By Keith Sharples.

Steve McClure as just cranked the first ascent of Northern Lights, at Kilnsey in the Yorkshire Dales. Northern Lights is Britain's third 9a and McClure's second, Mutation at Raven Tor, in the Peak District, being his first.

Northern Lights has something of a chequered history which adds significance to McClure's ascent. Kilnsey's North Buttress overhangs at approximately twenty five degrees for most of its 25m height and dominates the Upper Airedale valley in which it lies. As such it was an obvious target for major sport climbing routes and following True North, an 8c done in 1993 by Tony Mitchell and Progress, Jerry Moffatt's 8c from 1995, attention turned to a direct line up the centre, and steepest part, of the crag. Ben Moon, famous for Hubble 8c+, amongst other things, took up residence at the crag in the mid nineties and plugged away. Yet 'Ben's Project', as it became known, resisted his attempts over the next three years and despite climbing from the third bolt to the top in his best effort, Moon was eventually to 'move-on', defeated by a combination of injury and business demands, to concentrate on bouldering.

Given his world-class credentials for hard sport climbing, 'Ben's Project' was obviously tough. First out of the starting blocks in 1999 for the now 'open project' was Malcolm Smith, second ascentionist of Moon's Hubble and another super-strong climber of undoubted qualifications. Sadly he was to fair no better and after a hard year's effort was unrewarded.

Enter the new millennium and Steve McClure declared his hand early in the year, after a couple of brief forays the year before. 'Ben Project', which had been renamed 'Malcolm's Project', became 'Steve's Project' and with his support team from Sheffield, McClure began a twice-weekly pilgrimage to Kilnsey's, grey-bellied, North Buttress. Surely with his keen appetite for desperate sport climbs and more than a penchant for hard 'open projects' McClure would be the man? But would McClure, who was undoubtedly a world-class crimp specialist, have the arms for the job and would his diminutive height also prove to be a stumbling block. Climbing over the ghosts of Moon and Smith, McClure made steady progress. By day three he had done all the moves and started to throw links together. Already hopelessly hooked on the line, day four saw him drive to Kilnsey on his own and spend the day stick-clipping and dogging the moves in desperation to keep the momentum going. On day five he did overlapping halves and from then on, red-pointing was 'on'.