After top roping the arete twice a few times I eventually managed to get it more than twice in a row on a day of awesome conditions. But no matter how many times I did it, the last moves always required total commitment, I tried to imagine myself on the sharp end, even this made me nervous.

The day came, February 11th. I was at the bottom of the route silently concentrating on a successful ascent. Rob was ready, Mark Turnbull had been coming out to film the whole scenario and was here today. Inwardly I was a little unhappy with my skin on my left fingers, it was a little thin after a trip to Fontainebleau, holding the crux sloper required good grip due too its low friction coefficient. (If you've got stronger fingers than me you'll be able to miss this hold out anyway!)

After what seemed a short period of time sitting on the ledge above Yoghurt I went for it. The sequence went well, like clockwork, until I was on the sloper, sitting with all my weight on a vertical smear for my left foot I slapped into the poor undercut, held it for a fraction of a second…….I was off…..

All I can say is don't trust drop tests too much with a ruc sac! I fell about 25 feet then Rob finally ran and took my weight on the rope twanging me across the buttress about a foot above the boulders. I knocked my leg on the way down and sliced open my finger on the undercut. I was very close to serious leg damage. The next few days I was a different person. Tired, sore and feeling incredibly disappointed yet lucky that I had not hurt myself more. I had to dig deep now, let my leg recover and concentrate on what went wrong and how to correct it. Marks video footage showed I had hit the hold a hair's breadth too high.

I had to do this climb now, I'd given up too much time and too many other people had given up their time for me not to try again. It was all consuming. The only escape was sleep but that was easier said than done.

February 24th. A cool winter day. Just me, Mark and Rob. All was prepared. I just had to focus and climb. My leg was still a little sore but it wasn't putting me off. I had a helmet on for the first time ever on a grit route. The potential to flip upside down was there so I was trying to reduce the risk of the worst scenario.

10 minutes of contemplation and I'm off again. This time it took a lot to overcome the fear of failure, I'd almost talked myself out of doing it. I really cannot explain why I do these things! Up to the crux move, slap …..still on there, foot move, pebble, slap for good pocket…..a move that to me felt totally out there but somehow I'd done it.

I had the pocket in my fingers. I remember breathing like I was running a 400m sprint, trying to calm myself and place a poor friend on two cams in the other pocket. Last few awkward moves and I was pulling over the top. It was over and my lungs let out a huge whoop, I just couldn't stop myself. The joy and the relief was incredible for all three of us, we'd all shared a great experience.

I called the route Equilibrium because it had required a balance of all sorts of factors to climb, (plus I quite like the word itself!) reaching that point in time for me had been the hardest thing I had ever done. Crazy when I think it's only 10 moves up a piece of grit. I'm sure that for future ascentionists it will be a whole new and most likely different experience. Good luck and enjoy!

'CragX would like to thank Slackjaw Productions Richard Heap and Mark TurnBull for providing the photos and look forward to their new film. Watch this space!!!'