In reply to Chris the Tall:
> (In reply to John Gillott)
> [...]
>
> But is it the norm on cutting edge first ascents
It is these days, yes, certainly if getting the gear in is part of the effort. Hell, just look at Dave Macleod developing the forearm endurance so he can hang on for hours on end scraping ice out of cracks, placing gear, getting to 6 foot from the top then reversing all the way down, all to do a first ascent in the accepted modern style for mixed routes rather than pre-placing gear and pre-practicing as happened in the past (comparison just for illustrative purposes).
> Is it the norm on routes which require a monumental effort to strip,
I'd say it was, esp. if the answer to the first question applies. How monumental an effort would it be btw? Did one of them second it to get the gear out after they did it, or did one of them strip it?
> And is it the norm to have 16 huge friends on your rack, or use a trail rope ?
It's the norm to carry what you need or pull up the rest is the answer to that I guess. I've seen that on some big offwidths people get round the problem by shuffling the one big cam along with them. Not that I'd want to try that or have any idea how much of a load that would save on this route, taking account of the fact that it runs horizontally.
> I've no idea who else has been trying this route (apart from the obvious), or how close they got, but I rather doubt they were stopped by ethical constraints.
I've not much idea either, but it does seem they thought climbing it in the normal style was the way to try it. Now, taking account of your point about ethical standards, my guess is that they had been working it on insitu gear. So, in that sense what might have stopped them was the desire to, in the end, climb it carrying and hauling the gear. But we're just guessing aren't we?