posing for calendars!
16th Aug 2011
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!
Contributed by: Steve McClure
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