I was sat at a climbing wall the other day reading a magazine. It featured an article on ‘Hard Grit’, a term that has come to mean crazy, difficult climbing on gritstone in the English pennines. With very poor protection. A good example of just how poor the protection is is
given by a route where the last piece of protection is less than halfway up. If the climber falls near the top, the selfless belayer must jump from the ledge they are on in the hope they can take up enough slack to prevent a ground fall. Nice. Unfortunately I can’t find out the name of this route….you’ll have to trust me though.

The term “Hard Grit” was pioneered by the DVD of the same name that first made it big in 1998. Below are some clips of the DVD from youtube, including a trailer.

First off we have Seb Grieve on his first attempt on ‘Parthian Shot‘, a ’safe’ but sustained E9 6c. The final protection is 3 RP’s placed behind a dodgy flake. No-one ever thought these would really hold a fall, but Seb decided to put to a test in this video. He’s the first person to fall on them. He also did it another 5 times that day. They held.

Gaia, E8 6c. This route was made famous by a falling Jean Mihn Trin-Thieu who I believe broke his leg. You can see this (in low, crappy qquality)) below. The video quality gets better as it goes on though, so persevere!

The Bad and the Beautiful, E7 6B:

Here’s another one detailing a whole bunch of ‘Hard Grit’ routes, and also giving you highlights from a LOT of climbing. There is another big fall of Gaia at 6mins 43secs.

Elder Statesman, E8 7b. This climb has one particularly funky move in. Good vid. (but the guys voice kinda annoys me!).

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