BURSTBritish climber Rachel Pearce has climbed one of Britain’s most famous hard trad routes with Indian Face at Clogwyn Du’r Arddu in North Wales. First climbed by Johnny Dawes in 1986, the route up the Great Slab has 5.12+ moves above gear unlikely to hold a fall. Guidebook author Paul Williams wrote in a guidebook in 1989: “A pitch of such appalling difficulty as to be almost beyond the realms of human comprehension.”
Although harder trad climbs exist today, Indian Face’s reputation and bold climbing has led it to having relatively few repeats. Before Pearce, only nine other climbers had sent it: Nick Dixon, Neil Gresham, Dave MacLeod, James McHaffie, Calum Muskett, George Ullrich, Angus Kille and Morus Sanderson. The 32-year-old from North Wales is now the tenth, and the first woman to climb it. Pearce had previously climbed several test-piece trad climbs, including Nightmayer E8, and Olwen E9.
Pearce had visited the route around 10 times, working it on a rope and gradually committing the sequence to muscle memory. “Everyone familiar with the British climbing scene knows that it’s infamous,” she said on Planet Mountain. “But as soon as I started trying it, I realised that I really enjoyed the movement and style. I love technical crimpy routes. The rock is immaculate, and it’s amazing how it has just enough holds in all the right places to just about get you up there, and just enough gear to believe it’s not a total solo.” Her preparation was more about learning the route than building fitness, including one soaking-wet session that proved useful psychologically.
The first attempt to lead it did not go to plan, as at the end of the heatwave, clouds poured over the ridge and condensed on the crag. “Amazing light, amazingly terrible conditions,” Pearce says. Two evenings before the successful ascent, she bailed after reaching the first cluster of RPs and finding that she could not climb the sequence in her usual way. After wild foot swaps and improbable holds, she managed to reach the gear before her partner George flicked the abseil rope across to her. She tied an overhand knot into it and slumped back, exhausted. Two days later, despite some rain shortly before the crux, the conditions improved enough for her to continue.
Pearce placed all the protection on lead, in keeping with her personal ethics, and completed the route in about 30 minutes, “maybe a bit more,” she says, adding that it was very fast by her standards. When she reached the top, the reaction was not the triumphant shout she had imagined. “It was emotional. I thought I would want to shout with joy, but instead I started crying and smiling at the same time… It’s one of those peak life experiences… I’m quite hard on myself and generally don’t cut myself much slack, but this time I have given myself a little pat on the back and thought.”
“Protection is at best illusory,” said guidebook author Williams. “The whole sweep of rock affords not so much as a single nubbin on which the thinnest line may be secured, nor a single crack in which the most vestigal of chockstones could hope to gain lodgement. Should the leader fail to negotiate the crux, or be seized by a palsy high on the pitch, disaster must be imminent… The successful leader, even though he be of a modest disposition, may relax, and justifiably award [them]self a ‘pat on the back.’”
Story of Indian Face
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