Climber September/October 2017

Firstly, it’s actually quite hard, secondly,
no really good climbers have got stuck
in, nothing more than a day or so.
Sharma had a play and Megos and
Ondra just a day each. That’s nothing.
Pope and Bosi have yet to really try
although Ryan Pasquill has given it a
bunch of seasons and he’s one of the
UK climbers I’d have put my money on.
Finally, the top British climbers are way
more interested in bouldering.
Luckily I think I’m reasonably suited to
British sport climbing, either by genetics
or just because I’ve done loads of it.
edge development and for some reason
I’ve had it completely to myself. I can’t
single out which route means the most,
Mutation was the start, Northern Lights
was the real test as it was Ben Moon’s
project, Rainshadow was the best, and
Overshadow was the hardest.
Steve had an amazing year in 1998
climbing Mecca Extension (F8c) and
Mega Whore (F8c) before doing
Mutation. He’d stamped his name
on Raven Tor, then arguably the
spiritual home of cutting edge sport
climbing in the UK. However, it was
time to move north to The Dales
where Steve would add considerably
to his CV and really show his
penchant for long, powerful
world-class routes. Did he feel
more comfortable on longer routes
and was the move north a deliberate
policy?
To be fair, and brutally honest, I just
stepped in where there was an opening.
I didn’t choose a style, for quality new
lines there wasn’t that much choice.
For a decade he blitzed Malham
and Kilnsey producing an incredible
series of routes; Northern Lights
(F9a) in 2000, Rain Shadow (F9a) in
2003, Overshadow (F9a+) in 2007,
North Star (F9a/+) in 2008 and then
Bat Shadow (F8c+) in 2010. They’re
all amazing routes. Which means
the most to him now and why?
Raven Tor was good to me. It gifted me
with the final wave of sport routes in the
Peak. But Yorkshire is another level in
terms of quality. I have been incredibly
lucky, and I feel very privileged to have
been left the absolute best new, hard
routes out there. My timing was
impeccable. There has been a perfect
amount of unclimbed projects around
the Peak and The Dales and I’ve taken
them all and built an entire career
around them. There’s hardly any left
now, none, in fact, that are known
entities. My routes were often bolted,
attempted, named and even graded.
They had history and aura and oozed
quality before I even arrived. It’s been
the absolute golden period of cutting
Overshadow was Steve’s first F9a+
(after John Gaskin’s 2004 Violent
New Breed which was the first at
that grade) and it took Steve a lot
to get it finished. Steve’s outline of
the frustrations of redpointing in
Beyond Limits, his 2014 autobiography,
is particularly poignant for
many sport climbers who identify
with the mental effort involved in
doing routes at their limit. I asked
Steve what were the main takehome
points from that experience
and whether they were still relevant
on Rainman?
Overshadow was the first route that required
‘extra’ effort. Everything else I knew I would
climb eventually; it was just a matter of
banging my head against it for a while.
Some routes took 10 days, some more, but
I knew they would go. I was already capable.
But Overshadow I knew was too hard;
I needed to raise my game physically. 6
Steve McClure contorted on
Rainman at Malham in
Yorkshire, the UK’s and Steve’s
first F9b. Photo: Keith Sharples
www.climber.co.uk Sep–Oct 2017 33