The Battle of the Bulge

Yes, its a new route that we climbed at the Black Ladders today. 'We' comprises of Geoff Bennett, Torquil Bennett and myself. We got the early start as planned, got the 'Parkin parking spot' and walked in to the ladders in darkness.

It didnt look very promising on route, the ground was quite wet underfoot and the turf most certainly wasn't frozen. But not to fear, by the time we got kitted up and started climbing the sort of grade 3 ground at the base of most routes things were starting to shape up and it looked promising.

Spotting the line

Our line, as spotted by Geoff on Monday when he did the first ascent of Cannon Fodder with Chris Parkin, runs up the groove just left of Cannon Fodder, up past a bulge and then on to the top just left of Arctic Fox. It looked quite amenable from the bottom, a slabby groove, to the bulge, pull out steeply on the left and head on up.

Geoff went up first, made good progress up the groove, passing a difficult step by skirting round to the left. He reached a point though where he was low on suitable gear (ie bulldogs), and there was a long unprotected section to deal with, and the bulge before any chance of a belay. So he backed down and took an earlier then planned one on a flake. Torquil and I joined him.

Geoff on P1

Me on the second pitch

From here it was my turn to finish, or at least try. So up I went, luckily having a top rope from Geoff's highest runner for the first move which was hard. And then it didn't really let up, sustained and tricky moves, with only bulldogs as runners for a while. Under the bulge I got in a few bits of gear, including a rather good knife blade peg in the crack just above the rook. I had 5 bits of gear in the space of 2 meters..... 3 were turf bits though so they don't really count, but it was a good indicator I was gripped. The line left which looked the most possible, was impossible, the line right which looked really hard, was too hard, so I thought it was going to be impossible. I wanted to have a decent look right first though. Reaching round the corner I found a mega-hook! I was made up. Using this I managed to reach up and find yet another mega-hook, and then another, to a turfy pull through the top to victory. I might make it sound easy there but it was desperate. I was on it for ages procrastinating and making sure all my placements were bomber. It's definitely the hardest mixed step I have done, very physical, I was pumped out of my little mind. Good though. Mad line, you go right, and then step back left onto the outside of the bulge in a very exposed position, not what you would expect looking from the bottom.

Moving around the bulge

It was quite interesting doing this, as a first ascent. Not knowing what is coming up is quite freaky. You don't know if there will be gear, if there are going to be any placements, if its even do-able? If I make one more move, am I going to find I cant go further? Then what? Can I reverse the move? Will I have to take a lob onto the poor gear beneath? A lot went through my head. Eventually I guess it's just a case of going for it, and not thinking too much. Realistically I wasn't going to nail myself too badly if I fell, 5 pieces would hold me. But I hate falling.

Geoff on the fourth pitch

Torquil on fourth pitch

The next pitch was pretty easy, and then the last pitch, which Geoff led was a horror fest. It climbed an attractive line up a broad groove, the only problem was it seemed loads of the essential turf placements were freeze dried, as in they were dry frozen and had no ice in them to hold you. So it was really sketchy. Not technically as hard as the lower crux by a long shot but very un-nerving. Geoff's feet tore through causing him to cut loose onto only one axe. He held on well though. And wasn't phased by it. Gnarler.

And that was that, we topped out just before it got dark, about 6 hours on the route! We talked about grading on the way down. We couldn't decide if it was 6 or 7? We decided to choose the under grade option rather then over grade, but would like a second opinion. I know now, if I was on it again it would be a lot easier because I know it is do-able. So please someone get on it and do it and let me know!