St Bees - The 2011 Known Unknown

Liam Lonsdale, the 2010 ‘Be in my Calendar’ competition winner, usurped all others to take pride of place on the front cover of Climbing 2011. Pulled from the hat in the now well-established annual ‘Be in my Calendar’ competition, Liam was photographed at St Bees on bank holiday Monday under, yeah get this, a cloudless blue sky! And now he’s centre-stage for 2011 as cover-man – such responsibility...

Publishing a climbing calendar feels a bit like taking a roller-coaster ride to me. Firstly, there’s the anticipation, then there’s the apprehension, then the manic ride itself, then the post-ride adrenaline-fuelled swagger and then finally the reflective calm and analysis. Whilst jumping onto a roller coaster only involves one decision - do I or don’t I, publishing a calendar is a constant stream of evaluations, decisions, arrangements, re-schedules etc.. And that’s just on those things that I can control. Factor in, the weather and it’s time to reach for the brufen. Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining - no sir, I’m totally addicted to it; I figure that it is the challenge of the unknown that does it for me – strangely similar, in fact, to climbing itself.

Former US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfield , famously wrestled with unknowns a bit too…

“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know we don’t know.”

Rumsfield, of course, was focusing on weighty matters of state but hey, I reckon it applies to the calendar too. The start and the finish of the calendar are obvious, the known knowns. And I know that there will be twists and turns betwixt the start and the finish, the known unknowns. I’ve developed coping strategies to handle many of these over the years. Paradoxically though, and just for fun, I’ve deliberately added some unknowns back into the mix for the last three years in the shape of the ‘Be in my Calendar’ Competition. And so back to Liam, this year’s winner, who is based up in the Lakes. Chewing the fat with Liam, we talked over possible venues before finally zeroed in on Carrock Fell and St Bees, two slightly different venues in The Lakes. I’d been keen for some time to check-out both venues so it was a perfect opportunity. Bank holiday Monday suited our diaries and for once the forecast looked good. So that was a couple of the known unknowns nailed down; the who and the where – result.

Come the day, the alarm went off at five thirty – nice. By six, Rae, my wing man for the day, and myself were heading out of Sheffield on route to Carrock Fell. A massive hillside of roadside gabbro greeted us a couple or three hours later. It was a tough call where to start but we figured that sticking to three star action was a sound plan. Boardman’s Arete (Font 5+) and Rouse’s Wall (Font 6c/+), a pair of Carrock Fell classics, choose themselves really.

Boardman’s is pretty steady, save the first few moves, though by the time you pull over the top it’s getting quite highball. The sitter looked tasty – as did the traverse into it from the left. We gave both a bit of a half-hearted burn but pretty quickly played the ‘conditions card’; the shade of Rouse’s Wall seemed like a smart move. That said, and to be honest, it didn’t go down easily. By now we were a couple of hours into the day and the gabbro was starting to take serious skin. Somewhere in the distance St Bees was calling; it was time to do one.

It’s a bit of a hike over to St Bees and to be honest, I was glad that Phil, Liam’s mate, had been before and knew the drive along the back roads of northwest Cumbria. From the farm-yard parking spot it was a short walk over to the crag though dropping down the footpath to St Bees itself was not without interest. The in-situ ropes certainly sanitised the descent. Never having been to St Bees before it was immediately obvious once down at sea-level why St Bees has seen a tremendous increase in popularity in recent years. The situation was stunning; the red sandstone looked awesome, especially when set against a cloudless blue sky. Was this really the Lakes? Had we died and gone to climbing heaven?

The sun wasn’t fully onto the crag by the time we threw our sacks down. The tide was coming in though hence access was limited to the northern end of St Bees. Even so, we had loads of boulders and the bulk of the crag to go at. As attractive as the bouldering looked – and it looked pretty darned good – I was super keen to get Liam onto a route. One route in particular stood out, Dreaming of Red Rocks (F7a+). This was reckoned to be one of St Bees’s ‘must-do’ gems. Certainly, Dreaming looked good; not stupidly long, though long enough and steep with it – gently overhanging in fact for its full length. For those of you who haven’t been, the base of St Bees is a broad ledge which gently shelves into the sea. St Bees is also very popular with fishermen and there was a good few casting their lines into the sea that day. I’m used to ‘working’ around crag traffic, i.e. avoiding other climbers on other routes nearby to the one I’m trying to photo, but fishermen in the background was a new one on me. And every once in a while a boat sailed by too. Hmmm... I wondered; would these be an interesting background opportunity or an irritating nuisance that would need to be carefully eliminated from the frame?

Photographically the situation could well have been pants; strong midday sunlight isn’t reckoned to be the stuff of dreams. Talk to any serious photog about what makes a good image and they’ll come back to you with any number of ‘must-have’ ingredients. One though will be common to most lists – good light. The definition of ‘good light’ varies though but typically the golden hour (dawn or dusk) will feature. Strong midday light would usual NOT be on many photogs list’s though. Yet that was exactly what we had and it was striking the richly coloured and highly pocketed rock at such a high angle it accentuated the rock texture and to be fair, the blue sky and sea were nothing if not lush. All that was needed was a climber in suitable clothes. And that’s where Liam came in…

With Dreaming duly photographed it was time to relax and have some fun – clearly that meant hitting the bouldering. What to say about St Bees bouldering other than it’s really quite superb. Sadly it was way too warm to pull on anything too hard and we were all beginning to flag a bit but that didn’t stop us from trying.

It was a cracking day and we didn’t get back to Sheffield till well past midnight. We’d have one heck of a day and merely skimmed the surface at a couple of venues that are pretty darned good. A selection of the photos I got during the day are featured here in the on-line gallery. Three though are being used in Climbing:2011. I hope they entice you to get along to St Bees. Meanwhile, here’s a final thought on the subject of unknowns. Philosopher Slavoj Žižek , reckons that there’s a fourth category, the so-called unknown knowns, to further muse over. These are things that we know but that we deliberately think or maintain that we don’t know. Time for the brufen again!