UKC

16 year old Adam Ondra has climbed what he considers to be his hardest route yet.

The new line, which he has graded F9a+/b, is an extension of the existing route Marina (F8c/+) in Sardinia and is now named Marina Superstar.

Full first-hand account and superb photo gallery:

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=50037

In reply to UKC News:

Looking at the photos he appears comfortable, very happy and serene when climbing.....

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com: don't we all.

Well done Adam.

In reply to UKC News:

Blinkin' flip! I've been to Domusnovas and it is (a) very steep and (b) practically holdless (think Malham but without the undercuts and sidepulls...).

I notice he took 3 days to think of the grade...about time he manned up and came over to give TPS a go...

TPS? sorry at work and dont want to think to much

In reply to Tom_Harding:

Three Pebble Slab!

In reply to metal arms:

Three Pebble Slab is a sport route Tom, in Siurana, first climbed by Chris Sharma: people are always arguing whether it is 8c+ or 9a!

Here is an article about it: http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=63

In reply to UKC News:

From reading the article title I got a little worried what the photo's were going to be of...

In reply to UKC News: That makes sense, i was thinking TPS in froggart would be a little to easy for adam..

In reply to Tom_Harding: Did you even click on the link?

In reply to mike kann:

I think that whooshing sound was something going over his head...

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:



Actually I've heard some people mooting a new grade of 8d for this route...

In reply to UKC News:

i wonder where he gets his hair done?

In reply to Nic:

some others were heard mooting 8.75c/d+/8.76a ....... but hey.... lets defer to someone who has actually climbed the damn thing...

In reply to Morgan Woods:

Worst hairstyle in climbing?

In reply to Randy Baird:

I was just thinking worst hairstyle ever! Forget a sport tag.

Didn't Kevin Keegan or Woddle or Hoddle have hair do's like that too, back in the day.

IMHO

M

In reply to Nic:

Lets be honest, if Ondra came over to the Grit, Stanage et al would be piles of coarse sand after he left, they'd get that much of a crushing. No, make that piles of fine dust, he'd crush them that much.

Andy F

In reply to andy farnell:

Well if he did that Andy lots of people would be upset and we would have to report him to the BMC.

Crushing rocks is not big or clever, and you shouldn't encourage it.

I'd like him see him further north on that Yorkshire Limestone stuff ...... I think the crew up there would find him quite inspirational.

Let's have whip round and buy him a flight, it would be one helluva masterclass!

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com: The Yorkshire limestone lot are rightly proud of the many fine routes on their outstanding cliffs. They don't want some young upstart to come along and destroy the reputaion built up over many years of sandbagging. Actually, scub that, where do I send the cash?

Andy F

In reply to andy farnell:

You mean they bought the stuff.



I think we should get his a/c number and transfer direct.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Yes, it would be fascinating to see him at Malham Cove. I suspect he'd leave most of the present contenders some distance behind.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Fascinating, what's that a euphemism for Gordon?

And contenders, it ain't a boxing match.

Times have changed Gordon, despite what some like to project, there is no league table of climbers, just love of the rock and the cliffs, love of each other and a collective desire to do well, help each other, and experience the collective psychic rewards of the climbing experience whether you climb Hard V. Diff or 9b+.

Adam, if I may be so familiar to use his first name, would, I am sure, be welcomed by his bros and sistas at Malham, Kilnsey and Gordale.

Peace bro...

Mick

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Where do I sign up for these "psychic rewards" ?

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

What's what a euphemism for? 'Contender' was simply a deliberately vague word I chose to describe those who are going for the biggest sport challenges.

I've never been into sport climbing, but it seemed like quite an apt term for that. (But then I was never a contender - said in a suitably Brandoesque drawl in my advancing years.)


Did you ever read my 'Eyes to the Hills', which said more or less exactly that, in even stronger terms? I was pretty rude about the league table approach also in my Peak book and came in for some stick for it.

I'm sure. Did I ever suggest otherwise? I suspect that most climbers in Yorkshire would be absolutely thrilled to see someone of his skill on their own turf.

Precisely.

In reply to UKC News:
Are those photos for real?? His arms are about 6 feet long!!!!!!!

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:


Lol, you can't actually believe that.

In reply to Nic:

I agree, I walked through that cave in 2007 when I was there and we saw some lines of bolts, but couldnt really see much you would normally describe as holds, and it is about 50 deg overhanging!

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Mick, seriously, doesn't this:

'... despite what some like to project, there is no league table of climbers, just love of the rock and the cliffs, love of each other and a collective desire to do well, help each other, and experience the collective psychic rewards of the climbing experience whether you climb Hard V. Diff or 9b+.' (2009)

.. sound remarkably like an informal precis of this?:

'Unlike a game, in which we want to conquer our opponent and improve our position in the league table, climbing is an adventure in which we do not want to conquer or change anything. We do not want to damage either ourselves or the environment; we want to leave everything exactly as it is.... The company of mountaineers and rockclimbers – which we may perhaps call ‘the fraternity of the rock’ – is a completely open society. International in spirit, contemptuous of all boundaries, indifferent to all considerations of status or background, nationality or wealth, it is open to all who treat the mountain environment with respect.' (1991)

??

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Lovely Gordon. So eloquent and to the point.

More please.

Ta

Mick

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:


Hmm... not quite what you were saying only a day ago, when we all, seemingly, had an inbuilt desire to know the strongest, loveliest, et al...

'some like to project' - quel irony (as we say in Heckmondwike)

Mick

In reply to Mick Ward:

But we do, all of us!

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Mick you forgot to say the best climber is the one having the most fun :p

In reply to Morgan Woods:

The best climber is the one having the most fun.

In reply to Mord:

I've got really similar hair to his. He hasn't had a 'footballers mullet' or a 'Keegan curl'.

From the looks of his hair - natural curls because they are uneven rather than permed hair which is nice and even as it's twirled around rollers and then chemically treated - I reckon his best is still yet to come.

If you want to climb as hard as he does, forget training. You need something for the weekend in the shape of a home done perm job.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Well, this is the whole text of Ch.6. Though this is just a crude pdf - the original wasn't laid out this way at all. It was of course a lavishly illustrated coffee-table book in which the text was completely integrated with the photographic content - so it didn't come across as quite such a slab of unbroken rhetoric!

http://www.gordonstainforth.co.uk/documents/EyestotheHills_Ch6.pdf

A text-only copy of the whole book can be downloaded at:

http://www.gordonstainforth.co.uk/eyehill/EHtext.pdf

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

'spills coffee'

Where does that egalitarian clap trap come from???

In reply to ClimberEd:

It's not so much egalitarian as virtually incomprehensible. First of all, what on earth is meant by 'fun' - as if fun is just one type of clearly identifiable thing? Second, even if we could identify it, how on earth could we measure who is having 'the most' of it? Third, despite its claims, the aphorism doesn't seem to me to say anything about, or be anything about, climbing as such.

it's so devoid of meaning that one could hardly even call it a platitude.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

'Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.' I guess...

Mick

In reply to Mick Ward:

The problem is not what fun means, just that it is such a broad term. I regard every single day as fun, or certainly events most days. But I can't see what bearing that has on climbing as such. It seems obvious that most people find climbing 'fun' most or a lot of the time, or they wouldn't do it (perverse otherwise). It just doesn't seem to get us anywhere in explaining what it's about. If it was really just about 'fun' a lot more people would do it - it remains a relatively esoteric, minority sport, you will have to admit. Most people, including myself, can have a lot of fun without the need to go climbing at all. Ergo: it's really about something altogether different from any conventional sense of fun. I believe it's a completely different drive - the drive for adventure, for putting oneself in a difficult, testing, rather outrageous - yet strangely beautiful - situation. Most of the conventional 'fun' on a climbing day is to be had in the banter at the foot of a crag, or in the pub afterwards.

In reply to Mick Ward:

PS: 9:10 am - I've got to get back to work now, which is probably just as well, because there is a risk of my thoughts hi-jacking the thread. It certainly seems that Adam O has a lot of fun - well, let's put it better: derives an enormous amount of satisfaction from his immense skill.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

You think too much Gordon.

The best climber is the one having the most fun, attributed to Alex Lowe, is a tagline that is an antidote to those who think that the best climber is the one that climbs the hardest.

Fun being whatever turns you on, and no you can't measure it. And yes, no one will ever know who is having the most fun. And as we all know fun can be suffering, often defined as fun in retrospect.

In reply to Postmanpat:

I was thinking exactly the same. Amazing isn't it?

Well done to Adam and his arms - the route looks just sick hard.

In reply to UKC News:

>"four days of effort this year and three tries last year"
>"his hardest route yet"

Sounds like the boy needs to knuckle down on a proper hard project.

In reply to UKC News: I'm sorry, but while Ondra's hair is a bit of a mop (no-one at this point shuold refer me back to my porfile picture please) it is far from the "worst climbers haircut of all time".

Has no-one seen Paul Pritchard in Stone Monkey? Full-on mullet, combined with tasteful lycra. How can anyone top that...

In reply to JLS:
Sounds like he needs to try Steve Macs Bens Roof into Evolution - seeing as its the same breakdown. Sounds like he's had to deal with seepage too, so that shouldn't be a problem either. English pub meals though - now there's a real issue...

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

Er ... do you mean 'joy through suffering'? Have you got some kind of Wesleyan or Baptist ancestry in you, Mick?

PS. I don't think people can 'think too much'. Seriously.

FFS can we drop all the metaphysical and philosophical cr*p and get back to the main issue...what exactly *has* he done on grit?

In reply to Nic:

Exactly, and cut out the haircut p!sh as well.


ffs.....

Top effort by a top climber. As JLS says, I'm sure we'd all love to see him try something that needed a sustained effort from him. Can you imagine?

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:
First of all, what on earth is meant by 'fun'

if you have to ask what it is then maybe it's not for you.

In reply to Morgan Woods:

See my post of 9:05.

Cheers.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:
And as we all know fun can be suffering, often defined as fun in retrospect.

"it doesn't have to be fun, to be fun"

Mark Twight (I believe)

In reply to JLS:

Just what I was thinking...

J

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:



Times have changed and thanks to the wonder of the internet there's more league tables now than ever before.

http://www.8a.nu
http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php?page_name=ranglist&cat=ICC_M

In reply to andy farnell:

Not really coz he said he doesn’t like danger so heed probably do routes like Parthian Shot but he wouldn’t do stuff like masuga

(Heed be more suited to somin like rapsody in Scotland)