Climbing History
A selected history of climbing and mountaineering through the climbers, climbs and media.
4050 Climbers
7875 Climbs
20812 Ascents
Featured
Johnny Dawes
Johnny Dawes made an indelible contribution to British climbing in the 1980s and ‘90s.
Whilst contemporaries such as Ben Moon and Jerry Moffatt pushed physical standards forwards, Johnny took a swerve sideways (probably getting the vehicle on two wheels in the process), bringing his restless innovation in movement to bear on some of the country’s most spectacular lines.
Dawes’s teenage years were spent honing his skills on the buildings around his school, but it wasn’t long before he made his presence known on the grit: the bold friction slab Jugged Hare (E6), climbed in EBs in 1983 was an aperitif for what was to come.
Jerry Moffatt had climbed Ulysses' Bow (E6) in 1983 after extensive top rope practice. Just one year later Dawes soloed it onsight. He made the route look easy, but as those who tried to follow him found out the hard way, it was anything but.
A host of hard gritstone classics followed: Braille Trail (E7), Benign Lives (E7), The Salmon (E7); Sad Amongst Friends (E7) and Silk (E5) were climbed ground up.
In 1985, the North Wales slate beckoned, where Dawes found an affinity with its slabby style, slightly unhinged sparse bolting ethic, and social scene of misfits and miscreants. Dawes of Perception (E7) set a benchmark for difficulty and boldness that came to define the medium, whilst his best link on The Meltdown project was worth at least 8c.
But the best was yet to come. 1986 was Dawes’ annus mirabilis. The highlights included: Gaia (E8), End of the Affair (E8), and Slab and Crack (E8) on the grit; Conan the Librarian (E7) and Come to Mother (E7) on Gogarth; Coeur de Lion (E8) and the majestic The Quarryman (E8) on the slate.
But it was Indian Face (E9) that topped them all, a harrowing quest up the Great Wall of Clogwyn Du'r Arddu and the country’s first E9. The route established a level of boldness that still may not have been surpassed, and it has become a near-mythical part of British climbing lore.
The eighties was a time of conflicting styles as climbing evolved. The Indian Face was pre-inspected, but to a level that would be considered minimal by today’s standards. Although the more accessible classics such as End of the Affair (E8) and Gaia (E8) are now regularly headpointed, few have matched the spirit and style of Dawes’s first ascents: End of the Affair was attempted ground-up with a terrifying fall, whilst the bold final moves on Gaia were climbed onsight.
The ground-up approach reached a new high watermark in 1988 when Dawes succeeded on the first ascent of Hardback Thesaurus (E8) on Gogarth, but not before taking gear-ripping falls that were enough to make you feel sea sick. It remains one of the hardest ground-up first ascents.
The eighties also saw trips to Sròn Uladail to free climb The Scoop (E7) and Moskill Grooves (E6), multipitch monsters winding their way through the crag’s 50m-overhanging girth.
The 1990s saw the bar for slab climbing raised further with The Very Big and the Very Small (8b+) on the slate and Smoked Salmon (E8) and The Angel's Share (7C) on the grit, the latter taking a harder line, above a harder landing, than is usually climbed today. A one-handed solo of Downhill Racer was a typically Dawesian antic – he rated his effort E8.
In 1993, an attempt on Himalayan big wall Meru Shark’s Fin was abandoned when Dawes dropped a boot at 6000m.
In 1995 he repeated his friend Nick Dixon’s masterpiece Face Mecca (E9), taking a parallel line to Indian Face. This marked the end of the superbold era.
The following years were spent conjuring up futuristic projects such as Wizard Ridge and Promontory Scoop, whilst exploring ever-more inventive approaches to movement. In 2018 he pulled an ascent of an 8b+ slab in La Pedriza out the bag.
Dawes was captured climbing at his best in the 1986 film Stone Monkey by Alun Hughes, a cult classic that was shown on terrestrial television several times. In 1996 Dawes made Best Forgotten Art, a film about gritstone crack climbing that was the easy listening antidote to Ben And Jerry’s techno-energised The Real Thing, released around the same time. Like a tweed jacket in a Sheffield nightclub, the contrast between the two films perhaps encapsulates Dawes’ place in his era: a climber who stood alongside the sport’s leading performers, yet always seemed to be playing a different game.
Jon Barton: Do you think you ever shocked anybody Johnny?
Well I'd been at this mad party over in Wales. I left in the early hours to drive over to Sheffield, I like driving at night when the roads are quiet. I could tell you about the Snake Pass first thing at dawn, but that's boring hippy stuff. I got to Sheffield, and broke into the back of Al Rouse's house. I was in the kitchen making coffee, admiring Al's new decorating efforts, I went up stairs and jumped into his room and onto the bed, to be faced by two worried looking strangers hiding under the duvet. Al had moved out some weeks earlier.
JB: No Johnny, did you ever shock anybody with your climbing? [5]
References
[1] Interview with Niall Grimes and Nick Dixon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gfAxYENlmU
[2] Features in 80's Birth of Extreme
[3] Interview for the film Stone Monkey, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdeaV_vfp5Q
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D88mEgfHJ-I
[5] Interview with Jon Barton, On The Edge 63 (1996) /library/11066/on-the-edge-63
[6] What Climbing Has Taught Me (2025) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L_uSJH7-30
Johnny Dawes made an indelible contribution to British climbing in the 1980s and ‘90s.
Whilst contemporaries such as Ben Moon and Jerry Moffatt pushed physical standards forwards, Johnny took a swerve sideways (probably getting the vehicle on two wheels in the process), bringing his restless innovation in movement to bear on some of the country’s most spectacular lines.
Dawes’s teenage years were spent honing his skills on the buildings around his school, but it wasn’t long before he made his presence known on the grit: the bold friction slab Jugged Hare (E6), climbed in EBs in 1983 was an aperitif for what was to come.
Jerry Moffatt had climbed Ulysses' Bow (E6) in 1983 after extensive top rope practice. Just one year later Dawes soloed it onsight. He made the route look easy, but as those who tried to follow him found out the hard way, it was anything but.
A host of hard gritstone classics followed: Braille Trail (E7), Benign Lives (E7), The Salmon (E7); Sad Amongst Friends (E7) and Silk (E5) were climbed ground up.
In 1985, the North Wales slate beckoned, where Dawes found an affinity with its slabby style, slightly unhinged sparse bolting ethic, and social scene of misfits and miscreants. Dawes of Perception (E7) set a benchmark for difficulty and boldness that came to define the medium, whilst his best link on The Meltdown project was worth at least 8c.
But the best was yet to come. 1986 was Dawes’ annus mirabilis. The highlights included: Gaia (E8), End of the Affair (E8), and Slab and Crack (E8) on the grit; Conan the Librarian (E7) and Come to Mother (E7) on Gogarth; Coeur de Lion (E8) and the majestic The Quarryman (E8) on the slate.
But it was Indian Face (E9) that topped them all, a harrowing quest up the Great Wall of Clogwyn Du'r Arddu and the country’s first E9. The route established a level of boldness that still may not have been surpassed, and it has become a near-mythical part of British climbing lore.
The eighties was a time of conflicting styles as climbing evolved. The Indian Face was pre-inspected, but to a level that would be considered minimal by today’s standards. Although the more accessible classics such as End of the Affair (E8) and Gaia (E8) are now regularly headpointed, few have matched the spirit and style of Dawes’s first ascents: End of the Affair was attempted ground-up with a terrifying fall, whilst the bold final moves on Gaia were climbed onsight.
The ground-up approach reached a new high watermark in 1988 when Dawes succeeded on the first ascent of Hardback Thesaurus (E8) on Gogarth, but not before taking gear-ripping falls that were enough to make you feel sea sick. It remains one of the hardest ground-up first ascents.
The eighties also saw trips to Sròn Uladail to free climb The Scoop (E7) and Moskill Grooves (E6), multipitch monsters winding their way through the crag’s 50m-overhanging girth.
The 1990s saw the bar for slab climbing raised further with The Very Big and the Very Small (8b+) on the slate and Smoked Salmon (E8) and The Angel's Share (7C) on the grit, the latter taking a harder line, above a harder landing, than is usually climbed today. A one-handed solo of Downhill Racer was a typically Dawesian antic – he rated his effort E8.
In 1993, an attempt on Himalayan big wall Meru Shark’s Fin was abandoned when Dawes dropped a boot at 6000m.
In 1995 he repeated his friend Nick Dixon’s masterpiece Face Mecca (E9), taking a parallel line to Indian Face. This marked the end of the superbold era.
The following years were spent conjuring up futuristic projects such as Wizard Ridge and Promontory Scoop, whilst exploring ever-more inventive approaches to movement. In 2018 he pulled an ascent of an 8b+ slab in La Pedriza out the bag.
Dawes was captured climbing at his best in the 1986 film Stone Monkey by Alun Hughes, a cult classic that was shown on terrestrial television several times. In 1996 Dawes made Best Forgotten Art, a film about gritstone crack climbing that was the easy listening antidote to Ben And Jerry’s techno-energised The Real Thing, released around the same time. Like a tweed jacket in a Sheffield nightclub, the contrast between the two films perhaps encapsulates Dawes’ place in his era: a climber who stood alongside the sport’s leading performers, yet always seemed to be playing a different game.
Jon Barton: Do you think you ever shocked anybody Johnny?
Well I'd been at this mad party over in Wales. I left in the early hours to drive over to Sheffield, I like driving at night when the roads are quiet. I could tell you about the Snake Pass first thing at dawn, but that's boring hippy stuff. I got to Sheffield, and broke into the back of Al Rouse's house. I was in the kitchen making coffee, admiring Al's new decorating efforts, I went up stairs and jumped into his room and onto the bed, to be faced by two worried looking strangers hiding under the duvet. Al had moved out some weeks earlier.
JB: No Johnny, did you ever shock anybody with your climbing? [5]
References
[1] Interview with Niall Grimes and Nick Dixon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gfAxYENlmU
[2] Features in 80's Birth of Extreme
[3] Interview for the film Stone Monkey, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdeaV_vfp5Q
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D88mEgfHJ-I
[5] Interview with Jon Barton, On The Edge 63 (1996) /library/11066/on-the-edge-63
[6] What Climbing Has Taught Me (2025) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L_uSJH7-30
Pics + Vids
Featuring 10106 pictures and videos. Try searching for a climber, climb or summit to see pics and videos.
Dillon McLaughlin on Glen Ross 8A+
Sachi Amma on Soul Mate 9b
Magnus Midtbø on Ninja Gaeshi 7A
Naoki Shimatani on Mandoragora 8C
Niccolò Ceria on Squalo Bianco 8B+
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Explore
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
- British men who have climbed 8c or above
Podcasts
Featuring 4014 podcasts. Try searching for a climber to see podcasts with them, or check out some of these podcasts:
- Jacob Cook and Bronwyn Hodgins on The Enormocast (2019)
- Emma Twyford on Jam Crack Podcast (2019)
- Eric Hörst on The Struggle Climbing Show (2025)
- Austin Hoyt, Josh Horsley, Carlo Traversi and Will Anglin on The Testpiece Podcast (2025)
Library
Featuring 15049 items in the library. Try a search to see what you can find, or check out these library items:
- Silence Film
- Alpine Journal 1883 Vol 11 129-142 Green Mt Cook (1883) Journal
- Craig y Longridge (2017) Guidebook
Recent updates
References
References
Around 8a+ to 8b difficulty wise, protected by pegs and small wires. The in-situ gear has changed since the first ascent:
Today, however, the route feels quite different from what Neil, Caff, and Oli would have experienced. Tied-off and equalised bomber pegs now provide the majority of the protection, requiring very little necessary additional gear. Good cams at the bottom and top then cover the pegless sections of rock. [1]
James Taylor re-equipped the route in 2021:
Just a historical note. It has far fewer pegs now than it ever did. I replaced the top cluster of 4 pegs with two new ones and the cluster of 3 pegs that were just below that with 2 new ones. All the old pegs are in my mantlepiece. So 7 pegs were replaced with 4, two pairs of two, this was done in 2021 and now it's common to have the pairs equalised. I didn't replace the 5 lower pegs, 2 of which have now come out. The lower pegs are next to good gear and inconsequential to the route, just artifacts of Twid. [2]
References
[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2026/07/mission_impossible_the_most_possible_e9_in_the_uk-74180
Around 8a+ to 8b difficulty wise, protected by pegs and small wires.
The in-situ gear has changed since the first ascent:
Today, however, the route feels quite different from what Neil, Caff, and Oli would have experienced. Tied-off and equalised bomber pegs now provide the majority of the protection, requiring very little necessary additional gear. Good cams at the bottom and top then cover the pegless sections of rock. [1]
James Taylor re-equipped the route in 2021:
Just a historical note. It has far fewer pegs now than it ever did. I replaced the top cluster of 4 pegs with two new ones and the cluster of 3 pegs that were just below that with 2 new ones. All the old pegs are in my mantlepiece. So 7 pegs were replaced with 4, two pairs of two, this was done in 2021 and now it's common to have the pairs equalised. I didn't replace the 5 lower pegs, 2 of which have now come out. The lower pegs are next to good gear and inconsequential to the route, just artifacts of Twid. [1]
References
[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2026/07/mission_impossible_the_most_possible_e9_in_the_uk-74180
Around 8a+ to 8b difficulty wise, protected by pegs and small wires. The in-situ gear situation has changed over time, most notably in 2021 when James Taylor replaced some of the pegs:
It has far fewer pegs now than it ever did. I replaced the top cluster of 4 pegs with two new ones and the cluster of 3 pegs that were just below that with 2 new ones. All the old pegs are in my mantlepiece. So 7 pegs were replaced with 4, two pairs of two, this was done in 2021 and now its common to have the pairs equalised. I didn't replace the 5 lower pegs, 2 of which have now come out. They lower pegs are next to good gear and inconsequential to the route, just artifacts of Twid. [2]
References
[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2026/07/mission_impossible_the_most_possible_e9_in_the_uk-74180
Around 8a+ to 8b difficulty wise, protected by pegs and small wires. The in-situ gear situation has changed over time, most notably in 2021 when James Taylor replaced some of the pegs:
It has far fewer pegs now than it ever did. I replaced the top cluster of 4 pegs with two new ones and the cluster of 3 pegs that were just below that with 2 new ones. All the old pegs are in my mantlepiece. So 7 pegs were replaced with 4, two pairs of two, this was done in 2021 and now its common to have the pairs equalised. I didn't replace the 5 lower pegs, 2 of which have now come out. They lower pegs are next to good gear and inconsequential to the route, just artifacts of Twid. [2]
It's likely that this occurred in the early 2020s: the tied-off pegs are clearly visible in Dave MacLeod's 2022 ascent video.
References
[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2026/07/mission_impossible_the_most_possible_e9_in_the_uk-74180
Around 8a+ to 8b difficulty wise, protected by pegs and small wires.
The in-situ gear situation has improved (or got worse, depending on your ethical perspective) since the first ascent:
Today, however, the route feels quite different from what Neil, Caff, and Oli would have experienced. Tied-off and equalised bomber pegs now provide the majority of the protection, requiring very little necessary additional gear. Good cams at the bottom and top then cover the pegless sections of rock. [1]
James Taylor re-equipped the route in 2021:
Just a historical note. It has far fewer pegs now than it ever did. I replaced the top cluster of 4 pegs with two new ones and the cluster of 3 pegs that were just below that with 2 new ones. All the old pegs are in my mantlepiece. So 7 pegs were replaced with 4, two pairs of two, this was done in 2021 and now it's common to have the pairs equalised. I didn't replace the 5 lower pegs, 2 of which have now come out. The lower pegs are next to good gear and inconsequential to the route, just artifacts of Twid. [1]
References
[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2026/07/mission_impossible_the_most_possible_e9_in_the_uk-74180
Around 8a+ to 8b difficulty wise, protected by pegs and small wires.
The in-situ gear situation has improved (or got worse, depending on your perspective) since the first ascent:
Today, however, the route feels quite different from what Neil, Caff, and Oli would have experienced. Tied-off and equalised bomber pegs now provide the majority of the protection, requiring very little necessary additional gear. Good cams at the bottom and top then cover the pegless sections of rock. [1]
James Taylor re-equipped the route in 2021:
Just a historical note. It has far fewer pegs now than it ever did. I replaced the top cluster of 4 pegs with two new ones and the cluster of 3 pegs that were just below that with 2 new ones. All the old pegs are in my mantlepiece. So 7 pegs were replaced with 4, two pairs of two, this was done in 2021 and now it's common to have the pairs equalised. I didn't replace the 5 lower pegs, 2 of which have now come out. The lower pegs are next to good gear and inconsequential to the route, just artifacts of Twid. [1]
References
[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2026/07/mission_impossible_the_most_possible_e9_in_the_uk-74180
8a+ sport really init and would argue E8 as well tbh. [1]
References
[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/gallt_yr_ogof_gwynedd-489/mission_impossible-138784
[2] https://www.instagram.com/p/DagITLFNMCS/
[3] https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2026/07/mission_impossible_the_most_possible_e9_in_the_uk-74180
Around 8a+ to 8b difficulty wise, protected by pegs and small wires. The in-situ gear situation has improved (or got worse, depending on your perspective) since the first ascent:
Today, however, the route feels quite different from what Neil, Caff, and Oli would have experienced. Tied-off and equalised bomber pegs now provide the majority of the protection, requiring very little necessary additional gear. Good cams at the bottom and top then cover the pegless sections of rock. [1]
It's likely that this occurred in the early 2020s: the tied-off pegs are clearly visible in Dave MacLeod's 2022 ascent video.
References
[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2026/07/mission_impossible_the_most_possible_e9_in_the_uk-74180
Around 8a+ to 8b difficulty wise, protected by pegs and small wires.
The in-situ gear situation has improved (or got worse, depending on your perspective) since the first ascent:
Today, however, the route feels quite different from what Neil, Caff, and Oli would have experienced. Tied-off and equalised bomber pegs now provide the majority of the protection, requiring very little necessary additional gear. Good cams at the bottom and top then cover the pegless sections of rock. [1]
It's likely that this occurred in the early 2020s: the tied-off pegs are clearly visible in Dave MacLeod's 2022 ascent video.
References
[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2026/07/mission_impossible_the_most_possible_e9_in_the_uk-74180