Century Crack | E10/8c Trad climb at the White Rim

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A 40m long off-width roof crack in the White Rim: an outrageous adventure into horizontal suffering, and the hardest off-width in the world at the time of the first ascent.

Century Crack was discovered by Steve 'Crusher' Bartlett who aid climbed it in 2001 (Chocolate Starfish, A1), before showing it to Stevie Haston, who put in some major efforts to free climb the route. Weighed down by an enormous rack of large cams and Big Bros, Stevie made progress, but stripping the route after each attempt left him wasted for days.

Around 2009, aspirant 'Wideboyz' Tom Randall and Pete Whittaker got wind of the project and started a relentless two-year training regime in the cellar of Tom's house, doing countless laps of inverted shuffling, sandwiched between two planks of wood.

In October 2011, released from the cellar and blinking in the unfamiliar daylight, Tom and Pete set off on an off-width tour of the US, where they made short work of most of the existing hard cracks. They worked Century Crack, then – leaving the gear in place – tossed a roll of tape to decide who would lead first. Tom won the toss and after a monster effort pulled the first free ascent out the bag. Pete was next up and also succeeded.

However, the route had been lead on pre-placed gear and Stevie Haston was not impressed. Tom and Pete returned in November 2011 to do the route placing all gear on lead. This in some ways made the physical climbing easier, as cams did not have to be climbed around, but to minimise the amount of gear carried they chose to run it out well into the no-fall zone.

Tom Randall:

Going back down to re-climb Century was a very strange experience for me. I couldn't decide whether I was psyched to do the route for myself or whether I was doing for others. Comments had been made about the pre-placed gear we used and this only seemed to add to my desire to return to the White Rim.

Pete was first up on "Century Round II" and as he set off along the 120ft section of roof with only 6 cams racked for this part, I did wonder if we'd bitten off more than we could chew. By halfway he'd spent most of the time in a deck-out situation and my heart was in my mouth – partly for his boldness, but also for the thought that I'd have to do the same next go.

As Pete rounded the final alcove section to reach the lip, he really started to grunt and shout – at the same time I belayed, totally gripped… Just a few minutes later, he groveled his way through the final slot to glory and a well-stocked medical kit.

After watching Pete's insane efforts, I actually felt strangely calm about the whole affair. I'd already resigned myself to repeating the route and had also resolved the level of risk in my mind. I knew that if I focused solely on the climbing, then the run outs and the ground would soon fade into nothing and it would simply be a matter of pain tolerance and tactical breathing. In a haze of disassociation I followed in Pete's steps to make a cleaner ascent of Century Crack and also to clear in my mind the doubts I had about the route. [1]

References

[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2011/11/wideboyz_climb_century_crack_placing_gear-64870