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

Beta seen beforehand from Andy Emery’s video. The first time I sent it, I made a dynamic move to the lip with the right hand, but Andy showed that it’s possible for some people to reach over with the left with a solid foot/toe hook, and that’s the beta seen in the video. Climbed many times before the send in the video.

This is one that actually took a long time to get right, despite how simple it looks in the video. There are a few reasons.

The first is that I find the start position to be a bit precarious. Smearing while getting the foot hook (I hook here with the inside of the foot rather than the lace/velcro part). Then next is that the landing is less than ideal, so an uncontrolled fall is highly undesirable. And finally, I had looked at this problem for at least a couple of years on and off, and although I could pull on and make a few moves, I couldn’t work out how to access the top or work my feet up.

That first changed last year, where I made it to the top using a reachy start and sketchy dynamic move. Not a particularly fine ascent and I take the fact that I posted it to Instagram as a symptom of oversharing for the sake of it. The post was paired with an even worse looking ascent of the stand to Andrex Guppy. I guess I felt like I’d been outside and done some stuff, best share it! I would have been better off tidying up my movement.

This year I was motivated to sort out some better beta, and eventually arrived at the sequence seen in the video, which borrows almost everything from Andy Emery. Yes, it is much easier being reachy, but I’m satisfied that the moves I did were right for me. If you’ve got a little less reach, then you’re probably more likely to agree with the grade. I’ve only seen this one done once elsewhere in Andy Emery’s video.