Pointblanpicture - ian parnell

 

Sheffield + Kids + Job + broken house + Trad is a bad equation, especially if the grit doesn’t really do it for you. Replace ‘Trad’ with ‘Sport’ and it just about works out if you’re keen. But the trad beckons, and after a weekend in The Lakes I was as keen as ever! So a family trip to Pembroke, with much beach action and chilled camping, was always going to be a bit of a battle of logistics to squeeze in a few routes. Ian Parnel was also there armed with two youngsters and even more difficulty earning brownie points, but we managed a couple of early starts, which for him were probably pretty late (6.30am). Unfortunately Ian wasn’t armed with a rope so morning one was Stennis/Elmeria connection on my single. Morning two and we’d blagged more ropes, but still found ourselves in the bottom of Stennis Ford with just my rope since the other lay forgotten at the top of the cliff!

 

Two fluffy ends of a sport rope would do, my route impossible on one line. I’d run out of rope for sure but we could sort that later somehow. ‘Pointblank’ was the route I’d wanted to do in Pembroke more than any other for some time, today was not ideal, hot, sunny, still, and no chalk to mark the way, but I wasn’t gonna be here any time soon, and saving things for later is something you don’t do when you hit 40! Not because you are old (but you are) but because life has a habit of just getting too busy!

 

Pointblank begins up ‘From A Distance’, a tough E6, 7c in French money with a few pegs and threads to help the head along with the wires and cams. I was surprised how hard it was, but then what did I expect, since when is 7c easy! At the junction I was pumped and the shake out not fantastic, the easy finish was very tempting, a guaranteed tic now of a classic line. But what was very clear was that I could never come back for an onsight of Pointblanc if I did that. The start E6 is too hard. Zipping up this with all the knowledge, i.e. a redpoint, would leave me in a totally different state, and make Pointblank a different challenge altogether! So it was now or never.

 

Good holds take you off sideways, comforting the mind until a series of surprise bad holds that look good suddenly have you committed and struggling with the gear. It’s obviously the last for a long way, so it has to be good! Easy to place if you are tall, desperate if you aren’t! Moving away I inspected my blind placement efforts, reasonable, probably ok, but even if it pulled my gear way out right would just about keep me off the floor 100ft away. So, into sport mode. It had to be; a desperate sequence on sidepulls had me inching upwards, searching the rock for anything it had to offer, the movement so technical it left no space for fear. Maybe this is the ultimate style of climbing. At last holds came, getting better at a similar rate to my increasing pump, the ropes hanging in alarming arcs off into space. But it was done, a proper adventure. Now I could chill, off to the beach: never has building sandcastles felt so satisfying!

 

 

When is a job not a job? Keith Sharples needed photos for his calendar and, with Petzl sponsoring a page (or month) I was requested to hang around and attempt to look good. That’s the skill of the photographer, but I did my hair and ironed my boxers before we drove over to The Lakes for a quick hit with 5.10 hero Mark Buzby.

 

Keith’s style is pretty chilled, a kind of ‘you climb what you want and I’ll take some shots’ type approach. There is no posing or going back for that great body shape, but it feels genuine, it’s just going climbing. But of course Keith is hoping for a good angle and hopefully a good route, and somehow we ended up at Raven Crag in Langdale where he’d already done the research and noted that ‘Dawes Rides The Shovel Head’ might look nice! Being a tad unnerved at setting off up an E8 onsight I made my way up Trilogy, an amazing E5 in the hope that maybe he’d get that awesome shot straight off. But the good thing about these calendar shots is that, each year, and thanks to Keith, he’s put me in the right place, maybe slightly out of the comfort zone, but at the bottom of a challenge that maybe I wouldn’t normally have accepted. Rhapsody (E11), Ghost Train (E6), XXXXXX (E7), Mission Impossible (E9)(that I fell off onsight) were all things I fancied trying, but never seemed to quite manage.

 

So ‘Dawes’ towered above me, some chalk to point the way, and a few pegs to convince me I was on a sport route that I didn’t look at too closely. 7c is apparently the grade of this E8, though I managed to hit the zone and arrive at the top with no idea of difficulty. But buzzing though! Trepidation replaced with enthusiasm. A venue change was the plan, but as I rapped down Keith’s rope I spotted a vague line, with a few pegs here and there. There looked to be a few holds, so a change of plan. I set off with no idea if it had been climbed, and for quite a few moments wished I’d looked properly from the rope rather than zipping down. A skin of the teeth job, but a real adventure. Some days later the line was revealed, ‘Euology Direct’, Dave Birkett (no surprise), E8 6c (8a/+). Two E8’s, but I’ll let you guess which one is harder, or if they are even the same grade!