Hazel and Gary Gibson © Mick Ryan

Prolific, and sometimes controversial, new-router, Gary Gibson has just bolted and climbed his 4000th new route at Garage Buttress at Stoney Middleton in the Peak District. Gary named the route 4000, and graded it 6c.

Gary has been very active on the new-routing scene for more than 30 years now, putting up many classic trad routes across the country in places such as Lundy, Pembroke, and the Peak District. Routes such as A Widespread Ocean of Fear (E5) on Lundy, Souls (E6) at Pembroke and Midnight Summer Dream (E5) in the Peak, are just a few examples of the super classic trad routes that Gary put up around the early 1980s. In more recent years, Gary has been adding to his amazing tally of new routes by creating a very large number of bolted sport routes around the Peak, Clywd and South Wales, investing a lot of his own time and money in doing so.

Gary has also put a lot of time and money into re-equipping old routes - more details of his new routes and re-bolting activities can be found on his website: SportsClimbs.co.uk

It is not just Gary re-equipping routes in the UK. There are many others re-equipping routes that vitally need new bolts as the original bolts begin to corrode or, in some cases, are simply poor-quality or even home-made. There are a number of bolt-funds across the climbing areas of the UK. These funds rely upon voluntary donations to allow the re-equippers to do their work without having to shell out for expensive bolts, glue, drills and drill bits themselves. Bolt funds for North Wales, South Wales, Dorset, the Peak, Cheshire, Yorkshire, Cumbria, Scotland and Gary Gibson himself, all having been set up, either by keen individuals or small groups, with limited ability to promote themselves.

In December 2010, UKBoltFund.org was set up by UKC/Rockfax to increase the profile of these various bolt funds, and allow ease of promotion by drawing them all together under the one webpage. In April 2012, Alan James contacted the various people and groups responsible for the individual funds to see how they were getting on and whether UKBoltFund.org had proved useful. Alan's article can be found here

© Mick Ryan Gary Gibson on the first ascent of Four Thousand at Stoney Middleton

A thread has been started about Gary's 4000th new route, this can be viewed here