Climbers

Harding had a brief but influential spell at the cutting edge of UK climbing in the years immediately post world war two. Armed with improved ex-military gear, including the first nylon dynamic ropes, he was responsible for a small number of hard-for-the time classic routes on peak gritstone and in North Wales. He was an engineer by trade and this, along with climbing in the eastern Alps and availability of army surplus hardware, made him more receptive to the use of pitons than his pre-war counterparts. Harding was noted for his proficiency at hand jamming although it seems unlikely that he originated this technique as some of his contemporaries suggested.

### References

[1] https://rucksackclub.org/2023/04/14/a-dip-into-the-club-journals-from-1993-just-a-bit-difficult-by-peter-harding/?doing_wp_cron=1768307556.0177059173583984375000

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/dec/19/mainsection.obituaries

Fontainebleau slab wizard.

References

[1] https://www.instagram.com/p/C1sFXT7NjK0/

[2] Niall Grimes and Rick Accomazzo chat about Tobin, 2024 https://open.spotify.com/episode/3SXhH433ltw5RhBrTedv2l?

References

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmYuLRm3Xec

The first olympic gold medalist in climbing (Tokyo 2020).

References

[1] https://www.instagram.com/p/Cbo2sSjp0mN/

The first Australian woman to climb 9a with her ascent of Victimes del Futur.

References

[1] https://www.redbull.com/gb-en/films/momentum-angie-scarth-johnson

Bill Birkett:

Arthur was one of the most important and influential figures in the history of British rock climbing, spanning the social gap between the old guard and the emergence of a hungry new breed of working class climbers. [1]

Joe Brown:

When you went to try one of his climbs you knew it was going to be hard.

References

[1] Yorkshire Gritstone Volume 1, Almscliff to Slipstones