A notoriously challenging bouldering problem in the UK’s Peak District has been ascended for only the second time. It took 12 years for another climber to successfully repeat the highly technical Smiling Buttress route.
Alex Moore, from Manchester, England, finally repeated the boulder climb, which includes two tricky sloped holds on a gently overhanging wall, earlier this month near the Derbyshire village of Curbar.
Prior to the first accent in 2013 by another British climber Tyler Landman, Smiling Buttress was one of the UK's most-attempted boulder climbs.
The boulder problem, which is reckoned to be in the the 8B/8B+ (V13/14) climbing grades range, was even featured in a now cult classic film Hart Grit, which was made in the 1990s. It revealed another climber Ben Moon, also British, who repeatedly failed to complete the route on the gritstone wall.
Moore, who is supported by Scarpa, revealed in an interview just how tough the climb is. He told UKC: “You don’t have to make much of a mistake to have a very slim chance of making the last move.”
Moore has climbed several other tough grit routes in the UK, including The Groove, Frowned Upon and Rare Lichen, and has also bouldered The Boss.
