A can of worms

A CAN OF

WORMS

An Interview with Andy Swann Andy Swann is a name, which resonates amongst climbers upon the grit stone edges of Yorkshire.

Although some may have become more famous and some may have climbed harder routes, very few climbers have made a greater impact on the county. Andy, by contrast, single handedly pioneered the Yorkshire bouldering revolution as it stands today and whilst doing so left an impressive string of test pieces, which in time may be seen as a larger and more exceptional achievement than any individual climb. These fierce, technical and powerful test pieces remain a highly sought challenge with the best climbers of each generation and I am sure will continue to do so for many years to come. Nevertheless, many people know little about this somewhat mythical Yorkshire Icon. So, I caught up with the man himself to unearth his roots and find out more about the accomplishments he is most notorious for.

Start by telling us how it all began, where you started climbing, how old you were and why these first experiences of climbing drove you to continue?

I started off climbing when I was 13 or 14 with the lad I used to go cycling with, he asked me if I fancied going climbing but I told him it was too dangerous and that I thought we should stick to cycling. Later in 1979, three of us went on a camping trip to Appletreewick, we ended up on Simons Seat walking about and did what is now known as bouldering. I realized that I was quite good at climbing, it suited me and I enjoyed it, so Simon and me decided to have a go properly. Simon’s Dad had previously been a climber and had some old equipment in the loft, so we pinched it and went out to Ilkley. We didn’t have any tuition or any proper knowledge about what we were doing, we just had a good look in a book, went out there and just made it up. Now… the old man found out we had been out of couple of times and hit the roof, but offered to take us out and show us just once how to use this old rope. He showed us waist belays, shoulder belays then said to us “ I cant help you beyond that lads because I’m too busy, but crack on” and that’s how it started.

Given the vast amount of crags we have on offer in Britain, the ability to travel is vital. How did you manage to get around at such a young age?

We started off on the bikes cycling to all the crags and using the bus… then I started hitching from Leeds to get to the crags further afield. After around 8 months it became clear that I was probably a bit keener than Simon, so my Dad advised me to join a climbing club to see where that would take me. I began going to the Leeds Mountaineering Club down at The Grove pub on a Tuesday night, met some climbers there and started getting lifts from them but as my enthusiasm for climbing was massive I continued biking to the local crags, using the bus and hitching.

Technical advances in gear, and the introduction of bouldering mats have made falling off climbs much more feasible in recent years. Did the absence of this technology affect the way you had to approach routes and the mentality needed to consider trying them?

I’ve got no doubt that lots of pads make some of the really high stuff much more do-able, that and cams, but we were pretty up for It and didn’t know any of that. It might have limited us to a degree but we were much better and bolder than people have to be now and approached routes with the intention of not falling off. I look at the landings at my age now and can’t believe that I did some of those things casually without mats… but you just learn to do that don’t you.

The introduction of sticky rubber is thought to have made climbing drastically easier and many people speak very highly of EB’s. As dashing as they looked, how good were they?

They were better than trainers, they were better than plimsolls and I can still remember the first time that I wore sticky rubber, it made a massive difference. I can still remember that first route at Malham, Mullato Wall, I had these stickies on and although they were a bit big for me they made a huge difference... a huge difference. The way you climbed was different because you could smear on most stuff, they fitted better and they had really advanced since those first fire’s, which were quite soft and wore out very quickly. Now rubber is high friction but its longer lasting, there’s more of an edge on some shoes and the shape is much better so footwear has really come on.

“YOU JUST SEE PEOPLE LIKE THAT CLIMBING AND YOU TRY TO BECOME LIKE THAT BECAUSE IT’S CLEARLY A REALLY EFFECTIVE AND ARTFUL WAY TO CLIMB”

It is enviable to think that you witnessed some of the most revolutionary eras in climbing, I always imagined climbing culture in Britain to be thriving back then.

How did it contrast to the scene today and do you feel things have changed much since?

Things have definitely changed, there’s a lot more people climbing now but there’s also a lot more sub cultures within climbing. Nowadays some people just climb indoors, just boulder or just climb trad and then some people do the whole lot. Back then bouldering wasn’t considered a sport but we still did it and soloed routes too, we tended to do everything and that was the traditional approach to climbing. You came in to climbing and you started traditional climbing, you then quickly progressed to the mountains to do multi pitch climbing and after that you went winter climbing. Then you went to the Alps, the Himalayas and that’s what you did. According to different times of the year you did different things. There are some people around who still do all that but increasingly I think people stick to what they can fit around busy work schedules. I feel a lot of people now sport climb or boulder because it’s easy to achieve results in the time that they have available.

Do you think the demise of trad climbing is a result of the modern approaches to climbing and busy work schedules?

If you look at the crag tonight, trad climbing is alive and well it’s just that not everybody does it now. Back in the day you could rely on everybody being in Pembroke on the sea cliffs at Easter and you’d see everybody there.

Whereas now, there is definitely as many trad climbers but there’s more places to go, more things to do and more people travelling abroad. Although it might seem that the scene has died it hasn’t really, it’s just that people are spread out doing different things.

Living and climbing in Yorkshire during such a significant time of new routing must have been incredibly inspiring for you as a young lad, what was it like being surrounded by the big names and who did you look up to?

of the 80’s, he’d be forty and I’d be fifteen years younger than him. But it was Al’s approach to training that was new to me. Everything I had achieved prior was just through inspiration, I had never trained for climbing ever, I used climbing walls a lot and got quite strong but never trained.

When I met Al he was heavily into training and as a result we did lots of weight training, lots of wall training and I got incredibly strong. Most of all I gained that training mentality from him which really helped me for competitions which is where I took it for a little while.

Did any of Al’s trademark traits brush off on you during the time you spent climbing together?

That’s a hard one to answer. I certainly tried to stick with the agreed ethos and ethics of trying to do everything first go and that being really important. Although its difficult for me to answer whether I became like him with traits I certainly shared that ethos and maybe became a little bit arrogant too at one stage.

Contrasting to yours and Al’s ethics toward climbing, top roping, red pointing and ultimately pre-practicing routes is widely practiced and accepted today. Back then were these ethics taken as seriously as people might be lead to believe?

Yeah I think they were, I’ve top roped new routes with Al in the past but other than that always just gone for them ground up. We did do bits and pieces of abseiling and cleaning too but only in minimal amounts. I’m not very good at red pointing, I’m not really that patient, I’ve got a really good first go in me and my motivation is high for that. But you know I’ve come to understand that climbing is a free sport and you can do what you like as long as you’re not damaging the rock and not changing it for other people. People find their own challenges and I guess we set our sights fairly high and tried to always on-sight.

Over the years you have been responsible for the first ascents of many hard boulder problems that still stand as test pieces today, which one of these do you feel was your greatest achievement and why?

I was totally inspired by all the big names and it has an impact on you because you aspire to be like them, you see how they climb and you take from it what you can. I mean you can’t have their talents but they can inspire you.

Ron Fawcett inspired me; although I didn’t used to see him much I have seen him climb plenty of times, though one of the most inspiring people for me was Alan Manson who is a good friend of mine now. You just see people like that climbing and you try to become like that because it’s clearly a really effective and artful way to climb.

I put up a few problems just as bouldering was becoming recognized and I didn’t even know it. We started to seek out a couple of low starts and roof problems, I did Demon Wall Roof left hand without really knowing much about bouldering, I did The Keel too, we called it The Fin which I also did without really knowing what I was doing. I’m pretty proud of them because the way we did them was so unrefined and it was very challenging to do them that way, modern sequences have certainly brought one of them down a few grades now.

Although climbing apprenticeships are common in climbing, you served yours with Al (Manson). How did that apprenticeship come about and what was it like being young, impressionable and climbing with someone as iconic as Al?

Was putting up these boulder problems a conscious effort or through the natural progression of finding new challenges?

I probably had completely served my apprenticeship by the time I met Al. Although I’d seen him around I will have properly met Al and become friends with him at the end

Not to begin with we were just climbing all the lines possible, none of them were documented, named or graded. At the time it was very organic, we were finding new challenges and enjoying doing it. These days it’s all documented.

“I’M NOT VERY GOOD AT RED POINTING, I’M NOT REALLY THAT PATIENT, I’VE GOT A REALLY GOOD FIRST GO IN ME AND MY MOTIVATION FOR THAT IS HIGH”

“IF YOU WANT TO GET THE BEST OUT OF YOURSELF, YOU’VE GOT YOUR POTENTIAL THERE AND YOU VIEW YOUR POTENTIAL AS SOMETHING YOU WANT TO USE TO THE BEST OF YOUR ABILITY, IF YOU DON’T TRAIN YOU WONT REACH IT” Bouldering aside have you ever applied yourself to new routing?

Yeah, I’ve done quite a few new routes in North Wales on the slate, we did a few new routes down there during the slate boom. Although I’ve never been massive on new routes as there’s always been plenty of other stuff to do.

Given the difficulty of some of these ascents, training must have played somewhat of a role in your success.

To what extent did you train and diet for climbing and do you think they are essential for climbing at a competitive standard?

If you want to get the best out of yourself, you’ve got your potential there and you view your potential as something you want to use to the best of your ability, if you don’t train you wont reach it. I have trained but I’m not saying all the training was the wisest training. We didn’t have a lot of information about training but we were certainly strong and we certainly trained, we were over strong in a lot of ways.

I have never dieted, ever, I know that some people have but I’ve always done things other than climbing so I’ve never really wanted to get stick thin. I’ve got a reasonably athletic build but I’ve never dieted as such.

With contrast to your successes in bouldering, you competed for Britain in the lead climbing championships. Did you enjoy the experience of competitive climbing and how did you place?

I went to the first climbing event ever at Leeds Uni, which was prior to the Grand Prix event. All the pro’s and full time climbers were there and I think I realized that I had the mentality for it. I’m really competitive and have done a lot of competitive sport in my life, I was quite happy to be overtly competitive with other people and I found I got a lot out of myself, maybe not now but back then.

Ben Moon and Mark Leech hit the top and held it, I hit the top and didn’t, it was that close. Everybody was at that event and I’ve still got a list of who was there and some photos a bloke took too, it was great. But I’d not trained at that point, it was just based on what I could do. I did lots of climbing comps after that and won quite a few national events but I was quite old. I was 28 or 29 and the best people coming through like Ian Vickers were 18,19,20. I never beat Ian he was a super talent.

How did your place on the British team come about then, was it a result of your success in competitions?

I mean that’s a can of worms you’ve just opened right there. Sheffield was the centre of climbing, self appointed, it wasn’t the most transparent selection process to get onto the team and it seemed like it was a little bit of a committee. Even though I was on aggregate second in the British Championships and placed second across the series I didn’t automatically get onto the team. Things have come along way now and it’s a lot more organized but at the time it wasn’t that fair.

It seemed they weren’t judging people so much on their results in climbing comps, they were looking maybe more at some of the top ascents people were achieving and I wasn’t really red pointing hard routes I was trying to onsight routes. I was training for indoor climbing at the time, so I was climbing indoors and that’s why I could beat a lot of them… because I was being more focused. Also, I was a little bit older than some of the others, so they were maybe looking to invest their time in, and rightly so, young people who were going to be with them for a bit longer.

Was there any rivalry between climbers?

I had a fierce rivalry with Ben Moon and managed to beat him at one event in Sheffield, he was placed second and I came first, that was one of by best results ever. In a bouldering event too… and he was the bouldering wod.

For someone on the British team responsible for many first ascents you have surprisingly been subject to little coverage. Was this something you consciously chose to avoid?

Certainly now, yeah. Anytime anybody got a camera out, or over the last ten years when they have been making videos I’ve been keen to just not be there.

Besides your work, what does climbing mean to you at present?

It’s massively important for me, really in terms of getting that balance. I like the challenge and the social side of it is massive for me, but also the physical, technical and mental challenges that it throws up. I really like the environment side of it as well; I mean just the places you get to climb at.

Climbing has offered me a lot of different things and it still does. Even though I can’t quite get to where I might want to be, because it offers me so much it’s still worth doing it.

So, it’s all good for me.