Climbing History
A selected history of climbing and mountaineering through the climbers, climbs and media.
2270 Climbers
3953 Climbs
10214 Ascents
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Hubble | 9a Sport route at Raven Tor
Hubble is a route at Raven Tor in the UK's Peak District. Ben Moon made the first ascent of the full line in 1990 suggesting a grade of 8c+, making it the hardest route in the world at the time. It is now considered closer to 9a, making it both the first 8c+ and the first 9a!
The route is unusually bouldery and powerful with the meat of the difficulty being a short section on undercuts at the start of the route that is around 8B/+ as a boulder problem. The top of the route is roughly a 7c sport route so shouldn't present any issues for a climber capable of getting through the bottom, though Ben Moon famously fell off the top the first time he managed to climb through the boulder problem.
A kneebar on the crux undercut match move was first discovered around 2014 which apparently makes this move slightly easier. It was first successfully used by Mathew Wright on his ascent in 2020. This method has now been used on several successful ascents. So far, ascentionists using the kneebar method have suggested it doesn't significantly alter the overall difficulty with leg length being a crucial factor.
References
[1] https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Cai72J2Sn9BulGmXw7vYE?si=i-sq4M9RShin62B56rWk8A
Hubble is a route at Raven Tor in the UK's Peak District. Ben Moon made the first ascent of the full line in 1990 suggesting a grade of 8c+, making it the hardest route in the world at the time. It is now considered closer to 9a, making it both the first 8c+ and the first 9a!
The route is unusually bouldery and powerful with the meat of the difficulty being a short section on undercuts at the start of the route that is around 8B/+ as a boulder problem. The top of the route is roughly a 7c sport route so shouldn't present any issues for a climber capable of getting through the bottom, though Ben Moon famously fell off the top the first time he managed to climb through the boulder problem.
A kneebar on the crux undercut match move was first discovered around 2014 which apparently makes this move slightly easier. It was first successfully used by Mathew Wright on his ascent in 2020. This method has now been used on several successful ascents. So far, ascentionists using the kneebar method have suggested it doesn't significantly alter the overall difficulty with leg length being a crucial factor.
References
[1] https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Cai72J2Sn9BulGmXw7vYE?si=i-sq4M9RShin62B56rWk8A
Pics + Vids
Featuring 5216 pictures and videos. Try searching for a climber, climb or summit to see pics and videos.
Giuliano Cameroni on Solar Plexus (8B+)
Johnny Dawes on The Tesseract (E7)
James McHaffie on The Meltdown (9a)
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Fancy a look around? You can browse by climber or by climbs, or you can check out some lists. For example
- All sport ascents of 9b or above
- British women who have climbed 7C or above
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Podcasts
Featuring 2783 podcasts. Try searching for a climber to see podcasts with them, or check out some of these podcasts:
- Drew Ruana on The Careless Talk Climbing Podcast, February 2023
- Ollie Torr on Lattice Training, August 2024
- Siebe Vanhee on Sticky Tips Podcast, September 2024
- Paul Robinson on The Thundercling, July 2019
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References
References
References
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10kGCYf68Bg
[2] https://www.instagram.com/p/CwAWytBtWt5/=
[3] On The Edge Issue 90, page 11
