Gaping Gill: Documentary of the First Free Climb

[Lankyman]

Article is live on UKClimbing at the moment if anyone fancies a read (or a donate!).

https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/inside_the_mountain_climbing_gee_gee_rider-16730

Your comment early on in the article 'Wet limestone is usually a no-go ... ' reminded me of taking climbers from my old club - it was a caving and (mainly) climbing club - on occasional forays into the nether world. At first they'd do their utmost to avoid wet rock and be contorting all over the show to swarm up a straightforward climb up a cascade. It took a while for them to realise that the clean rock of the stream bed offered by far the best grip of all.

 

[JAA]

Proud to say I believe Paul and Dave were Aston Uni speleo Soc members, I was secretary for a few years and I remember being impressed at that achievement, and I still am impressed.
Aston Uni speleo soc vanished years ago but I have resurrected Aston Speleo Society and we do a few mines in North Wales, meeting up twice yearly.

I had a terrible teenage crush on the girl rescued from KMC on the channel 4 documentary. I’m pleased to say I didn’t have a crush on Tony Seddon.

 

[tdobson]

I've posted repeatedly about this climb on the facebook group "Bad Caving Tips" and "Bad Climbing Tips" due to it being such a great candidate. I certainly have intrigue about it!

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Also, another eyebrow raising climb in GG:

> On a subsequent solo trip during which he discovered and climbed Hallucination Aven at the end of the new series, he returned to Bar Pot to discover the ladder he had used on the entrance pitch had been removed. Undaunted, he free-climbed out.

Source

 

[paul]

Jack Pickup's story about this event in Sid Perou's "A Tribute to Mike Wooding" is worth watching: