Master's Edge is an traditional climbing route on a gritstone arête in the "Corners Area" of Millstone Edge quarry, in the Peak District, England.
History
Fawcett's rival, English climber Jerry Moffatt, had been top-roping the route earlier that year, waiting for the right conditions to lead it, and had said that: "anyone who could do this climb without abseiling down it first, or practicing it on a top rope, would be a true master".
In his biography, Fawcett said that by late 1983, he was desperate to find a bold new route and that someone had mentioned that Moffatt had been working on a new climb just below Great Arete (E5 5c), at Millstone Edge, and had already called it Master's Edge (in January 1983, Moffatt had freed a major new route he called Master's Wall E7 6b at Clogwyn Du'r Arddu). While only 28 at the time, Fawcett remarked that "I was starting to feel part of an older generation whose time was passing, Master's Edge might give me the chance to turn the clock back a little". Fawcett, belayed by his wife Gill, completed the route in one day on 29 December 1983 after taking a few attempts, and one serious fall that was arrested by his new Amigo protection but without the aid of top-roping. Fawcett said that Moffatt was pretty upset, but in the era before sport climbing in Britain (i.e. where climbers would take time to install bolts onto a route), "it was a free for all".
Described as "Fawcett's Masterpiece", In September 1994, 19-year old Airlie Anderson made the first female free ascent of the route,