DOWN IN THE VALLEY, lights were coming on as dusk deepened into night. I reached into my chalk bag for the cigar I’d stashed there before leaving the house, got it lit and lay back on the flat gritstone summit, exhaling. The smoke rose straight as a pencil into the air. There wasn’t a breath of wind. My eyes closed and my tired muscles began to relax. Just across the dale was the little cottage where I lived. I could use a bath and needed a pint. The air was beginning to cool. But for now I was happy not moving for a few minutes and enjoying the warmth of the rock against my back. Finally, I was at peace.
It had been a long day. I’d parked that morning under Froggatt Edge, the partly quarried gritstone crag that fringes Big Moor, overlooking Derbyshire to the west and with the city of Sheffield at its back. It was a clear, autumn day and the beaches and oaks below Froggatt were golden. In the sun the air was warming fast, it would be a hot one, but the crag faces west and so for the time being was still in the shade. There was nobody about. I put my hands on the rock and felt at once that the friction would still be good after a cold night.
I sat down and changed my shoes, lacing up my rock boots and trying not to think of what I was proposing to do. The scale of it was vast – one hundred Extreme grade routes in a day. I hadn’t made a list, and I hadn’t thought too clearly about where to find the most routes for the least amount of effort. I really just wanted a reason, some kind of target, to keep me out all day, to test my body, to find out what I was capable of doing.
There was no ulterior motive. I wasn’t there for sponsors. I didn’t care whether what I was doing would be reported in climbing magazines. I just wanted to find that edge I felt I’d lost. For almost twenty years I’d spent every waking moment either climbing or thinking about it. My body was honed by a relentless training regime that I had started to resent: hundreds of press-ups each day and seemingly endless top-rope sessions where I would do laps on routes I had once found hard. I’d given pretty much everything I had to the sport. What did I have left?
I started as I meant to go on, soloing upDownhill Racer, the flawed masterpiece of my old friend Pete Livesey, crimping on its chipped hold and then moving on, a gem of a route. I climbed downLong John’s Slab, the easier Extreme to its left. Two down, ninety-eight to go. Moving leftwards along the crag, I continued, climbing routes I’d done so often that I knew each hold before I reached it. I could feel the momentum building and shut off my mind from everything but moving up rock.
Back at the slab, I collected my gear and moved right to the blanker, neighbouring slab where the routes were even more committing. I’ve always been a bit of a thug, more comfortable on steeper routes where strength comes into play. But I would save myself a lot of energy for later in the day by climbing these slab routes, even if they were dangerous. I squeaked my boots, rubbing my palms across the soles to clean off any loose dirt and padded upwards, adding five to my tally. Further right the crag got steeper and I felt a small twinge of apprehension. The last time I’d been here I’d suffered a bad fall while soloing and broken my leg. Today there must be no mistakes.
So casually had I taken my plan, I’d brought nothing to eat. Now I was hungry. I
