Climbers

John Arran is a very accomplished trad climber with adventurous first ascents across the UK, North and South America and beyond, often climbed onsight. Spending 3 years in the US in the 80s, John onsight soloed multipitch routes up to 5.12, a level that has not been surpassed today. In the late 90s he dabbled in gritstone headpointing, climbing The Zone and the unrepeated Doctor Dolittle E10.

On 20th June 2003 John and his partner for the day Shane Ohly soloed or descended 536 routes in a mammoth single day. [1] Following in the footsteps of Ron Fawcett's Arran climbed 100 extremes in a day in 2001, all at Stanage with 55 of them onsight. [2,3]

John helped pioneer big wall free climbing in Venezuela, culminating in Rainbow Jambaia (E7) on Angel Falls, one the most spectacular hard big walls in the world.

References

[1] On The Edge Issue 130, page 11

[2] On The Edge Issue 113, page 32

[3] http://www.thefreeclimber.com/johnHistory.htm

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgHRLSBiGvo

Dave sadly took his own life in 2014.

I remember laughing like a drain hearing about him smearing Vaseline on the holds of a project at Kilnsey to stop a French superstar stealing it. [1]

Dave was a lovely guy. I first met him up in Newcastle when I was just starting my climbing career, and kept in touch when he moved to Sheffield. He had lots of time and patience for a shy kid. I was once coming down to sheffield for a competition and Dave offered for me to stay in his room for the weekend. He was going away but, with typical kindness, told me to help myself to anything in his food cupboard. After he left I went to the kitchen to make myself some dinner and opened the cupboard to find six bottles of fat burner pills and a mouldy potato. [2]

References

[1] https://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,25009.msg465272.html#msg465272

[2] https://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,25009.msg465387.html#msg465387

[3] Features in The Width of Life

[4] https://www.dailycamera.com/2014/11/18/chris-weidner-a-lost-goodbye-to-colorado-climber-dave-pegg/

[5] https://rockandice.com/lates-news/dave-pegg-king-of-rifle-has-died/

[6] https://rockandice.com/lates-news/living-with-a-very-serious-climber/

North York Moors enthusiast and latterly Llanberis slatehead. Cookson has ploughed his own furrow, initially on highball boulders and micro routes, more recently on the technicalities of the North Wales slate quarries.

Jon Fullwood is a climber with a long history of access, conservation and development work in the UK. In particular in the Peak District where he has added many new routes and boulder problems.

References

[1] Access All Areas, an interview with Sam Pratt, April 2024. Summit Issue 113, page 35.

References

[1] On The Edge Issue 71, page 50

Medji Schalack is a competition climber from Chambery in France.

References

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd4C6haxPDY

References

[1] Features in Am Limit (German) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgjwhkE67to

[2] Interview in On The Edge 118, page 40

[3] https://open.spotify.com/episode/5RyHgKL5QS3eThUoWPOrZ8?

[4] Interview with Magnus Midtbø 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSepsUJKdHs

References

[1] https://www.climbing.com/people/allison-vest-poem-female-climbers/

References

[1] Soul Revolution

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK7GsUGqT7I