Pietro Vidi Sends 10 of the UK’s Hardest, Sketchiest Grit Routes in a Historic Rampage

Italian climber Pietro Vidi has just returned from a two-week trip to the UK, where he made one of the most impressive Peak District gritstone rampages in history: four E9 (5.13/5.14 R/X) ascents and ten hard trad sends overall. The 22-year-old Italian’s jaw-dropping ticklist is comparable to the 2009 achievements of 15-year-old Japanese climber Toru Nakajima, whose one-week spree totaled three E9s, including a first ascent and some bold solos.

Although Pietro Vidi is not yet a household name, his all-rounder résumé speaks volumes: he has bouldered V16 (Fuck the System and Permanent Midnight Low in Val de Bagnes), trad climbed Tribe (E11 7a or 5.14 R) in Cadarese, and earlier this year made the second free ascent of Lurking Fear (5.13c) on El Capitan.

Read on for a breakdown of exactly what Vidi accomplished in his first trip to the Peak District.

Short, runout, and burly

Vidi’s granite-honed skills, boulder strength, and composure transferred well to gritstone, a coarse-grained sandstone found in England’s Peak District and long-revered as “God’s own rock”. There, bold routes around 10 to 20 meters tall are known for their limited protection and high groundfall potential.

The area’s most storied lines were made famous by the 1998 movie Hard Grit, which featured pioneers Johnny Dawes, Seb Grieve, Jerry Moffat, Ben Moon, Leo Houlding, and others making bold first ascents. Today, the hardest UK grit trad line remains Equilibrium (E10 7a or 5.14 X), which Neil Bentley first established in 2000 as the world’s hardest trad line at the time. For those unacquainted with the British Trad Grade system, the first E-number represents the route’s overall seriousness and difficulty, which currently extends up to E12, while the second element describes the technical difficulty of the hardest move.

Inspired by watching Hard Grit “over and over,” Vidi travelled to the UK for the first time in late September. “I’ve always been fascinated by the Peak and its aesthetics,” he told Climbing. “I definitely had to get used to the classic smears and pebbles, but overall, the style suited me pretty well. The gear was generally decent. The only problem was that it was mostly at one-third height!”

Vidi’s hardest ascents were made in just five climbing sessions between rain and rest days. Before he made any lead attempts, he worked the moves on a static line or top-rope.

Here are the ten gnarly trad ticks that earned Vidi his place in history:

The End of the Affair (E8 6c or 5.12+ X)

This classic, committing arête on Curbar Edge was Vidi’s first gritstone lead. Established by Johnny Dawes in 1986, the 14-meter line involves delicate moves with good nut placements one-third of the way up before a committing, high crux. Falling from the last move requires the belayer to jump off a ledge in an attempt to shorten the fall (as tried and tested by Dawes!).

Braille Trail (E7 6c or 5.12+ R/X) and Grandad’s Slab (E8 6c or 5.12 R/X)

Braille Trail is a delicate slab on Burbage South Edge with mere pebbles for handholds before a narrow seam and an easier but exposed finish. It’s a 10-meter Johnny Dawes testpiece with historically unconventional protection, including rusty pegs, six-inch nails and even a shop fitting from a local climbing store.

After securing belays from some locals, Vidi used “a big peg in the first slot and two more taped together in the second.”

Grandad’s Slab, now missing a critical pebble, is the direct finish to Braille Trail. Pete Whittaker made the first ascent in 2008 at age 16.

“Weird gear, insecure moves on pebbles, and potential ground falls: a proper day on grit!” Vidi commented.

Gaia (E8 6c or 5.12+ X) and Meshuga (E9 6c or 5.13 X)

On the dark and foreboding gritstone of Black Rocks, the technical but well-protected 20-meter Gaia groove leads to a rest before a bouldery finishing traverse on slopers and a thrutchy kick to a toe-hook on an arête for the last move. French climber Jean-Minh Trinh-Thieu fumbled the top and smashed into the base of the climb and broke his leg, as memorably depicted in the opening credits of Hard Grit.

Nearby, Meshuga is an intimidating 24-meter prow with compression moves and a blind slap around the arête above a rocky landing, first climbed by Seb Grieve in 1997 and free-soloed by Alex Honnold and Kevin Jorgeson in 2008.

On Instagram, Vidi called Gaia and Meshuga “the two most iconic lines from Hard Grit for me, and the ones that inspired me to make the trip!”

That evening, he sent the airy 8A/V12 arête Careless Torque at Stanage Plantation. Despite rain the following day, he returned to Stanage in the evening and squeezed in the rarely repeated ten-meter prow line Unfamiliar (E7 6c or 5.12+ R).

Dynamics of Change (E9 7a or 5.13+ R/X)

The overhanging section below the slab of Braille Trail at Burbage South Edge features a dyno before a tough mantle with a high heel-hook on a 10-meter arête. A famous photo of a teenage Pete Whittaker grimacing on the first ascent with his heel above his head in 2008 looms large in the psyche of grit fanatics.

“The line is incredible and the rockover move is super iconic,” Vidi wrote after he sent the 10-meter line. “It was also probably the most mentally demanding as I got pretty sketched on the final slab where I missed a hold!”

On the same day, Vidi flashed the delicate arête Balance It Is (E7 6c or 5.12+ R) and Samson, an 8A/V11 highball boulder problem originally climbed with a rope by Jerry Moffatt in Hard Grit.

The Groove (E9 7b or 5.14+ R/X)

The Groove is a rarely-repeated 18-meter James Pearson layback groove and arête line, first climbed in 2008. It’s renowned due to both its original grade of E10 7b (5.14+ X) and its starring role in Progression (2009), which featured Kevin Jorgeson’s gutsy repeat.

The line at Cratcliffe Tor features a boulder crux low down and is complicated by variations on the finish: Pearson’s original sequence of the second crux boulder can be avoided by traversing right onto a neighboring route, as Jorgeson did. Vidi, however, kept to the left of the arête, closer to the original line.

He fell once on the low crux—“the hardest move I’ve done on grit!”—and split his skin on the last move using Pearson’s crimp beta. Afterward, just as he did on the crux of Lurking Fear, the former comp climber opted to dyno.

“In hindsight, I think both methods are contrived in some ways. The original is probably a bit harder, but I don’t think it would really make a difference to the grade or be much more logical,” Vidi wrote about The Groove.

Appointment with Death (E9 6c or 5.13+ X)

While en route to the airport, Vidi managed to tick one last classic at Wimberry Rocks. The direct line above Appointment with Fear (E7 6b or 5.12+ R) was first climbed in 2003 by Sam Whittaker, co-founder of the famous Climbing Works gym in Sheffield.

The 18-meter route demands pebble-pulling before some desperate sloper-slapping, protected only by some gear far below and off to the side on the neighboring route.

A Pete Whittaker-approved ticklist

“Couldn’t really ask for a better trip, only two days of rain in two weeks, many five star lines climbed and managed to talk away with no injuries,” Vidi wrote.

Even local legend Pete Whittaker commented “Nice work!” on his Instagram post.

The Italian is now in Yosemite and plans to return to the UK next spring to complete the remaining ten of fifteen Hard Grit ticklist routes—and potentially become the first to do so.

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