12th April 2025 @ Blackstone Edge, 6B (6A-6B)

Beta seen from various videos, the most inspirational being the one in Robert Gardiner’s video, which is as close to straight up as you could get. Climbed many times before the clip used in the video.

I originally climbed this at the start of my second year climbing, but always had it in mind for the video, ever since I decided I wanted to show more of the moorland scenery. All my Instagram videos are focussed on the rock and the climbing, probably due to filming in portrait (which is actually quite suitable for showing most climbs). But switching to landscape gave the opportunity to show something more. I wanted to highlight this with the editing of the videos – to open with Instagram style portrait shots, and then open up to landscape, with the idea to show what has been missing. Hopefully that came across, but you know, it’s my first punt at a proper video.

Anyway, I thought I’d repeat this in no time, but that was not the case! It took me a while to figure out how to get up to the main rail again. It seems to be one of those climbs that I do differently each time I visit. After this, sometime in the Summer, I went up with a friend, Liam Donovan, who wanted to try this and Fridge Hugger, and I ended up climbing it differently yet again (with a dyno to the rail). My friend also added a sit start for this to UKC, which I managed to repeat. I would have included the sit in the video if another visit to the area co-incided with some weather to rival what I already had, but it never did.

I’m happy with what I did get though. I had already climbed it earlier in the year, but the weather was a bit overcast and the scene wasn’t nearly as nice as the one I eventually added to the video.

I said I climb it differently every time, and if you watch other videos, everyone seems to climb it different to each other, with some staying more right and topping out near Underway and Robin’s Dyno, and some seem to go a bit more to the left and top out more centrally. It’s a fun bit of rock with a lot of options. It actually reminds me of one of my favourite indoor climbing spaces, which is the top out area at Blochaus in Manchester. It features an area which almost feels inspired by this bit of rock, and a lot of my favourite problems indoors have been set there over the years.

One thing I wanted to do this year was top out over the centre of the rock using a heel. The first time I climbed it, I lunged for the top from feet lower down. Copying the heel used in Robert Gardiner’s video was worthwhile doing. It can be a little scary to rely on a high foot like that, but once it’s in, it’s pretty solid and makes the move to the lip more smooth.