Factor Two

The whims and motivations of climbers really are another world to the person in the street. Understanding them is crossing a threshold, it requires a certain suspension of disbelief to start to see t…

Glenda Huxter was onsighting E7, Kath Pyke had extensive expe…

We all get enjoyment from climbing for different reasons. For many of us those reasons change over time, according to our geography, time, money and other pressures in our lives.

I’ve read Katherine …

In the spring of 1968 San Francisco film maker, Fred Padula, drove into the Yosemite Valley and gazed up at El Capitan. He had been approached by one of his film students, Glen Denny, a talented clim…

When it was released in 1998, Hard Grit gave us an insight into something we didn’t often see - the actual ascents of the hardest, most dangerous lines on grit.

In an era before everyone had a smartp…

When you look at the books on a shelf of mountaineering literature one thing is quickly apparent: the vast majority are written by men.

The same is true with the episodes I’ve produced for Factor Two…

It’s hard to be truly disconnected these days.

Even in the weirdness of isolation over the past few months many of us have been working from home, constantly bothered by the connections around us. So…

"I climb better when I'm scared."

I've heard this quite a few times. I even thought it was true about myself for a while in my earlier climbing career, but it surely can't be true?

After speaking wit…

Flow is a concept that can divide in climbing. For Dave Thomas it was the joyous experience that removed him from other problems in life. For Mina Leslie-Wujastyk it was a performance tool. Mina told…

Many of the stories in Factor Two feature the same scenario - What next? You always imagine ticking the big goal might be enough, but it rarely is.

For Ben Bransby and Jvan Tresch it seemed obvious w…

After hearing from Leo Houlding and Patch Hammond about their legendary Yosemite season in 1998 there was one obvious gap in our story - Ben Bransby.

Before attempting Freerider with Patch, Ben had m…

Internet forums wouldn’t be the same without their villains and heroes, would they? Franco Cookson appeared on the UKC forums back in February 2008. He began posting prolifically from the off and rar…

Patch Hammond has remained a bit of an enigma in the climbing world. If you flick through the magazines from the late 1990s you’ll see a scruffy youth with an impressive climbing CV – onsighting E6 a…

Back in 1998 Leo Houlding and Patch Hammond achieved something almost unthinkable – a near onsight ascent of El Capitan.

They were just 18, had no big wall experience and headed to Yosemite without a…

Prompted by Franco Cookson’s article on headpointing recently I thought I’d dig out this interview I recorded in November 2017 with Tim Lowe.

Tim is a climber from Yorkshire with an enviable ticklist…

In the last two episodes we looked at aspects of flow, whether seeking the euphoria as an escape or chasing it as a performance tool. But there’s an area of climbing where flow won’t be enough. The o…

Mina Leslie-Wujastyk has already established herself as one of the best sport climbers in the country, with redpoints up to 8c.

For the past few seasons she has been attempting Rainshadow, Steve McCl…

The young Dave Thomas was motivated by one thing above all others – soloing. In his own words he’s “Never climbed a hard route”, but anyone looking at his climbing C.V. would beg to differ.

In 1989 h…

There's something both romantic and illogical about taking the ultimate risk in climbing; leaving the rope behind and going solo. Justifying that is a question which has always fascinated me. For man…

Katy Forrester is a former member of the British bouldering and ice climbing teams. She's a fell runner and an accomplished trad and sport climber, with routes up to 7c+ and E8 under her belt. She al…