Adam Long

 31, Sheffield

Don’t be fooled by the far from fresh indie look – style is incredibly important to Adam. Situated at the heart of the scene during the Hard Grit headpointing boom of the late nineties, he resisted the lure of top ropes and big numbers, instead concentrating on developing his skills in line with his ground-up ethos. He was rewarded with several E6s in this style, as well as one of the earliest flashes of a grit E7 when he climbed Kaluza Klein at Robin Hood’s Stride in 1998. An historically significant ascent.

Central to Adam’s strict ethos is a desire for uncompromised adventure. And when he’s not climbing arêtes at Stanage, he travels widely to search out some of the riskier undertakings available. Whether that’s big walling in Yosemite or Patagonia, winter climbing in Scotland, or distributing his weight across some tottering pile of choss on the Lleyn, will probably depend on the weather.

Oh he also takes the odd picture.