E9 6c, Redhead and Dawes

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Marlow

Sport climber

OSLO

Jun 29, 2013 - 01:24pm PT

Stealing the crown

Johnny Dawes notes in his autobiography Full Of Myself that Redhead's routes were a big source of inspiration for him to move to the area, and he immediately went in for the repeat of Raped By Affection, onsight.

The first gear is at 80 feet, a tight-hole Troll 8 mm bolt. The problem was once I had maneuvered to clip it, I couldn't. Dawes writes: "Marooned on dime-sized edges all I could do was dyno clip and grab, a miss would have left me with a wild grab for a spike four meters down. There was reputedly a sling on the bolt for the first ascentionist and a RURP to protect the clip somewhat!"

Dawes and Redhead continued to vie for preeminence on slate, repeating one another's routes as soon as they were climbed. Although they might dispute the fact now, a competitive animosity between the two seemed to propel them on better and harder things. Both climbers would often "forget" crucial gear placements when giving each other beta, and afterwards complain, often hypocritically, about the style og ascent the other had made.

When Dawes returned to finish off Raped By Affection, he straigthened out the line slightly before re-naming his version, teasingly, Draped With Affection. Redhead soon after made a similar audacious attempt to repeat Johnny's route Dawes Of Perception (5.12d R/X), which tackles a diamond-shaped slab in nearby Vivian quarry.

"I got a brief low-down about the gear from Johnny and in particular the off-set nuts that protected the bolt at 60 feet. It seemed OK. Dave Towse was belaying and decided to not tie in. My boots were a little on the worn side but I felt confident. All went fine, gear placed and just as I went to clip the bolt, my foot shot off! I cartwheeled down the wall as the offsets pulled out. I didn't know it at the time, but Dave had jumped back immediately as the first nuts ripped. He'd jumped into the pool taking in 20 feet of slack! All the nuts ripped and a Friend snapped leaving a sling over a loose spike that starts the moves up the slab. The sling held! I was upside down, my head two feet from the jagged belay boulders. Dave saved my life!" When he brought up the episode in Pete's Eats, the popular climber's cafe in Llanberis, Redhead learned that Dawes had hammered the off-set nuts into the crack on the first ascent. "Thanks! I came back another day and hammered them in".

Dawes later commented in his autobiography: "Dawes Of Perception had nearly killed (Redhead), the technical ones like Windows Of Perception (formerly a one-move V10 but now 5.13a after a hold was improved), done the day after Dawes... were beyond him. The crown was stolen"

Calum Muskett in Rock & Ice, July 2013.

phylp

Trad climber

Millbrae, CA

Jun 29, 2013 - 05:18pm PT

If you liked that video, try to get your hands on movie about Dave Birkett, "Set in Stone". E86C and E96c back almost 15 years ago. It's my favorite climbing movie of all time.