Kilnsey Main Overhang

It started in our local pub one Friday night: Steve mentioned that he, Mike and Gary were off to do Kilnsey Main Overhang the following day. Somewhat cheekily I invited myself along, partly as trip photographer. I reasoned that, since Gary needed to be away by mid-afternoon, if things took longer than expected then I could def out without upsetting any of the original party.

One slight problem was that I had promised to take my wife to the station early-doors so I wouldn’t be getting a lie-in. Matrimonial duties done with, I picked Steve up and headed to the crag, stopping en-route so Steve could get Gary a birthday card: “If we get there early then we can nip up the first bit and stick in the route as a surprise”. However on reaching the crag a lone figure is prowling beneath the dripping canopy - Gary. The first problem is crossing the beck dryshod, definitely not easy in the current high state and carrying both a rucksack and a camera bag.

Eventually we get the gear sorted - aid climbing is particularly gear intensive, even for a route such as this with short pitches and plenty of fixed gear you can expect to use double what is needed on an equivalent free route. The main problem is that everything is either wet or slimy to the touch, so no real chance of avoiding using aid, even on the initial section. Typically this is more awkward than it looks and it takes Steve some time to get over the first bulge and up to the start of the climbing proper.

Mike has arrived by now and we chat amongst ourselves while Steve makes slow progress above. A Landrover pulls up by the beck crossing point and two workmen get out and look at it for a while before passing a large amount of timber across. It turns out they are doing footpath repairs on behalf of the BMC. A pity that they aren't building a bridge over that beck as it looks to be rising.

After a walk along the foot of the crag with Mike, pointing at the paucity of routes either of us have done here, I busy myself with picking up litter in the vicinity of Base Camp. “I bet you were litter Monitor at school” observes Gary “Litter Monitors were after my time mate!” I reply.

“Leave some long slings on the pieces you reach with the clip-stick” Mike shouts up to Steve. Good point, we would have had trouble reaching them otherwise. Good job someone is keeping an eye on him! Two thirds of the way up the pitch, Steve announces that he is running out of gear - one lowered rope and another ten quickdraws later and he is on his way again. Eventually, after some two hours, he reaches the belay beneath the great roof.

Back down on the ground we have a discussion as to how to proceed:- Gary will follow first as he is leading the roof pitch, then Mike on the other rope which will be tied-off and he will protect himself using a Shunt. Once Gary is well on his way across the roof then they’ll bring me up to the stance. Since it may be a tight call, Gary trails another rope so that he can get away early should the need arise.

The two of them head up the first pitch, both repeating Steve’s mistake of leaving the Cow’s tail clipped to the previous bit of gear - which doesn’t help with upward progress. Before too long the pair of them are ensconsed on the belay and Gary is handed the lead.

The first move onto the roof is the hardest, well most committing really, though the clip stick helps. Soon Gary is immersed in the delights of horizontal aid climbing. The roof is now fully bolted due to the efforts of the free climber, in fact it has been bolted twice - once by Mark Leach when he freed the line and again more recently. Thus it must be the best protected piece of climbing around, though I doubt that you’d want to hang around to clip them all. In fact many of the bolts have in-situ quickdraws on them, presumably to make clipping easier.

Once Gary is established on the roof, I set off on the first pitch. Custom made etriers and cows-tail - sorted! Learning from the mistakes of the others I remember not to try and move up with my cows-tail still clipped into the first piece but make amends a few moves higher when I suddenly realise that I have dropped one of my etriers and it is trapped between my foot and the rock! A little bit of contortioning and I regain it. How embarrassing that would have been.

The moves are straightforward, basically long reaches to gain the hanging slings then move up to clip into the piece and relax. In a way this is the hardest part of aid climbing - once you are on a piece, you just have to trust it. Obviously fine on a top rope but no doubt much harder to do than say at the end of a long lead on hooks and bashies.

By the time I reach the belay, Gary has just reached the lip of the roof and is preparing to move out of site. I get settled in as I likely to be here some time as the other two have to get across the roof first. I've been to this belay before when climbing the first pitch free but didn’t hang around as I simply lowered off. I now realise how remarkably exposed it is despite being only 30 metres above the deck. Severly undercut and massively overhung, it is quite possibly the most difficult place to get rescued from so close to a main road! (You can see this is the mind of someone whose last route was a VDiff several months ago!)

Gary is now at the belay and Steve heads out across the roof with the small issue of getting to the first bolt. This is achieved by a small amount of free climbing and leaning off a very dodgy looking peg. Mike and I persuade him that leaving a chain of slings hanging from the first bolt is a good idea. Now we have a ladder to use!

There is actually only a short length of rope between Steve and Mike so it isn’t too long before Mike sets off. It is quite weird looking out across the roof with passing traffic a matter of a hundred metres away. This sort of thing belongs in the Dolomites rather than Yorkshire!

It is not too long before it is my turn, and there is the small matter of getting onto that first bolt and not leaving any gear behind. Eventually I figure a way on how to do it by threading one of the resin belay bolts before dismantling the rest of the belay. Then, with an etrier clipped into the chain of slings and me attached to same I release the thread and swing into space.

I open my eyes and I am five foot out from the belay in one go, slowly swinging to and fro and spinning first one way then the other. A bit of heave-hoing and I clip into the quickdraw on the bolt and set about reaching to the next bolt.

This point is when my lack of aid climbing experience comes to the fore. I have aided on vertical and overhanging rock, which isn’t too bad as you still have the rock to push against. Here though - you are just hanging. It’s a whole different ball game. Not made any easier by the fact that Steve had forgotten his Fifi hook so I had lent him mine.

At some point during the next hour or so both Gary and Steve have abseiled back to the ground. In fact Gary has bid farewell and is off back home to a birthday meal and Steve is wandering around doing Stevie things like trying to scramble down to the belay from the top of the crag. Suffice to say I didn’t have a particularly good time on the roof. It wasn’t even frightening, I was too involved in trying to move from one bolt to the next. The problem was that I just didn’t have a good system nor enough strength to keep pulling myself up by one arm while fiddling with the gear on the next or previous bolt.

One interesting facet of aiding across the roof is looking at the holds on the free version. They aren’t too bad to begin with and you can imagine using them. As you near the lip though, I’d be more than happy to have the holds on a vertical wall they become that small.

Eventually I reach the lip to be met by a bedraggled Mike. All told it is easiest if I am lowered from that point than spend another ten or fifteen minutes fighting to the belay. As I descend, I am absolutely shattered, a bit of a baptism of fire really, one that I maybe should have deffed out of while I had the chance. Mike descends as the light begins to fade. By the time the ropes are pulled it is 17:30 - it has been eight hours since Steve set off.

Once home I head for the bath, it is only then that I realise just how bad my technique has been: I am covered in bruises from slings and etriers when I have slumped back having failed to clip in my cows-tail or some such. Not a pretty sight. I need to sort out a better system for things like that roof.

Ultimately though it is a bit of a giggle. Hardly difficult aid climbing, certainly not serious in that there is no risk of big falls or the like. A little bit of ingenuity (and a clip stick) and it is not too bad. It is committing though and getting down from the roof could be distinctly awkward.