Climbing Magazine Articles (Live)

In effect an archive of some of the stuff I’ve written for climbing magazines.

Fixed Gear Policies, my bolt policy; and ‘What to do about Avon Gorge: A tale of a Little Red Rodney’ (Live)

Have BMC-facilitated fixed gear policies had their day? Who is to say when a fixed gear policy should be reviewed? Is the institutional urge to stay relevant, populist, and in control putting pressure on fixing things that are not necessarily broke? At a pivotal point some hard evidence suggests that Area proceedings do not embrace all the principles of democracy or precedents of our sport, thus threatening rock-climbing heritage with conflict – even with erasure. Declinist Little Red Rodney offers his wisdom. But it will be a red rag to some.

To make it plain and transparent I have attached the bolt policy applying to routes for which I am first ascensionist i.e. Bolt Policy for climbs first ascended by Martin Crocker.

Who’s Counting? (Live)

Some count their new routes. The last time I started to do so so was 30 years ago, and even then my calculator began to catch on fire. Maybe when I’ve got nothing better to do; it isn’t about numbers.

I had better things to do but in 2023 I counted them up anyway. Here’s the number crunch.

As your routes rack up in the thousands, all of a sudden comes the realisation there is an ‘empire’ to your name you never asked for. Or maybe it’s a common wealth, since empires only crumble…...

On Climbing Partners: message from P.T. (Live)

‘It’s the holidays, right?’ Or: ‘Give me five.’

Consider this both a thank-you and an apology to my climbing partners across time.

Sadly, in 2023, we lost John Willson - friend, Climbers’ Club guidebook producer, and doyen of Wintour’s Leap climbing. I have penned some memories of John in a short tribute.

Top Ten New Routes (Live)

An idea, many years ago, of Crispin Waddy’s, but at the time (April Fools’ Day) I thought it a bit of a tease. Eventually I indulged myself; and raided my diary, guidebooks, and expiring memory cells. Consequently a pick for 2023, in no particular order, is here: Top Ten New Routes 2023 Mix.

Escape from the Capital: Swanage sea-cliffs lure (Live)

Five years in London late-70s/early-80s. Swanage was one solution. Winter weekends on warm white walls finding for the first time the joy of discovery on sea-cliffs. Wall of the Worlds, The Lean Machine, Procrastinating Giant (free), Soul Sacrifice: everything Jim and I touched seemed to turn to gold.

Today (11 June 2023) marks the 40th anniversary of the first ascent of The Lean Machine, Swanage.

Memoirs from Meirionnydd (Not Live)

John Sumner’s 1990 guidebook and its Phil Gibson’s drawings did it for me: just the right coverage to whet your appetite without strangling the mystery out of a place. Climbing with John was a milestone, exploring mid-Wales equally so. Great times tearing up through Wales after a busy week at work, dossing in ditches, and mountain-hopping for 15 rich years – with no end in sight. I suppose the fulcrum was that crazy day of 9 June 1995, the most meticulously choreographed yet intense day of new climbs I have ever had.

The Other Rock (Not Live)

Bands, dives, and £20 gigs. Punk and post punk; mostly True Wheel. Drums falling into the audience, nerves quelled by rum-shots if not rim-shots, and cries of ‘shit hot’ one night and ‘get off’ the next.

Trying to rock both ways, but when faced with the stark choice: ‘It’s one or the other!’, I would opt for ‘the other’, whichever the other was.

Hang Loose, and ‘Action!’ (Not Live)

Post local government, an idea to make a film about Pembrokeshire climbing was flung before me by ace photographer Carl Ryan. Who can resist the tidal energy of Carl and, with his colleague freelance video cameraman Peter Hall persuaded too, Hang Loose films was born. Mind you, we should have called ourselves Hang Loose film.

Healing Gardevarre (Not Live)

A bewitching mountain high in the Arctic Circle hosting tales of apprehensive undergraduate geology students as they are left alone in the Norse wilderness, their hallucinations stage lit by the Northern Lights. A mysterious crashed German bomber they discover on the flanks of the mountain motivates one of them to return 40 years later to seek closure, no matter how cathartic.

The Bridge (Live)

Pics and anecdotes across 50 years of exploring and pottering on the rainy side of the River Severn, in South Wales. Meet some of the characters along the way and a sense of what they, we, got up to. And how things changed.

Top of the Drops: Top Ten Most Haunting (Live)

Celebrating the fickle finger of fate: an assessment of the mystery of the ‘near miss’ through recall of some recurring flash-backs. Often deadpan and undramatic; they happen one moment, and you move on the next.

It’s Cheddar Day, it’s………CragAttak! (Live)

Climbers do strange things in and over Cheddar Gorge; racing up routes against the clock, tyroleaning across the (closed) road, and dressing up as a scrumptious clump of ivy. All to celebrate everything that’s world class about Cheddar climbing, come rain or rain. A pic reel of some lighter moments and the development of the current access regime.

Big Bars and Jacks (Live)

That cuneiform tower block had hung over generations of climbers, seemingly about to drop at any moment, yet its position seemed not to have changed since I first climbed in Portishead Quarry in 1975. At the time I was into far out music, so my first route had to be at one with the universe: Brink of Solarity. But even that didn’t hypnotise my imagination into sensing that 32 years later I’d be attacking that block – with jacks, bars, and genie Ian Parsons, our eyes on a new, safer landscape.

Nice Gneiss on Guernsey (Not Live)

It became an October school holiday pilgrimage. A small island, so 7.00 a.m. starts meant I could explore Guernsey’s nooks and crannies and bag some great lines before rejoining the family early afternoon. La Congrelle was the best; a fantastic Huntsman’s Leap-like zawn in which the breakers would roar in and we would roar out, ace 45-metre E5s and E6s now blushes in Guernsey’s cultural and sporting history.

Miracle of the Muezzin (Not Live)

A 5.00a.m. call to prayer pulses in the gullies behind Wadi Rum, permeating in and out of my slumber. Still the most beautiful piece of music I’ve ever heard, born from a synergy between voice and mountain.

Epics with Terry (Live)

‘Oh, go on then’? said Terry, flattened by my persistence. I had all too often promised Exmoor activist Terry Cheek an easy ride, but once again we’d become troubled pinpricks on Exmoor’s Hidden Edge – a shadowy mountain of shale and sand bigger than the sea. This article was written a few days after our epic in North Cleave Gut.

Pluralism, Ethics’ Wars (Not Live)

Jack of all trades? Or master of one?

‘Nobody’s perfect’, perfect maestro concedes.

Gateways to history are to be cherished, if only for the purposes of study. Climbers err and role models U-turn, driven by competition and personal agendas. Beliefs, like religion, divide kingdoms; and they even estrange friends. Yet there will always be ethics’ wars, and so it should be. Climbers are not all the same, and climbing is not just for one.

Go down Ungracefully (Living)