Very Severe is a strange grade, even if you ignore the tradition-shrouded "Scottish VS" and the occasional Yorkshire sandbag. A fit beginner could well be leading at this standard after only a few months climbing, but many people are quite content never to lead anything harder. It still has something of an aura through once having been the top grade, and from a lingering sense that anyone regularly leading VS was a good climber (true up until the '60s, at any rate), and although grades have skyrocketed since the 1970's it's still the average leading grade, both in terms of being the mean and also in terms of having the most ascents. It's also probably the lowest grade at which everybody will find some challenge, as even though for many extreme leaders it's a grade to be soloed, most will not find them pushovers, and I have seen E4 leaders have epics on them. It's the lowest grade where you get both technical moves and sustainedness at the same time, so your first VS lead is usually a memorable achievement, a sign that you are no longer a novice. As a result almost any climber could tell you the name of their first VS.
High Neb Buttress, a very common first VS, and an early lead for me too.
Having written that last sentence I realised that it was only sort of true for me, and on reflection I think that's probably the case for most climbers brought up on gritstone. For those of us lucky enough to have miles of short sandpaper-like edges on our doorsteps breaking into VS is more of a process than an event. A rummage through my climbing logbook confirmed the truth of this, so here's my version of it, probably not untypical.
Sunset on Stanage, an inexhaustible crag or "just one big hold" (Johnny Dawes)?
The first route I managed that has ever been graded VS was Narrowing Chimney at Brimham in August 1981. I had been to a music festival near Leeds with friends who were "proper climbers" as opposed to a mere scrambler like me (one of them eventually became head of the BMC). At the time I considered that all Diffs were potential solos and V Diffs worth a look but Severes were out of my league. Grade inflation has since made a nonsense of that, and it was probably a daft attitude anyway. Narrowing Chimney was graded Diff at the time so I thrutched up it, failing to fit through the hole and having to make the committing moves round the outside of the block. It later went up to VS and has now dropped to Severe in the YMC guide and V Diff on UKC (despite all the votes being for HS or VS, and 6 of the 15 logs being failures!). Later the same day I started up a nice looking slab then had a wibble when Dave pointed out that I was soloing a Severe. Being already committed I had to finish it anyway, so Fag Slab became the first Severe I ever climbed while knowing the grade.
Rob Ivens at Brimham Rocks
Trafalgar Wall at Birchen is another route which has been VS but isn't now and wasn't when I climbed it. In July 1983 I was out for a walk along the edges with my parents and soloed Trafalgar Crack next door (then Diff). From it I could see that the slab on the right had lots of big breaks, with the crux the starting move, so I did that too. There's a great photograph in David Jones's "Rock Climbing in Britain" of someone called Julie Gordon soloing it which sums up my experience exactly – we're even wearing identical pairs of cheap bendy walking boots!
Julie Gordon soloing Trafalgar Wall, Birchen. Photo David Jones
In September 1985 I had a weekend of climbing on the Roaches and Stanage with Rob Stone and Pram Singh. I had just gone along to solo easy stuff, following my "Diffs and V Diffs" theory. We only had Paul Nunn's guide so many of them have since gone up a grade or two 🙄. Rob was halfway up Pedestal Climb when it started to rain and Pram couldn't follow on the now wet rock, leaving Rob stranded on the halfway belay. I was persuaded to follow him up the rest of the route, where it rained, hailed and blew a hoolie. I loved it and was hooked for life. Thanks Rob.
Roaches Upper Tier, Pedestal Route starts below the big roof, then goes up left.
That same weekend I climbed my first HVS, without knowing it at the time (and it's only VS on UKC). Rob was climbing the thuggy offwidth crack of Left Hand Tower at Marble Wall on Stanage and was finding Paul Nunn's grade of Severe a little harsh (HVS 5a now). Near the top he reached the one runner, a jammed block, to discover that he had left his slings on the ground. As he needed them in a hurry I soloed up the slabby blocks to the left, from where I could pass him a couple of them. Many years later the blocks turned up in the guidebook as Malc's Left Hand Slabs, HVS 5b. They still get that grade in the definitive guide but given that I soloed them in trainers then perhaps UKC's VS 5a is more accurate. On the other hand a month later I soloed Trapeze Direct (VS 4b) on Froggatt in the same trainers, by mistake for Trapeze (V Diff), and I could do the 5b routes on my local climbing wall in Brum in them, so maybe.....
A 20 foot ground fall onto my back at the Roaches the next month meant several months off, actually a lucky escape – half an inch to one side would have meant a wheelchair for life. Getting my head back together took longer than healing the injuries. I wombled around failing on Moderates until I met two guys making a pig's ear of a Stanage Diff and realised that I wasn't the bottom of the heap. By autumn 86 I was running up and down grit Diffs and V Diffs, occasionally Severes if they looked ok. Rising grades have given me a few post-dated VS ticks from this, all graded lower at the time, plus things like Wonderful Copenhagen at Birchen, basically a 5a boulder problem with a few easy moves above it. Still in my trainers but with a rope and a few runners I led North Buttress Arete Direct and Struggle at Windgather, both then graded Severe but now given VS 5a.
North Buttress Arete Direct, Windgather
Around the same time I also soloed a Stanage route then called November Arete and given VS 4c. Technically this was my first non-accidental VS, but it's very approachable and I didn't count it as I thought it was only HS 4a really 😁. It's now called Symbiosis and gets HVS 4c, which these days I would agree with. The top move is precarious and it's very tempting to escape rightwards but I managed to resist.
The first time I climbed something that I actually felt was VS was in April 87, Crow's Nest at Birchen. I had finally succumbed and bought a pair of rock boots, though I was still using a club rope and Whillans harness. I wasn't persuaded out of the latter until October, after falling off an overhanging HS 4b at Crow Chin called The Marmoset😫. It would have been much more comfortable to have landed on the ground! I still didn't really consider myself a climber though, let alone a VS leader, just someone who did a few easy routes occasionally. A friend poked fun at this attitude when I led Ardus on Shepherd's Crag (HS then, VS 4b now) around the same time - "You do know that's nearly VS, don't you?".
The tights and chalk bag aren't mine 😁. Photo Steve Ball
The rock boots started to make a difference though. In May I spent lots of time leading Steve Ball and Phil Moorey up the easier classics on Stanage, Froggatt and Birchen, with occasional forays into the fringes of VS, such as Sunset Crack (now HS) and Topsail. By June I was soloing short slabby things that I knew were definitely VS (or harder), such as Wall End Slab, Tridymite Slab and Kitcat, sometimes doing over 80 routes a day. I was gradually getting more confident and my technique was definitely improving. I could do 5b boulder problems, 5c if they were slabs, which brought in things like Pedlar's Slab (then VS 5b but now HVS 5c) and Cent (then VS, now E1 5b).
Pedlar's Slab is the line of holds up the middle of the nearest slab
I did have one near miss, on a route at Stanage End called Paved Vacuum, given VS 4c. I committed myself to a lurching move over the top overhang and very nearly came off. I knew at once I'd pushed it more than I should have done, a good lesson. It's now upgraded to HVS 5b and looking at the comments on UKC I'm not the only one to have underestimated it. I did a bunch of those lovely delicate routes on End Slab to recover my composure 🙂.
By September I actually felt confident enough to point myself at 4c/5a routes that weren't glorified boulder problems, and led things like High Neb Buttress and Cosmic Crack at Stanage and Portfolio at Windgather. The latter now gets HVS 5b, probably rightly. It used to have a little flake hold up right from the overhang, but a friend put a small wire behind it and then fell, breaking it off. I was belaying and had to dive to the ground to stop him decking out on the rope stretch. These were the routes where I finally felt like a VS leader, although the final step of leading a multi pitch VS didn't happen until the next spring, with the wonderfully airy One Step in the Clouds at Tremadog.
Portfolio is the very thin crack through the leftmost overhang
So what was my first VS? Malc's Left Hand Slabs? Technically yes, which leads to the oddity of having soloed an HVS before leading a VS. Or Symbiosis? I knew it was given VS in the guidebook, just didn't believe it. Crow's Nest? The first one I felt was VS at the time. Or even Portfolio? When I first felt that "I can lead VS". I still couldn't give a simple answer, and I suspect that's not unusual. What all this does highlight though is the fact that breaking into VS is a rite of passage, and one that still matters to most climbers. Once you've gone through it a lifetime of fun is guaranteed.
Perforation at Crow Chin (although I'm off route🙂). Photo Dave Walch
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