UKC

Oli Grounsell has made a headpoint repeat of The Zone (E9 6c) at Curbar in the Peak District.

Oli took a couple of falls on to tensioned down skyhooks before his successful ascent...

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=67910

In reply to UKC News:

Wel done Oli.

Anyone know what the tune is at the end?

Great one Oli and loved the video.

Mick

In reply to UKC News: Nice, looks very thin.

In reply to Shani:

Hi Shani,

The music at the end is Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - Painted Sun in Abstract, it's the soundtrack to 'The Social Network'

In reply to UKC News: Great effort Oli

In reply to GuyVG:

Thanks.

In reply to UKC News:
Good Effort 17 year old Grounsell.

I did notice in your blog that you didnt thank all of the people that held your rope or gave you a lift to the crag?

I'm not offended - just dissapointed.

Nice pants

In reply to UKC News:

Good work. Tensioned skyhooks, I thought questionable ethics until you went and actually fell on them, scary!

In reply to UKC News:

Nice one. How many hooks make up the protection cluster?


Chris

In reply to trouserburp:

Can anyone explain how you put the tension on the hooks?

In reply to Chris Craggs:

4 in total, Tom Randall's blog has some close-up pics of them from his ascent

In reply to GuyVG:
>


Cheers,


Chris

In reply to UKC News:
Lovin the british warm up... couple of wafts of the arms and a mouth full of food! Class
Nice job.

In reply to NearlyDutchDan:


I believe a separate rope tied to them, going down to the ground, which is then kept taught, presumably tied to the ground or someone hanging on it!

In reply to TobyA: Preplaced on abseil? Not clear in the (very good) little movie. Not that it matters really..

In reply to UKC News:

When I watched this, I thought the quiet lad on the left was Oli's shy little brother who had come along to watch, just to get out the house and stop playing xbox.

Then he walks up and nails an E9.

You can imagine how stupid I feel right now

Outstanding effort!

In reply to professionalwreckhead:

The guy doing the talking is no slouch mate.

E

In reply to neil the weak:

Good point, they could have got there using Astral Projection.

In reply to Jonny2vests:

All those in favour of telekinesis, raise my right hand!

In reply to trouserburp:

"Good work. Tensioned skyhooks, I thought questionable ethics until you went and actually fell on them, scary!"

A 17 yr old climbing an E9 - can't help but think you're worrying about the wrong type of ethics here.

Perhaps there should be a moratorium on attempts to push u18's into more dangerous ethics. Of course, we could extend it to 25, when the frontal cortex is fully developed, except not much'd get done.

In reply to cuppatea:

like!

In reply to neil the weak:

Looks like the tensioning rope is clipped to his harness as he climbs up to the gear.

In reply to UKC News: Just to pour some fuel into the mix....Pre placed gear? Tensioned sky hooks? A LOT of pads? What grade is it after all that? What have the previous climbers/FA used? Cue expected outrage....

However he's defo got some balls on him and at the end of the day we all play by the 'rules' as we choose to apply them.

BTW good video.

In reply to Mark Bull: Yes it does. That still doesn't say for sure how the gear got there in the first place though? Anyway, I'm not knocking the ascent - that kind of route at that age (or any age) is pretty mega. I was just curious as to what he did / previous folk did etc.

In reply to Zoomer:

This is a great effort. Its been repeated a few times but lets be honest, who fancies falling on tensioned skyhooks? The guy's been honest and open with his ascent and I think he's done a great job.

He makes the bottom half look easy - wonder what the bouldering grade is up to the skyhook cluster?

Well done.

In reply to UKC News:

Yeah, well done young man!!

In reply to UKC News: Sick! Brilliant effort on the route Oli!!

And to you Van Greuning! Brilliant little film!! Quit yer fecking day-job and start making proper movies!!

Nice one all round!

Dunc

Nice one Oli, great climbing and a good video too.

To answer some of the inevitable armchair aspersions the route is hard, whatever you do with hooks and however many mats you use. The actual grade is much less important than the fact that he decided to do it, judged (apparently correctly) that the fall could be safe with the gear he had (and the kg he weighed!), went for it and got up it.

I didn't test the fall; I was too scared. Mind you I had only 2 hooks and they weren't even weighted never mind tensioned. Maybe stupid of me but I only had 2 hooks at the time and I didn't really think about tensioning them. I still think that most likely they would have held, but I was very glad not to have had to prove that in practice.

Crash pads aren't that relevant as they only really help up to the gear, which is a highball problem I couldn't reliably reverse after placing the hooks, so I had a soft foam mattress from the cellar with me (It was 1999 and I didn't own a pad at the time. When I dropped onto it I nearly gave myself a hernia as it offered virtually no resistance for a feet-first fall.

Doing a route like that aged 17 is very impressive.

In reply to john arran:


Punter

In reply to john arran: some very good points there John and the main one being a good ascent from a young gun.

I do think though that the number of crash pads do help mentally on this sort of route / problem and climbing high numbers with this level of padage is not the same as your ascent or that of some others who have done it before.

I am not trying to take anything away from what he has achieved as he has openly and honestly shown his style of ascent, but it is a very different style of E9 to that you describe and some others have done.

This issue is not about Oli, let me make that clear. I don't know the lad and have nothing but praise for him getting on these routes its great to see and is inspiring.

The issue here is how far does all this go, we had an E10 tumble to E8 with the use of pads and a ladder to sort out the landing, but if you attack the route in the original way that is where the grade comes from .

So I think what I am saying is great effort Oli awesome to watch and fantastic choice of route, great climbing up a brill wall, but E9 may be a little hard to claim. There will only be Oli who can come back and give his thoughts on this, as no else can see inside his head. How much difference the mats makes, only one person can say, but John you gave a great insight into the protection the mattress gave you on your ascent (not very much).

Okai......

Cheers for the comments John, a cool route which I enjoyed climbing and ballsy doing it with just the two un-weighted hooks and a mattress!

The first time we did have a lot of mats yes, because our mates were also there bouldering, so it felt daft too have them sat uselessly a few metres away. The second time we only had the 3, and I wouldn't have wanted to test the drop to them from level with the hooks.

Grade wise I don't really feel I can comment, as I have little experience with this kind of grade. All I know is that it's the hardest thing I've done

Oli

In reply to UKC News:

EVERYONE's going to be climbing on tensioned sky hooks now. I expect we'll soon see hard ascents like this one, done every weekend, by even the most bumbly of bumblies.

...or maybe not.

In reply to Oli Grounsell:

Oli as I said previously well done, a great route and a good tick.

I am glad you posted your thoughts and came back with a response. I was not trying to pick on you but think a differentiation does need to be made between pad less ascents as to them using pads.

Keep up the good work guy, hope you got some other great problems / routes lined up to project.

T

In reply to Tony Simpson:

I think all the honesty you need is in the footage, a guy having a good time trying and succeeding on a route, nothing more needs to be said. He didn't even mention grades, so I'm not sure why you feel the need to police this.

In reply to Enty:

I wasn't suggesting he was!

(i think you may have misinterpreted my post)

In reply to UKC News:

I don't feel the 'discussion' is policing, this is a forum for opinions and discussion...thats it purpose.

Great to read both John's and Oli comments and thoughts, that what makes the forums interesting. Can't wait to see what Oli's next plans are.

Fair play to both, and all other guys who've done the route, i think the main thing linking all is a large amount of bottle.

TTFN.

In reply to UKC News:

Oli went to curbar again today and flashed the E7 6c Cool Moon, nice contrast to the practised Zone ascent I thought