10th December 2025 @ Blackstone Edge, 6B

No beta. This was the second time I made it to the top.

I had tried this in November 2023 and came away with the tip of my right middle finger torn away by the upper right crimp. It was one of my first cold days out climbing, and I was ill prepared, with a big heavy jacket that wasn’t particularly warm, and a hot drink that was too hot for my mouth, and remained so in its near-perfectly insulated container. That was all I did on that day in 2023.

So after sending the main event that day (Talk The Chalk) I wandered back towards the car park with the idea of trying something a bit different on the way. I ended up back at Basic Tech in the dark with the idea of maybe putting it to bed.

I was surprised to find that the pulling was still quite hard on big crimps, although I could obviously make it to that high crimp with a much better degree of control. Part of this may have been strength gains, but probably more was the fact I was going up in a side on position rather than front on. This was a little weird, because my normal preference is side on. I wonder if it’s a bit more strenuous on the initial holds that way? Anyway, the only difficulty was getting to the final hold – quite a nice jug at the top of the block. This took far too long to get, and the main reason was that the foothold I was using was seeping and muddy. I’d go for the dyno and the foot was just slipping. I spent way too much time trying to find another foot, or just smearing. In the end, I just had to dry the foothold with a tea towel between attempts. This gave enough friction for me to stand up on the foot long enough before it cut and to latch the jug.

I did not go to this with the idea of filming it, as I didn’t know the top move would work so well as a dyno. But on doing it once, I thought I’d like to see what it looks like. This is the one clip shot in wide angle, which probably makes the dyno look a bit cooler than it actually is. But it’s still fun to jump with your body coming away from the wall, grab something, and then pull back in. A really pleasant surprise, especially in contrast to my experiences with it just over two years ago. It didn’t fit into the main video, but I chose to include it as a bit of an outro anyway. I thought it would be the last climb outside of 2025, and a fitting end to the year. However, a run of excellent weather in the last week or two of 2025 meant that I wasn’t quite finished!