The Lizard King

I finally succeeded in leading my project at Ilkley!

I first tried it 4 months ago, a few days after doing the New Statesman. Basically I got on it because I'm not strong enough to do the crux of Gerty Berwick and wanted to find another way up the wall!

You do the crux of the New Statesman to a shake, then swing left and do a crazy rock-over move to reach a pod in the wall halfway up Gerty Berwick. You follow this route for a couple of moves before going left again with a cool cross over sequence on pockets, this part is a bit easier than the start but the gear isn't great and you're really high at this point.

Red: The project
Blue: New Statesman
Green: Gerty Berwick

By far the crux for me was the rock-over in the middle. It took me around 8 sessions to figure out, and even once I could do it consistently it still felt absolutely terrifying. The move involves getting fully rocked over on a heel and then just falling sideways and grabbing the next hold on the way past. I'm pretty sure this is the kind of move Dave Graham describes as a "drive-by"... Also you don't have any gear at this point and it's getting close to the limit of what could be called "highball".

The actual lead felt incredible. I don't think I've ever been so focused. It felt as though I was watching myself climb it, and climb it perfectly.

Yes it's a link-up and maybe not the most obvious line on the wall but once you've been on there it's actually the easiest way up that bit of wall. Anyway, I had a great time climbing it.

It's for sure the hardest thing I've done on trad and I think it comes in at about f8a+ but it's always hard to tell with these things. I've given it E9 7a and it's called the Lizard King. Partly as a Jim Morrison tribute and partly to draw attention to the fact that many of the current world leaders are actually Lizards. (Although the name "State Pension" was a clear front runner for a while.)

Abstract Normality Media caught the ascent on film, here's a few screengrabs from that:

Scary Weekend

My scary weekend consisted of headpointing two grit E7s. Paralogism at the Roaches and Snap Decision at Ilkley. The idea was to mentally prepare myself for the headpoint of my project by doing some easier routes.


Two grit E7s, Paralogism and Snap Decision from Jacob Cook on Vimeo.

I was thinking about going for the flash on Paralogism, but after my two beta monkeys failed to get past the initial moves I thought better of it! Thank god because I proceeded to fall off on my first go on top rope! It's not a case of if but where you would hit the floor on this one...

Arriving at Ilkley to find driving sideways hail did not bode well for the day. The route, Snap Decision, had several wet holds and was generally quite green. I chucked a rope down it anyway and somehow as the sun was setting I found myself tieing into the sharp end. I decided to put a single biner on the solitary peg runner to reduce the fall distance and took a rag to dry some key footholds whilst on lead. Topping out to a clear winter sunset and a familiar kick of adrenalin reminded why I do this stuff. (Euphoric pigeons!)

Meteora

Just had a week climbing on the conglomerate towers of Meteora in central Greece with my girlfriend Bron. This place seems to be a bit off the radar for most climbers in the UK, which is a shame because it is, totally, awesome!

I felt like it provided quite a different experience to a lot of "clip and go" euro-sport holidays, which can feel a bit sterile. All the bolting was done ground up and as such it's pretty runout in places, definitely worth bringing a trad rack as most of the routes we did had an average of about 3 bolts per pitch!

Just looking around in the mornings at all these huge 300m towers filled me with childlike psyche to get out climbing, "I wanna go up there!"

This was my first time using the Edelweiss Oxegen II half ropes, I was amazed at how much lighter they were than my previous half ropes and after a week of heavy use they still looked like I'd just taken the out the packet, highly recommended.

Day 1: Obviously had to involve climbing this:

Day 2: We decided to go straight away for the classic route of the area; Traumpfeiler or Pillar of Dreams is a 9 pitch grade VI in the UIAA scale, which corresponds to about HVS, sounds easy! Well it was, but I wouldn't have liked you to tell me that halfway up pitch one. I found myself adrift in a sea of mossy pebbles with not a bolt in sight above or below and no obvious trad placements except optimistically equalised slings on crozzle! Thankfully after this it was slightly safer, although pitch 7 also had 3 bolts in 40m! Here's Bron seconding pitch 4:

In the evening I snuck in an extra cheeky solo up this huge block, it had a cross on top and I thought "if a monk can get up there, so can I!"

Day 3: This perched block is still up there as far as I know!

Day 4: We decided to try and climb our two favourite looking towers in a day, both via 5 pitch VIIs (E3ish). First up was Teufelsturm, which I am unreliably informed means "devils tower".

A missed belay meant we simul-climbed a large section in the middle and the final pitch apparently had no bolts! Summit one:

Next up was "Kastrakiturm", the final pitch had some incredible exposure!

Ten pitches climbed, hi-five!

Day 5: A 6 pitch VII on "Dupianifels" had a SWEET picnic spot in the middle:

Also from here I had an hour and a half in which to attempt Meteoras hardest route, "Crazy Dancing" IX+/7c+ is a totally wild horizontal roof crack blasting straight out of the cave!

Unfortunately I didn't quite send, but it felt hard to be upset in such amazing surroundings.

Day 6: Last day! We wanted to try a route imaginatively named "Action Direct" but it turned out to be wet. Instead we went for "Keisel Am Himmel" a 5 pitch VIII/7a. I linked the first two pitches to make a 50m 7bish monster pitch. It had a bit of everything, loose pebbles, crozzle crimping, running out of quickdraws... Here's Bron seconding the crux:

All in all I'd definitely recommend the place if your looking for a different kind of climbing trip. Do get in touch if you want the beta on where to stay, what to climb etc!

Yorkshire Sketching

Last week I managed to sneak out to Hunter's Stones between rain showers and do the classic "Hunter's Roof". What a brilliant problem, I've never climbed anything like it in my life, double heel-hooks, double guppies, obligatory campusing, it's got it all! Here's a video:


Two Barden 7Cs, Hunter's Roof and McNab Sit. from Jacob Cook on Vimeo.

Frustratingly I seem to have a bit of a finger injury, which has prevented me from getting as much training done as I would have liked. Instead of training I decided to finally sift through some footage that's been sitting on my computer for ages.

Here's a video of some Yorkshire classic highballs and trad routes:


Some Yorkshire Sketching from Jacob Cook on Vimeo.

And now for something completely different...

The alarm went off and I felt as though I'd barely closed my eyes for a second. As I adjusted my balaclava and fitted my goggles I made sure not not to leave any exposed skin before stepping outside. It was -25°C, significantly warmer than the last few days, the sun was yet to rise.

A mere week before I'd never had a pair of skis on in my life but here I was shouldering a heavy bag setting out for a two day, 25km back country ski across a frozen lake. It was cold. Headlines in England described conditions in Canada as a "Polar Vortex", giving rise to some of the coldest temperatures on record. The previous morning the thermometer outside our cabin had confirmed this, registering a frigid -46°C. This meant we had decided to wait another day before setting off.

Skiing across the lake was not what I'd imagined skiing would be like. Rather than gracefully gliding over the surface with minimal effort, it involved what I can only describe as trudging, with long awkward pointy things attached to my feet. The four of us took it in turns breaking trail in the knee deep snow.

By mid afternoon we had skied just under halfway, we stopped to build "Quincy". A type of snow cave which Bron seemed convinced would keep us alive and (dare I say it) even warm during that night. The way they supposedly work is to have a raised platform inside that is above the level of the entrance, this allows bodies inside to warm up the air without the heat escaping. It sounded unlikely.

To my amazement I woke up the next morning still alive! However as I slithered out the door my heart sank, I was met by a full on blizzard, howling winds and a near total whiteout on the lake. Quite a scary place to be as we had no means of contacting anyone or calling for help and thus no option but to make it the remaining 13km to Temagami, the town at the end of the lake. Luckily we had a GPS allowing us to navigate during the whiteout. Skiing through the now waist deep snow drifts in the blizzard felt like being on another planet. My eyes were freezing shut whenever I removed my goggles. My water bottle was tucked firmly inside my crotch to avoid freezing.

In winter the lake freezes so solid that they plow a road a couple of kilometers over the ice from the mainland to "Bear Island". Deeply exhausted and with frost nibbled extremities we staggered onto this as it was getting dark on our second day. God knows how people do extended winter camping trips!

The New Statesman

Firstly I'm really psyched to announce I've joined the Edelweiss UK team, they've been quietly making the best quality ropes for years and it will be great to be able to get out climbing on them.

Second, my ascent of the New Statesman at Ilkley last month has been made into a film by my housemate Kevin Fenemore who is the man behind Abstract Normality Media:


Jacob Cook climbing The New Statesman, E8 7A from Abstract Normality on Vimeo.

I haven't blogged about this ascent yet because I've been waiting for the video to be ready.

Jordan Buys kindly posted an interview with me about the New Statesman on his blog, rather than writing a lot about the route I thought it might be most interesting if I just posted that interview here:

Jordan: How old are you, where are you living?
I’m 25 and I’ve been living in Leeds for the last two years.

Can you give us a brief summary of your climbing life so far, highlights etc?

I started climbing aged 7 in London, but something happened 4 years ago whilst I was living in Oxford and I became extremely psyched, I haven’t looked back since. Over the past few years I’ve undergone a bit of an apprenticeship into hard adventurous trad in the UK. Going from having no idea what I was doing and all my gear falling out, to repeating a bunch of trad test pieces onsight or from the ground up. Routes like Lord of the Flies, Ghost Train, Masters Edge, Positron etc. My climbing highlight so far was probably doing the E8 Point Blank in Pembroke ground up over a couple of sessions, a process involving some 20m lobs!

Over the summer I took the next step into adventurous climbing by going big walling off the west coast of Greenland. To be honest in terms of big walling I feel remarkably similar to myself 4 years ago starting to trad climb. But I’m really keen to put the time in and learn the tricks of the trade; Yosemite here I come. More big wall first ascents in adventurous locations is the dream.

Can you describe The New Statesman in three words?

Spicy Arete Burger.

Did you find it easy, scary or full of bird poo?

I got completely shut down on my first session and thought I’d probably never do it. Amazingly on my second session I found some new beta and was able to top rope the route in a one-er, it seemed a shame not to go for it there and then! I was very scared, it was the first time I’d ever really headpointed a grit route (or any route!) so the whole process was a bit new to me

A trickle of bird poo actually served as a tickmark on the thank god jug near the top!

Why did you get on it in the first place?
It’s been on my mind that I had to try it ever since I moved to Leeds, such a good line and it’s only half an hour from my house! Also I’d been watching Neil Bentley on it in hard grit for the last 15 years.

How many times did you watch Neil Bentley on Hard Grit to get motivated?

Many, many times! It wasn’t until I actually tried the route for myself that I realised just how bad his sequence actually was!

Do you rate the new cafe at the crag?

3 quid for a coffee?! It’s a disgrace…

Did you wear your lucky underpants that day?
I wasn’t expecting to lead it that day because it was only my second session and I’d gotten spanked on my first. Luckily all of my underpants are tie-dyed anyway…

Have you any designs on other grit routes in Yorkshire?

Yes! All of them. Right now I’m pretty psyched about Ilkley, my mission is to climb all the routes there. I recently did Cindy Crawford, Desperate Dan and Guillotine. Next up are Snap Decision and Milky Way, I may even have a play on Loaded; who knows, maybe I can lank my way past the crux on that one too! Unfortunately this may mean I finally have to do Botterill’s Crack as well, grim.

Desperate Dan and Guillotine

We had a great day up at Ilkley last week, finally putting the Grove Gardens pad stash to good use.

After warming up on Bernie the Bolt, a great highball 7B+. I managed a ground up ascent of the precarious Desperate Dan, E6 6b, and a headpoint of the chillingly bold Guillotine, also E6 6b. Rather than waffling about the climbs I'll just put the video up, here it is!


Desperate Dan and Guillotine, two E6s at Ilkley from Jacob Cook on Vimeo.

I think I'm starting to feel in the zone on the grit now. Last weekend I managed a lifetime ambition by making a ground up ascent of Ullysses Bow at Stanage, pads or no it was still bloody scary :p. No video of that one though.