Tom Randall Instagram – “There’s always one more waiting round the corner…”
This was something I was telling a fairly new climber the other week, chatting about first ascents and how it’s one of those tip-of-the-iceberg situations. You can’t always see the hard work and micro-fails that go into them. For every one new route you see in the guide, that first ascentionist has prob checked out 100, abbed 10, naively cleaned 3 and finally settled on one to do 😅. You have to go at it with a firm belief that there’s “always one more around the corner….” Like indoor route setters, I sometimes think the modern day equippers don’t always get the recognition they deserve. We turn up to these crags with hundreds of shiny bolts, lower offs and cleaned loose rock. When I started climbing it was always a whole section in the back of the mags for first ascents but nowadays, where does that go? Do FAs of non-big-grade routes get the credit? Isn’t it just as cool that a mega 5 star 7a got done on that new crag?
Just a few morning ponderings from me! 😄 Agree/disagree?
Pics by: @tradprincess
Routes: some new stuff on the White Rim by me and @petewhittaker01 shuffling our way through sand, spiders and paddles. We’ve deffo had an easy run over the years with the iceberg factor – areas like this you have a waaaay better ratio of effort put in. | Posted on 18/Apr/2023 13:43:07
