On the last day of 2007 Pete Robins made the ‘arduous’ 50m trek up the hill from Parisella’s Cave to sample the delights of the Breck Road area. After repeating all the existing lines (including a possible second ascent of Chris Doyle’s Texas Karaoke Massacre which he thought was excellent and worth V8/7b once you’d sussed the correct sequence) he climbed the obvious right hand start to the aforementioned problem.

Happy New Year start V8/7b climbs up into the base of the hanging groove left of Burning Sphincter and then traverses left along the lip to finish as for Texas Karaoke Massacre.

In the same session Si Panton climbed the obvious (and no doubt done before) Burning Sphincter – Breck Road connection, which turned out to be very good and worth about V6/7a.

This bizarrely neglected section of the Ormes really deserves more attention; it often stays dry when other parts of the crag are suffering from the 'warm = damp' conditions blight, but most importantly there is now a good range of problems to try:

Burning Sphincter V5/6c – powerful lip encounter

The Breck Road V5/6c+ - seemingly desperate crux move, but okay once you commit.

Burning Sphincter – Breck Road connection V6/7a – powerful stuff

Ring Peace V7/7a+ - unnerving lurch, followed by wild finish

Empire of Dirt V7/7a+ - intense diagonal line

Texas Karaoke Massacre V8/7b – another intense number building to a very wild finish

Happy New Year start V8/7b – funky alternative start to TKM; same crux

The landing is flat, but slightly rocky so take all the pads you’ve got, plus a toothbrush stick to reach high holds. All the problems finish at prominent jugs at a nice jump-off height.

Relevant links:
      Texas Karaoke Massacre news item
      Empire of Dirt news item