11 July, 2017
Ben Bransby has set himself the challenge of being the first person to climb every route on Stanage, about 1417 by his reckoning. This extensive gritstone edge is arguably the UK’s most popular crag. He has only got another 339 routes to go but it includes two E8s.
15 May, 2017
James McHaffie and Dan Varian establish a major new multi-pitch route on Skye’s Coir’-Uisg Buttress. Initially attempted onsight, Moonrise Kingdom (E9 6b, 6c, 6a/b), turned out to be a far more difficult proposition than anticipated.
23 January, 2017
On his return from a month sport climbing in Spain, McHaffie wasted no time in switching to adventurous trad mode, with the first ascent of Nightmare Inauguration (E8 6b), at Porth Dafarch South on Anglesey.
09 August, 2016
Earlier this year Pete Robins visited South Africa as part of the BMC/Mountain Club of South Africa trad climbing exchange. Having spent the last five years mainly sport climbing and bouldering it was a trad renaissance for Pete. In this long-read he shares his experience of the exchange and perspective on UK and South African trad climbing.
23 May, 2016
James McHaffie and Ryan Pasquill's first route on the Isle of Arran is one they'll be sure to remember, with an onsight of The Great Escape (E8 6b, 6c, 6b) on The Bastion, just below the summit of Cioch na h-Oighe.
16 May, 2016
James McHaffie has made the first ascent of the well-eyed line up the slabby face between the top pitch of Direct Route and Crosstie, on The Nose of Dinas Mot, to give what is likely to be the hardest pitch of climbing in the Llanberis Pass.
25 April, 2016
McHaffie continues his new route spree in north Wales with House of Talons (E9 6c) on Dinas Cromlech in the Llanberis Pass. Aside from the big grade the protection is also notable in that 12 skyhooks were used to protect the insecure climbing.
25 March, 2016
James 'Caff' McHaffie clearly has new routes on his mind at the moment. Following on from his recent first ascent of The Gravity Wave (E8 6c) at Trearddur Bay, he has established two more hard trad routes.
15 February, 2016
James McHaffie climbs a striking new line, The Gravity Wave (E8 6c), at Trearddur Bay, Anglesey. A counter diagonal to Chicama on the 'Face of Adversity'.
10 December, 2015
Tying-in with the 50th anniversary of the much-loved book, Rock Climbers in Action in Snowdonia, together with a recently published new edition, John Cleare will be giving a presentation at LLAMFF 2016.
06 November, 2015
Sam Bendroth and Bayard Russell returned to the remote 1,300-foot Blow Me Down sea cliff in Newfoundland to complete a 12-pitch new route; Betrayer of Hope (5.12a).
17 September, 2015
Chris Igel versus the Legoland splitter roof crack in Valle Dell'Orco. A route dubbed the little sister of Yosemite's famous Separate Reality.
31 July, 2015
Lucy Creamer fights her way up Point Blank (E8 6c). It’d been five years since she’d last visited Pembroke and done very little trad climbing since then. Read her account.
01 July, 2015
Charlie Woodburn has been making the most of his move from Bristol to the Lake District. At the weekend he headpointed Birkett's Impact Day, nowadays considered E8 6c, on Pavey Ark.
27 June, 2015
James McHaffie's week in the Mournes has finished on a high with a no-falls ground-up second ascent of Ricky Bell's The Peace Line (E8 6c) at the Buzzard's Roost. Plus Ricky has updated us with details of his new E8 at the crag from a few days earlier.
23 June, 2015
James McHaffie and Ryan Pasquill have repeated Divided Years (E8 7a) ground-up. Established by John Dunne in 1995 the route is one of the UK's most striking and famous hard trad routes.
28 April, 2015
In spring 2013, a group of climbers from Austria, Switzerland and Germany, visited DMM to experience north Wales' trad climbing ethic and enjoy the wide variety of crags. Here are their thoughts on the trip.
08 April, 2015
Archie Ball, who turned thirteen in January has headpointed the bold Dinorwig Quarry route, My Halo (E7 6b). A route that sees very few onsights, Archie happily acknowledges that headpointed with the gear pre-placed makes it more akin to E5/6 climbing.
03 October, 2014
Emma Twyford has continued her run of good form with an ascent of Strawberries (E7 6b) at Tremadog's Craig Bwlch y Moch but it wasn't without a battle.
02 October, 2014
In May this year, Alex Luger added the bold and technical Psychogramm (8b+) to the Bürser Platte (Vorarlberg); in a similar trad style to its famous right-hand neighbour, Prinzip Hoffnung (8b/+, E9/10) - Alex repeated that route at the end of 2009. A video of the lead-up to the route and Alex's first ascent is now online.
24 September, 2014
Previously thwarted by the weather, Charlie Woodburn's perseverance in trying to repeat Dave Birkett's impressive Skye Wall (E8 6b), finally paid off, coming away with the second ascent.
01 September, 2014
Twelve year-old Archie Ball headpoints the Burbage South E6 6b, Life Assurance: an ambition of Archie's ever since watching an online video of 13 year-old Jim Pope's 2012 headpoint ascent. But it had its dramatic moments.
04 August, 2014
Charlie Woodburnis back from a fruitful couple of weeks enjoying some Irish trad climbing at Fairhead and the mini-Pembroke that is Ailladie (Burren), coming away with several classic E6's onsight, an E7 ground-up and a quick headpoint ascent of the Dark Side (E8 6c).
22 May, 2014
Nick Bullock made the most of this week's promised one day of good weather by getting even with Leigh McGinley's Box of Blood (E7 6b) at Craig Dorys on the Lleyn Peninsula.
15 May, 2014
Alex Luger has added his own bold and highly technical trad route to the Bürser Platte, Psychogramm (8b+), having previously made the second ascent of Prinzip Hofnung (8b/+) just over four years ago.
25 March, 2014
Ben Bransby has made the 2nd ascent of Pete Whittaker's Baron Greenback at Wimberry Rocks in the Peak District. The stunning line, up the arete of the narrow and overhanging prow in the middle of the crag, is protected by three very old (probably from the sixties) aid bolts close together on the steepest section.
19 November, 2013
In 2011 Will Stanhope broke off part of the flake on the gritstone prow of Parthian Shot (E9). Ben Bransby was one of a number of top climbers who thought it had become unclimbable. But Ben Bransby has proved himself wrong.
15 November, 2013
Two pegs in an obvious thin crack on The Promontory below Red Walls, marked an old Gogarth project that hadn't seen much attention for over twenty years, until James McHaffie's successful ascent of Satan's Scream (E8 6c).
05 November, 2013
Katy Whittaker is one of the newest members of the DMM Climbing Team and she recently sent us this update on her grit season
08 October, 2013
Big George Smith has been synonymous with exploring Anglesey's cliffs it feels like since the end of the Precambrian period; leaving a legacy of adventurous routes often through uncompromising territory. George's brief description of his newest addition, The Complete Works (E5 5b/c 90 ft), at the northern end of The Range probably says it all.
02 October, 2013
Also in the Ogwen and a couple of days before Emma Twyford's ascent of Rare Lichen hit the news, James McHaffie climbed the three-star Milestone Buttress project on the Central Block. Caff went back with Pete Robins a few days later who gave it a flash attempt with the gear pre-placed.
24 September, 2013
Emma Twyford's ascent of the bold Rare Lichen (E9 6c), on Clogwyn y Tarw (Gribin Facet) in the Ogwen Valley, means she joins a very select group of women who have climbed routes at this level of seriousness.
12 July, 2013
The iconic and dangerous Indian Face (E9 6b/c) on Clogwyn Du'r Arddu gets three ascents in as many days. First up was James McHaffie on Tuesday and then Calum Muskett and George Ullrich in quick succession two days later. "There's not a runner on it I would trust to lower-off from," says McHaffie.
16 July, 2012
Think of the Frankenjura and sport climbing comes to mind. It's where the term redpointing originated. But over the last few years there has been a growing interest in greenpointing and establishing new trad protected routes on the area's limestone crags. In the video, Heiko Queitsch, one of the new movement of Franken climbers to embrace trad, explains why he finds it so appealing.
05 July, 2012
Charlie Woodburn gives us some background to his impressive new Pembroke E9, Something's Burning. His fifth route at this grade, he describes it as: "Physically way harder than any of the other E9's I've done and somewhere in the middle for boldness."
14 November, 2011
Alex Luger, recently returned from Squamish, recalls his first encounter with an offwidth on his ascent of Boogie 'Til You Puke.
02 September, 2011
"The bottom wall is not a place to stop and consider what you're doing" said Nick Bullock after making the second ascent of Haston's Melody at Craig Dorys on the Lleyn Peninsula.
25 August, 2011
Charlie Woodburn takes a break from hard technical slabs to make the third ascent of Do you Know where your Children are? An impressive E8/9 addition to Huntsman's Leap.
17 August, 2011
If you were to judge Nick Bullock by the names he has given four new routes recently, including an E7 6c, you'd reckon he had been reading too much Lewis Carroll in-between listening to Johnny Cash.
14 July, 2011
Nick Bullock described the second ascent of Trumpet Slappers E7 6c in the Llanberis Pass as: "Amazing climbing, all really pumpy and physical with lots of back-hands and side-pulls."
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