The Sloth HVS 5a *** - The Roaches | Trad Climbing Peak District

Winter, 1954. Snow had stopped climbing elsewhere on the crag, but beneath the great roof at The Roaches there was still the possibility of dry rock. Joe Brown and Don Whillans had already talked about the line. A weakness through the roof. A way across what must have looked, at the time, like something very close to impossible. They tossed a coin for the lead of the second pitch, and it landed in Don’s favour. What followed became one of the great moments in British climbing folklore. Whillans moved through the roof with relative ease, astonishing those watching below, before producing the sort of dry, laconic line for which he became famous. Asked whether he had found it hard, he replied: “Not if you use yer loaf.” This is The Sloth at The Roaches, one of the most famous gritstone routes in the country and a climb which has lived in my memory for years. It was only my fifth trad lead when I first did it, and back then I found it both strenuous and scary. So it was about time I got back on it, to see how it felt now. 00:00 Start 00:12 Intro 00:35 Climbing Begins 02:04 Intro End (Pedestal) 03:15 Cheese Block Protection 04:04 Through the Roof 05:07 Outro and Top-out Keywords: The Sloth, The Roaches, Don Whillans, Joe Brown, British climbing history, UK trad climbing, gritstone climbing, Roaches climbing, Whillans quote, use yer loaf, classic rock climbs, Peak District climbing, trad climbing video, gritstone roof climbing #thesloth #theroaches #donwhillans #joebrown #uktrad #tradclimbing #britishclimbing #climbinghistory #gritstone #peakdistrictclimbing #roachesclimbing #climbingvideo #rockclimbing #useyerloaf