UKC

This week's Friday night video comes from Black Diamond.

"Sam Elias may have been a ski racer growing up but now he's a rock and ice hard charger with numerous 5.14 and M12 redpoints and first ascents to his credit..."

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=60316

In reply to UKC News: "but now he's a rock and ice hard charger" oh dear! how camp?

In reply to UKC News:
I have to say I rather enjoyed that video!

In reply to UKC News: If that was mixed climbing it was a 900:1 mix rock to ice.

In reply to Ackbar:

If that was what top-level mixed climbing is like now then it's confirmed my suspicion that I will never understand it.

Ice climbing I get. But this I just cannot fathom. I'm not denegrating the achievements - I'm sure they're incredibly hard routes to do either as rock or mixed routes and take a lot of skill etc. But why not wait until that small amount of ice disappears and then just rock climb it?

Each to their own I suppose...

that guy is a douche!

In reply to ali k:
I think what he refers to as mixed climbing we would call dry tooling with a bit of ice, given that the rock is pretty much dry.

In reply to Misha: I think we are the only country in the world though that deliberately waits till our winter routes with rock on them are "white". Everyone else worldwide calls it mixed, so seems fair enough to me. At least the route actually had proper ice on it, rather than just being a summer HVS with a sprinkle of hoar frost.....

In reply to UKC News: the route callum nichol climbed at millstone had more ice on it than that!!

In reply to ali k:

good question....i love the scrape of crampons and axes on rock (where ethics allow) so i think this steeper mixed/dry tooling is an extension of more traditional forms. It certainly allows for more gymnastic moves and i think generally it tends to be on rock that is chossy enough not to get climbed on in summer. Cant speak for the venues in this rather good video but i guess Rifle is a popular climbing venue so not sure how these routes co-exist.

Others - Those denigrating are probably just the usual UKC mix of anti-americanism and armchair punterism which i don't understand.

To put it into perspective i've done ridge climbs in scotland that have the same ratio of rock to ice....does that make me a douche?

edit - approximate quote : "both black diamond and me are big into skiing and climbing " or whatever is perhaps a bit douchey :p

In reply to iamchris: If being a "douche" lets u spend 6 months of the year traveling the world and climb full time, then I would like to be a douche please

In reply to gcandlin:

good vid, good climbing.

"World Class Mixed Climb" - do me a favour. That's some guy who can't climb rock, frigging his way upwards and chipping the rock, finding an excuse to use his axes on about 6' of ice. The millstone guys did better. How on earth can the likes of Black Diamond support this sort of shit?

In reply to UKC News: I enjoyed the video, love how everyone sits sharpening thier claws waiting for new topics on UKC, hiss hiss

In reply to unclesamsauntibess:

Not to seem to supportive of him here, as he comes across as a bit of a pretentious twit in the video but he climbs 8b+/c. Not sure that is a guy who "can't climb rock". Also not wishing to sound like a broken record but many,many UK mixed climbs (babylon, hurting, fallout etc etc etc) have no ice on them at all, his did have some.

In reply to UKC News:

I thought the video was great, the climbing looked like a lot of fun and the guy seemed to be enjoying himself. Surely that's why we climb, for enjoyment, whether instant or retrospective?

In reply to UKC News:

hahahah I love how positive this forums are! They guys is just having fun and getting out climbing.

For those in the dark, those route are probably impossible to rock climb, just check the 2mm hook he's using. And they are probably wet in summer, so those route would never be rock climbs anyways.

In reply to Ramon Marin:
[Apologies for picking your post to reply to - I'm just playing devil's advocate here! And I realise that this specific crag is a bad example, as it seems like it was developed by a local guy purely as a dry tooling/mixed climbing venue]

BUT I'm just trying to understand the justifications.

Kilnsey is normally wet in summer and winter but I suspect people might be a bit upset if this were the excuse they used to start dry tooling there if a little patch of ice formed.

Surely sport routes at the cutting edge are blanker than dry tooling routes, with far smaller holds? I've never been dry tooling or mixed climbing in my life, so excuse my ignorance, but I imagine it'd be harder to dry tool something like Golpe Estado, Jumbo Love, Biographie or any of the F9a+ routes at Santa Linya than to sport climb them? But then I have no idea. Purely speculating.

In reply to Ramon Marin:

true...and while there a quite a few on here saying they don't approve or whatever i reckon 100% of people would love to have his job.

In reply to Morgan Woods: Yep, the green eyed monsters rearing their ugly heads. Its just plain anti USA drival, any excuse to have a pop. I actually love the USA climbers attitude, it's very positive and happy, unlike the miserable, winging, moaning tw*ts that frequent this forum so often. One day, certain sectors of the UK opinion might grow up and realise that climbing actually goes on outside this isle with thier own rules.

In reply to unclesamsauntibess:

Please tell me you have onsighted VIII,8 (or maybe 7c+) so you sound a bit less silly saying this.

In reply to Andrew Smith: Agreed

In reply to UKC News:

Impressive direct aid climbing.

In reply to ali k:

I suspect he means a bit wetter than that - kilnsey dries out sometimes at least.

Also, to be fair here the tooling routes came first - kilnsey is in no way a comparison in that respect.

As for the really hard routes you may be right although I've always wondered whether pockety stuff might be easier as you stick the blade in the mono and hold the juggy handle rather than putting your finger in the mono.

In reply to unclesamsauntibess:

Your an idiot!
Great video.

In reply to gritstoneclimber: Come round to my house and I will pay 100 pounds to comic relief if you can do the same number of pull up's on a pair of axes's, that are similar in length to the route. Come on, are you big as your mouth is?

In reply to Andrew Smith:

I stand by what I say . IMPRESSIVE climbing - the guy is clearly a good climber, strong etc but it is direct aid climbing.
I do not think this forum is for trading insults.
By the way where do you live?

In reply to UKC News:

Video didn't work for me, couldn't fit his ego on the screen.

In reply to gcandlin:

Second that

In reply to gritstoneclimber: Warrington.