And that, as they say, is the way the cookie crumbles. However, away from the cutting edge there’s still a wealth of climbers establishing new routes which must not be forgotten, including a fair few well-known sport climbers, such as Robin Barker, Adrian Berry, Neil Gresham, Sean Myles, Simon Nadin, Gareth Parry and Dave Pegg. We can take it from this that good climbers can switch climbing styles/mediums and still crank it out along with the best. Typically though, the grit has it’s devotees who specialise in the head-games which grit demands; Nick Dixon, Simon Jones, Andy Popp, Paul Pritchard and Sam Whittaker all have their grit trophies. New kids on the block continue to emerge and the likes of Ben Bransby, Thomas de Gay, Nick Jennings, Mark Katz, Daren Thomas and Charlie Woodburn are making a name for themselves.

Taking a global overview, it is perhaps surprising, given that hard grit definitely isn’t for the faint hearted, that there’s over forty names on the list of climbers who have pulled off new routes of E7 or harder. That said, the numbers of climbers topping out on E8’s or harder drop faster than top-executives from the top floor during a crashing market. Grading is, and always will be, subjective however, the number of climbers capable of doing a route is a fair indication of it’s difficulty, an argument support by a run-down of new-routers. Perhaps in contrast to these ‘high’ numbers is the relatively small number of climbers who have done more than a handful of new routes above E7. Messrs Barker, De Gay, Dawes, Dunne, Grieves, Parry and Pegg are in the select group who have done five or more first ascents of E7 or harder. Top honours go to Johnny Dawes and John Dunne for these are the only dudes to have reached double figures. It looks like a name change by de-pole might in order to give initials of JD if you think that you’re up for the big time.

So where is it all going to end? Are the top-end routes so dangerous that it’s only a matter of time before someone eats turf big-time? Activists no doubt take solace in the fact that, to date, serious accidents on the grit are rare and nobody has yet chopped themselves on a hard grit route, though that said there’s been a few close calls over the years. Is E10 the Millennium equivalent of E5 in the Seventies and will the routes just keep getting harder? Will we see the next grade increase to E11 within ten years or is the smart money on more effort being thrown at doing hard repeats. Also is the current trend to go for on-sight’s rather than the more usual headpoint mode going to stick around? Seb Grieve was amongst the first have an E7 on-sight repeat reported when he did Snap Decision (E7 6c) at Ilkley just after doing the second ascent of New Statesmen. It seems improbable at the time that this would be a craze that would catch-on, although it now appears that Joe Picalli on-sighted Desperate Dan right back in 1990 believing that it was ‘only’ E5, no surprising really given that E5 was the guide grade at that time! A few other folks seem to have logged onto the on-sighting/flashing gig, though none more successfully than Ben Bransby who created headlines last year by flashing John Dunne’s Carmen Picasso at Gorple.

So that just leaves the last great problems to run though to leave you with some food for thought. Some feel that there aren’t many great lines left, though any list would include well known lines as the so-called Wizard Ridge, the hanging arete in the quarries on South Burbage; Smiling Buttress on Curbar, the line attempted by Ben Moon on a top-rope in Hard Grit, the wall left of New Stateman or the arete above Elder Crack on Curbar. Finally, the latest gossip is that the arete above Elder Crack has been done on a top-rope and that an ascent might be eminent. Watch this space.