Jim Pope aces his 100th Grit FA with Cloud Gate
- Wednesday 2nd April 2025
Cloud Gate (Font 8B+) is Jim Pope’s 100th first ascent and it’s a real banger!
Writing his ascent up on his social media Jim said:
‘I Had a lot of fun figuring this one out š I first came across the boulder 5 years ago, and it took several sessions of scrubbing before it was remotely climbable. I had a few sessions on it over the years and sort of wrote it off as impossible as I could barely get off the floor!’
The difficult is self-evident from just looking at the photo’s of Cloud Gate; the grit is as round as the proverbial elephant’s (insert suitable anatomy part here…)
Jim again:
‘The rock doesn’t really have any ‘holds’ and is instead just one big hold/scoop. It’s a lot more physical than it looks and has a great balance of powerful and technical climbing, the bottom part felt like some of the hardest sloper malling I’ve done, followed by a really strenuous mantle.’
Anyone who has climbed on a slopey top-out on grit will be we aware of how difficult it is to get body weight over the “tipping point” on a rounded exit; “sloper malling” is the perfect description!
Jim explained the significance of his first ascent and the name too saying:
‘This one happened to also be my 100th first ascent and has been the most enjoyable one so far! I named it Cloud Gate after the reflective bean shaped sculpture in Chicago. It’s such a nice piece of rock it really is like a sculpture, and it’s hard to do it justice without standing beneath…’
Jim is proving himself to be especially adept at both finding and climbing what are clearly great grit boulders; Cloud Gate follows his first ascent of Lupin (Font 8B) earlier this year and Kindred (Font 8B+) last summer.