THE CLIMBER’S VOICE Looking for the key By Wil Treasure I first heard of Sardine and Raven Tor when I was a teenager working in a gear shop. It was a cushy job. Once the floor was vacuumed and new stock put on shelves I had little to do but read magazines and guidebooks, while my boss made the rounds catching up on high street gossip. Wil Treasure pulling hard on Sardine (F7b+) at Raven Tor. Photo: David Simmonite One feature which always caught my eye was Steve McClure’s ‘Magic Grades’ series in On the Edge magazine. He started out fairly easy; E1, E3 – these were things which seemed attainable to an eager 18-year old who had managed to kick his way up a few low E-grades already. I was totally inspired by trad climbing. My bedroom wall was covered with posters – Leo Houlding on his early attempts on The Prophet and John Redhead on an attempt at the Tormented Ejaculation were my favourites. These climbs were hard and bold. I felt like if I climbed dangerous, bold routes I would gain respect. I wanted to climb long routes, to experience the uncertainties involved, to deal with the fear and to be out in the mountains. I dreamed of the deep sense of satisfaction, release and calm that comes with the total concentration needed to complete a bold route. When Steve got into the sport grades I paid less attention. Sport climbing is for sissies, right? I never really thought it was something I would get into – the sport routes near me were either crap or way too hard, I just couldn’t see the appeal. What didn’t help was that he started at F7b+. This was a world away. I knew of people who’d climbed hard routes, but didn’t know them personally. I didn’t know anyone who sport climbed regularly. Climbing down in the Wye Valley gave the impression that even venturing onto E2s was pretty ballsy. I never saw anyone on the harder routes, sport or trad. I just assumed only rock gods climbed those grades. When Steve wrote of his first experience of a F7b+ I read it, but it didn’t really register as an ambition. ‘Climbing at this level is completely different from climbing at say, French 6a’ he wrote. ‘Hard training is required. Campusing, dead hangs, weighted pull-ups, running, early nights, cake abstinence and general hard work are all essential, or at least a few of these anyway. Motivation and dedication are key’. This didn’t tick many of the boxes for me. I like cake and the bakery was just across the road. They used to make these diabetes-inducing sugar lumps called ‘Aunt Bessies’, constructed from crushed digestive biscuits amongst other things. They probably held my climbing back more than any other factor, but I was never keen for training either. Perhaps if he’d said climbing F7b+ was easy I might’ve tried, but for now it felt like something I would be neither fit enough nor motivated enough to achieve. I consoled myself with the knowledge that sport climbing is for sissies. I’d never had a sustained period of climbing to gain the fitness I needed Fast forward four and half years and I’m stood at the foot of Raven Tor. I’ve been dragged here in the rain by Duncan. He knows I’m too weak to get up anything, but it’s the only place that’s dry. He warms up by climbing Sardine (F7b+). Three minutes later he’s back on the floor. I stand in amazement – I’d never seen anyone climb that grade, let alone as a warm-up. I was also confused, Duncan is strong, but he’s not that strong. That day I had a go on a top rope and was surprised to find I could do most of the moves, albeit no more than three at a time before sitting on the rope, but suddenly I had a goal. As it happens, Sardine was Steve McClure’s first taste of the grade in the UK too. After biking to Raven Tor from Sheffield he was underwhelmed, having just returned from Verdon in France: ‘Still, at least the route I fancied looked like a piece of piss. Sardine, E6 6b, or F7b+ in fancy grades, appeared to be an easy wall with jugs all over it. Surely this was the easiest E6 in the world! And there were bolts too, perhaps I would like this crag after all’. However, Steve’s attempts weren’t much more successful than mine: ‘Ten foot higher and after a traverse out left the relationship between the size of the holds and my pumped arms was all wrong’. Steve lobbed onto the first bolt, which he’d hung with a wire since the hanger was missing. Feeling deflated he dogged his way to the top and went home, vowing never to return. He did, of course, adding his own far harder routes. By chance, on my first day at the Tor, Steve was there too. He was working a line that cut through the traverse of Rooster Booster, creating a new F8c. He cruised up his line, warmed down on a F8a and when I next turned round he was dangling upside down in a tree doing sit-ups. All this while I was dangling uselessly from the second bolt of Sardine, trying to remember how exactly I had managed the crux move before. Watching Steve I wondered if I really had the motivation to climb this route. Two years on I was back again. Sardine had received intermittent attention, but completing my final year of university and then starting an MA took over from getting fit. Despite returning I’d never had a sustained period of climbing to gain the fitness I needed for this route and I really had no idea about redpointing tactics. 6 18 Sep–Oct <strong>2017</strong> www.climber.co.uk
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