UKC

Just saw this and thought it worth mentioning. Alex Jones is planning to climb Moonlight Buttress:
http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/462297/One-Show-presenter-Alex-Jon...

In reply to Mark Collins:

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=580112&v=1#x7692470

In reply to Mark Collins:

I think there's already been a thread on this (crude but v. funny) about taking Alex up the Moonlight Buttress? If they're asking for volunteers.......

In reply to All:

Cheers guys.

In reply to Mark Collins:

How does a novice climber get up a 5.13?

In reply to Mark Collins:

There are several easier routes on the buttress so I assume it will be one of them.

In reply to Rog Wilko:

Aid. So much aid.

In reply to Mark Collins:

If you're interested in "How to climb a Big Wall" check out this slideshow at Manchester Climbing Centre on Sunday 30th March. This will be in 3D on the main wall area and include hauling,juggling and life on a portaledge.

See http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=580555 for details. All proceeds to Climbers Against Cancer and the Christie.

In reply to Rog Wilko:


By ascending the rope.

In reply to Mark Collins:

Alex is doing well but she looks terrified.

youtube.com/watch?v=TUZI_HfWixU&

http://www.express.co.uk/news/showbiz/465679/Alex-Jones-gets-emotional-as-s...

In reply to GeoffRadcliffe:

According to his twitter feed, Grimer is on the show tonight.

As ever, it's hard to know whether to believe him !

In reply to Mark Collins: Its all much worse than we could possibly imagine according to this link....
http://uk.tv.yahoo.com/jones-emotional-days-climb-162601672.html

'her muscles ache and her limbs get scratched and bruised, and she is unable to wash. '

Now that is serious.

In reply to Mark Collins:

Was Niall removed from the studio ? One minute he was there, chatting away. They change subject, but come back to the climbing soon after and no sign of him. What did he do ?

In reply to Mark Collins:
Remarkable. In the whole of that video, she doesn't do one thing that you could identify as climbing.

Poor lass seems scared witless. Pity--looks like a gorgeous route, but I don't think she's appreciating it at all.

In reply to Tim Chappell:

I "translated" 5:13 into English the other day and thought "How the bloody hell is she going to climb that?"

Now we know.

Would have been better IMO if they'd done something easier that she'd actually climbed.

In reply to Submit to Gravity:

I agree.

They should have got Joe to take her up Right Unconquerable.

That has a bit of an end-of-the-pier sound to it too. Oh dear.

In reply to Tim Chappell:
I can't see the point in the route selection. Looks like she is completely out of her depth and doing very little climbing. Would it not have made more sense to select something around British HS grade. Am I right 5.13 equals about E6/7?

I understand the marvels of television and it must look scary but I think they've overdone it. They had many climbs worldwide to choose from.

In reply to Aztec Bar:

She's not climbing the rock, but she's still climbing

I.m guessing they were looking for something vertical to make the hauling easier, and AK has experience of taking a relative novice on a big wall. It's a huge physical and mental challenge, but they have reduced the level of technical skill required. Fairly logical I'd say

In reply to Mark Collins:

Obviously E6 or so to free. For us mortals, what would actually be involved?How does this compare in terms of Yosemite Classics? 12 pitches and something along the lines of Washington Column with HVS obl. and C1?

In reply to Aztec Bar:

not a lot of difference with what shes doing and Sherpas fixing ropes up Everest every year.

In reply to All:

Wow, sounds like a One Show not to be missed. Never thought I'd hear myself saying that. Unfortunately I did miss it though, as I was out walking with my dad, but will catch up later on iplayer. Can't believe I'm potentially envisaging a One Show double bill this evening!

In reply to Cardi:

I think its about the same Aid grade as the South Face of Washington Column but WC is slightly taller.

In reply to Mark Collins:
She needs to put her helmet on properly.

In reply to Cardi:


It's only 9 pitches, always wondered what categorises it as a Bigwall. On the sharp end the aid is about as easy as it gets. There's an awkward flared groove on P5 with is tricky - gets C1+ - If I rememeber you get good nuts in the back but they dislodge as you move up in your aiders.
Above this a splitter 1" crack seems to run straight to the top for another 4 pitches.
Moonlight was my 2nd ever Wall and after fixing ropes to the top of P2 we pushed it in 9 hours so it can't be that bad. I think it's E6 free - lots of E5 pitches added up.

Here's honnold soloing the upper crack at 1'40.
http://www.tuxboard.com/alex-honnold-escalade-moonlight-buttress-sans-secur...

Great effort through even just jugging up the thing when you've never climbed before.

E

In reply to Tim Chappell:


I don't know. Struggling with tangled gear, deteriorating in to a gibbering wreck, wondering why she ever agreed to take it on, wanting to be back on the ground and a sense of relief when reaching a point of relative safety. I can identify with all of that. Looks like a good effort in pushing herself way outside of her comfort zone.

In reply to Unknown Climber:

True. I was really remarking on the irritating editing. She got into that position somehow, and she also got out of it somehow. It would be interesting to see how. But the wretched tellyfolks don't bother to show us, which is characteristically annoying of them.

In reply to Unknown Climber:



I agree.
I could totally identify with the stress of tangled gear in big wall aiding. As a novice I was always in a total fret about clipping everything together. Its only experience that gets you into a smooth sequence.

In reply to Mark Collins:

As they're doing it, i.e. aid, it's 5.8 (VS/HVS) free climbing with sections of C1 (clean) aid, grade 1. It was obvious that she was always going to be jugging up it. She might do the odd bit of easy free climbing, but I can't see that being much. The free grade is 5.12d, so that's 7c or E6/7ish.

Still it's impressive that she's there at all. I really felt for her when she was grabbing at the etriers there. I'd be bricking it as well I reckon. I doubt she really trusts the safety gear yet. I really hope she gets comfy and begins to enjoy it a bit before the end.

I think Andy K has chosen the route as it's relatively short (but long enough that they can sleep on it) fairly easy and not as high traffic as a Yosemite route. Also it's a lot shorter. There is also a ledge on the route, so I suspect that they'll be trying to kip there for a night.

There's a good description of the route here:

http://www.mountainproject.com/v/the-moonlight-buttress-clean-aid/105717718

In reply to Mark Collins:

I think that Andy K's a top bloke, and I'd love to watch it, but just can't bring myself to watch that stupid cow being totally pathetic - why didn't they send matt baker (that would have been really good)

I know it's for a good cause and they are doing something outside their comfort zones (and should be praised for that) but 98% of them are such drama queens !!

In reply to Ciderslider:


Would I be right in thinking you've never done any big walls?

In reply to Mark Collins:

You are absolutely right - it's not about that (for some reason I just can't stand her and can't imagine why she gets any work at all !)

I think it's just one of those things - we all have people we just can't stand - I'm very easy going, but there's something about her that just winds me up.

In reply to Mark Collins:

Just watched the One Show on my lunch break and to be fair to her she's free climbing the free parts of the route. So good effort really. I was going, 'put your feet in the crack' when she was at the start.

In reply to Ciderslider:
"just can't bring myself to watch that stupid cow being totally pathetic - why didn't they send matt baker (that would have been really good)"

Well I know that you're being deliberately provocative but just because you don't like them, neither makes then stupid nor a cow.

What unpleasant language.

In reply to Ciderslider:

I think you just lost a lot of respect.

In reply to Babika:



I couldn't agree more. Ciderslider made a shameful personal attack not worthy of a middle aged man who should know better.

In reply to Trangia:
I think she did well, good on her - well impressed

In reply to Trangia:

I think if I was up there with Alex my priorities would be (1) to calm her down and tell her she's fine and she's perfectly safe and never mind the vertigo, she can, absolutely, do it, and, not unconnectedly, (2) to get the flipping TV cameramen to GO THE HECK AWAY. Here as most places, TV is the problem...

This Lenten ban on swearing I've entered into is producing some interesting linguistic efflorescences, no?

In reply to Mark Collins:

Missed the climbing tonight, but just watched Davina McCall, and I guess she counts as another of those "drama queens". All that blubbing. I mean, Windermere didn't look that cold. And we've all cycled a 100 miles on cold, wet, windy days. Though possibly not on 7 consecutive days.

In reply to Chris the Tall:



We have?

I mean, *I* have, but have *we*?

In reply to Chris the Tall:

I thought she did ok, but what a waste of time all that support was. They could have built a school in Kenya if they'd all pulled together rather than have endless cars/people/food supporting her efforts. Hype.

In reply to Chris the Tall:

Lovely to see the milk of human kindness flowing so freely.

She put her heart and soul into that, it looked f*cking hard to me.

In reply to Submit to Gravity:

I keep on forgetting that sarcasm doesn't always work on the internet !

Just to be clear I was pretty gobsmacked at how gruelling that looked, and how impressive it was to do that day after day

In reply to Chris the Tall:

God job you cleared that up as my sarcasm meter normally works ok and I missed it that time

I think Davina was a little bit of a drama queen but in a way that helped her. I thought it looked really tough in that weather, she's clearly not used to physical hardship, and yet she did it. The tears helped her cope, fair play. She got on and started/finished ever day (back to back) in some of the west weather you could have picked. And she's no spring chicken and no athlete. She had my respect half way through never mind at the end.

In reply to Skyfall:

I'm no fan of Davina, but I'd class her as an athlete now....

Steve

In reply to SteveSBlake:



Mrs Ent has a Davina fitness DVD and it looks bloody hard!!

E

In reply to Chris the Tall:

I did wonder a bit actually! The bike ride on the first day would have been soul destroying. The furthest I've ridden into the teeth of a wind like that was 35 miles, and that was when I was a Cat 3 road racer.

The swim across Windermere I couldn't do under any circumstances. I think she was properly under the weather after that.

I think overall it was a hell of an achievement.

In reply to Tim Chappell:



I certainly haven't - don't like getting wet

In reply to Mark Collins:

Alex Jones is proper tasty; I'd love to have a couple of pints with her. I thought she looked a lot more relaxed towards the end of the climb.

Davina was a real drama queen and reminded me horribly of a couple of people I've known in the past. My prize goes to her companions for incredible patience under extreme duress.

In reply to Mark Collins:Huge respect to the pair of them.

In reply to Phil1919:


+1

In reply to Rigid Raider:


How terribly sexist of you - so what's wrong with the lovely Andy K (he'd be far more fun to have a few beers with )


That's the problem with a lot of so called celebs. A lot of the time it's just blatant self publicity (yeh, yeh I know it's a good cause and all that).

In reply to Mark Collins:

I see Alex raised £1.2 million. Good on her.

In reply to Submit to Gravity:

Yes indeed, top work. I even found myself contributing a fiver.

In reply to Ciderslider:
In her defense, she managed exactly as well as you'd expect of someone with no experience. I mean, with that little experience you dont even have the ability to point out the absurdity of the challenge. You wouldnt know to, or how.

Nah, imo the problem comes from the production staff.
You can tell that every year they feel they have to do something even more impressive than the last to get the public attention. So long as it looks hard, it doesnt matter if we see them succeed or suffer. Sooner or later some b-list celeb is gonna end up in hospital because of one of these things.

Usually that'd be ok if it's 'only' something physically gruelling, provided they've been given a good training regime and support. But in this case some halfwit producer seems to have chosen a sport that also requires a lot of technical knowhow and experience, seemingly without even realising it, and then probably just made a load of phonecalls until they found people to get the job done. No matter the cost, no matter how it looks.

It's the looks that bother me. The public perception of climbing is arguably a bit vague anyway, and this doesnt exactly give a representative picture of what's involved. It'd be a shame if it damages the image of the sport in some way, turns off potential climbers or gets someone hurt. Hopefully it'd be the opposite, and be inspirational, but there are better examples of inspirational climbing.

Just give Fran Brown 5 minutes on tv, job done.

In reply to Vulgar_Monkey:

Bit cynical for my liking. I don't think they'd pour everything into it if they didn't themselves believe in what they were going to do.

In reply to Vulgar_Monkey:
Total bollocks.
AK dragged his daughter up Tangerine Trip and it was filmed for CBBC - as a direct result, 18 months later my 8 year old daughter is entering her first climbing competition tomorrow morning.

E

In reply to Mark Collins:

There are several important things to note!
1/ she has raised a shed load of money
2/ she has put loads of people off climbing therefore reducing the number of people making rock shiny!
3/ I now know that she's not afraid of the purple helmet! Sweet!

In reply to Enty:

Good luck to her!

In reply to Mark Collins:

I thought for a non-climber that was a bloody good effort.

How on earth do people get wound up by people on TV? Don't they just not watch the shows with the people on they don't like?

jcm

In reply to Enty:
Ooh, that's actually exactly the kind of thing I quite like the sounds of.

Thing with kids is they're not inherently afraid of much, but they take their cues from us adults. I've seen loads of kids take up climbing, but it is always presented to them as something to enjoy, not to be intimidated by. Set a positive example and give some support and they'll launch themselves at anything.

I'm hoping it'll be a case of people seeing this and thinking it looks fun, rather than seeing someone on tv struggling and getting scared s**tless and thinking 'oh no, that looks horrible!'. Or at least appreciating how well she did despite the fear, and taking some inspiration from that.

If anything I kinda wish they'd edited longer bits together to give a more in depth explanation of how everything works, some more training montages etc....give people enough information to make informed judgements etc. I'm surprised how little proper coverage it got.

Good luck for the comp btw.

In reply to paget:


Why do you think this? She got scared and overcame her fear. It's a bit cliché but hardly enough to put people off climbing.

Seems similar to when they show people crying and upset on those dancing / ice skating reality shows. I wouldn't have thought that puts people off dancing / skating because it also shows what they achieve.

The other thing people have talked about is 'the absurdity of the challenge'. It was a physically and emotionally demanding task in an area she was not familiar with - why is this not a valid challenge?

One person's Snowdon is another's Everest...

In reply to splat2million:
I guess because they could have given her a slightly more realistic goal and it'd be equally impressive, but she'd have the chance to actually get more from the experience. Which imo would also -look- more impressive on tv, if someone is demonstrably improving. A lot of training is setting short-term, realistic, achievable goals afterall, just enough to be challenging. If it's so far beyond your comfort zone that you need a lot of support, you arent really learning getting as much from it as you could.

I mean, I've trained up plenty of novices, and I wouldnt send them up the first 7a indoor route I saw and expect them to come back ever again. Mind you, I suppose impressing the public to raise money requires something with more immediate visual impact.

I dunno, I've nothing against the idea (or the climber, more power to her), just the execution. If they'd showed a bit of AK climbing too, it'd give the viewer a reference point. Also, they maybe should have just given her 6 months instead of 6 weeks.....how long did Walliams have to train for his thing? Or the killimanjaro guys a few years back? I'm sure they made a big long project of that, and it was really engaging. It's good to see them go through the whole prep process. It's not just the end result. In fact I think it's a bit unfair that, given her effort was just as hard, she didnt seem to get as much profile/air time.

In reply to Vulgar_Monkey:

I think they have had a change in tactic at the BBC, lots of different challenges for individual celebrities, rather than one big one with lots of celebs like the Kilimanjaro trip a few years ago, attracts a wider demographic, fills more telly and probably raises more money.

In reply to The New NickB:

Never been comfortable with the "climb Kilimanjaro for charidee" , whether it's celebs or not.
And I can understand that such efforts will be treated with cynicism on here, given that, in general, our comfort zone is a little bit further from the sofa than the national average.

I started to watch the Davina McCall prog for the scenery. Day 1 reminded me of my hardest day on a bike (83 miles in driving rain, almost entirely off-road). I know I can be pretty stoical when it comes to sticking it out on the bike, that day left me a physical and mental wreck. There is no way I could have done that for a week. And as for the swim across Windermere, that had me reaching for my wallet

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

John

You are absolutely right, it was a good effort (and has raised money for a good cause - Andy Kirkpatrick

I do switch off programs with annoying content (which leaves me very little to watch) but sometimes it's a bit like football - unless you live in a cave you just can't avoid exposure to it.

In reply to The Pylon King:


I'd go further than that, I think it's a phenomenal effort. I'm not someone who generally has much regard for TV presenters, but it takes a huge amount of guts to do what she's doing.

As climbers, we're inclined to forget the level of sheer intimidation novices feel. Not just the height and the exposure, but the accumulated effect of massive physical effort, intense mental exertion, and emotional factors.

(BTW, on an unrelated note, wasn't Niall Grimes fantastic in interview? :-D )

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

+1 from me. Good effort and what an amazing amount of money raised. Good for her I say.

In reply to Tony Naylor:

"(BTW, on an unrelated note, wasn't Niall Grimes fantastic in interview? :-D )".

Absolutely. Very cool. Surprisingly

In reply to tri-nitro-toulumne:



Why surprisingly - he's a superhero

In reply to The New NickB:
Yeah, that's a good point. Now you mention it, it did seem that way. I just cant help but think a less heavily edited version could have really captured the little details of training a little better. Everyone has their first fall, their first bit of sketchy rock, etc etc, there are probably tv moments to be made of that if they wanted.

Come to think of it, that seems to be in line with how the beeb is operating overall over the last couple of years, trading depth for breadth. I'm not sure I agree with it, but I imagine there's an argument to be made in favour of both sides there. I'm straying into Charlie Brooker territory now though.

In reply to splat2million:

I think this because she did not take pleasure in the experience, enjoy the moves, soak in the atmosphere, have banter, etc, etc, which make climbing addictive and pleasurable. Her fear and lack of enjoyment were palatable.
Indeed the only thing she appeared to enjoy was topping out. Hence I feel this will not inspire others to climb.
But I do think she went way beyond her comfort zone and saw it through, so she deserves some respect. So again well done!

In reply to paget:


So what? Was that the aim?

In reply to jon: mmmmm? Do you just read the the last page of a book?

In reply to paget:

Now you've completely lost me.

In reply to Mark Collins:

OK, so I managed to miss all of this on the TV. Which show has the best coverage (One Show Thu, Fri; Sport Relief Fri night)? that I can hunt down on iPlayer?

In reply to paget:


Don't worry - by the time she gets to the pub, she will have had an amazing time on the climb...

In reply to Stone_donkey:


We watched it on catchup, but it is a pain to do, as it is scatted as a minute here and there in long shows. So we spent maybe an hour fast forwarding, and maybe 10 minutes watching any climbing...

In reply to Mark Collins:

http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/ctrzd8/alex-against-the-rock

Today at 3:30pm

In reply to alexcollins123:

Moff and tried Moonlight out of season a few years back. After digging the sand out of the 5.8 pitch 1 jamming crack the climbing was still oddly tricky and you cant jug it as a second. We bailed in terror after pulling off a big block that but for Moffs lightning response would have cut our ropes.

Shes got well over half a million for charity already. Well impressed with the gutsy lass and well done Andy and crew for making it possible.

In reply to Aztec Bar:


IMHO it was the perfect choice of route. For the climbers involved the route is piss, both technicaly and logistically for the film crew. It's aesthetic, it's steep, it has a river to cross to get to it which also makes for good telly and the walk down is piss too.
All in all I think the whole escapade has been top! Tons of money for a great charity and probably a nice little earner for AK.
Well done Alex!

E

In reply to Enty:
Good for you. I've deleted my post.

In reply to Aztec Bar:

Oh - and I thought I was agreeing with you mostly!

E