Tom Randall and Pete Whittaker (AKA The Wide Boyz) are some of, if not the best crack climbers around today (and arguably have the best climbing YouTube channel).
They’re also exceptional climbers in their own right, though both are too modest to admit it (google “Pete Whittaker The Complete Scream E8 onsight”). Tom & Pete first rose to fame in 2011, following their FFA of the notorious Century Crack (5.14b) considered the world’s hardest offwidth. They have since dispatched and established many of the world’s hardest crack climbs, including Cobra Crack (5.14b/c), Pura Pura (FA 8c+), and Recovery Drink (8c+), just to name a few.
The Wide Boyz recently added to this list, establishing The Great Rift, a 760m long, dead horizontal roof crack big wall…under a motorway in Devon, England. Though it may sound comical, The Wide Boyz have said this was one of the hardest and best bits of crack climbing they’ve done to date, and is unlikely to see a repeat for a very long time (if ever).
VL’s resident crack frother Sule sat down with The Wide Boyz to find out what makes The Great Rift so special. If you haven’t seen the trailer, go check it out now at reelrocktour.com
So Mark Bullock sent you a photo of ‘the crack’ back in 2018 and Tom started some recon in late 2021. Tell us about the early process leading up to your first attempt.
Yeah Mark sent Tom a photo way back, I didn’t even know that he’d sent it to Tom. I think back in 2018 it wasn’t really applicable in a sense, but once we started climbing some local bridge cracks during COVID Tom and I started thinking “Imagine if there was a bridge crack that was multiple pitches or would take multiple days, just something absolutely huge”. So we actually started looking for a few of those
