WHAT'S MADE YOU? Leo Houlding meets Alastair Lee
Love ‘em or loath ‘em, there is no denying that Alastair Lee’s Leo-heavy fi lm trilogy (The Asgard Project, Autana and Last Great Climb) refocused quality in UK adventure-fi lm making. Will they help catapult the duo further into the public eye? Probably, and they’ll take the rest of us with them – along with ‘Britain’s manliest man’.
Q Dream team: on top of Ulvetanna.
could create the fi rst bouldering-only super wall. People would have giggled at their silly idea, so they kept it secret until the very day they opened. Now they’re having the last laugh as bouldering uber-walls sweep the globe.
The Wide Boyz
Pete Whittaker and Tom Randall, a pair of good-looking hones with their own logo, are quadruple-handedly responsible for the resurgence in the trend of wide-crack climbing in the UK over the last few years. A trend that, to this day, only they are following. These fun-fuelled fi sters got medieval in Tom’s cellar and declared they were going to go to America and climb its hardest crack. They succeeded.
Climbing coaching
“What’s my climbing ambition?” mused a young climber. “I’d love to be coached by Ian Vickers.” Welcome to the new climbing-wall world order: where who coaches you, and how you move, is more important that what you’ve climbed outside. With the launch of the new Mountain Training coaching scheme, expect legions of fi ercely strong kids burning you off everywhere.
Ueli Steck The rise of cool
Compared to surfi ng, climbing will never be cool. But, starting in the mid-90s, it tried to give itself a makeover, hanging out at places like Tonsai, Thailand, trying to claim some of that beach-bar living, bikini wearing, beat-loving lifestyle that came so effortlessly to the surf crowd. It half-worked, and helped by the rise (or fall) of deep-water soloing, the days of Ron Hills and beards slipped a little further behind. Closely related to:
Chris Sharma
American wunderkid who emerged from US bouldering pre-eminance to world sport-climbing dominance, leading the charge through the 9s. His video-friendly dynamics and mondo runouts have made him the poster boy of sport climbing.
CRoW Act
Pay attention at the back. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 gives you the right of access on foot to open country in England. A big victory for the BMC, it's the reason you can now climb and walk at crags like Bamford year-round. Although many remain blissfully unaware of it, they’d swiftly become very aware of it if it vanished.
Climbers Against Cancer
For years, climbers have got a bad rap for being selfi sh, but one guy is on a mission to prove everyone wrong. Two years ago, John Ellison was diagnosed
with terminal cancer. To fi ght back, he created the phenomenon that is Climbers Against Cancer, raising money for cancer research across the world with his trademark bright t-shirts and hoodies. All the A-list climbers wear them out – so should you.
www.climbersagainstcancer.org.
Steve McClure
The best climber in Britain today and, annoyingly, perhaps the most modest. For over a decade he has singlehandedly advanced the sport of sport climbing in the UK and continues, year after year, to produce the goods. His biggest impact is that his achievements mean that no other sport climber in the UK gets to blow their own trumpet as Steve’s unused trumpet is bigger than theirs. Not a cyclist.
Dave MacLeod
Quietly spoken Scottish super-wad continues to carve his path through British climbing. Pushing hard mixed, hard ice, hard bouldering, and obscene trad, perhaps his greatest legacy will be in re-educating power-obsessed British climbers that the secret to success lies in stronger fi ngers and less lard.
The Climbing Works
Three punks open a gym. In 2006, Graeme Alderson, Percy Bishton and Sam Whittaker dreamed that they
The Beastmaker boys
Honed to unreal levels of fi nger strength by dangling from their wooden fi ngerboards, Dan Varian and Ned Feehally have trademarked short bursts of agony in the name of self betterment. Also managed the rare feat of using bouldering mats to make climbing more dangerous. Dan ‘the Flying V’ Varian has nudged the levels of highballing ever higher, declaring anything under 10 metres a boulder problem. Logged more airtime in the last fi ve years than an EasyJet pilot, his knees aren’t thrilled about old age.
56 | 70TH ANNIVERSARY | FOR BRITISH CLIMBING AND WALKING SINCE 1944
Cycling Lycra-clad
hamster-wheel behaviour.
Responsible for
fi nally killing the climbing careers of thousands of middle-aged men.
Speedy Swiss super-climber slicing ascent times. Whilst we’re gobsmacked by his alpine attacks, it’s his Himalayan hits – such as the South Face of Annapurna in a 28-hour solo – that are moving high-altitude goalposts. What’s next?
Google Earth
As Google beeps ever closer to a robotic world, Google Earth has changed the landscape of mountain exploration. Combines satellite images with a relief model of the earth’s terrain to enable spooky reproductions of the mountains, and even climbs. As used by the Wide Boyz to view Century Crack from their armchairs. Not always 100% accurate but, as balloons and backpacks help out, everything will soon be assimilated.
PHOTO: ALASTAIR LEE.
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