first E7 come into being?
Well it probably will not come as any great surprise to learn, if
you didn’t already know, that today the first acknowledged grit
E7, Desperate Dan, was done by none other than ‘Big
Ron’ Fawcett himself way back in 1979. Oddly enough, Desperate
Dan wasn’t heralded as a giant step forward at the time
(it didn’t even get E7 at the time - this was to come later) probably
because it was simply a logical progression from what had gone before,
even though it was just a bit harder and a bit bolder. However,
it did sum up what climbing on grit is all about: short but challenging;
accessible but dangerous; usually obvious but still hard and committing
in execution; action-packed climbing all-to-often in an ‘eating
through a straw for the rest of your life if you cock it up’ scenario.
Given the advent of ‘modern’ protection many routes by the late
seventies could be adequately protected, except on grit that is
where E stood for Extinction as often as not. Sure there were routes
where the E stood for effort, but generally, this wasn’t the norm.
