GB PAR A CLIMBING TE AM
THE BLIND MAN OF HOY
Last June, blind climber Jesse Dufton led every pitch of the classic East Face Route (E1 5b) on the Old Man of Hoy, placing all his own gear. It wasn’t Jesse’s first sea stack. It’s not his biggest achievement, either...
This story begins in 2008, when Jesse and his partner Molly climbed the Old Man of Stoer together during a trip to Reiff. They hadn’t planned on tackling a sea stack, but after Molly spotted a photo of it in the guidebook they couldn’t resist. When Jesse became aware of the Old Man of Hoy as Stoer’s ‘taller, harder brother’ he put it straight on his ticklist. Jesse told us: “The Old Man of Hoy just sounded epic and a real adventure to get to. Climbing sea stacks is a grand day out full of excitement.” And so it was that on June 4, Jesse approached the treacherous descent to the Old Man of Hoy using a pair of very sturdy poles: the route down the headland is a scramble on slippery grass ledges with some big drops. “Molly guided me, step by precarious step, while I crimped the grass for all I was worth!” laughs Jesse. “Throw in some inelegant bum-shuffling and you have one all-terrain blindman. The approach wasn’t great, but I’ve done worse; at least there wasn’t a waterfall
running down this one!”
“The satisfaction of getting past the crux clean put a big smile on my face,” the Loughborough resident remembers. “It wasn’t easy, but I think I climbed it really well, no gibbering epics, no pulling on gear. The climbing on the last pitch is outstanding. Not difficult, just really nice. You climb an open corner with a cleft that splits the stack running down the middle. As I climbed I could just about tell that the light of the setting sun was shining through the cleft - it was awesome.” “It was a shame that we didn’t have enough time to properly enjoy the top,” Jesse adds. “We had started really late (3pm) because we were waiting for the wind to drop sufficiently to fly the drone, so Alastair Lee could get some shots to use in the film, Climbing Blind. Consequently, even though we made good time on the climb – seven hours for six pitches including all the camera faff – we didn’t top out until ten pm so we needed to get a move on.”
BMC HANDBOOK |
www.thebmc.co.uk | 31
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