James Pearson repeats Masters Crack (E9 7a)

• Monday 4th August 2025

James Pearson has made an early repeat of Crac yr Meistri (Masters Crack) in Nant Peris Quarry.

Visiting for his summer hols, James Pearson once again picks a plumb from the UK trad scene; last year it was the second ascent of Dave MacLeod’s Scottish masterpiece Echo Wall (E11 7a), this year it’s James MacHaffie’s Welsh slate testpiece, Crac yr Meistri (E9 7a) – a.k.a. Masters Crack.

James and Caro have climbed a fair bit in the slate quarries and clearly find them an inspiring place; “The Slate quarries are such an incredible place, and the more time we spend there, the more we appreciate them.  It's hard not to feel the weight of history on your shoulders, imagining what life must have been like for the quarry workers, surrounded by all those hundreds of thousands of tons of rock!” 

Following what is thought to be the third ascent of Crac yr Meistri, James Pearson describes the route saying; “Although not as dangerous as some of the more famous E9’s in the UK, Crac yr Meistri combines thin, 8b slab climbing, with protection from small nuts and tiny friends.” Experienced in the intricacies of Welsh Slate, James added; “The slate in this quarry is notoriously softer than that in the larger, more famous Dinorwic Quarries on the other side of the valley, meaning the small protection, often placed from pumpy, and awkward positions, make for a very exciting pitch.”

Whilst James’ efforts last year on Echo Wall – read about his ascent of that route here – were by necessity a strictly no kids mission, his ascent this year of Crac yr Meistri James and Caro brought the kids along keeping them entertained in between bouts of climbing with via-ferata style activities up ladders and other slate quarry shenanigans; “We visited North Wales for a weekend with the kids, taking in some of the best Welsh (adventurous) kids activities we know about, like "Snakes and Ladders” and some more classic trips to the beach. For a couple of hours each day, Caro and I took it in turn to go climbing, and I managed to lead this on my first try, after a working session the day before.”

Talking in a more detail, James described how he found the climbing; “I found the route a lovely, interesting experience, which reminded me how intensely technical and bizarre climbing on slate can be!  It's a style you don’t see anywhere else, where the tiny (but often positive) holds and the glass like surface of the rock, find you constantly flip-flopping from ‘impossible move', to 'no-hands rest'.”

Sadly, there was no photographer on hand to record James’ ascent as he explains; “As I climbed it a little quicker than expected, and nothing had been planned in advance, there was sadly nobody there to take pictures.  The only media we have is a couple of videos from phones placed in our shoes, so I edited them together and added some commentary.  It’s not the movie of the year, but it might give folks an insight into what climbing something like this involves.”

In the video James described in detail the whole route. Renowned for having a hard start James describes this section in some detail saying:

“Starting the route feels a bit like a slap in the face because basically the crux of the entire route comes right off the floor and because it's climbing on slate that means pulling on some tiny, tiny sharp little holds. It's a pretty intense boulder problem. It's protected by three pegs which you're pretty happy with because you don't have to place gear, but at the same time unhappy with because you've no idea how good they actually are. When you get to the end of the first five or six really intense moves, you get a fairly decent hold which allows you to have a quick breather, but not really stop because at this point, you're quite far above these pegs and there's a really sharp spiky rock on the floor and you really need to get some gear in.” James goes on to describe the rest of the route in the video which you can watch below.

James “Caff” MacHaffie made the first ascent of Crac yr Meistri (E9 6c) back in June 2022; in August of that year Angus Killi made the second ascent.