Requiem | E8/8a Trad climb at Dumbarton Rock

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A hugely impressive ascent for its time featuring extremely hard climbing (comparable to 8a sport) on trad gear. The route was climbed mostly ground-up in a yo-yo style – a style that even today, very few people have improved upon.

Cubby explains:

Looking back now with hindsight Im quite pleased I did it trying it ground up...I'd get to my high point, touch the holds above and then lower back to the ground...A sort of extended yo-yo style.

In fact, I actually gave in right at the end, because I got to the last move, and I couldn't quite work out how to do this last move. And I said to Gary Latter, who I was climbing with at the time, I'm just going to have a quick look at this.

So I did it on a top rope straight away. I did it first time after that.

So it wasn't done in the perfect style, but it wasn't done in the worst style. And it wasn't really headpointed as such. I know it's a bit of a grey area.

[1]

References

[1] http://www.niallgrimes.com/jam-crack-climbing-podcast/2022/10/7/jcpc-120-dave-cubby-cuthbertson

[2] On The Edge Issue 104, page 10

3rd ascent I think. Story went he thought he was the second, got to the top and saw JD scrawled at the top of the route.

References

[1] https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/rock_talk/sonnie_trotter_bags_second_ascent_of_rhapsody-305532

Did Parnaby almost onsight Requiem?

Fultonius on UKB:

Alas, it is unfortunately just the stuff of legend according to his belayer:

I belayed Craig when he tried to ground up Requiem back in 1998. It was an impressive display of climbing even by Parnaby standards. His 1st attempt ended half way up the crack with him shouting "End of a dream! End of a dream!"

On his 2nd attempt he got to the top of the crack but came off getting established on the head wall above this. On his 3rd attempt on day 2 he cruised all the way to the top only to find that the top was wet as it had started to rain.

After spending a few minutes hanging onto wet basalt Craig shouted down in his best Victor Meldrew impression that "he couldn't believe it" and casually down climbed to his last runner and lowered off. He said that he couldn't be bothered trying again as he had had too many goes and that was that!

I've never seen as impressive on-sight climber as Parnaby, he was a legend back in the 90's......

References

[1] On The Edge Issue 71, page 73

[2] https://ukbouldering.com/threads/first-e7-onsight.31629/post-649335

References

[1] On The Edge Issue 104, page 13

First ground-up ascent.

I placed the last 2 bits of gear on the successful lead attempt, all the rest was in place from previous attempts, stripping the route every time I fell would have been a nightmare. I don't think it would have made a great deal of difference placing it all because it's all place of good hand holds.

Regarding it being the first ground-up ascent, I have asked around a lot of people, some of whom are locals and have been around on the Scottish scene for some time and I am pretty sure it is the first, this was one of the reasons I was trying ground-up in the first place. I really hope it is but if that's not the case then I am still more than happy with the style i have climbed this great route in!, my first E8 and my greatest climbing achievement to date [2]

References

[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/niall_mcnair+requiem_-_persistence_of_vision-9642

[2] https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/rock_talk/requiem_ground_up-458234?

Caro climbed it ‘ground up’ and after falling from the last hold managed to complete it on her 7th go. [2]

References

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt8qps4aFFc

[2] https://www.instagram.com/p/CKMcqVhFg6J/

References

[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/niall_mcnair+requiem_-_persistence_of_vision-9642

References

[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/niall_mcnair+requiem_-_persistence_of_vision-9642

References

[1] https://www.planetmountain.com/en/news/climbing/extreme-trad-climbing-in-scotland-gerome-pouvreau-and-florence-pinet-repeat-rhapsody-and-requiem.html

References

[1] https://www.instagram.com/p/DZIOyVUlxqC/?img_index=1