Climbers

Neil Gresham is a British climber who is notable for his hard trad ascents and deep water solos, whilst being an influential coach and early training guru.

Trad achievements include early repeats of testpieces such as Johnny Dawes' Indian Face (E9) and Neil Bentley's Equilibrium (E10), as well as making his own contributions Final Score (E10) and Lexicon (E11).

Gresham was an early adopter of deep water soloing in the UK, making the first ascents, or first DWS ascents, of some of the hardest DWS lines in the UK, including:

• Cutlass 8a
• Excalibur 8a
• San Simian 8a
• Hydrotherapy 8a+
• Olympiad 8b

Gresham was also an early training guru, writing a regular column in On The Edge magazine in the '90s, and being among the first to offer commercial coaching services.

References

[1] Interview with Dave MacLeod 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2wgXc_blao

[2] Interview with Niall Grimes part 1, 2024 https://open.spotify.com/episode/4H9lcr8Fp4lR6lMMmJa8Yt?

[3] Interview with Niall Grimes part 2, 2024 https://open.spotify.com/episode/5cac0uPMB1TYDaUF8XN06f?

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

John Alcock:

The news of Pete's death was emotional for me. He and his friends had a profound influence on my young life, while getting to know my Dad had a profound influence on him.

My Mum and Dad had been keen climbers in the 40s and 50s, but had given up climbing when my sister and I were born. When we started to show an interest in the late 60s/early 70s, my Dad booked a week's guiding with Pete to learn about modern equipment such as nylon ropes, hemp waist lines and chockstone runners, though of course we were still using waist belays, had no harnesses, no nuts and the accepted rule was that "the leader must not fall." They got on from the start: both driven, self-made, working class men who'd won scholarships to Oxford.

My Dad (Professor Leslie Alcock) was one of the country's leading archaeologists and Pete became fascinated by the subject. His focus switched with remarkable speed from climbing to archaeology. With the same passionate, ruthless, single-mindedness that he'd brought to new-routing, he rebuilt his life around archaeology. My Dad helped guide him on his new path.

For me, however, their friendship had very different consequences. Pete kindly allowed me to spend large parts of my summers living in his home in Deiniolen grabbing every opportunity to climb that I could. I believe that I earned my keep by sometimes baby-sitting his children Patrick and Angharad. Unqualified of course, but perhaps I was more responsible than many adults on the North Wales climbing scene at that time.

It was quite an eye-opener for a church-going, scouting, goody two shoes from suburban Cardiff who hadn't yet reached his teens. Pete lived a relatively "normal" life, but the Byronesque Jim Perrin spent time there apparently hiding from the police and angry women.. He emerged to take me up Cloggy and play "let's go continental" with the wild Al Harris. If we saw a car we thought was being driven by Al approaching on the narrow twisting road to Llanberis, Jim would immediately switch to the wrong side of the track to see who would blink first. Somehow we survived. For the first time I was exposed to a rebellious, swearing, irreligious, womanising, drink and drug-taking disorganised gang of individuals- many of whom were brilliant, bold climbers. I never looked back.

Although his focus was now elsewhere, Pete sometimes took me climbing in the Pass and on Cloggy. Evenings were often spent wandering the then deserted slate quarries beneath his house or bouldering at Fach Wen. Other climbing legends like Joe Brown and Martin Boysen sometimes joined Pete, Jim, Al and others. For all his ability to battle his way up audacious routes, Pete was a useless technician compared to climbers like Boysen and Harris.

I have vivid memories of Pete's wedding to Liz- me somewhat awestruck surrounded by my climbing inspirations. My Dad and I spent the morning drinking Bloody Marys. By early afternoon we were pretty pissed so decided to go for a walk up Snowdon to "clear the air". To Pete's bemusement we asked if he had a rope we could take as we always carried a rope on the hills in Scotland. He gave us an old tatty climbing rope he used as a car tow rope. We staggered off up the Miners Track and before long found ourselves using the rope to rescue a walker who'd fallen two hundred feet down one of the Trinity Gullies. Amazingly he only had two cracked ankles, so we lowered him to Glaslyn to await the trained and sober MRT. We then wobbled back to Pete's wedding party to resume our drinking.

Of course I hero-worshiped Pete and his friends. Pete gave me a tatty white chest harness he'd used on North Faces in the Dolomites, the battered shoes he used to climb the Boldest, the oiled wool sweater he wore in some of the iconic John Cleare photos in Rock Climbers in Action in Snowdonia. I wish I still had them. For all his extreme competitiveness, sharp tongue and fierce intellect, Pete was always kind, supportive and generous to me. They were attributes shared by my Dad, so I guess I knew how to cope.

In 1974/75, when I was 14 Pete and I teamed up to help my Dad excavate Castle Rock Dumbarton. We used our climbing skills to work on the steep slopes outside the castle walls. Evenings were spent occasionally doing routes on the cliffs below, but more often traversing Glasgow's famous Finnieston Walls.

After that I saw less of Pete though my Dad kept in close touch. What remained with me though was the inspiration of Pete's boldness, ambition and drive. Being a tiny, insignificant part of that vibrant North Wales scene for a short while helped fire the enthusiasm to climb which remains with me today. [2]

References

[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/pete_crew-138403

[2] https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/pete_crew_-_rip-783907

[3] Obituary by his son Patrick Crew, August 2025 https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1FGC2W817j/?mibextid=wwXIfr

[4] https://www.climber.co.uk/people/peter-crew-the-climbing-years/

[5] Pete Crew: 'Trumph of the Will' by Mick Ward (2025) https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/pete_crew_triumph_of_the_will-16574

Star of the film Hard Grit, scaring (and scarring) audiences with his bold ascents.

Jean-minh Trin-Thieu:

I know how weak he is and I can't understand how he is able to do these routes. [1]

References

[1] On The Edge Issue 73, page 31

References

[1] Interview with Steven Potter for climbing.com, 1st February 2022 https://www.climbing.com/news/simon-lorenzi-v16-font/

[2] Interview with Alexis Piguel for Grimper, 2024 https://www.grimper.com/news-simon-lorenzi-trois-9a-bloc-seul-trip

One of the early developers of deep water soloing in the UK.

Elias is an Italian boulderer and one of the world’s strongest.

In 2021/22 he made ascents of Gioia and Ganesh both at 8C+.

He was shot into the limelight in early 2024 with the fourth ascent of Burden of Dreams, using a unique beta. In 2025 Elias first ascented Italys hardest boulder in The Big Slamm giving it 9A/V17, taking him around 35 sessions.

In late 2025 Elias established Exodia, the first proposed 9A+/V18 in the world. He spent over 200 sessions on the boulder, starting in 2021.

References

[1] Profile with Josh Rundle (2026) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A2CP8QdYJE

Mick Fowler is a British mountaineer and climber. He is known for his adventurous, lightweight and ambitious ascents in the Himalaya as well as a range of very adventurous new routes in the UK. He achieved very high standards in rock climbing and mountaineering whilst holding down a demanding job as tax inspector much of the time based in London away from the usual UK climbing centres.

References

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTVFRm5kMeE

Lancastrian rock climber of tenacious stamina and onsighting ability. British and European (1998) champion competition climber. Now runs Onyx climbing wall with Gill Peet.

References

[1] https://www.onyxclimbing.co.uk/about-us

British rock climber and author most noted for extremely bold solos and deep-water soloing.

References

[1] Stone Free (Film, 2015) by Alistair Lee

[2] Lines, Jules. Tears of the Dawn. United Kingdom: Scottish Mountaineering Trust, 2020.

An influential climber in the UKs Peak District throughout the 1960s and 70s.

I climbed solo for the first year because I had no one to climb with, I didn't know anybody. I treated it like a job, I'd go out at 8 O’clock in the morning and take my sandwiches, climb to about 12, eat my lunch and then climb to about 4 O'clock and then go home. I did about 4,000 foot of solo in a day and that was every week. 1 went about 38-39 weeks on the trot around Birchens, finding new bits to do and treating it as a bit like a workout. [4]

Tom once climbed "157 routes, mostly hard" [3] in a day on Stanage.

References

[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2001/09/tom_proctor_dies-1249

[2] On The Edge, Issue 112 page 12

[3] Alan Rouse in Two's a Crowd, Mountain issue 21, page 28

[4] The Power of Climbing (1991), page 35