A July sun hung high in the cloudless sky, heating my tin box of a car. Bouncing along the arrow-straight road slicing its way through the high tops of Blacka Moor, the air above the tarmac shimmered and in the heat of summer even the surrounding bleak heathland felt soft and forgiving. To the left and right familiar landmarks stood proudly like old friends. On first name terms I felt at home and Stanage, Froggatt and Burbage waved as I passed through. These days we rarely spent time together, but when we did and a sunny winter’s day coincided with a day off work, we’d pick up where we’d left off, sharing friction and skin like years gone by. Like true old friends we didn’t need to keep in touch.
Sheffield filled the rear view mirror, amazing for a city to border such remoteness. In front, the limestone dales spread out, green and lush, winding valleys offering a chance of shade, essential for today. I reached for the window winder to let in some cool, and stuck out a hand into the 70-mile-per-hour air flow for a conditions report, not great, same temperature out as in. It wouldn’t be a top performance day, it would be all about sweating fingers sliding on polished crimps. Raven Tor was my destination and she gives little away. I knew from experience exactly what to expect. How much experience? Maybe a thousand visits? Surely not, but probably more than 500. I roughly calculated to fill a solo driver’s headspace, coming to the conclusion that whatever the tally it was a ridiculous number and probably shouldn’t be publicised or even dwelt upon. There would be many more visits to come, this relatively small and slightly unstable lump giving me more climbing than pretty much anywhere else in the world. There’d been some ups and downs – no one can be psyched all the time – but today, despite the warmth and humidity, I was as keen as ever. I’d made a new friend, Hubble, a route I’d chatted to in the past but never beyond the small talk. Lately, I’d made an effort to break through the unforgiving exterior to find something interesting and far deeper than initial appearances would suggest. Hard going at first, but we’d entered into a relationship quite different to any other I’d forged. Keen to progress, I took every chance to get to know Hubble better. Today, I already knew there would be little new ground, no deep and meaningful conversations, more of a quick chat, becoming comfortable together. But just spending time with a route like Hubble, a route with such status, is a privilege, especially when the relationship is really going places …
Hubble was first climbed by Ben Moon. Prior to this, the world watched as he demolished famous test pieces and established new hardest lines. His credentials could not be doubted and his level of power was legendary. He was one of the best climbers in the world. Then came Hubble, the world’s first 8c+, one small set of moves for man, but one giant leap for mankind. The route is pure power, it’s a boulder problem, though 12 metres long, which isn’t even that long really, the hard climbing is over after 4 metres. It would be a Font 8B+ boulder problem if it had a flat grassy landing. Seven hand moves, nine if you’re short.
To the average climber these details would serve to demean the route of its quality, the expectation being that a breakthrough in difficulty, the hardest route in the world, would be a soaring line – visually spectacular. However, what the route lacks in stature it more than makes up for in status, the diminutive scale glossed over by the colossal grade. On its way to glory it dragged the crag with it, also lacking in scale but leading in difficulty, both route and cliff were projected out to the rest of the world, gaining a fierce reputation that is still upheld today.
Ben’s ascent was in 1990, slapping his way into history a mere 18 miles from my student house. No doubt stumbling around in a wasted daze, I had no idea just how close I was to the cutting edge as it sliced forward in a scene that might as well have been on a different planet. Of course, I’d learn about the ascent much later as it filled the press, moving from headline news eventually into adverts, ‘Ben Moon and Mammut versus the mighty Hubble – no contest’. The timing was perfect, the route somehow injecting motivation into my own climbing despite being about as achievable as a personal lunar landing. Somehow Hubble was special and the images and news stories stayed with me like major childhood memories, ranking higher than learning to ride a bike or moving to big school.
Later, I began to understand what real difficulty was all about. Maybe when I’d on-sighted 8a+ and redpointed 8c I could just about comprehend the difficulty of Hubble. Prior to this there was no idea. But the better I got, the more the route seemed to move away from me, its reputation growing on a daily basis as the wads tried and failed. It did have repeats, but only by the real powerhouses. Malcolm Smith built a replica in his bedroom and lived on a diet of broccoli before his ascent, and John Gaskins trained on his own specific ‘Hubble board’ and spent many visits to the crag to snag the redpoint, driving all the way from the Lakes to arrive at 6 a.m. for the best conditions. Many others tried as well. Some could do a few of the moves, but putting it together was a different world. A comment by John Welford summed it up. He’d just climbed The Bastard at Rubicon, an 8c+ in the same style: short and bouldery. I asked if Hubble was next. ‘No way, Hubble is just in a totally different league from The Bastard, it’s in a different league from everything.’ This became apparent as I moved through the grades, Mecca 8b+, Make it Funky 8c, Evolution 8c+, Kaabah 8c+, Mutation 9a. Along the way I tried Hubble, once or twice per year, and every time made zero impression. The great leveller, the true test. Plenty doubted my credentials, grading Mutation 9a and Northern Lights 9a when I still hadn’t done Hubble seemed a step above my status. I shrugged this off with a cover story that the route just wasn’t for me. Sometimes they aren’t, they don’t fit your body or your strengths. Hubble is brutally bouldery, requires serious bicep strength and has moves that are considerably easier if you are tall – all my weaknesses combined! But I always knew it would call out to me, standing in the way of my own path to a self-defined completeness: the final exam.
Hubble begins with a pull off the ground from a small but decent side pull, hands matched on it and high feet on small edges. Then the first hard move, a massive span out left to ‘the block’ – a hard move for those of average stature but gaining exponentially in difficulty for every missing inch of reach. There is no way around it and I guess there is a cut-off point where it’s simply impossible. At 5' 6" height with zero ape index I could take a poor intermediate and then swing to the block, catching the very base at the maximum of my stretch. Placing a heel-toe with my right foot and concentrating hard on it, I could move my right hand to a poor intermediate and then, at last, bump my left hand into the block proper. It’s not a good hold, maybe three cassette boxes glued together in size but tapering out the wrong way and more slippery than plastic. From here the difficulty really starts. Hauling on the heel-toe, the right hand spans to a very poor undercut pinch, each finger position critical on its miniscule size, the thumb pressing hard to make it even barely possible to use. So to the crux, the famous UK 7b move, a left hand movement of a mere half a metre. Feet over the roof, pasting on ultra-polished smears, haul the body up on the block and the pinch, max out the bicep and snatch into a pocket for the left hand. Under the roof it’s hard to see, accuracy and timing are everything. Good enough for two fingers but only just. If you’ve got this far the next few moves are easy, maybe only UK 6c, but if you didn’t get the last few moves quite right, if those fingers are slightly misaligned, if your tips are marginally sweating or your feet creeping, then these next moves will be the living end. A slap with the right hand, at last leaving that awful pinch in favour of a pathetic crimp the size of a twenty-pence piece but sloping at 45 degrees and polished beyond measure. Crimped on by so many, cared for and brushed, polished up like some antique hold in the climbing museum. It used to have friction apparently, oh how that must have been nice. Bear down hard on this and the feet go into action, legs uncurling and moving together, robot-like to find their new contorted position, left toe hooking marginally behind the block, right foot smearing on a tiny polished bump, trying to get something out of the toe hook as best it can. Without the left toe, the polished crimp is nothing, unholdable. Squeezing hard with the legs, the left hand finds its new position on an undercut edge just by the polished crimp. Another undercut. Concentrate hard on this and the feet move again – the route is all in the feet, as all climbing is apparently, and as the instructor will shout to the beginner dithering up an easy-angled slab – but here they’re critical: left foot on a tiny corner the size of a baked bean, right foot on a marginal smear, or for the short, a sloping shelf just 50 centimetres below your hands. Either way, the redpoint crux follows with a violent slap with the right hand to a dimply crimp. It’s a rubbish hold, but by far the best thing for a long time. Maintain body tension and keep the feet in order, stepping up onto an edge two matchsticks wide and slapping with the left hand to a good hold, a proper hold, a place where you know you should be in now, to clip a bolt and begin to smile. But don’t relax yet – the upper section is no path, maybe 7c/7c+ and certainly harder for the short. It’s been dropped from before, the disappointed climbers lowering off with their premature excitement shattered in a moment’s loss of concentration, devastated in the knowledge that for success everything has to come together in one place and time – and that that one place and time may have just been passed. Keep it together and the moves will flow, a tenuous move left and at last you reach the junction with Revelations. More awkward moves lie on the scary slab above, but now it’s all in the mind, stay focused and the belay will arrive; Hubble conquered.
To be fair, I wasn’t giving myself the best chance. The odd day each year was never going to be enough with the specific nature of the moves and holds. Everybody had trained for it specifically, even building replicas on indoor walls. I was nowhere, an amateur, hoping to trick it into submission like I do with so many other hard routes, finding cunning sequences, holds and body positions no one else has seen. But Hubble cannot be tricked. There are no easy ways round it and I hated it for this fact, so cruelly exposing my weaknesses but, at the same time, drawing me in. It was the ultimate test, a pass guaranteeing a place in the hall of power.
Eventually it was time to become involved. It wasn’t planned, it kind of sneaked up on me, kidnapping me away from other options. But having done everything at the crag, there weren’t many other options and Hubble cried coward as I searched for alternatives or slipped into training days on well-known routes. 2009 was a strange year in terms of weather, again, and wet rock at other venues drew me back repeatedly to the Tor. There was no escape and no excuse. I made a pact with Hubble. I’d go on it every visit, no matter how hot it was, how humid or how tired I was, even if it was for just ten minutes. That way I would become familiar with the moves and become friends with the holds. I wasn’t ready to train yet, to go indoors on a specific model or gain recruitment on tinfoil moulded replicas, so this was a good compromise. On a route so short, motivation is key. I expected a struggle but this was a new experience, a venture into the world of the short. I began to revel in it, to be operating right at the limit on every move. I was exploring that top 1 percent of power only found when everything comes together at the same time – and I needed everything. It may be the ultimate in power routes but it may also be the most delicate, with feet and body position absolutely critical. It may be untrickable, but every day I was finding some new trick, the slightest twist of a toe or pressing of a thumb at a different angle. As my power levels on each hold increased it opened up new options to use my body in slightly different ways, this, in turn, opening up even more possibilities, all tiny but all so relevant.
On a cold but damp day in the middle of June I tied on to look at the moves again. Conditions were poor but I’d made the pact. First go up and I was through the crux, my left hand snatching into the undercut, fingers slotting neatly into the slot. Startled but composed, I moved swiftly onwards. I’d been there before, just once, but not with the upper moves so dialled. To reach this point meant there was a chance, but reaching into the final undercut and setting up for that last slap I already knew it wasn’t the day. It didn’t matter, this was real progress, this was close, this meant I might really be able to do it. How can that be? Was I even worthy? For so long this one route has been such a source of inspiration, representing the top of the game. Driving home I had little flashbacks, little risings of excitement … I nearly did Hubble.
A few days later we returned, but the weather had flipped, a cold summer had become standard issue, hot and sweaty. Stepping from the car it was obvious, white limestone now a dull brown and the polished holds black. Condensation was thick and the crag soaked. Straight back in the car and home to The Foundry; indoors in the middle of summer. I’d made the pact, but sometimes it really had to be broken. That was okay, it was late June, September would be cooler. In fact, a break was an opportunity, I would train, build a replica with specific holds, just like the experts. It was all part of the process – but for something so short, for just one route? My motivation surprised me as I threw myself in and standing back I viewed it in a different light. Hubble was what I needed at a moment in time, the right route at the right place. Low on time demands and high on desirability it fitted neatly into the slot of the climber I needed to be. The rest fell away, all the other parts I’d clung so desperately onto: the Lakeland climber; the Snowdonian climber; the Spanish sport climber; the Pembroke trad climber. For now I couldn’t be them all. I was juggling with too many balls and making a half-arsed job of everything. Three balls was okay, I could manage to juggle three indefinitely: work, family and climbing. But with the weight of work gaining daily, the size of the family ball increasing exponentially when I became a parent, and having a spiky and awkward DIY ball chucked in for good measure, I was now really struggling. I couldn’t juggle with four. Climbing was the easiest to drop. Years ago work would be slashed and DIY abandoned; climbing would have been the very last to go. But now, somehow, it found itself at the front of the queue. Work was essential, the house barely habitable, and as early years flew by with Amelie there was a rising panic I would miss out on something I’d never get back. Time spent with your kids is the most precious in your life, not apparent at first, but becoming increasingly obvious as the rest of life’s essentials suddenly seem rather trivial. Climbing could wait, it had to wait, but at the same time I could only juggle everything else with climbing at the core. More than ever I realised how central it was to my entire existence. Five o’clock starts for a morning hit, fingerboarding whilst making dinner and pull-up sets on the park climbing frame between goes down the slide showed the strength of my desire, but I simply couldn’t be the climber I was before. Becoming a parent had changed everything. I had to let it go, at least for now. Hubble stepped in, a route big enough and valid enough to be all of my climbing, at least for a while. I allowed it to take over, relieving me of the duty to be the climber I felt I needed to be. The relief was incredible; at last I was looking inwards and aware of the beauty of my life. Of course, it would be temporary, I knew that, but there seemed a little space to think for a change rather than always chasing something just out of reach.
But Hubble remained just out of reach. I wanted it as badly as ever; I was back in the zone on familiar ground in redpoint world. Mutation, Northern Lights and Overshadow all came into view, the effort, the tenacity, the theft of my life by a simple set of holds … but there was a difference, there was no pressure to perform. Though in effect my approach was exactly the same, I felt free of the need for success. I felt lighter and wiser, it didn’t really matter if I climbed this little lump of rock. Perhaps it was kids throwing perspective into a new brighter light and giving the process more clarity, but really it was about reaching a peace with my performance. I’d reached the end of the line with Overshadow, the line I set out for myself. I’d known before I’d even committed to Overshadow and knew as soon as I’d succeeded. It was a huge sigh of relief. I’d passed every test I set, pushed myself to the limit and beyond, and there was nothing left to prove. If it all ended right then I’d be content.
But there was still one final test…
On a boiling sunny morning Al Austin phoned, he was keen for the Tor. I didn’t want to go, to drive all the way there alone only to drive back, or perhaps slither around desperately on easy routes as an obligation to Al. Hubble would be an enemy and even though I’d made the pact it would be a backwards step, an undoing of progress. I had things to do: DIY on the house, writing for the magazines and essential training to edge me forward. But Al was keen and I caved in; I owed him many a belay. Crossing Blacka Moor the car thermometer indicated 21.5 degrees at 10.40 a.m., hardly the ‘Gaskins’ start. Surprisingly, conditions were reasonable, though more importantly I actually felt strong, a rare feeling for me. It was worth going on the route again, if only to stay familiar. I was on redpoint, but not really. I set off on an attempt, but wasn’t really trying. It was too hot and too sweaty, but in that moment everything was right, like I’d used my own ‘subtle knife’ to cut my way into another world where conditions were different – barely discernible but slightly cooler and fresher and with slightly lower gravity. Moving in this other world everything worked correctly. My fingers dropped perfectly into the pocket where previously they had never quite sat. My toe held fast where it usually started to creep. Every position felt solid. It felt slow and there was time to think. It was not supposed to be like this; everything was going too well. Don’t get me wrong, it was a fight, a fight to the death, but snagging the first of the good holds after the hard climbing, I had the slightest feeling the route had given up. It had been just that bit too easy. It was my time for success, Hubble knew it and at last it had admitted defeat, laid down and died. The top section was smooth, even placing the ‘draws as I went (so sure I would not succeed I hadn’t even put them in for the redpoint) then it was over. Of all the routes I’ll ever repeat this one will be the most satisfying. This was the big one – the final exam.