The thread on the repeat of Fred Rouhling's Akira made me wonder:
What is the oldest unrepeated route in the UK?
Steve
OG Jones probably climbed some gullies that no-one in their right mind would ever repeat.
Violent New Breed?
There must be some non-trivial unrepeated routes that are older but that's a pretty well known one. Has it even been seriously tried or has every aspirant felt the holds and run away 😁
Total Eclipse?
Surely to be unrepeated it needs a first ascent first?
I'm old enough to remember that being said about Akira.
Allegedly never even had a first ascent I heard......
I bet the answer is something grim and obscure from the late 19th century.
It's almost as if it's undergraded...
Andy F
Almost certainly something in a little-frequented place (like where I live), or perhaps something icy that's suffered from global warming.
George Smith's Bar Fly (E6 6b) from 1991?
Any routes that have fallen down prior to a repeat?
One of mine disappeared into the pool in the awesome lower tier of Markfield Quarry during the first ascent.
Are there some hard/loose/dangerous routes on the Culm coast that are still unrepeated?
> One of mine disappeared into the pool in the awesome lower tier of Markfield Quarry during the first ascent.
So you finished a different route to the one you started....does that count as 2 first ascents? Or is it that the second route (after the holds fell off) still awaits a first ascent even though you climbed it?
I suspect that Roraima in Great Moor Zawn remains unrepeated. First ascent was 1976 and it probably hasn't been dry enough since!
The latter. It was a long time ago but it was a traverse and iirc I swam the last part.
> George Smith's Bar Fly (E6 6b) from 1991?
Having just watched the George Smith Friday night video the other day (I was amazed I'd never seen it before), Bar Fly looks amazing, all those knee bars that he gets in.
> Happy Hart E8 7a at Curbar
> F.A. 1987
I wonder whether another John Hart route - presumably the same John Hart - has seen a repeat yet: Valhalla on Bempton Cliff, or thereabouts - FA, with John Stanger, 1974 [or slightly earlier].
Different John Hart.
I also first saw the film last week. George climbing Bar Fly was one of the most beautiful bits of climbing I've ever seen - incredibly powerful but at the same time almost relaxed and absolutely in control, on what must be brutally hard moves, in that amazing setting.
Ah - cheers; I've been trying to decide whether the guy in the FA photo looks like a younger version of the Happy Hart guy!
A Pat Littlejohn Route. Definitely one to aim at if it is ever dry enough! (And I get fit)
Steve
I can remember watching a John Hart attempting the aid route which I think has now become Baron Greenback. This would be about 1970.. I would put him in his mid -late twenties at the time. Had his name on his helmet, I think.
He certainly had a sense of adventure.
Brian Cropper told me that he and Big Sid went to give it a second ascent. On closer inspection, they headed straight for the pub!
Caveat emptor.
Mick
> He certainly had a sense of adventure.
Crikey - you don't want one of those; can get you into all sorts of trouble!
> Brian Cropper told me that he and Big Sid went to give it a second ascent. On closer inspection, they headed straight for the pub!
Hi Mick. Yes; you mentioned short-lived interest from 'Brian and Big Sid' in earlier discourse, but I was never certain which Brian it was. I'd heard a tale many decades ago - no idea of its accuracy - of a Brian who had similar abrupt second thoughts when gazing at one of those huge cliffs on the west coast of your native island; the point being that the Brian in question had just done the French Direct in the land where the bridge-dwellers dwell. I'd like to think that it's a true story!
I know John , used to climb with John Stanger , he has told me some very funny stories regarding him .
I'm surprised anyone thinks the oldest unrepeated route is from the 80s or 90s. Oldest famous one, probably.
I'd confidently bet, without any way of proving it, that there are dozens if not hundreds of obscure things on mountain crags from much earlier which have never been repeated.
Just been in contact with John Hart , he did do Bempton Cliff route says it was horrific ,
Quite a varied set of new routes by him then
Horrific loose. Bempton Cliff
Unrepeated desperate grit. Curbar
Hard Sport Cornice
Highball bouldering ( padless ) Pex
I believe there's a Ray Evans/Brian Wyville route on the cliffs of Moher (very early '70s?) I think there's at least one Mick Fowler one (well, there would be!) I suppose there really should be a Littlejohn route. But I suspect many aspirants have gazed down into the awesome depths, marvelled at the choss and... walked away.
Mick
Thought it would be the same John Hart. Bumped into him on The Cornice in the 1990s. We were sitting on bolts a few feet apart, he on something very much harder. Nice guy and clearly a brilliant climber. Seemed the sort of person who would prevail whatever the terrain.
Mick
Opps my mistake I didn’t think he would have been old enough for the Bempton route.
Did they actually finish the Bempton route as I seem to remember from the Rocksport article they prusicked out on a rope dropped by a mate. However given my memory told there are two John Harts I may have imagined this.
Hi '193'; hope you're well, and thanks for the confirmation.
> Just been in contact with John Hart , he did do Bempton Cliff route says it was horrific ,
Clearly not as adventurous as we thought, then!
There must be quite a few unrepeated Nadin routes left, including some at amenable sounding grades on the outrageous overhanging Great Gate Buttress.
Plenty of routes in North Pemb's courtesy of Chalie Vigano and Pat Littlejohn amongst others from the early 70's which will not have been repeated. I managed a few of Pat's on Lairds Cliff and Shipwreck Wall in the 90's and having talked to him they were almost certainly second ascents, others I left/couldn't see beneath the vegetation! A lot of Charlies routes were missed from the definitive guides and again have disappeared, probably for all eternity.
I suspect though there are mountain routes from the early 20th century which have never been repeated which will be the winners.
> I believe there's a Ray Evans/Brian Wyville route on the cliffs of Moher (very early '70s?) I think there's at least one Mick Fowler one (well, there would be!) I suppose there really should be a Littlejohn route. But I suspect many aspirants have gazed down into the awesome depths, marvelled at the choss and... walked away.
Ah! So they did do a route there. That certainly fits as the occasion that I'd been told about; Ray Evans was mentioned as well, and it was 1971 when Wyvill did the Troll Wall route with Campbell-Kelly. Their sense of adventure didn't desert them after all. Or maybe their sanity did!
Yes; I see there are a couple of Fowler routes there - one on the underlying stack and the other, O'Brien's Direct, taking the full height of the cliff. That full height is, incidentally, 321 metres! It was climbed with Steve Sustad. I notice that there's a third route listed on another stack there that carries the refreshing grade of MXS 4a!
> Did they actually finish the Bempton route as I seem to remember from the Rocksport article they prusicked out on a rope dropped by a mate.
Yes, you're right. They jugged a rope dropped by their 'ground man' at the clifftop which saved them from "pegging up the final hundred and twenty feet of loose mank". It sounds like they intended to return to finish it, but I've no idea whether they ever did. JH's "horrific" comment suggests that he might have needed some persuasion! Not sure what the access situation is these days; I think it's very much a seabird habitat.
> I believe there's a Ray Evans/Brian Wyville route on the cliffs of Moher (very early '70s?) I think there's at least one Mick Fowler one (well, there would be!) I suppose there really should be a Littlejohn route. But I suspect many aspirants have gazed down into the awesome depths, marvelled at the choss and... walked away.
I well recall my first visit (1978?) and crawling to edge for a look down. Almost crapped myself when I realised we were on a relatively thin undercut slab hanging over an 800 foot void. Years later they'd built a gift shop for the American tourists - what a shame.
Would that be the Hart of Hart's Arete (E4 6b). Back in the day I bouldered out the lower section regularly, but the idea of coing upwards onto the upper section above the traverse was too much for even a. 17 year old me to contemplate.
Respect!
Steve
On adventure climbs I'm pretty sure Doug Scott and co did various unrepeated sandstone routes in the Nottingham area, including on the castle crags.
Happy Hart was repeated by Pete Whittaker in 2016
https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2016/08/pete_whittaker_on_rope-soloing_in_s...
Some of the routes on the stacks in Ladram Bay will have seen very few ascents, and again as they fall down a lot repeating the original climb is not always possible. I suspect it is similar with the chalk on the South Coast.
Most of the routes at Stannington Ruffs would qualify...
Not just a repeat, a quadruple blimey: "The first route I actually rope soloed was Happy Hart at Curbar. I'd grasped all the concepts of rope soloing just by reading up on it, but when I got above my gear and started placing the top pieces I didn't have a clue what I was doing and started to clip the wrong end of the rope through the pieces and ended up in a right tangle in quite a stressful position. I managed to calm down, figure out what the heck I was meant to be doing and topped out with some hideous rope drag from the weight of the rope directly onto the soloing device. A massive learning curve straight away!"
I do wonder, given it clearly has a few genuine fans. It's the only peak crag I've ever walked away from in disgust. We did one route (the best looking starter, being not so hard graded, OKish to access and not overgrown or covered in detritus) and which I'm glad I didn't lead, as it would have been a sandbag grade if the rock was solid and the gear sound, on 'rock' with a consistency not much better than hard biscuits, above a 40 degree soil slope full of sharp metal and broken glass. We did spot a short winter line that a pal did subsequently and said was good and useful, in a real cold snap when the roads out of Sheffield to the Peak were blocked.
How about the Hellisdale Buttresses on Being Mhor in South Uist, done by Charlie Ludwig in the 1930's? A place few climbers go, horrendously loose and several of them look quite hard. Ludwig was a talented climber but completely bonkers, routes with his name on are almost always death on a stick. He was killed in WW2. Probably some equally unpleasant Edwardian horror though.
Edit: just noticed that John Hart (mentioned above re Bempton) also put up routes on those buttresses.
I agree Andy. Thinking about winter gullies alone, there must be hundreds that were done way back and have seen no ascents since.
Every time I see this thread I misread it as "Oldest unrepented route". Sure there would be some contenders for this. John Redhead climbing Salisbury (?) cathedral spire springs to mind.
Visited Cliffs of Moher in August 1972 while on a west coast cliff hunting trip. Went to the bottom, windy as hell, black snow was falling off the crumbling rock! Gave up and proceeded to find Alladie or Burren Sea Cliffs as they initially became known.
> Visited Cliffs of Moher in August 1972 while on a west coast cliff hunting trip. Went to the bottom, windy as hell, black snow was falling off the crumbling rock!
Sounds like 'The Dead', from 'Dubliners'.
> Gave up and proceeded to find Alladie or Burren Sea Cliffs as they initially became known.
What a find! The rest, as they say, is history.
Mick
> Visited Cliffs of Moher in August 1972 while on a west coast cliff hunting trip. Went to the bottom, windy as hell, black snow was falling off the crumbling rock! Gave up and proceeded to find Alladie or Burren Sea Cliffs as they initially became known.
Probably one of the best decisions you've ever made. How did you get to the bottom of the Cliffs - I'm assuming you didn't abseil?
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