Sitting in Sheffield giving my finger tips a chance to recover after a few days on the grit.
On 27th August kev I did the second ascent of Learning to fly. E5 6b. Its a beautiful route with 2 excellent pitches. I hope this report removes a shroud of mystery and puts this route proudly onto the list of top end hard classics.
Its a route that I had always wondered about. A 3 star Eddie cooper e5 from the mid 90s, taking a daring line up through the overhangs left of Night rider. These overhangs have always impressed me as they form one of the steepest bits of the crag. As impressive as the wall of prey, but on the dark side, they have seen very little attention in recent years. In fact for as long as Iv been climbing, I have never heard of anyone really talking about these routes. The fact learning to fly had never received a second ascent probably puts a lot of people off it. It certainly struck a bit of fear into my mind, together with wondering how a route could force a way up that wall. From the top of Jolly Roger I have often looked across at the wall and pondered. The block strewn ledge coming across from the bottom of Kneewrecker is not an inviting place to start from. From its right hand end the pedestal which the route starts off looks like a jenga block poised above the choss. Above that the route could be anywhere, it just all looks fairly blank.
The description in the guide adds a touch of mystery. “not a sports route” I wouldn’t call anything at fairhead a sports route so what the heck is that supposed to mean. Dont expect any bolts, pockets, french people or limestone. The name “Learning to fly” gives the final, and probably most obvious touch of enchantment, sounding delighfully terrifying.
Anyway I thought somebody should check it out some day. Being at the Murlough end, and not massively psyched to go down and climb any of the other routes for the umpteenth time I thought it was time to have a look.
One can always look, it does no harm. Given nobody had touched this wall for over 17 years I had no idea what state the route would be in. I thought it wise to ab in and check out its condition. I wasn’t too worried about it being too dirty, as it looked like mostly face climbing. I was more worried about the condition of the peg, and snappy and loose rock. Also I wanted to get a rough idea of where the route went. This proved to be my biggest problem. On the ab rope the wall looked well hard. A section in particular looked totally blank, and there was no reference to this in the description. I resorted to pulling on many of the holds to work out where to climb, and what to brush. After some time playing on a lot of the moves and cleaning lots of edges and flatties, I was relatively happy I had worked out where it went. My main confusion was around a section where a particular grove fades. Here there was a really hard section of moves right to gain another groove, that would lead to the belay. Or did you climb a different way into this groove, via some overhang to the right. With so many overhangs and grooves I was a bit baffled trying to work out which ones the route followed. There was no mention of a really hard sequence of moves right. But after some time I concluded there would be no other logical way. Anyway the rest of the route below this made sense and I found the old peg, cleaned a load of stuff, and the odd bit of rotten rock. I came back to lead it the next day.
I decided the peg was fairly essential, and it is not in great condition. I backed it up with a small nut which I left preplaced before leading. To place this nut on the lead would be really awkward and hard and any gear below this is far away.
The start of the route is bold, and climbing off of the jenga rubble is very committing. I left kevin firmly anchored to the ab rope and numerous large cams. Start of the route is quite blind, and wonders a little. Some of the rock is a bit dodgy, one foothold blew off, and a flake I had a sling around peeled off while kev was seconding. Its not too difficult here but I was glad I had given it a bit of an inspection before leading. Pressing on I got to the first good runner. The moves above the peg are quite tricky and it feels steep and again I was glad for the pre placed back up nut. A roof is gained which you follow rightwards to some good edges, and then gain a groove back left again. This groove has some lovely moves in it and you can really admire your position on the wall. Where the groove fades the crux moves await. With good gear in an undercut you follow a technical sequence on crimps, sidepulls and edges rightwards for a few meters to gain some jugs at the base of another groove. I had this sequence sorted from looking at it on abseil, and if you were onsighting this would without doubt be the crux. It is blind and tecnical, but the moves are amazing. I presume this is the inspiration behind the name, as if I had not cheated I would have definitely done a lot of flying here.
The next groove is followed with continued interest and until the belay. I enjoyed watching Kev fight his way up the pitch on second. There were some serious power screams as he pulled through the crux. A fine effort. He took the second pitch which follows a lovely flake and corner system to the top. It makes a great pitch at about e3 5C.
Initially when I was abbing down I thought there’s no way this is E5. Its was too hard, E6 surely! Ive onsighted a number of e5s and e6s at fairhead and this looked so much harder. When I was looking at the groove section trying to work out how it would climb I thought it was such a sandbag I cant be arsed with the effort. On reflection, maybe it could be e5, as the crux moves are safe. But if so I would say very top end E5. I think a proper onsight of this would be a wonderful achievement and I would recommend it to everyone who operates at the grade. A cool head is required for the start, and some technique and strength for the cruxes. It is clean with the edges and smears lichen free, and the nature of the wall mean it should remain clean. I would recommend that you have a look at the peg, and either replace it or back it up with wires which would be difficult to place on lead.
Unfortunately the only pics are from kevs phone, of me on abseil.
johnmccuneclimb 