{"id":461117,"date":"2026-05-22T03:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T03:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/461117\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T03:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T03:14:10","slug":"british-blind-climber-jesse-dufton-sends-bat-out-of-hell-e5-6a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/461117\/","title":{"rendered":"British Blind Climber Jesse Dufton Sends \u2018Bat Out of Hell\u2019 (E5 6a)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published May 21, 2026 08:30PM<\/p>\n

On April 23, British climber Jesse Dufton was coming close to sending his spring project, a trad route called Bat Out of Hell in the Peak District of the United Kingdom. It was Dufton\u2019s thirteenth lead attempt, and he was a little over halfway up the line, entering the crux.<\/p>\n

He fixed his feet into a horizontal seam. Then he crouched down off a right sidepull and a poor left crimp on what he describes as a \u201crounded ball thing.\u201d He prepared to fire up into a massive left dyno, slapping high for a sloping, horizontal seam.<\/p>\n

The catch? Dufton had absolutely no idea where his hand was about to land, because he\u2019s completely blind.<\/p>\n

Mostly onsight, always nonsight
\n\"Jesse\u201cI look to where I think the hold is, and imagine that I can see it before I move,\u201d says Jesse Dufton.\u00a0(Photo: Alastair Lee \/ Brit Rock Films<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Forty-year-old Dufton was born with rod-cone dystrophy. This rare genetic eye disorder causes gradual vision loss. He\u2019s been functionally blind since his early twenties. Today, he can tell if it\u2019s daytime or nighttime, but that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n

But Dufton, who led his first gear route at the age of 11, never let his vision loss keep him off the wall. To date, he has onsighted (or, as he calls it, \u201cnonsighted\u201d) more than 2,000 traditional routes around the United Kingdom. His wife, Molly, is almost always on belay, verbally guiding him up the rock.<\/p>\n

Dufton\u2019s projecting, however, is much less ambitious. He\u2019s projected a grand total of three routes in his entire career. \u201cMy ratio is a bit skewed,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n

This is partly because of the stiff UK gritstone ethics he was raised on. But it\u2019s also because he finds trying new lines infinitely more enjoyable than rehearsing routes. \u201cOnsighting is more rewarding, because you\u2019re forced to solve the puzzle on the fly,\u201d he said. \u201cNothing else quite ticks that box for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

To date, Dufton\u2019s hardest sport route is Namaste<\/a> (5.11d) in Zion National Park\u2019s Kolob Canyon. His hardest trad send is Howling Gale (E3 6a) in Pembrokeshire, Wales, which would translate to the 5.11 range. Bat Out of Hell, at Higgar Tor in the UK\u2019s Peak District, is harder than both. It\u2019s also the first route that Dufton has ever headpointed\u2014worked on toprope before trying on lead. Dufton put only two sessions into the 65-foot gritstone line on toprope before deciding to work it on gear, simply because the route is quite steep, and it\u2019s hard to get back on the wall if you swing out.<\/p>\n

The route is graded E5 6a in the United Kingdom\u2019s combined scale, which denotes both physical difficulty and danger. The first metric, the E-grade of E5, describes the overall commitment of a route. This grade incorporates technical difficulty, but also exposure, rock quality, and gear placements. The second metric (6a) denotes the hardest physical move on a route, regardless of how many or where they are.<\/p>\n

A direct translation is impossible, but E5 6a equates roughly to 5.11+ or 5.12- in the Yosemite Decimal System. Dufton said the route is on the safer end of E5, but it\u2019s steep and pumpy. The only gear placement after the crux sequence is marginal\u2014a cam in a flared, shallow crack\u2014so a groundfall is possible. In terms of raw difficulty, he said the climb doesn\u2019t feel near-limit for him, but it has four dynamic moves, so rehearsing it was a necessity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d never go for a dynamic move onsight,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you can\u2019t see your target, your odds of catching it aren\u2019t great. So with Bat Out of Hell \u2026 the accuracy of making the dynamic moves was the hard bit. It wasn\u2019t a question of how hard I could pull or how long my arms would last for.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I first met Dufton in 2023<\/a>, he\u2019d told me dynoing was out of the question for a blind climber like him. But with Bat Out of Hell, and the help of a toprope to rehearse the moves, that\u2019s changed.<\/p>\n

So, how does a blind climber dyno?<\/p>\n

Dufton says it\u2019s all about proprioception. This term describes the human body\u2019s ability to sense its own position, movement, and orientation. \u201cYou have to understand the three-dimensional positioning of your body in space, and then imagine where the holds are in relation to it,\u201d Dufton explained.<\/p>\n

Even though Dufton can\u2019t see, he feels his dynos are more accurate if he pretends to see, pointing his head in the direction of where he thinks the hold is. \u201cI can usually do the movement if I point my head in another direction, but my accuracy almost always goes down,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I look to where I think the hold is, and imagine that I can see it before I move.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond visualization, to land the dyno, Dufton must stay mentally attuned to how his body feels. Most of the preparation for throwing for a big move, he told me, consists of recalling muscle memory. He conjures up past successful attempts, trying to replicate that feeling.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou visualize a little bit, but mostly you\u2019re thinking about the feeling of all the different body positions,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re trying to remember your previous attempts, and how you set up, remembering how much you needed to pull on each of your biceps or push off each of your legs, trying to remember if your feet feel the same as they did the last time.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange sensory puzzle. \u201cI honestly don\u2019t know if there\u2019s the vocabulary to describe this kind of feeling,\u201d Dufton said.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, he also tries something that might surprise climbers without any visual impairment: He closes his eyes. \u201cI generally don\u2019t have my eyes closed when I climb, because it takes concentration to keep them closed,\u201d Dufton said. \u201cBut when I was doing the first series of moves on Bat Out of Hell, I often did them with my eyes shut, because it actually helped me concentrate. It helped me get in the right mental state to remember all the little micro-adjustments that I needed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bat Out of Hell beta<\/p>\n

The first of Bat Out of Hell\u2019s four dynos awaits at the start of the route. \u201cYou have a sidepull with your right hand and your left in a crack,\u201d Dufton explained. \u201cYour left foot\u2019s outside edge is on a big shelf, and you have to pull in and slap your left hand up high to a ledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move is high-consequence. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to mess up, because underneath there\u2019s a load of sharp, jaggedy boulders that you\u2019d be falling back onto,\u201d Dufton said. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be pretty.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, the climber jams up higher. You plug a couple of pieces of gear, before laybacking up a large flake, roughly 10 to 15 degrees overhung. \u201cThe holds are big, but it\u2019s modestly steep,\u201d Dufton said.<\/p>\n

After that comes the first of two horizontal seams. For a sighted climber, this seam is a bomber spot to place gear. For Dufton, it\u2019s a bit trickier. \u201cThere\u2019s some really good gear on the right, but it\u2019s quite hard to place, because there\u2019s a little slot, which is only just wider than the head of the cam. You\u2019ve got to be very accurate,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

The dynamic sequence beyond this seam is the crux for Dufton. \u201cYou reach up above your head to get a side pull, but it\u2019s kind of undercut, because at this point, you\u2019re underneath it,\u201d he explained. \u201cThen you build your feet up, pull pretty hard on this sidepull as you get feet into that horizontal break where your gear is. Then you grab an intermediate, a poor, rounded ball thing, with your left hand, sink down and get ready to slap for that horizontal break.\u201d<\/p>\n

The way Dufton describes preparing to make a dyno like this, without any vision, is evocative of the metronome mechanics found in many video games, where one has to calculate the exact amount of force to land a shot. It\u2019s something of a dice roll. \u201cIf you put too much power in, you\u2019ll miss the break because you go too high,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if you\u2019re too tired, or put too little power in, you might miss the break because you don\u2019t go high enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move is also sketchy because of the threat of inadvertently snaking a foot behind the rope as you throw. \u201cOn my second lead attempt, I slapped for the break, missed, and got my foot tangled behind the rope, in one of the pieces of gear, as I fell,\u201d Dufton said.<\/p>\n

He flipped upside down during his fall, and smashed his head into the rock. \u201cIt was quite nasty,\u201d he remarked. \u201cLuckily, my right buttcheek took most of the impact, but it was a good advertisement for wearing a helmet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throwing into darkness<\/p>\n

Back on Jesse Dufton\u2019s thirteenth attempt on Bat Out of Hell, he crouched, preparing to launch into the move. He locked into the muscle memory he\u2019d built over previous attempts. Dialing in his power calculation, he aimed his head up at a hold he couldn\u2019t see and threw.<\/p>\n

His left hand found the sloping seam. From there, he brought his right hand up to match it in another big throw. \u201cThat sloper isn\u2019t very good, you can\u2019t go up off it static, and you\u2019re quite spread out, with both feet in the lower break, both hands in the upper break,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

Even after landing both hands in this shallow, slopey seam, the route doesn\u2019t let up. The only gear in the higher seam, a gold DMM (#4), is marginal. \u201cThe break that you\u2019re placing the cam into is really quite flared and shallow, so you can\u2019t get it as deep as you\u2019d like,\u201d Dufton said. He noted that many climbers don\u2019t place it, but then risk a groundfall in the final sequence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a little three-finger ripple that you can hold, but you haven\u2019t got any decent feet,\u201d Dufton said, \u201cso you put your feet on the sidepull, but you can\u2019t really push down, you\u2019ve got to push sideways.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, he made another dynamic throw up to a ledge, trusting his gold DMM. Beyond that, he fired a few insecure jams and a few more easy moves to the top.<\/p>\n

When Dufton successfully pulled over the lip, he\u2019d secured not only the hardest send of his career, but perhaps his most mechanically complex. He told me the climb opened his mind to the possibilities of headpointing and projecting. Perhaps\u00a0Bat Out of Hell will unlock new, harder climbs that he never would have been able to do without the ability to practice a route.<\/p>\n

But for now, he wants to ditch the rehearsals. \u201cHonestly, I really just want to go do some onsighting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published May 21, 2026 08:30PM On April 23, British climber Jesse Dufton was coming close to sending his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[120421,61,60,33480,199732,199733,199734,199735,80,2258],"class_list":["post-461117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-audio-true","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-parent_category-news","tag-tag-climbing-blind","tag-tag-gritstone","tag-tag-jesse-dufton","tag-tag-peak-district","tag-technology","tag-type-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}