"New Statesman" - British Political and Cultural Issues in the Modern Rock Touching World

The grit was made famous worldwide after the movie “Hard Grit” was released in the late 90’s. Whenever I travel abroad, the moment it becomes obvious that I’m British (which is generally instant), I am queried about grit… Almost as if this island we live on is just one massive gritstone blob bobbing in and out of the sea :P Well I have a confession to make folks, I’ve not really spent much time on the grit… In fact my time on the grit can be narrowed down to half a day at Stanage bouldering and another spent top roping “Flying Buttress”. Saying that I’ve spent a bit of time recently on the sandstone of Northumberland (my local) and although it is finer grain, there are certainly similar characteristics style and rock formation.

What with the history embedded in gritstone, I kind of feel a little bit intimidated by it. You’d think that a bunch of sandy boulders barely 15m high on average surely wouldn’t be that scary? But I think because as I grew up, the reputation of the grit has been so prevalent in the media, it was always this looming rock that would forever feel scary and formidable to me.John Dunne on the FA

Because I have been getting well into my in trad recently, it made sense to take a trip down to the gritstone and get on a couple of the classics. But being me, I always love a challenge and I wanted to jump straight into the deep end! I contacted a friend of mine, Jacob Cook. We had been discussing gritstone plans for a while and on the cards, “Gaia” and “End of the Affair” had been climbs most often mentioned. I had even almost done a trip down for “Gaia” shortly before my Spain (Chulilla) trip, but weather got the better of us.

Jacob recommended “New Statesman” as a good route for me to try… arguably a very big step into gritstone and not what you would call a standard entry level climb, but it’s an amazing line and there is no harm in trying. Jacob had already climbed it and has even added his own harder variation on the same wall.

I really laid on the pressure with “New Statesman”. Committing myself to trying this with basically no gritstone experience and also brought along Euan Ryan (Finalcrux Films) to film the ascent for an upcoming series documenting my climbing adventures. The plan wasn’t to lead it this trip, simply to work it and figure out what I needed to do in order to make a successful ascent. I had more or less said to myself that this would probably take a good few trips to nail and I didn’t want to rush anything!

Working “New Statesman” was certainly an experience of intense learning and adaptation. I discovered many possible ways to climb the route; but what I wanted was a method that delivered success with the least likeliness of pre-sending failures, any of which might have involved broken bones and a swift end to the climbing season for me! So you can understand why I didn’t want to fall off!Working "New Statesman" sporting my Urban Uprising Tee :D

I played about with the sequences a bit, but by the end of my first day working the route I found my beta after a successful clean top rope from the ground. When this happens, it’s a flurry of emotions… you’ve done the route; all that’s left is to get on the sharp end and climb it “for real”! Not as simple as it might first appear…

I needed a nights rest to ponder my situation. The option to lead it was on the table and I was ebbing strongly in favour for this. The rest of that night I relaxed and had some good fun on my longboard with the guys :D

The next day, it took me the best part of 2 hours to get in the zone; which involved quite a number of false starts. I phoned a friend (Neil McGeachy) for some advice and discussed tactics with Charlie (my belayer). Neil’s advice was simple yet effective… the route would still be here next week. There was no pressure today and to drive home without it would in some ways be a more rememberable experience than to have ticked it off in a weekend. This calmed me down, relieving all pressure and strangely enough I felt hyped up to lead it now!

I had a stare down session with the route; I listened to music and stared at the climb… like an opponent in a duel I approached the climb with deadly seriousness and ambition, I didn’t want to let this beat me, I didn’t want to go away with my tail between my legs. The song “Sleep Forever” by “Portugal. The Man” rung through my headphones…

I stood below the climb reminding myself as I often do of the pointlessness of it all… I am spending hours, days, and years of my life obsessing over rocks, puzzling them out and getting emotional about climbing them; what a silly fool!

On the redpoint I was eerily calm inside… confident in every hand hold, every foot placemen; I knew I could do it! There was no doubt, not even a slither; I had this! As I came to the top of the highball crux section I gave a small power scream to shut out negativity; but that had been killed off long ago!

I rested a bit, then pressed on gaining higher and higher on the climb. It was now feeling quite airy for a boulder, but luckily here comes the comforting gear that famously ripped on Michale Caminati when he fell at the final crux. Staring ahead at the oncoming sequence of smeary unbalanceness above the fated gear that may or may not hold was a curious position to be in; but I was calm… there was nothing that could go wrong! I executed everything precisely and had nothing to fear… and then it was over!On the lead...

Questions cropped up as to why I decided to lead that day. One honest reason is ego… Perhaps it got the better of me? I wanted success and didn’t want to experience a drive back to Edinburgh knowing failure! But that wasn’t the real reason… I think it’s only a feeling you get when you’ve been in this situation but I knew I could do it! In the morning I wasn’t capable of climbing 3m up this thing; and yet after lunch I was impervious to any negative thoughts!

Climbing “New Statesman” for me was a huge step forward in my climbing career. Ego aside (as that’s where I often like to put it), climbing this particular bit of rock was a challenge for me in numerous ways and I learned much from the experience. You can’t put a price on experience and you certainly can’t grade it!

“E” is for “Experience” in this case; not “Extreme” :D

Ethics

One final note goes out in response to some of those who questioned the ethics climbing “New Statesman”.

First of all, my current stance on trad climbing is this:

•       Make the leader as safe as possible
•       Leave no gear behind
•       Respect the rock

I think those are some pretty widely accepted notions of what trad climbing is about. I don’t pretend that others won't think differently, but from talking to experienced trad climbers they mostly agree with these points.

I used pads because I figured it would be safer. I’d say that’s reason enough. I am aware that John Dunne didn’t use mats during the FA, but there have been many ascents of this climb since then that have all involved them. I don't conclude that my ascent was better or even on par with John Dunne’s… first of all he did it as a FA, so that’s pretty much as good as it gets! And I’m not too fussed if anybody wants to go repeat it with a bed of nails under them, it’s not a competition about who is bolder (but maybe it is for someone?); it’s climbing a rock at the end of the day… anybody who gets off on being the “big man” by climbing a rock in a particular way should probably reassess life goals; but I’m not going to judge too harshly as I have been that same guy many times before.

Ethics are really funny because what was ethically disdained upon 10 years ago; today is common practice. Some of the folk who have been against the use of mats are the same folk who practiced head-pointing when ground up and onsight style was considered standard and head-pointing was considered “cheating”. My take on this is, as time goes on ethics change… it’s really quite simple and a natural progression to the world and not just our meager little past time of clambering about on rocks.

Grades are a big part of climbing in the 21^st century, but I like to remember that they are man-made and not essential to life!

If I could get across one thing in this blog post it would be this:

“Last week I climbed a rock. I got to the top. I was happy. Some people liked my facebook pictures. Some did not. The End.”

Spotting Charlie on the E1 solo/highball