Local Legend

Local Climbing Legend and Wolf Mountain Friend Nick Dixon has recently completed his new route at his home from home Nesscliffe in Shropshire. Here are a few words about the route as I was lucky enough to try this route earlier on this month. Since writing this he completed this route, but not with out a near ground fall.

Over Last few weeks I have been belaying Nick on his new route at Nesscliffe , there is no grade or name yet, that joy comes when he has finished the route. One Thursday evening myself and Andy went over to see what all the fuss was about. Nick had spent an hour building what looked like a giant birds nest under the route to flatten out the landing to put some bouldering mats on. After a quick chat about the moves on the route (I could hardly see any holds) and a nail he had placed low down and a peg he had just shorten at the local garage with a grinder, we threw our pads on the nest. With videos rolling and the humidity rising Nick set off leading the route. The first moves are OK and the "nail" was clipped and then he reached up to the first and last good hold next to the nail then straight into the first section of hard climbing. He gets his feet up really high next to his hands (and the nail) and starts to rock over, oops wrong foot hold, he down climbs half a move, gets the right foot hold and carries on. With the nail below his feet he gets a small pinch in his left and moves his feet gently up to poor footholds and crosses through to a one finger pocket, from this he clips the peg. I am not sure who was more relived, him or me belaying. You get a very brief pause here but then straight into the next move, one and a half finger pocket for the left hand. Damn! he tries to reposition for the next move he loses his balance and he is off and hanging off the peg. He his happy though, he was hoping to get to the peg and he did. It was a great effort and he looked solid. He could relax now and concentrate on working the next set of moves. The Next move I would say is the hardest move on the route, from the two one finger pockets you have to move you feet up and then slap or place ( depending how strong you feel) your right hand to a gaston, the thin lip on the small arrete and then again move your feet up really high whilst holding the gaston and one finger. As you rock on to your left foot you can then layoff the arrete with you left hand (your feet now level with the pegs) where you can kind of relax (ish) for a while. The next set of move should get you to the finish but there not straight forward. You outside edge your right foot on a small slopper and then reach high for a finger slot and pocket for your thumb with you right hand then bump you left foot onto the bottom edge of the arrete and force you way back across the arrete to left again and reach high for a small three finger crimp, hold that position and bump you left foot up the arrete again to a small foothold. Now you can reach again for the next slightly better crimp with you left hand then with a careful foot change you can rock over on the right leg you can catch a decent slopper and then gently reach the final hold or the tree root, Done!

Having tried the moves that evening, on my first go I could barely do the moves. This made what I had watched Nick do even more impressive. Having had two session on the route and done all the moves it was my turn to have a go. With the addition of a second peg now, I tied on with a rope clipped into each peg thinking I would not make it passed these. I made it through the first hard sequence and I was holding the two finger pockets and the pegs in front of my face, I made next power slap to the gaston and it stuck barely and then went straight into laying of the arrete! The pegs were now at my feet, what should I do. I knew the next moves were still hard I looked at the next hold then at the pegs then at the holds again. I bottled it, shouted take and slumped onto the pegs. I was happy though , it felt good to do all those moves.