Peak District sport climbing cognoscenti are holding their breath at the moment as Mecca F8b+, one of Raven Tor’s most famous routes, enters its second week on the critical list! Twenty years after Martin Atkinson’s first ascent, the starting block of his test-piece route is in grave danger of falling to bits. Climbers are currently staying off the route whilst the ‘repair committee’ hastily muster their thoughts and resources’!

A week ago the wide-grip pinch block that most Meccaites take as their fifth handhold was noticed as being loose. The large block that is immediately below was also judged to be in a ‘critical’ condition. This block is also important to the route as it provides two further handholds as well as a foot-jam. The pinch-grip block was removed for safe keeping and warning notices were posted and the starting holds taped over to keep people off the route. In its present condition Mecca is considered very definitely un-climbable as well as dangerous.

Mecca, or Mecca: A Mid-Life Crisis to give it its proper name, was one of the first routes to be graded F8b+ in the UK. Having spent much of the summer trying the route, Martin Atkinson famously sent Mecca the day before he left to work overseas. Steve McClure, a man who has all but dominated the development at the Tor over the last decade, considers Mecca to be amongst the best of its grade in the country. And he should know having climbed not only Mecca but no fewer that three major extensions to it – two at F8c and one at F8c+.

Many climbers (yours truly included) have dedicated years to the job of a Mecca send. Despite its relatively accommodating moves – only one or two moves are considered ‘hard’ by today’s standards – Mecca has not been on-sighted nor even flashed to date. Visiting foreign dignitaries are often seen leaving the Tor shaking their heads in disbelief having had a mauling at the hands (or rather crimps) of Mecca. Ika Poo, one of the latest of the foreign rock stars to ‘have a bash’, was rumoured to have been muttering about F8c as he drove away!

So whilst Mecca is used to dishing out the dirt, on this occasion it’s having to take a dose of its own medicine! The aforementioned repair committee is currently considering the options. The favoured solution, at the moment, seems to be to remove all the loose holds and then carefully and painstakingly re-fix them in place using the favoured repair resin, Sika. This won’t be the first time that Mecca, or other routes have been crucially repaired with Sika, but it will be the first time that a block of such size and a route of such importance has been repaired in this way. Talk is of scaffold towers and working parties. Watch this space…

The start of Mecca with the warning notices, starting holds taped up and the block in question poised ominously above the path all in-shot. In the background, Steve McClure emerges - on a warm-up lap - from the depths of Ben’s Roof…