User Comments
Hope my brother doesn't mind my adding this to my gallery - I'm sure he won't! It's a classic image of Syrett making his v bold onsight lead of Wall of Horrors (still thought by many to be the first onsight ascent)in ridiculously windy conditions in 1970.
Gordon Stainforth - 31/Jul/06
Got to be a 5 for historical value
Andy Farnell - 02/Aug/06
It's worth quoting from my brother's climbing logbook of the time:
"WALL OF HORRORS (XS), ALMSCLIFF. 5 NOV 1970
John Syrett mad the first sight-lead of Wall of Horrors. Chas and I went along as support team. Chas belayed - I took photos. John climbed it with ease, making it look like any other climb. He was ten minutes arranging a Clog 1 wedge beneath the crux and climbed the whole route unhurriedly (20 mins). The weather was far from ideal - recent rain, gale force winds, and quite cold. Abseiling down to take the runners off (neither Chas nor I could do the starting moves), the rope was whipped right out over the top of the crag by the wind."
Gordon Stainforth - 16/Feb/07
"WALL OF HORRORS (XS), ALMSCLIFF. 5 NOV 1970
John Syrett mad the first sight-lead of Wall of Horrors. Chas and I went along as support team. Chas belayed - I took photos. John climbed it with ease, making it look like any other climb. He was ten minutes arranging a Clog 1 wedge beneath the crux and climbed the whole route unhurriedly (20 mins). The weather was far from ideal - recent rain, gale force winds, and quite cold. Abseiling down to take the runners off (neither Chas nor I could do the starting moves), the rope was whipped right out over the top of the crag by the wind."
One of the greatest UK climbing pictures, seeing it at the time was a shock, you knew climbing had stepped up a gear.
bill briggs - 22/Jun/07
What happened to John Syrett?
jlury - 27/Sep/07
He committed suicide in 1985 (jumped off Malham Cove).
Gordon Stainforth - 27/Sep/07
10 minutes!? crikey, I took all of 10 seconds putting in a cam and still got fairly pumped.
Ram MkiV - 06/Jan/08