Climbing History

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A stunning coastal slab adventure whose immense proportions are perhaps only exceeded by the size of the grading controversy that accompanied its first ascent.

The route has a somewhat complicated history. An indirect line called Dyer Straits (E8) was originally climbed by Ian Vickers that used a lot of pegs (although the pegs were not placed by him) [2]. James Pearson then removed the pegs and added a direct start, suggesting the unprecedented grade of E12. The route was quickly repeated by Dave MacLeod (who was injured at the time) who suggested a downgrade to E9, commenting:

For James to come to this blank canvas of a wall and have the courage to see past all the uncertainties and unknowns to make a route is a brilliant achievement. But although trad climbs truly deserving of E9 and above are still very few and far between in the world, there are some, and they’ve been around for a while. The Walk of Life stands among these routes, not above them. [1]

The harsh criticism which was levelled at James from the climbing community for overgrading this route (and supposedly others), led to him moving to Innsbruck to get away from the UK climbing scene.

James has since reflected that, having grown up bouldering and climbing short, bold gritstone routes, The Walk of Life lay far outside his comfort zone. Lacking the experience to recognise his own weaknesses on that style of climb, he was led to propose the lofty grade of E12.[2]

In 2023 Tom Randall commented:

My view, having climbed both WOL and Once Upon is that James’s effort was most definitely E10 and the E9 downgrade was one of those things that was not quite right [...]

What I do think (and obvs it’s just my opinion) is that Once Upon has to be E8 if WOL E9 or we accept that maybe things got too compressed. I’d gladly lead one of the lines any day of the week, the other, deffo not 😅😅. My view after quite a bit of time on that wall is top end E8 for OUATITSW and bottom end E10 for WOL.

But…… it gets more complicated 😅. The WOL has gained & lost holds since James did it (easy to spot from the old video footage) and I’d say in current state it IS a solid E9. So I guess that’s the ever changing state of chossy sea cliffs? No ascent is quite the same? [4]

Dave has stated that he doesn’t agree with this assessment, and the route was E9 according to his experience. [5]

References

[1] https://davemacleod.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Walk%20of%20Life

[2] https://open.spotify.com/episode/2HAuDaq2kSHM6L7vdDu6uu?

[3] https://www.planetmountain.com/en/news/climbing/james-pearson-interview-after-the-walk-of-life.html

[4] https://www.instagram.com/p/CiAmEhvs68L/

[5] https://youtu.be/gbbgYR_6B7I