Gripped Magazine
Hazel Findlay on 5.14R Trad Send: “Motherhood has expanded my mental and physical capacity”
James McHaffie’s direct start to Mission Impossible (E9 7a), called Yma O Hyd 5.14R trad (E10 7a), was climbed three times in a single day by three veteran gear climbers: Hazel Findlay, James Taylor, and Tom Pearce.
Yma O Hyd, found at Skyline Buttress in the Ogwen Valley, is one of the hardest trad climbs in North Wales, an area known for hard trad climbs. Despite the U.K. being in the midst of a heatwave, with temperatures reaching 30°C, they found a weather window that was just sufficient for back-to-back-to-back sends.
“Motherhood has expanded my mental and physical capacity beyond what I imagined,” Findlay shared after her send. “A couple of years ago I never would have believed I could climb a route like this while still breastfeeding through the night and functioning on broken sleep for well over a year.” Read Findlay’s full remarks on her post below.
While Taylor hasn’t been chasing grades lately, a few years ago he made the first ascent of Prisoners of the Sun (E9 6c). Pearce, meanwhile, has been on fire this year, with redpoints of Llechan Lân (E10 6c), Dark Religion (E9 7a), Olwen (E9 6c), Prisoners of the Sun (E9 6c), and Mission Impossible (E9 7a).
The route has been repeated by other experienced trad climbers, including Emma Twyford and Steve McClure, who was the first to climb it without clipping the fixed pegs.
McClure told Climber, “The trad gear is mostly OK. There’s just one section in the middle where there’s a good peg, the pegless version has instead a small RP, and then higher, the next good peg is usually clipped from a decent hand hold… but it’s crucial to get a cam in that hand hold so you have to commit to the first crux and reach back and plug a cam into it. Falling off there onto the RP far below could be nasty.”
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